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It doesn’t surprise him that peace never settles around his shoulders for long.
While most people would resent spending a Friday evening at work, Angel’s Share sells itself with a warm atmosphere that makes him proud. The floors are made of a polished cherry hardwood, lattice covers the windows, and an ivy almost impossible to kill despite weeks of neglect crawls across the banister and drips into the lower floor. The wall sconces, copper and mounted to every available pillar in the room, sheath the entire tavern in an amber glow.
Pictures, flyers, and posters of all sorts decorate the walls—a nod to the community of Mondstadt that fills this very tavern each night. Mondstadt’s nightlife is half of what makes the city so acclaimed, so energized, and Diluc loves being a part of that in his particular, small way.
In actuality, it's near every Friday night that Diluc tends to the bar in order to give Charles a day off, and he’s been fortuitous enough to come to enjoy the work to the little degree that he has it. Most of the patrons talk to him briefly in between ordering drinks—coworkers and neighbors and the like. He’s given quaint updates on Mondstadt, overhears the city’s current events, stays involved and informed in ways he can’t always quite do as easily given the amount of time he spends outside the city walls. Though he feels like a part of his community by the ways in which he serves it—both by day with commerce and by night with, well, he’ll call it vigilance—he can’t deny that this addition fills him with an infectious pride. He feels ingrained into Mondstadt’s story like this, with each individual connected to each other through the city like lifeblood. Every cell is just as important as the next, conglomerating into a singularly imperative and indispensable whole.
There’s blemishes on every joy, though, as the price of an imperfect world—and Diluc watches as one such blemish walks through his tavern’s door at a quarter past midnight. Even a minute would be far too much time to spend together, but considering that the bar doesn’t close until two—and that there’s no discernable judgment as to how easily this encounter will go—midnight is far too early for any Fatui to be strolling into his keep.
Not that he recognizes this Fatuus in particular. Just that he can see the way the stranger is dressed, the crest he wears pinned to his clothing, the entitlement in how he walks—so starkly different from the average people of Mondstadt. This man is Snezhnayan from head to toe, which is not a crime on its own, but the way that he carries himself with importance and confidence while branding himself with such a heinous and deceitful military organization makes Diluc want to break his nose.
He’ll keep that in the back of his mind for later.
The Fatuus doesn’t even reach the bar before Diluc is speaking to him, his voice low and authoritative. The rest of his patronage pauses at the sound, the clink of cups and plates coming to an abrupt halt, before they quickly try to return to conversation and fill the heavy silence that almost laid across the entire tavern. The attention would only make Diluc angrier, surely.
“Leave.”
The man takes his demand in stride and keeps walking towards the bar. If anything, the hostile greeting only seems to spread this Fatuus’ grin wider. “My mora is plenty. Am I not welcome here the same as any other paying patron?” He slides a barstool over with his foot and slips into the open standing spot, waving his hand with a flourish towards the pouch of coin on his hips.
All in plain sight, too. Even with an intention to spend all of that mora on a night out, he’s either foolish or exceptionally cocky to keep it fully displayed. Mondstadt is still home to crime—though perhaps half of that is from his kindred anyway.
“The other patrons are not Fatui diplomats. I’m not so daft that I can’t recognize your dress when I see it.” He’s clearly not easily dissuaded after all, then, either. So many of the Fatui are cowards behind their bravado, but better men have turned tailed at Diluc’s stern voice of command, even with just one word. The weak ones break easy. That this Fatuus hasn’t so much as paused means that he’s strong willed, likely actually competent, and so surely he’s here to cause trouble. Diluc will surely be the one to deal with the nuisance.
The Fatuus laughs, eyes never leaving Diluc’s. He leans forward, enticed by their back and forth, and drops his elbow to the counter so that he can rest his chin on the back of his hand. “Oh, this one’s got sharp eyes. Do you divulge that level of attention to all of your patrons?” His cheerful tone makes Diluc grind his teeth.
Perhaps breaking only his nose would be too kind.
The patron slinking up to the bar—Nelson, Diluc can guess, from the long ponytail he sees in his peripheral vision—seems to clearly think this is a bad time to ask for a refill, but Diluc prefers the interruption. He turns to take Nelson’s stein, doesn’t bother rinsing it out in the basin behind the bar, and begins to fill it with the same Cider Lake brew as before. There’s no need for him to even ask; most patrons of Angel’s Share keep to the familiar.
As does he, honestly—at least when it comes to work. Routine is easy. He’s filling the tankard, keeping his hands busy and his expression focused despite knowing that he could do this job blindfolded, while he talks. “Get out. I’m already tired of telling you. Go back to the Grand Goth Hotel. Better yet, leave Mondstadt altogether.” He is tired of telling him, tired from the very idea of how much more so he’s going to have to say so, and already so, so tired of looking at this gingered menace grin in retaliation. He knows the kind.
He passes Nelson’s drink back to him and hopes the unpredictable will happen—this man will finally leave, tapping out at a mere few minutes in Diluc’s presence.
The Fatuus sits himself at the bar instead, making himself comfortable, and Diluc picks up a new mug to rinse and dry instead of continuing to engage with the idiot at his bar. Finishes one, begins another. If anything, this guy seems drawn to Diluc’s fire, as if he’s so often cold—often enough that he’s enamored by the heat of Diluc’s words, even if they could easily scorch him.
“Twice, that’s all you have in you?” The diplomat—too kind of a way to refer to him, in Diluc’s opinion, though he certainly won’t be asking for his name—leans back, crosses his arms, and grins even more. Already so predictable. “What a boring way of tiring yourself out. I can think of better, comrade.”
Diluc places the second cup down with a restrained amount of force, droplets of water still clinging to its sides. He tosses the dry rag over his shoulder, places both of his hands on the counter, and leans into the Fatui member’s personal space. He knows that he isn’t short on an intimidating presence; clearly this Fatuus simply enjoys close brushes with death, or perhaps finds himself delusional, because he only seems amused to have gotten Diluc so much closer. Before Diluc can threaten him, the Fatuus is opening his mouth yet again, seemingly unable to stop. “What do you use all of that arm for? Surely not just wiping down counters and pouring drinks.”
The babble is bothersome, and Diluc’s expression goes even flatter at that. Is this really the best the Fatui can do, fill his tavern with pointless chatter and misdirected flirtations? Certainly it’s not a threat, or at least not one that does it’s job, and if the goal is to get under his skin, he considers that engaging may only prolong their exchange and make the matter worse.
Fine, so be it. He swiftly makes a judgment call—to protect both his own peace and the peace of Angel’s Share—and takes a new approach. “This is a business. Order or find the door.”
His newest patron’s expression never changes, as if the Fatuus expected this outcome to happen the entire time. “Mondstat is known for its Dandelion Wine, is it not? I think I’d be remiss not to order your local specialty.” He’s clearly pleased about Diluc’s change of heart. Being given two options doesn’t seem to deter him from staying or from conversing. He stays exactly where he is, seated in front of Diluc while his drink is poured, and if anything he now only seems more confident in getting what he wants.
And Diluc doesn’t want to think about what that want is.
The Fatuus drops the mora onto the counter immediately in some sort of show, as if to demonstrate how honest he’s been. He technically hasn’t lied yet. He tastes his drink with no discernible change in his expression, neither bad nor good. Then, as he spins the cup around in his hand idly, his attention returns to Diluc. “And your name, then? Since you’ve been such good company and all.”
Diluc ignores him in favor of restocking the bottle of dandelion wine back on the upper shelf and makes it a point to continue ignoring him for anything other than a drink refill and payment for the rest of the evening. The man is clearly good at carrying a conversation, given the way he often continues on as if Diluc has responded when he absolutely hasn't, but it doesn’t feel so surprising that a diplomat’s strength would lie in their words and their charm. He almost becomes background noise to Diluc’s work, what with his ability to entertain himself, and for a few fleeting moments Diluc doesn’t hate the noise.
He doesn’t hate the source of the noise any less, though.
Their first meeting is, altogether, not unbearable—simply incredibly stupid. Diluc has dealt with worse, though, and once it passes he doesn’t see that particular Fatuus around Mondstadt again for another several weeks. His list of nuisances is reduced to the usual culprits: taxes, abyss mages, and their town’s beloved Knights.
Unfortunately, the implication of calling it a first meeting implies another afterwards, and that means that several weeks later the Fatui diplomat returns to Angel’s Share, once again during another of Diluc’s shifts.
He gets comfortable quickly this time, ordering a drink before starting any banter, as if buying his seat. “Surprise me.”
“No.”
“Do you simply not enjoy fun at all?”
Diluc crosses his arms, expression bored—though he doesn’t let his gaze drift away, unwilling to let the Fatuus go unsupervised in his tavern. “Sure, if that’s the way you want to see it. What do you want?”
The diplomat laces his fingers together, resting his cheek against the bridge they form. “Your name would do. Willingly, while you can. You know, it’s rare that anyone sees a second chance from me."
Diluc pulls out his shaker and jigger, placing both on the counter. “That’s surprising, considering you can’t seem to take a hint as to where you’re unwelcome. Annoyingly relentless.” He doesn’t acknowledge that he’s about to succumb to a Fatui wish anyway; he pulls out juice, clear liquor, and flourishes from the back shelf to make the Fatuus a drink of Diluc’s choice. The sooner he’s served and can be ignored, the better.
His Fatui patron perks up at his words anyway, eyes alight and posture straightened, and begins tracing lazy circles into the counter of the bar. “I like it when you try to wound me. You’re feisty, firefly. You’ll have to dig a little deeper than that, though.”
Diluc snorts, both at the nickname and at the sentiment. His snide, “as if you’re worth the effort,” is muttered a little too loudly to be truly considered under his breath before he turns back to wiping down the glassware for this drink. The bar is nearly empty at this point, most of the casual patrons having gone home to their families already, and to his credit, his Fatui company keeps quiet for now, seemingly content to watch Diluc work. His measurements are swift and precise, and he needs only a couple good shakes before he’s pouring a dreamy, purple liquid into the freshly cleaned glass.
The peace is nice, however short lived. The tracing turns to rhythmic tapping, one at a time from his index to his pinky, like the Fatuus just can’t sit still in Diluc’s presence—or at least not while he’s thinking. Diluc tops the drink with a sprig of mint and a purple wedge, doesn’t wonder at all about what goes on in the minds of the Fatui when they look so thoughtful, and slides the Wolfhook Cocktail across the bar.
Not that he’s going to outright state the drink’s name or anything. Simple, petty retribution and all that.
Several weeks go by once again before Diluc sees his unrelenting Fatui company return to Angel’s Share. Though the weather in Mondstadt is often temperate and fair, it’s a particularly warm evening as spring comes to a near end. Were he only doing paperwork, Diluc expects he would be fine, but he knows the tavern will be busy tonight with how nice it is outside. Though he still brings his coat with him for the walk home, he leaves it on one of the many hooks by the door—they’re always empty anyway, with so many regulars never bothering to bring a coat to begin with. Without the added layer, he admits he feels somewhat lighter, but he refrains from thinking about it much at all until the relentless Fatuus strolls through his door once more and forces him to.
The change in his demeanor is palpable as soon as his eyes reach the bar. Diluc can tell that he’s being sized up and examined, his lack of coat leaving him all the more on display, even before the Fatuus slithers up to the bar to strike yet another one sided conversation. His gloves don’t hide much; heavy scarring and burns, pink from years of healing, climb up his wrist and wind up his forearm. The pink doesn’t quite reach his bicep, but other scars—vertical slits from weapons or deep cuts from attacks clearly elemental in nature—do, climbing all the way under his sleeve and across his torso, his back, hidden by his shirt. Just his arm being exposed is enough, and Childe never looks anywhere but at Diluc. He isn’t sure if that’s good, the lack of disgust, or if Childe is magnetized by it all. His gaze feels like smoke, heated and suffocating, and it’s hard not to wonder what the Fatuus’ conclusion is.
Diluc is, unfortunately, not alone at the bar to witness this unbreakable gaze. “My, my. Look what the cat dragged in. Getting under our dear master’s skin already, Childe? He looks ready to smite you just for walking through his door.” Kaeya’s voice is lurid and teasing in a way that displays fond familiarity, and Diluc can’t possibly imagine how the two know each other. Childe, as Kaeya calls him, doesn’t so much as look at the captain.
His attention is entirely on Diluc, and there’s a drive behind his eyes that sings of determination and want. Diluc isn’t sure what it is Childe wants for, the thought from all those weeks ago still going untouched, but from the way Childe doesn’t relax this time he almost expects something violent to become of it. Whatever that desire may be, it’s clearly not something that the Fatuus expects to be given easily. “Firefly,” he calls, as if excited to find Diluc behind the bar. To his credit, though his posture has changed, Childe’s voice is as jubilant as ever. He doesn’t lean on the bar tonight, standing at his full height behind it instead. Without the stool beneath him or his legs crossed as he leans against any available surface, Diluc can tell that they’re actually quite similar in height. Though Childe is more lithe, Diluc isn’t particularly sure that he’s someone who dodges more than attacks. The confidence he wears would speak otherwise; this isn’t a man whose goal is survival. This is a man who sees something, wants something, and takes it.
It’s about winning.
And Diluc doesn’t like to lose.
“Don’t call me that.”
His voice doesn’t betray him. Diluc is stern, an immovable object, even though he expects that doing so directly plays into this little back and forth that seems to amuse Childe so much. Childe is seemingly distracted from what he’s looking for, though it’s hard to place exactly how. His attention never wavers from Diluc, but the gaze in his eyes is different—less bloodthirsty. “Give me your name and I’ll stop. That’s easy enough, isn’t it?” At last he leans one hand on the bar, easy comfort rolling off of him in waves.
Diluc grits his teeth. At the very least, Kaeya says nothing, though from his smug expression he’s clearly picked up the little game Diluc and his Fatuus have been playing.
“You aren’t even flustered, or abashed, or anything. Just annoyed. I’m compelled.”
As it’s busy, just as Diluc had expected, he ignores the Snezhnayan to finish the few orders that are still waiting. Two ciders, one sparkling juice, and a couple of quick pint refills. It’s only been a moment, really, that Childe has been here—but it’s bad for business to keep any customer waiting, especially on such a night where refills come often, and he likes to mentally check things off as soon as possible anyway. As uncomplicated as the drinks are to make, Diluc gives them the same focused attention that he gives any problem to solve, every movement flowing with the ease of frequent practice and a long earned mastery. He can feel Childe’s eyes on him as he works, too, sizing him up based on something. Diluc isn’t sure what Childe is finding, but his gaze never drifts. Neither does Kaeya’s, who is clearly watching them both, either from boredom or from an inclination to meddle where he’s not needed. Great.
What makes it all worse is that something about being watched—by Kaeya, not Childe, though Diluc doesn’t like the implication that he’s content with Fatui eyes on him—makes Diluc all the more aware of his actions. He feels on display, and while normally he'd ignore the Captain, maybe bicker with him and leave it at that, Childe’s presence changes the situation. The atmosphere is different while he’s here, rhythmic and tantalizingly outside of Diluc’s realm of control, like a dance he can’t help but partake in. He can’t place the music, either, but it must be there, as something compels their feet to keep moving with the other’s.
They’ve given Kaeya something to watch, too. Something he finds interesting. Diluc is curious about what that is, just as he’s frustrated that he’s curious. He doesn’t want to ask; he doesn’t want to be caught up in some sort of game to begin with. The self-reflection doesn’t help either, especially not in such a short amount of time. All he’s noticing from the intense self-awareness is that in the short-changed minutes since Childe’s arrival, that is exactly where his attention has lied the entire time. How Diluc is, for some confounding reason, curious still. With Kaeya watching, he has to be more purposeful to keep his attention away from Childe, catching his eyes unwillingly drifting back to the sharp cut of Childe’s features. To the clever blue of his eyes.
It’s not that Childe is doing anything different tonight, either. In fact, it’s more that he’s acting exactly the same as before. His third time in Angel’s Share, and Childe doesn’t seem an ounce interested in anyone aside from Diluc—and the tavern is popular. There’s a range of people who flow through the bar, particularly on Friday nights. People good for fun, people good for a fight, people who may be more willing to actually talk to the diplomat—though the word is just as uncomfortably kind in Diluc’s mind as it was the first time. And yet Childe looks at none other than his bartender, not even at his friend, if that’s what Kaeya is to him. It’s as if Childe set his sights on a prize and is refusing to back down until he has it clamped tightly between his teeth.
From afar, in the hazy recess of his mind, Diluc does wonder if this prize has anything to do with gathering intel. Diluc isn’t a nobody in Mondstadt; he has a reputation.
But the drift of clouds cover the path to that particular line of thinking and push it further from his conscious reach. At the moment, he more so can only wonder about whether or not he has always watched Childe this much and simply never noticed, or if this is new.
Is either option truly better either way?
It makes sense to him, he swears, that he thinks someone ought to keep an eye on every member of the Fatui. If one is in his keep, then he should be the one to do so. He’s more than capable. But one of the Captains of the Knights of Favonius is right here, seemingly unworried about their company despite their familiarity. Kaeya knows Childe by name, afterall, and seems instead to be more interested in his interactions with Diluc. Perhaps Diluc has indulged him too much by allowing him to feel welcome to return to Angel’s Share, but to force him out almost feels…equally indulging. Like riling Childe up is what he wants, just as getting to stay here is. His ability to view any response as a win is clearly an advantage for him, putting everyone else at a net loss no matter which move they make. Diluc wonders if that’s a forced and calculated acceptance, done to assure that his surrounding company feels that they’ve lost no matter what and playing them into any corner Childe wants to back them into, or if he so genuinely just enjoys such a vast array of life’s facets that there’s a win in almost any outcome. Perhaps they’d have to play chess some time.
The idea of sitting down with any Fatuus and asking for a game is, frankly, alarmingly hilarious.
It’s near impossible to know anything for certain from a mere three meetings, but Diluc examines what he does know about Childe as he prepares a drink for him. Once again Childe hasn’t ordered one, but Diluc is under the impression that he won’t complain about whatever it is he gets, unable to refuse a surprise. Having just wondered if Childe is a man of simple pleasure, it’s funny that Diluc finds himself wondering now if perhaps the truth is that simple life is too boring for the man. If the mundane and banal everyday moments of living required an element of the unknown, just to keep him from neglecting the motions altogether.
It can’t be known, but Diluc is making him a drink while he thinks nonetheless. If Childe has any allergies, then he should have said so the first time around—he can choke.
The juice bottles are all kept on the lowest shelf of the bar for when underage guests wander in, though none should be here now that it’s so late. Bartender’s choice, he does give himself a second longer than he had with his other drinks to pick out a tall, clear bottle of juice—a rich pink, deep and welcoming, made from valberries. The previous customers had already determined for him what to make; now he was thoughtfully crafting. As he pours, the scent is fragrant, sweet, and one he knows to be refreshing.
Diluc starts his thoughts with the obvious. Childe is competent and easy-going, at least outwardly, both of which are generally well perceived traits—though he equally comes off as slightly…unwell. Disturbed. Diluc isn’t sure if that’s something lying beneath the surface of Childe’s skin, or a forced-upon perception from the Fatui light that colors him.
Two shots follow the juice. He secures the mixing glass into the shaking tin tightly before he shakes it hard over his right shoulder. Then he breaks the seal and uses the same mixing glass in place of a strainer to keep the ice out as he pours the mix into a fresh glass—chosen specifically so the color can be seen.
Childe is also not put off by Diluc’s growling, or the way he’s self-elected himself as Mondstadt’s guard dog. Whether he sees this about Diluc or is simply blind to it is unknown, but his resolute company is, admittedly, better than none. Better than some, even. There’s no false modesty or condescension. The ingenuity is appreciated.
He scoops in fresh ice from a cooler kept below the counter. Fizzy water fills up the rest of the glass, topped by a few sprigs of mint. Cool, sweet, and yet another ingredient known to be refreshing.
Childe is persistent—committed—too. Annoyingly so, Diluc thinks, though it’s almost a full second later.
Almost an afterthought.
Maybe he should have just gone with a shot of liquor instead.
This isn’t something to examine—can’t be. Diluc has the feeling that Childe would know if he were to think about it any deeper, that he could notice the extra second put into choosing ingredients for his drink or read into any human soul in a way no one should be able. He’s sharp, relentless, and clearly a little too curious. It isn’t a stretch to imagine that once a bruise is in his sights, he’ll press his thumb deep into the wound to see what color it turns.
Contemplating in front of him, about him, is unaffordable. It doesn’t matter that the questions, at their core, wrap back around to Diluc. It matters that the catalyst is the Fatuus here before him, someone eager and all too capable of abusing any vulnerability his bartender presents. Not a chance. Diluc packs those feelings back into his chest and settles for sliding the Barbato’s Boon over to Childe, slipping back into his persona of a bartender, a businessman, and nothing more. The battlefield, his grievances, his semblance of justice and the unequal ways in which they tip his moral scales—they all have to compress into the tiny, air-tight recess of his mind, hidden from any gaze that knows too much. Childe isn’t even the only one watching him now, is he?
Diluc can see the gears in Kaeya’s mind working just as much as his own, can hear whatever inane thing he’s about to say, and simply doesn’t want it said. Best to distract him, then, with the only way Diluc knows how to actually get him to stop running his mouth.
Contention from his work will have to satiate his cravings for something more once again.
For all that internal attention on Childe, Diluc almost doesn’t hear his response to the drink placed before him, too quickly distracted by his own goal of making Kaeya’s Death After Noon. “You never cease to surprise me, comrade.” He runs his middle finger along the base of his glass, eyes tracing Diluc’s figure as he does so. He gives no indication that he plans to actually drink the cocktail any time soon, continuing to talk to himself instead, though somewhat quieter. “Even if you were to do exactly as I expected, I think that alone would surprise me instead.”
His words evoke some kind of dizzying emotion in Diluc; he feels warmly paid attention to, though he’s uncertain if he likes it or not. He shouldn’t. There’s not a moment where Childe lets him feel as if he’s become anything less than the priority here, and Diluc is silently grateful that his back is already turned. He fetches the dandelion wine off its perch on the highest shelf, as well as the neighboring bottle of sparkling white wine that he has long since learned are best kept paired beside each other. He makes the drink often enough by now to know that.
It feels stranger this time to not respond to Childe than it did all the others. He has no idea what he would even say to that.
He almost wishes he knew.
Kaeya, on the other hand, seems to have no shortage of words. “Ah, that has always been his duality. Predictable in his routine, unpredictable in his truths. No one gets to know what he’s thinking.” His drink is nearly half full, only his second of the night, but Diluc knows that he only gets chattier the more buzzed he gets. Perhaps preparing another is the opposite of what he needs, knowing it will only shut him up so long as there’s something to actively occupy his mouth, but Kaeya seems to be all too aware of when the ingredients are for his favorite drink. He throws back his head to down the rest of what he has left, unsavory and certainly not the way any wine is meant to be had, before dropping the empty glass back to the wooden counter with a small thud.
“That said, he’ll always follow through on his duties and promises. Another, would you?”
It’s suddenly all the more grinding to make Kaeya’s drink, but he’s right—Diluc won’t shaft his responsibilities here for the sake of pettiness. Not that he hasn’t done so in the past, necessarily. He’ll simply have to grit his teeth and bear it tonight.
As he mixes Kaeya’s drink, a softer, woody fragrance drifts from the glass. The slightly sweet scent, similar to that of toasted nutmeg, is calming to Diluc in a way the beverage owner hasn’t been in a long time. Something about the warm notes wraps around him like smoke, the same as he’d seen earlier in Childe’s eyes. He doesn’t need to close his eyes to feel heat tracing invisible lines across his skin, curling into his sides and fitting against the shape of him. Warmth has always felt that way, like soot on his hands—searing and once alive, begging to be risen from again.
It’s one of the reasons that Kaeya’s drink is his favorite to make despite it all.
He must lose himself for a moment, though—ungodly fast for anyone not paying attention—because Childe’s posture changes once again. He leans over the counter, searching, and Diluc can tell when Childe catches sight of his Vision—no longer obscured by the ends of his jacket. He can tell, because the heated gaze from earlier lights up the blue of Childe’s eyes. Diluc is no stranger to lustful gazes, but this is different. More intense.
“Come on, comrade. You must get bored here. Care for a fight?”
Diluc is starting to piece together what sorts of things actually catch Childe’s eyes and attention. Competence. Strength. Challenge. Diluc has complicated feelings on being the target of that sight.
“You’d lose.”
Childe just laughs at that.
“Maybe I would. That’s exactly what we should find out. I won’t be gentle, you know—unless you beg for mercy.”
There he goes. The detachment and indifference in which he says such vicious things with utter simplicity. “Of all the ways to waste your time, you want to do so by figuring out how I would beat you? Try again.” Not only does Diluc have a bar to run, he also doesn’t fight for no reason. He has causes when he’s running the town, and a spar to determine a victor? Not a just cause, though he admits the chance to beat any Fatui into the ground is actually somewhat appealing. Giving Childe what he wants, on the other hand, is far less so. Something about refusing him anything he asks for has begun to give Diluc a smug sense of satisfaction. It’s the same reason he continues to deny giving away his name.
Childe doesn’t seem shaken, though. He never does. “There’s plenty of things to find out, actually. Your weapon of choice, your general approach to combat. I think you’re at a disadvantage here, whether you seem to know it or not. What I know is that I’m sure you say all sorts of stupid things in the heat of battle. Are you on a roll? On fire, even?”
“Oh, he does. I’ve heard it myself.”
Archons, Diluc could beat them both to death right here. “Kaeya. Cool it.”
“Hilarious. Trying something new, are we? I think it’s a bit late to swap out your vision for one to match mine, but who am I to stop you from making the attempt.” The Captain looks proud of himself, like a cat with a mouse’s tail between its claws, and Diluc wordlessly pours his freshly-mixed drink down the drain.
Kaeya’s instant protest is worth the cost of one cocktail. He can cover it.
Childe’s laughter is brilliant, his glee written across his features in shining white strokes, and Diluc doesn’t allow himself to stare. The banter disperses whatever initial tension had been building between himself and Childe, but he feels in the pit of his stomach that he’s missed something, or is missing out on something, and he can’t exactly explain what it is he wants in this moment—what it is that feels as if it’s just slipped past his fingers.
It rattles against the walls of his head some, but he comes up with nothing. He doesn’t want to go poking and prodding at all the things he’s only just neatly packed away in there; the gentle companionship will have to suffice. He supposes he’ll have to make Kaeya a new drink now.
Childe doesn’t seem to care about the bar when Diluc isn’t working. Charles never mentions any Fatui showing up during his shift, and though Diluc wonders how long it took for Childe to learn his patterns, he tries not to let it concern him. The Fatui are good at sticking their noses in the business of others and always have been; Childe’s frequency to his bar won’t make a difference. It won’t change how Diluc acts, either. Their next few meetings, however sporadic, follow very similarly to the first three—that is, Diluc nearly always ignores Childe the first chance he can.
“All this time apart, and this is the greeting I get?”
At this point it almost makes Diluc smile—almost. He never puts the pretenses away, though, even if by now he’s gotten… used to the company. More or less.
Childe always begins with a question. Sometimes about his favorite foods, sometimes asking to spar, and frequently his usual request of a name.
“Leave.” Diluc always fails to give it to him.
“Interesting choice for a name; what’s the origin of that?” Childe laughs at his own joke and comfortably fills the silence on his own once their banter has stopped, just the same as their first meeting.
Diluc’s wandering gaze gets worse, too. Without Kaeya around to keep him conscious of himself, he finds more and more that he’s watching Childe back. The pretty way his mouth sits when his smile slips if he thinks for long enough. The way the clever blue of his eyes lights up when he’s thought of something smart to whip Diluc with. The singular earring he wears, polished gold and deep red hues glimmering against the pale skin of his neck—and oh so pretty.
That’s the word he keeps coming back to. He’s entranced by the way Childe can be so emboldened and combative, can be so starkly distanced from any descriptions akin to delicate, and yet how he can still be so pretty.
It’s infuriating. It makes Diluc want to do something about it. He isn’t exactly sure what.
It’s a cooler than usual evening when change begins to drift in with the breeze.
The mood is somewhat somber throughout the tavern, the rhythmic sound of rain pelting against paved stone loud even with the windows drawn shut. Most patrons, the ones who have made it out to drink in the first place, stray home early to presumably dry off and wrap themselves in the quiet warmth of a well-tended hearth.
Diluc thinks that the cold must cling to their bones the way raindrops cling to his own jacket.
It isn’t much of a problem for him; he runs hot. So long as the rain isn’t frozen and he isn’t feeling under the weather, it all turns to steam against his skin. It’s hardly noticeable, and he sees no need to carry an umbrella when the weather is like this. He isn’t sure he even owns one, honestly.
Where some think of water only as a douser of fire, Diluc has always seen the two more as a foil of one another. As enemies, they clash. As allies, they coil together, turning into something new completely. Perhaps it's these small, banal encounters that lead Diluc to contemplate the two so often, and so far removed from the average person’s draw to either, but he knows regardless that he’s right. Both sustain life. Both can end life, too. Their propensity for one doesn’t negate their ability to catalyze the other. Neither can be bound in form. Where his brother’s Vision is hard and precise, his own blazes free. He and fire are a dance, shaping themselves around one another, and he knows water to be the same.
The freedom feels fitting within the walls of Mondstadt, though the lack of control calls out his name in the dead of particularly bad nights.
He’s contemplating the adaptability of water when Childe walks in. He expects a greeting, or a question, or a full out song and dance—but the Fatuus strays from routine.
He stops to take off his jacket.
Diluc doesn’t enjoy the spontaneity, and though the variation is small, he’s come to expect a pattern. People don’t often drift away from a well established pattern without cause. Were Childe to always act sporadically, this would feel intrinsically ephemeral, but that’s never been how it is. They’ve done the same waltz with one another every time Childe has walked through that door. This is different; things will be different. He knows this. He’s seen change blow through the streets enough to recognize the signs.
Childe, for his part, expresses himself no differently as he unclasps his jacket slowly and hangs it on one of the spare hooks by the door to dry. His disrobing reveals his simpler attire underneath, a maroon shirt with sleeves pushed past his elbows and a harness strapped across his chest. Diluc wonders, just briefly, if Childe owns anything that actually buttons together the entire way.
There’s a lot to be distracted by, but the thought at the forefront of Diluc’s mind is that external layers are professional and symbolic. To see the layers underneath, ones that are usually hidden, feels intimate no matter how appropriate the clothing may be, and Childe’s clothing isn’t the most appropriate regardless. Business-like, perhaps, but worn in such a tantalizing way with the length of his forearms exposed and the low cut of his hip bones visible where the shirt hangs open. Their encounter feels more personal in the new light, as if something is shifting with Childe’s goals—as if he’s settling into his place at Angel’s Share. Diluc wonders if Childe considers himself a regular despite the long stretches of time between his visits.
He distinctively doesn’t comment on how those long stretches have been growing consistently shorter for some time now.
Diluc also wonders where the boundaries between client and companion lie in Childe’s mind. Less and less does it seem that Diluc is a naive pawn, desperate to discover which game the Fatui are playing, and more does it strike him that Childe is here for personal affairs; pleasure or boredom, both remain on the table, but neither call to him as malicious in intent. The new light and all that.
“Hello, stranger.” Childe falls into his seat at the bar somewhat elegantly, ever in control of his own body. It’s been occurring to Diluc, over the past several months or so, that Childe may play less with the diplomats than he thinks—but there’s been no reason yet to call him on it.
“Funny, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard that phrase said to an actual stranger.”
Diluc is loath to break the eye contact, his conflictions be damned. The things he allows himself to keep are so often small, just stolen moments that he later hounds himself for over and over again, and this is one of them. Just a couple of seconds, two or three if he’s lucky, of getting to look Childe in the eyes without having to ask himself why he’s been waiting for this.
The attention, direct and so unwavering, is smothering. He can feel it in his lungs; it swims through his head. There may as well be no one else in the tavern with the way Childe acts—like he has much to do and very little time, and no one in Mondstadt is worth even a spare glance save for Diluc. He has a mission, buried somewhere in that chest of his.
Diluc is expecting to count down from three before Childe’s line of sight flickers down towards his vision, forever tempted by a battle Diluc has yet to see a need for, but the break never comes.
Instead Childe does something that's surely meant to be cute, tilting his head and raising a brow. “You never answered my question, comrade.”
“And I likely never will.” Diluc crosses his arms, waits all of one beat to be patient, and sighs. “Out with it.”
Childe knew he would ask, clearly, tongue sharper than his blade—and his memory perhaps even sharper. “Do you divulge that level of attention to all of your patrons?” The damn bastard.
“Mmm. I was right. I’m not likely to answer that.” It’s more of an answer than he should probably give Childe, but he hopes it strikes as a threat. The Fatui need to be watched, and so he’s doing the watching. He doesn’t need to explain more; Childe doesn’t need to know that this banter has become a little more fun than his stoic bartender expresses.
Diluc’s doesn’t entirely know it yet either.
“Aha! So I am special.”
“As special as every other criminal, yes.”
“Hey now, don’t be like that, Red. I’m not a bad guy-“
Diluc doesn’t bother to hide his indifference. “How often does that line work on people?”
A pause. A win, for once, even if it’s only a pawn. Diluc maybe, maybe smirks just a bit. Childe sighs, though he sounds almost fond to be on the other side of the sword. “I’m two for two on losses with that one.”
“Mhmm. Not interested.” He hardly has anything to keep him busy with the slow night, as much as he wants to keep himself busy. All of his glassware is clean, all of his shelves and kegs are stocked, and there’s hardly anything he could begin to prepare with how sluggishly orders are coming in. Still, he needs something to do, and settles for leaving the bar and making a round across the tavern to collect used plates and mugs. One of the lanterns on the second floor seems to be out; he makes a note to fix it soon.
Even through all the noise, he can hear Childe hum to himself while he waits his turn, like he knows Diluc is just falling through the motions. He brings back his dishware, rings out his washcloth, and goes off to refill the basin with fresh water from the closest well in the city. Somehow he isn’t worried that Childe will attempt to touch his stock, and he certainly doesn’t expect any other patron to feel brave enough to pass the threshold while Childe sits there the same as he always does. Like he’s waiting for something. Like maybe he doesn’t only enjoy the riling, but also enjoys Diluc’s actual company, too.
They’ve started to have real, genuine conversations, after all of their pretenses have been taken care of. Diluc learns, in small pieces, about what Snezhnaya is to Childe. He pretends he’s never been there in return, and he talks about Mondstadt the same way. Childe attempts to tell him stories, vague ones that clearly have Childe sidestepping information and grinning his way through it. Diluc goes into detail about avian life and business and any other factual pieces of information that’s been interesting enough for him to retain.
Sometimes, rarely, their banter has even turned to laughter—mostly on Childe’s end. Diluc is still pretending to appear disinterested in anything Childe has to offer, or at least has been so far, but occasionally—well. Occasionally his defenses slip. He’s let out a few low, rich laughs, and Childe hadn’t looked away from him the first time. Diluc felt red, and then stupid, and then decided it didn’t matter and raised a brow as if to question why Childe was staring. He hadn’t gotten an answer—just another smile back.
Laughter seems to come easy like that to Childe, his manner welcoming and friendly, even when his words are not. Diluc doesn’t have to see the latter very often.
The rain bounces off of his jacket as he walks, a minimal nuisance not even worth the conscious recognition. He reaches the well pretty swiftly, only truly trying to steal one moment or two to think, and drops the bucket down until he hears it submerge. Water rushes into the pail, mirroring the thoughts in his head.
It’s startling for Diluc to realize that he enjoys Childe’s company in return. It’s the most he’s ever admitted to himself with this particular Fatui, but once the dam leaks, the rest floods into even the most recessed corners of his mind.
Childe is so unlike the way Diluc views himself. From the start, it’s been easiest to focus on their differences, the ways in which they are so dissimilar from one another, only Diluc didn’t think back then that those differences would shift from unaligned allegiances to admiration. For all their similarities—the attention to detail, the focus on work, the intrinsic passion they share—their differences have created a connection that Diluc can’t drown out. Childe is generous with his laughter, forward with his thoughts, easy on the eyes—and for all of his persistence and tenacity, he seems to remain unshakably adaptable. It’s infuriatingly alluring.
Diluc wraps his hand around the well’s handle and begins to crank, drawing up the now-full bucket ever so carefully. He pours it into the basin, wonders why he didn’t just borrow the whole bucket instead, and turns to walk back. He’s distracted. That’s not like him.
As good as he is at compartmentalizing, only so much can be boxed away. Some thoughts are still bound to stick to his clothes or leave residue on his hands. There’s something there, at least for him, tender and soft and so desperate to be touched. Something different, driven by cravings and hunger and an annoyingly persistent infatuation.
Particularly because he sees that all of the traits he admires in Childe aren’t any less false or shallow just because of his Fatui paycheck. All those nuances—those details—are deeply embossed into the lines that draw out Childe’s figure. He’s a sharp cut against the background that is Mondstadt; where things here are calm, Childe is distinctly not. He’s alive. Diluc would have previously expected the concept to feel childish, but begrudgingly he’s come to realize that there’s maturity in the way Childe appreciates life for what it is. It’s easy for him to come up with examples, scenarios he can picture Childe in. Something simple: a dish of northern smoked chicken would still be a warm plate of food in front of him, regardless of whether or not it would be Childe’s favorite, and Diluc already knows that Childe would be grateful for that fact alone. The mentality is admirable.
In the worst of ways, Diluc has to admit it—they’re acquaintances. He can no longer call them strangers, not even in the safety of his own mind. He’s spent far too much time assessing and categorizing Childe to fool even himself, and Childe may not know his first name, but he’s at the very least overheard Kaeya mockingly refer to him as Master Ragnvindr. They’re a facet in each other’s life in some regard now, whatever that may be.
The rest of his return is just as quick as the trip out, his bar is just as he left it, and Childe is exactly where he’s been seated the entire time. He balances holding the bowl of fresh water in one hand and closing the back door to Angel’s Share in the other, and Childe watches him the entire time. “Safe trip, I trust?” Diluc doesn’t answer that with anything more than a snipped, “Of course.” He’s supposed to be the one making sure others are safe; he doesn’t need to be patronized.
But Childe laughs at him again, seemingly delighted by whatever little game-of-the-night he thinks he’s playing, and then launches into amusing himself with more talk while Diluc begins cleaning the dishes. Diluc pulls his gloves off by the fingertips and lets the pair drop to the counter. Hands bare, the air is cool and refreshing where it touches the skin that Diluc usually hides. The scarring on his arms crawls down onto his hands as well, curls around his knuckles in knotted, ugly swirls. On occasion, Diluc likes to watch them while he works. Thinks of those which these scarred hands have held, and which they have lost. He wonders if Childe would watch his hands, too, but his back is to the Fatui and Childe’s voice never wavers, never pauses in its melodic flow, even as the gloves come off. He either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. Diluc won’t think of it any more, and focuses instead on what Childe is saying to him just in time to scoff and retort. It’s easy. The two of them fall into a rhythm, something soothing, and before Diluc knows it—it’s time to close.
Even after the last call has been made and the patrons shuffled out, Childe remains in his seat. The door is closed and locked, the rest of the dishes wrangled over to the empty counter space, and still Childe does not move. From the way he doesn’t stir to grab for his coat, and from the way his eyes track Diluc while still seeming so far away, something different is going to happen tonight just as Diluc had expected.
“The rain has let up enough. If you’ve been waiting for lack of an umbrella, you no longer need one.”
Childe sidesteps his words completely and rises from his seat. “I’ll trade you. My name for yours.”
It’s not at all a response. Diluc starts stacking the clean plates as he dries them and notes with practiced apathy that one is missing. He’ll have to find it before he leaves for the night. “That’d be a poor transaction, then, considering that I already know your-” Diluc isn’t sure why he’s entertaining this at all, but Childe cuts him off anyway. “Ah ah, but you don’t! Childe is an alias, but I have a real name. One that not everybody gets to use.” He says this in a way that almost sounds like he cares about their situation, like he really wants to just know—or like he really just wants Diluc to want him to know. Either or.
Diluc pretends that he doesn’t feel a flare of something at the suggestion. That he isn’t just anybody. Surely Childe, or whatever his name is, could know Diluc’s name by now by merely listening to the customers around the bar. He’s blinded by his own obsession, but Diluc knows just as well that that’s likely a choice. Any Fatui member could pull resources; hell, it didn’t even have to be his Fatui network. Childe could ask any person in Mondstadt and he’d get an answer—Diluc wasn’t a stranger in his beloved city. But Childe seemed to want to know directly from the source, wanted the pride or the challenge or something else entirely that would only come with Diluc being the one to share his own name. Diluc just can’t afford to be that easy. Besides, somewhere in the depths of his nature, he does find it annoying that all this time he’s been using an alias for Childe. It’s not exactly unexpected; that doesn’t mean he’s exactly pleased.
So he does as he always does when faced with something that threatens to raise the tempo on the steady, unchanging beats of his life. He pushes the possession away, somewhere deep and far beneath his ribs, and ties it up in the rhythmic pulsing of his veins. “I’m not interested in your name.”
Childe hums as if he’s thinking, though the look on his face tells Diluc that he clearly already expected such a response. “I guess that could prove to be a problem. Maybe you’d care more if you knew who I was, outside of the name and all?” It’s a strange offer, like haggling down the price of an object not for sale, but at the very least his insistence is intriguing.
“Unlikely.” Not that Diluc plans to give in simply because Childe is insistent. He’s being difficult on purpose, but Childe usually seems to like that anyway; Archons know that Diluc enjoys it himself.
“Aha, you say that now! You don’t even know what kind of power sits in your keep every time they’re in Mondstadt.” Ah. There goes the allure, out the window—for the most part.
“I’m not interested in Snezhnayan politics, Childe.”
“Politics,” he sneers, and Diluc is reminded of how straightforward Childe has seemingly been this entire time. No plots, no ploys. The charm is dangerous. “It’s not about politics, it’s about strength of character! Humor me, if you would be so kind. The title, my legacy—those are all equally parts of me. But the version of me that doesn’t use that title, the version of me that decided to stay at home in the motherland to watch over my younger siblings… That version is far removed from Childe, or Tartaglia, or The Eleventh Harbinger of the Fatui.”
And that, well.
It feels sort of like falling.
Or at least like hitting the pavement.
He’s heard only some of those names before—but he knows enough. He knows the Harbingers. Has had his own experiences with a Harbinger, back in his younger years, and that isn’t all. Aether’s letters have never mentioned any of them by name, but he’s recounted firsthand how many lives have been ruined not just by the Fatui as a whole, but by the Harbingers in particular. They had come so close to ending the world, and with no regard for the innocent sacrifices involved—or maybe specifically to sacrifice the innocent.
That he could ever let himself become invested in—acquaintances with—a Fatuus in the first place, enough so to be let down, is damnable enough.
This is so much worse.
The revelation comes in waves over the course of only a second or two—first as shock, then as heat, and last as an intangible and formless cold. Diluc can feel the way his stomach rolls the same as he can recognize the absolute stillness in his hands. There’s no tremble, no shiver, and no flames. Nothing. He tightens his grip, folds his fingers in on themselves, forces himself to keep his grasp loose and his short fingernails away from the skin of his palm.
He has enough scars, ones that trail up his torso and branch across his limbs. This doesn’t need to be one more.
“Damn you.”
Childe gets a look in his eyes, but Diluc can’t parse it. Childe has always wanted a fight from him; is this how he intends to get it? “Hey, slow down there. Surely we’re jumping ahead just a bit. At the very least, we can take this outside.” It’s not as convincing as usual.
There’s a cold, slimy truth slithering beneath Diluc’s skin and slipping into his veins. He’s disappointed. In some form, unacknowledged or not, Childe had begun to separate from the Fatui in his mind. Diluc has never been a fool and refuses to be one now, and Childe’s status had never been forgotten, but in the late hours of the night and under the soft amber glow of candle light, it seemed at times as if Childe himself could envision a future elsewhere—one outside of the Fatui. When he talked of his aspirations, they were his—his alone. His person was defined by his goals, his own strength, and never that of a convoluted organization’s greater plan. Those weren’t for him. He simply seemed to be using the Fatui as a tool, as some wide and flat stepping stone towards his own personal and unrelenting gain, and Diluc had asked himself somewhere in the back of his mind, in a tone so low he couldn’t hear it over his own pulse, if Childe could be saved. If he could one day seek a life somewhere better, somewhere nobler, and in that picture Diluc would selfishly enjoy his company.
But now he knows better.
Childe doesn’t work for the Fatui. Childe is the Fatui.
And some corruption can’t be cleansed.
“I suggest that you make your exit swiftly. This will be my last kindness to you.”
Childe pushes himself away from where he’s leaning against the bar, ever attempting to be so casually in control. “Clearly you’ve got a lot to think about.” He doesn’t even look towards the door. “You’re just raring to go, aren’t you? I’ll give it some time, if you really don’t want to take it outside.”
“This isn’t a deal. This is a warning.”
Childe takes a step towards him, stepping around the bar. With the separation between them gone, so is his safety—and Diluc’s patience. “There are better ways to cause a stir than this, you should know. Better places for it, even, wouldn’t you say?”
Diluc slams his fist into Childe’s jaw. He’s not sure what catches Childe off guard, exactly; he knows this Fatui—this Harbinger—has the dexterity to dodge a simple punch, even with the sudden escalation. Now he’s lost his advantage of speed, because in terms of pure strength, Diluc is bigger. He pushes Childe back into the counter, the lip of it clearly stabbing into Childe’s sides, and curls his fingers into the neck of Childe’s shirt. Childe must have felt the blow to his face resonate through his skull, because Diluc can practically see the stars in his eyes and the way his gaze is hurriedly trailing down to where Diluc’s fingers are so close to his throat. Diluc is waiting for Childe to fight back, waiting for that bloodthirsty instinct to kick in after so many weeks of asking for exactly that, and yet Childe’s gaze looks distracted.
Uncertain, maybe. Of what, Diluc isn’t sure.
“Let’s end this swiftly. You speak when spoken to. Understood?”
“You truly are strong. A worthy opponent for certain. Bravo.”
Childe looks like he’s drinking in every spot that Diluc touches him, every point where Diluc’s fingers press sharply into his skin, and Diluc can’t help it anymore. He slams Childe’s face down into the wooden countertop with a loud thump and keeps it pinned there. Two bottles, neither empty, wobble and fall from the ledge, shattering onto the floor. A traitorous part of him instinctively tells him to shield Childe’s eyes from the glittering rain of glass, but he doesn’t. He only pushes harder. Wine leaks onto the floorboards, pooling around their fragile and broken vessels—a splintering image of what Childe should look like right now. He can’t see Childe’s expression, but he wouldn’t be surprised if the damned Fatuus was grinning. Diluc hopes he got splinters in his gums. “You may feel safe on the streets of Mondstadt, but Angel’s Share is my property, and you aren’t welcome here.” Not completely true. “No amount of political neutrality will spare you.”
“Why would I want it to?” The way Childe speaks, Diluc isn’t sure why something feels so—off. As if this is different from all of the previous times Childe has attempted to drag him off and into battle. As if this isn’t exactly how Childe pictured it happening. As if he isn’t sure if this outcome is better or worse.
As if he plans to come back.
Diluc notices that the skin stretched across his knuckles is split when he finally removes his hand from Childe’s face and steps back.
“You have the infuriating habit of making me repeat myself. Get out.”
Silence falls between them for the next few moments. Childe stares at him, eyes cold but not hard. He doesn’t move to wipe away the blood streaming from his nose or staining his split lip, nor lick away the smear of it across his teeth. It’s awful to look at. Yearning echoes through Diluc’s chest; he doesn’t know what this was, but he knows he doesn’t get to have it. He doesn’t get to keep much. “Maybe I misplayed my hand, then. Til next time, Firefly.” That’s the last look Childe gives him before finally grabbing his jacket and slipping out the door, and Diluc feels he’s been too gracious by letting the Harbinger leave. His hands were around Childe’s throat; by all means, he should have ended it.
There’s a lot more to clean now than there was just half an hour ago when the closed sign was hung outside. For the briefest moment, Diluc feels the temptation to simply leave it all, his keep as disarrayed as he feels.
He cleans it anyway, of course. Takes care of the broken glass, rinses the blood from his busted up knuckles, and wipes up the scarlet stain on the floor. He drowns himself in the monotonous buzz of routine, of actions he’s practiced a thousand times over and then some, and tells himself that he isn’t thinking about it anymore. Not at all.
Sleep, for the first few following nights, comes to Diluc slowly. The sheets are too hot and his mind runs too fast. He rubs circles into his scabbing skin with his thumb, refusing to see a healer. It’s barely a scratch to begin with, nothing worse, and above all it acts as a reminder: he let this get to him. He let the Fatui under his skin. After everything, oh how low the mighty fall, and how the undeserving dig even lower yet. He tosses in bed, his gaze always trailing back to where the moon rises and sets within the panes of his window, and when sleep calls his name at last it holds him in its embrace for only a fleeting moment. Then he wakes again; no nightmares, no anguish. Just a racing, pounding head. He feels pathetic.
Anniversaries have never been sweet nor kind to Diluc.
His sleepless nights give way to inescapable exhaustion. Where Childe’s voice rang around his head once, bitter and looping, an anguished wailing now slips in to take over. When his eyes close, he sees long stretches of white snow and howling winds. The piercing chill climbs his limbs and carves itself into his canines, settling into something permanent that keeps his jaw clenched with tension. How can anybody be expected to forget the feeling of a body going cold? To forget the feeling in their palms as that warmth drains away, as what they hold turns from companion to corpse? To cradle that feeling against their chest, to bundle it up in their hand… what is the correct way to forget the type of coldness that stains their skin and clings to their palms, that sticks itself under their fingernails, enduring and hungry?
The cold eats at his dreams like that.
The tossing seems as endless as those pale plains in his visions. All these years later and the loss of his father still hurts. His uselessness hurts. It makes his chest ache, the anguish and guilt pulling his chest tight, constricting until he nearly can’t breathe. The littering of scars that branch across every expanse of his skin— it’s not enough. Nothing will ever be enough. The futility of it all lodges itself uncomfortably between the cavities of his heart.
He won’t see the healers for that any more than he will for his current inability to sleep.
The anniversary doesn’t ever get easier, either, and Diluc has always overworked himself—this is no exception. No point in laying down restlessly just to remain awake all night. So he won’t.
It’s a quiet evening for Diluc. The tavern is bustling, with chattering at every table, patrons who stand for a lack of available stools, and even a few audience members for the often-ignored bard that hangs by the door. But he feels…cut off. Strange, like he’s not truly in this room where his body stands. He crafts cocktails and refills pints by muscle memory only, keeping track of tabs and receipts on instinct, barely engaging with this barrier between him and his customers.
And he’s tired, too. So tired. The lack of sleep has long since caught up with him; it's overrun him. He's passed the threshold of exhaustion by days already, counting them off like ticks on a prison wall, and it makes his head swim. Of all nights, of course, this is when Childe shows his face again.
Diluc knew by Childe’s tone during their argument that the Fatuus wasn’t quite done here, but he feels indignant about it all the same. He had hoped for more time, at the very least—for some sense of respect, or shame, or humanity…but no time would be enough, truly. Any day would be a bad one for Childe to choose, at least on Diluc’s part. This just happens to be the worst of those choices. Diluc has no fight left in him; the skin beneath his eyes is purple and his throat is tight, his voice nowhere to be found. He huffs an attempt at a laugh at the thought. Maybe, with his fighting spirit gone, the Harbinger would finally grow bored and be done with him. If Diluc’s fire was Childe’s allure, or Diluc’s temperament Childe’s siren song, then Diluc could no longer give that to him. He hardly has enough of a flame left to keep himself alight on his own. Childe would simply have to find his Mondstadt entertainment elsewhere, or better yet, find entertainment outside of Mondstadt altogether. It would be an amusing sense of punishment for Diluc to watch.
Childe doesn’t push him, though. He hangs his coat by the door just as he had the previous time, but the false smile doesn’t stay seated on his face. Instead, he spends all of three seconds looking at Diluc before his features smooth into something more inquisitive. More careful. Diluc is sure Childe can see his sluggish movements; he doesn’t miss the way Childe’s eyes grow almost soft. They flicker between Diluc’s face and his dress, dancing past where Diluc’s sleeves are pushed up instead of carefully folded over and landing on the square of Diluc’s chest, empty of the embellished tie that always sits there. Diluc feels dizzy, under that gaze.
He raises a brow in Childe’s direction, just to do something other than stand there and let himself be watched. All Childe does is pinch his brows, bottom lip sticking out in something like a pout, and stride over the rest of the way towards the bar.
“I’ll be taking this spot, Comrade.” He places his hand on the shoulder of a patron, one sitting on the stool farthest left at the bar and with a pint still half full.
Diluc doesn’t even have time to worry about a fight breaking out. “And who the hell do you think you ar- are. Oh, uh.” The patron whips around—or attempts to, already several beers in and off balance, and nearly falls off his stool as he tries to poke his finger into Childe’s chest. He misses, then looks up, and up, and Diluc can see the moment this civilian recognizes Childe as Fatui, even through his drunken haze. All the color drains from his face, while his eyes stay locked onto the hydro vision pinned to Childe’s waist. “Of course, of course. Seat’s yours, champ.” He scrambles, nearly falling off the stool once more, this time from being in such a hurry to stand. He nearly forgets his beer, turns back for it, and seems to think better of loitering in any place a member of the Fatui wants to be.
Childe, for his part, has mercy. He merely smiles at him the whole way through. “Your ale, Comrade. I’m sure you’re paying good coin for this.” He picks up the tankard by the top, fingers spidered around the rim, and holds it out with the handle facing the now-standing patron.
Diluc waits for the beer to be taken, for the patron to shimmy away into a new spot far away from the Fatui’s apparent favorite stool, before tsking in Childe’s direction. “Always causing trouble, huh? Bullying innocent patrons.”
Childe waits a pause, and Diluc takes the time to look over him in the new light of their last discussion. Same wild hair, same easy lean, same smattering of freckles smudged across the bridge of his nose. His shirt is rumpled today. It hadn’t been last time. Childe’s attitude has always been disheveled, but his clothes have never quite followed suit. Diluc wants to run his palms over the creases, wants to flatten them out until Childe looks the same as he ever does. Diluc’s eyes dip to watch Childe’s fingers—so uncharacteristically still where they rest on the counter—and only snaps his gaze back up to Childe’s face when the Harbinger speaks. “You aren’t even threatening to kick me out for it.”
Diluc doesn’t so much as move to cross his arms. “You don’t listen either way.”
Childe hums, and Diluc will take that as submission, though Childe’s mind still seems to be churning. “A drink?” Diluc has other paying customers he could and should be attending to, but his feet feel stuck to the floor here, where he stands in front of Childe. The last time he had seen the Fatuus—the Harbinger— his fingers had been at his throat. Now he’s the center of Childe’s piercing gaze, unnaturally blue and far too insightful, and all Diluc can think about is the way nothing but a wooden counter and a handful of bottles pushed up against the pillar stand between them.
“Do you have any sipping whiskeys?” Ah, so no cocktail today, nothing that will make Diluc have to think, and no specialty wines either. Childe had already learned that Angel’s Share was not stocked with Snezhnayan fire-water.
But they do have whiskey, a Fontaine brand. Diluc pulls out a short glass with a thick base and narrow rim, perfect for swirling, and closes the cabinet door behind him. He’s looking at the ice bin, the cold of his dreams crawling back over his skin, when Childe tells him that neat is fine.
The timing is a little too good. Diluc doesn’t like how much he feels seen.
But Childe is moderately quiet for the rest of the night. Diluc would call it good behavior, but the way Childe’s eyes are always focused on him makes Diluc think something unseen is happening there. He keeps Childe’s glass from going empty without any prompting for the entire night, but that's hardly anything; Childe is too busy drinking him in to be tasting the whiskey in his glass.
It feels like rain clouds rolling in as a fire begins to burn itself out. The air is heavy with the promise of what's to come.
In between patrons, in those moments where Diluc’s mind begins to wind backwards, back towards white plains and red hands, Childe is there keeping him company. “You should start marking this stool as VIP Only, you know.”
The corners of Diluc’s mouth pinch upwards, just barely a smile. Half of one, maybe. “And what makes you a Very Important Patron?”
Childe grins at him wryly, his fingers finally broken from their stiffness and now tracing the rim of his glass. “Plenty of things. I like this vantage point. I think you need the company. Or at least an eye; someone ought to watch out for you, if you’re like this.”
Diluc nearly drops the bottle of wine he’s returning to the shelf.
“You guard Mondstadt. If you’re protecting an entire city, who is protecting you?”
Something pools in the bottom of Diluc’s stomach, rotten and biting. No one, he wants to say. No one is, and no one should.
Protection is for those who deserve it.
The honesty is unexpected, but moreso is the way Childe is tender with it. Diluc knew Childe’s eyes had been on him all night, but he never thought that Childe was truly and carefully observing him, nor did he expect Childe to be so forward with it. When did Childe start noticing enough of Diluc’s little details to be able to tell how unwell Diluc was doing? He thought Childe’s eyes were lingering where his vision hangs at his hips, or on the way his arms moved as he stretched for the top shelf—but instead they had caught the dull quality of Diluc’s eyes and the slow snap of his wrist while making drinks. No one else here knows of the approaching date; no one else noticed the way Diluc wasn't quite up to his own standards. Diluc’s definition of slacking was for some people an ideal, no matter how much he pressured himself to do better, to take on more, to keep atoning for the one failure he could never undo—
Childe had noticed the difference, though.
Diluc’s focus drifts back to the bottle in his hand, finally placing it down—an easier task than finding an answer for Childe.
When he turns back to the Fatui at last, still silent, Childe takes it as a prompt to move. He reaches across the bar, long limbs affording him an unfair amount of reach, and Diluc tenses. “Mind your hand, Childe.” He feels cornered, stuck behind this wooden bar and apparently not as closed a book as he thought himself to be. He doesn't expect Childe to listen—he never does—but oh, how he hopes. He doesn't have the energy to fight, not today.
The hope is unfamiliar on his tongue, and he wonders if it's supposed to taste bitter when Childe does actually draw his hand back. Diluc hadn't even the chance to prod more, to slap his hand away, to threaten Childe despite just admitting, if only to himself, that he hadn't the energy to do so.
Childe refuses to ever be defined by expectation, though. He pulls his hand back only long enough to pinch the fingers of his right glove and slide it off his hand. He throws it down on the counter, an afterthought, before reaching for Diluc once more. Delicately, confidently, he reaches over to brush a tangle of red hair away from Diluc’s face, and it feels like the whole of Angel’s Share fades into the background. His fingers work slowly through the knot that Diluc has been ignoring all night, and his eyes stay focused on the work his fingers are doing, sharp and focused—like he’s intentionally trying to give Diluc a moment of privacy in the middle of a crowd. And, as much as Diluc has been chanting he needs to be watched over and over since the first step Childe took into his bar, in this moment, it’s all too much. He has fought too long to turn off any vulnerability, to become self-sustaining, and yet he wants this. He wants, period. That alone is unfair.
He wants this gentle touch so badly during these fragile days that he can’t even fathom how he could ever tell Childe to stop—and that’s its own blow. He can’t stay, he can’t turn away, and so he closes his eyes instead.
All that does is let him focus on the feeling of Childe’s skin against his own.
The fingers pause their work for a fraction of a second, missable to anyone who doesn’t know what Childe is capable of, but Diluc does. He doesn’t know what face he must be making, but he can feel the way his chest strains to rise and fall. The way his own breathing is forgotten in place of a calloused touch, reaching out to help him despite all of his protests and self sabotaging.
When has he last been treated so delicately? No answer jumps to the forefront of his mind, nothing clear or certain. An embrace from Jean, maybe, on the occasions where they get together for something that isn’t work. One of the nights where she asks him if he’s doing alright, and when his answer is always a repeated, “Of course.” Or perhaps one of those nights where Kaeya is the last patron in the bar—when Diluc doesn’t kick him out despite a closed sign hanging on the door; when all their pretenses of feuding drains; when Diluc gets to place a hand on Kaeya’s shoulder in a way meant to beg him to understand that he is welcome in Mondstadt. That this is his home. Diluc never misses that Kaeya lets his hand stay, that he never pushes himself away in those moments—but when did that last happen? All Diluc knows now is that he may have never fully understood Childe—that he may never do so.
“When’s the last time you slept, firefly?”
The nickname creeps its way back in. Diluc wants to snap his eyes back open, fearful that they’ve been closed for too long—that he’s lost track of just how long he’s been standing here, with his cheek pressed into Childe’s hand—but his body is fighting against him. His lids are slow to open, and every blink feels like a chance to keep them closed again. It’s a ringing endorsement for how exhausted he is; there’s a throbbing somewhere in the front of his skull, and his hand would tremble were it not now gripped around the counter’s edge. He can feel where the pain travels down his neck, where his head wants to droop for even a chance at rest. His face aches, the weight of his jaw too heavy for his mouth, and he wants to rip the pieces of himself apart just so they stop all talking at once. One moment; that’s all it takes. One moment to remind him of his humanity, his fallibility, and the sheer volume with which his body screams at him for reprieve is immobilizing.
He isn’t sure to which god it begs to; to himself, who pretends to control his own flesh and bones, or to Childe, who hears the sluggish pleading of his body and acts on it.
No one is paying them any attention. Not when the two men sharing a private moment at the end of the bar are the owner of Angel’s Share, with his intimidating presence and a gaze that can boil blood, and a member of the Fatui important enough that Diluc, with his no-bullshit policy, doesn’t kick him out. Diluc checks anyway, to be sure, and takes a deeper breath when nothing has gone horribly wrong around his establishment in the handful of moments his eyes have been closed. He wants to hold onto those moments—the precious few seconds he felt his burden shift to someone else—despite the way they made his limbs shriek and his skin wail.
In the quiet of his mind, Diluc’s previous contemplations crawl themselves out of the early grave that he had taken so much care to place them into. The contradictions are more than coincidences or oversights. Childe seems to actually be this complex—a real man, not merely a mask. The last time they met, Diluc broke Childe’s nose and siphoned precious blood from his body. Tonight, Childe had come in looking hungry, with eyes sharp as the glimmering, toothy smile of a predator. Intoxicating, promising, and deadly. Everything about him craved, like a man who’d forced himself to starve as to better enjoy the next meal he expected to have. And yet here Childe is now, demeanor certain but quiet, sitting in Diluc’s company just because he thinks Diluc needs it.
Diluc knows he looks like a disaster—of course he does. He’d seen himself in the mirror this morning. He almost hadn’t, almost cut himself a break just this once, always almost.
He had looked in the end anyway. He had to.
He has to live with himself every day.
He has to be able to look himself in the eyes, reflection be damned.
The loose ends of hair framing his face had curled wildly, the very ones Childe brushed aside for him seconds ago, away from the scorching touch of his skin. Sleepless nights were evidenced beneath his eyes like bruises—unwashable stains, the same as the rest of him. His skin seemed paler than usual, sickly so. Only his clothes were in place, something so separate from his body. He had considered moving the mirror, after that. But Childe… Childe had seen all of that and gone soft. Thought clouded his eyes—perhaps something else, too, though Diluc was damned sure it better not be pity—and waited.
How rare it is that anyone has the patience to wait for Diluc to externalize his thoughts. Diluc’s voice is dry, rough, when he finally responds. He only answers the one question. “It’s been some nights.”
Childe doesn’t look surprised at all. Diluc hates that he can’t quite read the emotions on Childe’s face; he doesn’t seem to be hiding them, but none of what Diluc thinks he sees makes any sense. Diluc lets out a stutter of a sigh instead of thinking too hard about it, letting the background noise of the bar bleed back into his focus. No new customers are wandering in at this hour, but people will be waving for refills as soon as they see Diluc step away from his current patron. He thinks this is that instance, the end of this twisting conversation, when Childe drops his hand down to Diluc’s wrist to hold him there for one more moment. “Your fire will go out if you don’t restock the kindling and let it breathe.” Diluc can feel those calluses dragging against the inside of his arm, can feel dips and rises from the scars that freckle Childe’s skin. With Childe here, touching him, Diluc isn’t sure how he’s supposed to let it breathe. He isn’t sure he’s breathing at all, actually.
He startles himself when he finally speaks. He barely says it at all, a quiet, “You’re watching it burn out,” before he rips himself away from Childe’s siren-like company at last. Childe has always had an air of wistfulness about him, though paired with his clear belief in his ability to make dreams a reality, it almost felt determined and believable. Now, with Diluc a mess before him, with Diluc’s growling and biting gone, Childe’s wistfulness comes out quieter—nostalgic.
As expected, two steps to the right and hands are in the air. Diluc’s not certain all his customers even need refills, truly. Some of them seem too drunk to realize that their pints are still three fourths full, but they startle when their routine shakes, so he refills their glasses regardless. From the corner of his eye, he can see that Childe is still watching him with a discerning gaze.
It’s dizzying, the way Childe fills space like he’s earned it. The gentle way his lashes rest against his cheek bones while he waits. How could he look so peaceful, so lovely—oh, Diluc hates the word, hates that it’s fitting if he only uses his eyes—despite everything Diluc knows him to be capable of. For every cruelty he’s tried to paint the Fatuus with, were the uniform to be set aside, Childe would be nothing if not brutally and relentlessly human.
Cups rattle to his left, and Diluc takes the empty glasses and chipped mugs back from the patrons who are done for the evening, wound up and ready to wind down. The bard’s crowd has dispersed. A stack of flyers rests on the raised table near the door, hoping to be approved and slapped onto Angel Share’s bulletin board. As stools and benches clear, those who are still standing take their spot, until nearly everyone save Diluc is seated. The remainder of the night passes in much the same mundane fashion, with wine pouring and cocktail making and Childe’s burning gaze following his every step. The weight of it is comforting, with the way it drapes itself across Diluc’s back, as heady as the drinks he’s serving.
He’s usually the one doing the watching. The reprieve, if only for a night, is welcome—even if his place is being taken by a Fatuus. This once—only this once, given the circumstance—he’ll allow it.
By the time two approaches and the tavern is nearly empty, Diluc finds his voice again. “I thought you wouldn't be coming back after last time.” He wipes down the counter with a wet cloth, eyes barely dusting over Childe’s silhouette while he speaks.
Something closer to Childe’s genuine smile lights up his face—the one Diluc has already seen so often, previous to tonight. It’s better than what Diluc has hesitantly labeled as concern forming Childe’s expressions. This look is real and blistering; Diluc wonders how he can drown in so much heat. “You know,” Childe sighs, "the more time you spend somewhere, the more joy it brings you when you return." Oh. How that slithers beneath Diluc’s skin and curls around his spine—how it makes him think of here, of Mondstadt, of Angel’s Share itself.
The thought follows Diluc for the rest of the night, all the way through Childe’s departure and through the final tasks to close the bar. He makes it all the way to the gate of Dawn Winery when he realizes that Childe knows his reputation. He knows that Diluc is who Mondstadt refers to as the Darknight Hero. He knows that though Diluc presents himself as the epitome of perfection, though Diluc necessitates it, he is merciless and zealous at his core. Surely, then, Childe has known Diluc’s name all this time, asking only for—for what? To hear Diluc say it himself?
And yet Childe hadn’t asked for his name this time. Not tonight. No, he had done nothing to rile Diluc up; in fact, he had only served as a grounding presence when needed.
The more time you spend somewhere, the more joy it brings you when you return.
He can hear Childe’s voice, following him all the way through Dawn Winery’s doors and up to his room. He can feel the burn of that gaze that had accosted him all night, and remembers hearing, once, that less than two inches of water is enough to drown in.
The anniversary of Crepus’ death comes and passes. Diluc spends the day itself alone, face buried into the palms of his hands, with all the papers on his desk shoved aside to make room for where his elbows dig into the wood.
He doesn’t imagine he’ll ever get much better at this.
The light cast through the windows stretches his shadow across the ground, warped and so unlike himself. He can’t quite recognize his own figure as himself, and for a second he swears it could be his father—but no. It could never be. Not because his father is dead, but because he will never be that man. He will never be more than a silhouette that he can’t even place himself in.
The wind in Mondstadt is strong today, and Diluc wonders if it wails alongside him, or to cover the sound of his screams.
He thinks of his brother, too, and of how much more family was lost this day several years ago than was ever necessary. He thinks of the way their many differences fail to hide that they both care too much for either of their own good. He thinks of being young, a long and promising future ahead of him, and caring only about whether or not Crepus would catch him stealing a glass of wine for his brother, too young to order his own.
For all the time he spent traveling through Snezhnaya, Diluc’s return had been nearly overwhelming, and in contrast he ruminates on how long Kaeya has called Mondstadt his home—has sworn to protect it, even if the Knights of Favonious are useless.
How joyous a return might Kaeya feel, should he ever leave Mondstadt and return once again? Would Kaeya feel more at home stepping onto the cobbled streets of Mondstadt’s center, or into the halls of Dawn Winery, the house that sheltered him and raised him?
In light of it all, or perhaps simply because it was a long time coming, Diluc contemplates how much they may have both lost, given everything.
The isolation feels no less suffocating from any of the previous years, but this time he does pen a letter addressed to his brother. He isn’t sure if it’s too last minute for dinner tonight, especially on such a date, but his weeknights will be open regardless.
If Kaeya will make time, then so will he.
It startles Diluc when he realizes later that he has, through his actions, forgiven Childe. Maybe not in words, and not in conscious thought, but he lets the Harbinger—as he knows now—back into his bar, his company, nonetheless.
“A name today? No? Naturally.”
Diluc doesn’t tell Childe that he knows his game, doesn’t mention that by admitting he knew about Diluc’s nightly prowls he has also admitted to knowing Diluc well enough to have learned his name. Childe offered Diluc a kindness that night; this is a quiet form of repayment. “You could ask around. Don’t tell me you’re too dense to have thought of that.”
Childe shakes his head and tsks. “I don’t scheme. I like my fights fair. What’s the point if I can’t see that I’ve gotten stronger? Same rules apply here.”
That’s the difference between them.
When Diluc fights, and Childe lives, Diluc doesn’t get to know if it was his strength that pushed him through, or merely his morals.
Childe has been here twice since Crepus’ passing, and this third time, he looks contemplative.
Diluc pretends he isn’t curious when Childe pulls a few letters out of his coat’s inner pocket. “Work never stops, comrade.” He looks up at Diluc through his lashes, like he knows Diluc is still pretending not to watch him, before slicing the letters open careful but quick. Diluc never fails to note just how easily hydro thrums through Childe’s very being. It’s so ingrained into his everyday life, so in tandem with its bearer, that Diluc can’t imagine a Childe without water.
The first letter immediately pulls a huff from Childe’s lips, his frown worsened by the second and turned into a sigh at the third, and Diluc understands. He knows what it’s like to spend time behind a desk, piles of paperwork surrounding him even as the sun sets behind him. Work truly does never stop. Nearly by instinct, Diluc is pulling an old fashioned glass and a shaker out from under the bar.
He doesn’t have a drink in mind, particularly. Neat whiskey is Childe’s go to now, though more often he lets Diluc pick. He figures something strong would suit Childe—it always does—but then Childe moves onto his fourth letter and stops, eyes staring longingly into the scrawl across the back, and Diluc can feel the atmosphere shift.
Childe is more tender with this one, careful to only cut the glue between the bottom flap and the seal. When he pulls this letter out, his eyes are softer, nearly alight, and Diluc forgets he ever took out a glass in the first place, too enraptured by watching this version of Childe that is so warm and so radiant.
“Tonia must have helped Tuecer send this to me.” He doesn’t look up while he speaks, eyes crinkled at the corners and glued to the single sheet of parchment. His words are directed more towards himself than anything, more soft spoken than Childe has maybe ever been, but they carry over directly to Diluc anyway. “He wouldn’t know how to address it to find me. Tonia’s always been independent and yet so selfless, though; I’m sure she was offering to help him before he even figured out that sending a letter to me was what he wanted to do.” The idea that Tuecer perhaps wanted to send a letter brings a grin to Childe’s face, more so than the fact that he’s holding that very letter in his hand. It’s clear how simple this type of love is to him—how much he adores the people he’s talking about, and how much it means to him to be thought of in the first place. “He’s very excited to update me about his life; it seems his dreams of being an adventurer have only gotten stronger since I sent him back to Snezhnaya. Had I been able to spend just a little more time with him in Liyue— Well. If only.”
Diluc allows Childe this moment of silence, a moment where he may have forgotten he wasn’t alone, but Childe doesn’t stir when Diluc speaks up. “Family?” For all the time they’ve spent together now—for all the time Diluc has been studying Childe, cataloging his movements and mannerisms somewhere in the back of his mind—he knows little of Childe’s past. He thinks Childe may have mentioned it once or twice, but that was in the midst of shattered glass and thrown fists. Diluc was hardly paying attention then, so all he can do is ask now instead.
He loosely wonders if that was a mistake, to not have asked about Childe’s family sooner, because the way Childe’s whole face comes alive at the question can only be described as breathtaking.
“My siblings! The youngest two, actually. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for them. Tuecer tried to find his way to me in Liyue, once; it was nearly a nightmare to keep him both safe and happy, but from how clear it is that he’s still thinking about his trip, I suppose I’m glad in the end.” Childe sighs then, almost dreamily, like a weight has finally been taken from his chest. “Nothing can be more important than family.”
Diluc averts his gaze, not that Childe was necessarily watching him anyway. It’s a strange twist of emotions in his stomach. Guilt still weighs on his shoulders, no matter how much time passes since Kaeya told him that he would always be forgiven, that there was no world in which he wouldn’t be. And next to those ugly, gnarled feelings, ones which seem to have taken root in the depths of his soul, are ones that should be much simpler—Diluc is overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by Childe’s capacity for tenderness, for care. By the way Childe’s love for his family drives him. By the outpour of emotion in his eyes, so deeply blue and deeply feeling that Diluc thinks he may drown. It’s hard to breathe like this, constantly standing across from a man so complex that Diluc himself, always so straightforward, doesn’t know how he feels.
He finally, finally drags his own gaze back to the glass at hand, all too aware that Childe is watching him now. He wonders how long they’ll go on doing this for, this back-and-forth battle of intrigue. They spend so much time watching each other these days, lured in by something never said, starving for those things which claw beneath each other’s surface. Diluc can’t pin down Childe anymore than Childe can seemingly pin himself down. Diluc wonders, were someone to ask Childe about him, how he would be described.
“Don’t get distracted, firefly.”
Diluc hums in acknowledgement, fully listening while he finishes what he started. The drink is mostly lemon juice and orange, mixed with equal parts liquor and a sugar syrup when not made virgin. Normally Diluc would stick to the Mondstadt brands, but a quick business trip to the Liyue port a few weeks prior had happened to lead Diluc to some Snezhnayan brands, and he wasn’t going to ask himself why he had any desire or inclination to even browse the selection, let alone make a purchase. It was Diluc himself who had decided that fire-water would be resolutely kept out of the Mondstadt alcohol industry—and yet here he was, coming up with excuses. Variety and seasonal drinks were good for business—nevermind that he wasn’t planning on particularly advertising that he finally had a few bottles of fire-water in Angel’s share.
Maybe it was simple because he knew what it was like to miss home.
Maybe, if he peeled back a few more layers, it was a form of thanks. Or because he wanted to display the bottle to Childe; always it had to do with Childe, his completely feigned indifference and his desire to see—
Something.
He didn’t know exactly what he longed to see.
(He had an idea, though. It was simply too dangerous to name.)
This is the first drink to be made with said fire-water, and also the first in which Diluc is attempting to modify his known recipes in order to recreate something he saw in his younger years, back when he was traveling in Snezhnaya. He doesn’t think of the specifics of why he was there; merely follows the steps, mixing egg whites in with the liquor and giving it a dry shake before he adds the ice, shakes it again, and pours.
He can feel Childe’s eyes on him, letter held in his hand but certainly going unread, as he adds one final garnish atop the ocean-white foam—a dark red cherry, ripe and nicked, dripping juice down the sides of the crystal glass in a way that mimics flesh a little too well. It’s the color of blood, rich where it mixes with the orange.
He slides this butchered, sour version of a Gray Valley Sunset wordlessly in Childe’s direction, resolutely ignoring the slight way Childe’s eyes widen, the simplicity of relief and appreciation clear in his features. Childe is expressive, despite the very purposeful way he carries himself. He knows when he’s allowed to be genuine, and in this moment Diluc almost fools himself into thinking there’s something tender in the way he looks at the drink Diluc has made just for him.
The way it reminds him of home.
For a second, the light that fills Childe’s eyes—whatever he sees there, it’s almost that something he had been searching for earlier. Almost, except that it doesn’t linger quite long enough to be sure.
“Ah… I do miss my motherland. Same sky and all that, but… I can only hope my siblings are strong enough to protect themselves. I wish I could be in two places at once and be teaching them, but unfortunately that isn’t in the cards, it seems.”
Diluc respects, begrudgingly, the dedication to Childe’s hometown. The loyalty. The brotherly love, even, as much as he hates to think about that one. He doesn’t know Childe’s history, or what led him to join the Fatui, but as loathe as he is to admit it, he's drawn to Childe—wants to consume him the way air feeds a fire. He has so many pieces that Diluc longs to put back together, wrapped up in an exterior Diluc thinks may be just as… unwell, as he himself is. And he finds that, more than anything, that comforts him.
He doesn’t have to be the only one barely tethered to his own body, mind rabid and reactive beneath his calm exterior.
“Diluc. Ragnvindr.”
“Hmmm?”
“Don’t call me any of those ridiculous nicknames anymore. I don’t want to hear them.” He can tell when Childe registers the actual weight of Diluc’s words because the entirety of his face lights up, which Diluc hadn’t thought was even possible considering how bright Childe had already looked with Tuecer’s letter in his hand. Yet here they are.
Childe taps his fingers against the bar as he unravels himself, lets down his legs from his perch on the stool, sits up a little straighter. The conversation doesn’t linger there, but the small revelation changes the mood for the entirety of the evening. Diluc can tell that Childe is happy.
And he's happy too, for some reason or another.
The worst of the season’s bad weather passes, and the Mondstadt winds shift from the thick, choking heaviness of an oncoming storm into something weightless, warm, and enveloping. So, too, does Diluc shift and settle into something with Childe. It isn’t calmer by any means; they still bite and push and prod at each other any chance they get, friction grounding their relationship since its birth—but now it’s lighter, untethered, like clear skies after the rain’s dark clouds depart at last.
Sunlight finally reaches their city once more, glinting off windowpanes and dappling across the forest’s wilderness. The dandelions bloom now more than ever, wisps of seeds that once clung to their stems’ center finally letting go. They drift up and away on clear streams of wind and towards new, untouched plots of grass, ready to take root and start life afresh.
The warm weather also brings Childe into Angel’s Share early. He’s talking before he even settles into his usual spot—one that is now often unoccupied on Friday evenings, all of Diluc’s patrons too aware that whenever the Harbinger does shows up, he’ll be sitting there—excitedly prattling on about his trip over to Mondstadt.
It’s all mundane things.
The familiar radiance of cor lapis in Liyue’s center square, its orange glow pale while the sun is still out and Iron Tongue Tian’s rhythmic voice dithering on soothingly in the background. Licai’s small, practiced wave and the sound of moving plates and laughter from behind the Liuli Pavilion doors. Childe mentions how he takes his dinner there often enough, but had decided to optimize his traveling time instead, electing for the quicker dining experience of the food vendors and moving carts on the sides of the bustling streets near the tip of the harbor.
It’s the fish that greet him in his first footsteps outside of the city, the teal pool of water in the small, man-made pond topped by lily pads and blooming with yellow flowers and citrusy-colored lotus heads. The rise of delicately balanced stairs turns into cobbled stone paths and tilted wooden fences, and red horned lizards acknowledge his entrance into Guili Plain. Unsuspecting fowl gather on the dusty roads. Some of them take flight, white feathers drifting to the ground in their quick ascension, and others fail to detect danger before one of Childe’s arrows finds them first.
Wildlife overtakes the fallen ruins that align on either side of the road. Arches of once-polished stone are run over by moss and dotted with red, crisp leaves and still-budding stems, the debris at their feet tucked into beds of white weeds that rock in the breeze. It’s a crane sighting, perched on one leg and staring longingly into the distance until Childe’s presence is felt. A knocked over wheelbarrow, small barrels of goods and boxes of once-treasured trinkets having long fumbled to the ground to lay beside spiked posts clearly set up by neighboring monsters. The sounds of camping hilichurls rise somewhere off in the distance, and Diluc knows he wouldn’t have needed to worry. It doesn’t matter that he’s never actually seen Childe fight.
A night spent at Wangshu Inn, with lanterns lighting Childe’s way across the bridge and into the Bishui Plain as he takes his leave in the early morning. One of their silk flowers plucked from its red bushel, the pink petals delicate but its red leaves and sturdy stem reminding Childe of someone in particular.
Childe grins when he mentions that one, leans impossibly further onto the bar and radiates unrestrained, joyful energy. His eyes squint, just a little, as his gaze flicks up and down Diluc’s person. Diluc’s expression stays completely neutral as he reaches over, pushes Childe’s elbow out from where it had supported the hand Childe rested his chin on, and laughs as he watches Childe’s forehead bang into the wooden counter.
If his heart pulses at Childe’s response—palms raised in surrender, shit-eating grin showing off too much gum and slightly misaligned rows of shiny teeth, both of them knowing full well that Childe has the reflexes to have stopped Diluc had he wanted to—then that’s Diluc’s business and his alone.
It’s the Hypermarket merchant that had called Childe’s name as he had passed, claiming to sell anything that could come to mind—and switching quickly to any essential that could come to mind when it was clear Childe’s status and wallet were far more imaginative than most travelers passing through Dihua Marsh. It’s the matsutake meat rolls that Childe receives in apology—and perhaps out of fear. A family of ferrets scampering around during hours in which they still believed they owned the marsh, before returning to their hole burrowed under the sturdy bridge that crossed the river.
Horsetails growing from the water, and the cool breeze that steadily slips in as he passes by Wuwang Hill, where the temperature becomes more moderate and less sweltering. The way Liyue’s golden leaves glaze over and turn green the deeper into Mondstadt Childe goes, down close to the waters and past shining depots of ore, some iron and other crystalized.
Golden hour falling across Childe’s shoulders, an image Diluc wishes he was present to see for himself, and the wildlife shifting into foxes and calla lilies.
Childe doesn’t mention Lupus Boreas or his freezing, stone domain, and so Diluc assumes Childe must know nothing of that particular challenge yet. For Childe’s sake, it may be best to dance around the subject. He’s sure that Childe couldn’t resist anything which would test his feats of strength and agility, but from personal experience Diluc knows that the matchup would be tilted against Childe’s favor. He would struggle to best a god of ice and wind on his own, hydro application not enough by itself and worse if it leaves him freezing over.
Diluc doesn’t acknowledge that his initial follow up thought is that his own presence could possibly change that.
Though Boreas doesn’t get his mention, Childe’s trip does, in fact, take him past Dawn Winery. Through Diluc’s orderly rows of trellises, the trunks of the vine branching off into arms and cordons. The foliage boasting plump, succulent grapes nearing ready for harvest. Childe’s description itself is full of life—fond, even—describing greenery dotted by crystalflies that would have been a deep, rich orange an hour prior in his walk, the color of polished fire opals, but who instead pulse a calm, comforting teal. The path takes Childe right past the front door, and Diluc wonders if he had still been at home in his office when Childe had passed, or if Diluc had long left for the city and Childe had come straight from Liyue to Angel’s Share instead of making his stop for business first.
As Diluc said: mundane. The conversation is steady, nearly metrical, and a stark comparison to their first extremely one-sided conversation. The moment only carries real weight in the fact that Childe feels open enough to talk about something as domestic as his day—two days, technically—and that Diluc allows him to do such.
Ruins crumble. Wildlife grows. Liyue’s weather stays warm where Mondstadt’s stays mild. Some things change while others stay the same. It’s all merely the fluidity of life.
Diluc keeps working throughout most of Childe’s rambling. He mixes drinks, clears off tables, and keeps track of tabs and payments in the little leather ledger he stores under the counter. The crowd is an average size for a Friday, neither too large nor too little, so he finds few precious moments to actually face Childe directly while they talk, but he’s satisfied to find that Childe doesn’t seem to mind. The Harbinger pauses without asking when Diluc slips out onto the floor to grab dishes or abandoned glassware, and resumes his chattering just as seamlessly when Diluc returns. “To be alive is such a beautiful thing, really.” Childe sounds like he’s talking to himself for most of it, even if Diluc does nod or hum in confirmation while listening, so he’s easy to set to the side up until he’s calling for Diluc’s attention specifically.
“Diluc,” he sings, seemingly determined to never stop using the name now that he knows it.
Clattering plates and rambunctious laughter roll in from behind Diluc. He doesn’t look up at the sound of his name, though it’s clear he heard Childe call him from the way he sighs. “What now? I’ve been listening.” Diluc’s push back is more of an automated response than anything, one that surely rings almost playful in Childe’s ears, but it isn’t forced either. He does so without thinking too hard because he likes it, feels most himself with wit on his tongue and a fire not everyone gets to see reflected in his eyes. Put simply: it’s fun. Diluc doesn’t get much of that these days. The familiarity of their conversation has become somewhat grounding at this point, too, and Diluc can’t pin when exactly that change seeped in, but he’s stopped attempting to disregard the thought when he knows it to be true.
He doesn’t want to have to think about why he excels at lying to himself. He just wants to stop doing it.
Childe doesn’t actually answer his question while these thoughts flit through his mind; just whines his name again, drawing out the vowels. Diluc can’t tell if he’s being a nuisance or attempting to treat the name like something precious. Perhaps both.
“You’re infatuated.”
“Practically.” Childe grins with unabashed joy, head tilted where it rests in his palm again. His finger taps irregularly against his cheek, and it draws Diluc’s eyes back to the fairness of Childe’s skin. He has an abundance of freckles, and the combination of those colorful specks with Childe’s unrestrained grin accentuates the youthful brilliance of his that Diluc sometimes forgets about. Titles aside, Childe is just about his age—maybe a year younger at most, he thinks. They’ve both carried far more responsibility on their shoulders than any child their age should have, and something about that lodges itself in Diluc’s throat.
It’s one more similarity that they share. He isn’t going to think any harder on that.
“Take next Friday off, Firefly.”
The direct approach catches Diluc’s attention, their conversation finally stepping outside of the meandering stroll through Childe’s day, though he’s confused by what he’s hearing. He’s not sure what Childe could want from him that would necessitate taking off; they’ve never actually met outside of this bar. It’s unspoken, foreign—unsteady ground beneath his feet. Childe should also know better than to expect a fight from Diluc; he’s denied Childe that longer than he has giving away his name. A small frown pulls down the corners of his lips at the thought, a barely perceptible change to anyone other than the attentive Harbinger at his bar. “I thought I told you that you didn’t need to call me that anymore.” It’s not the most important note in this conversation, but it’s easier to address, and for once Diluc takes the path of least resistance. He didn’t give Childe his name for nothing, especially after so many weeks of being pestered for it.
“Diluc. Next week.”
The nickname will probably crop up again anyway. Childe doesn’t waver, as is usual for him. Nor does he offer any more information on what he’s asking of Diluc, and Diluc certainly won’t be the one to drop his guard and ask for details. “I’ll be working.”
Childe laughs at him. “That’s the point of taking off. You could use a break anyway, don’t you think?”
Suspicion begins to simmer somewhere at the bottom of Diluc’s stomach, heavy and sickening, but at this point it’s no longer based in Childe’s position as Fatui. Instead he prickles at the idea of change, of their routine being dismantled, and quietly feels as if it’s the beginning of his world falling apart. He’s not sure when Childe became a foundational piece in that. “You’re acting as if you don’t know that I’m always here—every Friday—despite only ever showing up for my shifts. I don’t take off. Besides; it’s never two weeks in a row with you.”
He’s not sure why he ever expected otherwise, but Childe doesn’t let his smile drop. If anything, his expression softens looking at Diluc, and Diluc can’t figure out why. His features spell out something expectant, something of endearment, and Diluc can’t make the jump to understand where that would be coming from.
Childe sidesteps whatever unspoken question Diluc is asking, dancing around the answers he wants most. “Fine. After, then. Let’s do something.”
Something. Oh, the vagueness of that single word, and worse—the way it works how Childe so clearly wanted it to, if the devilish curl to his grin is anything to go by. He looks impish, like Diluc’s every move is proving to be just as predictable as Childe would have guessed, but his unrestrained glee is no less real. Immediately Diluc wants to be guarded, but instead finds himself curious. It would be their first time outside of the bar together, for one, and what Diluc hates most about that particular note is that, despite it all, he wants it. He wants the time together, more than the few spare hours they get every couple of weeks or months with a countertop between them.
Those hours should be enough—more than enough. They should be, and yet he somehow wants more than that. “Do you make all of your plans for the crack of dawn?”
“It’s fitting for you, isn’t it?” Childe’s grin somehow widens even further at his own joke, his cheeks round and face full of a healthy amount of color. His eyes never stray from Diluc. “It would be easier if you would agree to take the night off. It’s not a very hard request, if you ask me.” Childe shrugs at that, his posture relaxed and comfortable. He’s merely conversing, rather than trying to convince.
Diluc has to wonder how it would feel, to be under the full-force of Childe’s attention like that. Would it be warm and passionate, or would Childe’s gaze turn to ice and steel? He wonders if any of Childe’s banter—attempts to lure Diluc into a fight, the ceaseless search for his name from Diluc’s own lips—even held a candle to what the full, unrestrained experience would be like. Behind the rotation of thoughts as predictable as clockwork, Diluc admits there’s something there he wants, too. Admits what he never does, not even to himself: that he is a man with desires and needs, regardless of the guilt it makes him feel.
He should be satisfied with the hand he’s been dealt. This is what it always comes back to, this is why he doesn’t let himself admit such a thing even to his own ears. He has no time, is undeserving of wants—and yet Childe makes him question that. It’s dangerous, the way Childe picks at Diluc’s defenses, makes him question the way he’s lived nearly the entirety of his life. He sits before Diluc like a jewel, sleek and covetable and so easy to take, but with all the consequences of doing so hanging directly over his shoulders. It aches, the way Diluc can no longer ignore the simmer in his palms that wants to touch, the stirring beneath his chest—somewhere near where his heart beats—that wants to be held.
He can’t do it. “It’s about reliability. While I know that you’re unfamiliar with the concept, surely you at least recognize the word?”
More laughter. It’s nearly enviable, how free Childe is with it, yet Diluc’s desire doesn’t feel quite like greed. For all of his internal struggles, Childe doesn’t seem to care, either. Maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe he’s been aware since the start that Diluc’s existence is nothing but internal torrential storms, that his whole life has been one long rope pulled in two opposite directions. The years of wear have left the edges frayed, damaged, and the weave in the center of the rope is coming loose—falling apart, losing that very thing which makes it itself. “Regardless of whether I’m here or not, I know you don’t go to sleep at two am, Diluc Ragvindr.”
He has spent so long crafting himself into this person, whoever that is. It may not feel like it’s Diluc who looks back at him in the mirror, but it’s the Diluc that all of Mondstadt expects to see.
He can’t do it. He shouldn’t do it.
“I’ll think about it.”
Childe keeps smiling at him.
“I suppose I’ll come next week and find out, then. Counting it as a win in my book, Master Ragnvindr.”
Then Childe easily pushes himself up from his position at the counter and curves his back with an extended stretch, having perhaps gotten too comfortable here over the course of several hours of conversation. His smile is gentler with his eyes scrunched shut, though he doesn’t really seem to be tired, even after all of his travel. That awful slit in his shirt stretches open, too, further revealing the sharp, pale planes of Childe’s skin, and Diluc feels like he’s been tricked. Into what, he isn’t sure.
Being near Childe changes him. He isn’t actually sure why he allows it. He’s afraid of what it would mean, to say that it’s because he wants it to.
Childe’s laughter shakes him before those thoughts can spiral further, and Diluc realizes he’s been glaring at that peak of skin. He peels his eyes away, but the glare stays firmly on his face. Tonight didn’t go exactly how he had planned. It never really does when Childe is around. “Goodnight, Diluc.” The Harbinger is out the door soon after, jacket thrown over his shoulders instead of fastened on properly, and Diluc is convinced that he doesn’t actually know how buttons work.
There are still other patrons to attend to, noisy and drunk where they dine, but Diluc doesn’t hear any of it for a moment. His eyes linger on the Angel’s Share door, on where Childe’s silhouette has retreated for the week—maybe longer, depending on whether or not he keeps his word. Diluc runs his tongue over his teeth, eyes unfocused but thoughts sharp and furious, and tries to figure out exactly what the taste in his mouth is when he finally speaks. The response is quiet, lost under the average roar of a Friday evening at any bar. “Goodnight, Childe.”
Hope, he thinks. It might just taste like hope.
For nearly the entire week after, Diluc finds himself more distracted than usual. His thoughts drift in directions he doesn’t approve of, bounce from one idea to the next despite his internal reprimands and redirection. The once-unbreakable hold he had on his own internal dialogue has shifted, and the more he finds himself leaning into impulse, the more frustrated he becomes. Work gets done regardless, but he has standards. Most of which revolve around him throwing himself into his work beyond the bare minimum of what needs getting done, which leaves no time for…daydreaming. Wondering. He’s supposed to know his place in the world, his natural talent for running the winery proving exactly that. It’s too late to be questioning things at this point, regardless of how he felt standing before Childe. He shouldn’t have ever felt tempted. He doesn’t feel tempted now—not at all.
So much for not lying to himself.
Nothing about his off-week would be noticeable to people aside from himself, save for maybe his eldest staff if either Elzer or Adeline pay particularly close attention. Regardless, he brushes off any attempts at conversation that divert too far from the winery’s standing, and if anyone has more to say to him, they bite their tongue, perhaps for his benefit more than their own. For the most part he stays in his office, alone behind the closed door, but by the fourth day he’s itching to get outside and put his body to use.
The vines aren’t ripe yet—though it’s a near thing, with the harvest less than a season out—but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to do. If anything, this stage is the most intense aside from the harvest season itself, which means Diluc needs to truly pull himself together and focus on the vineyard, on his work—on all the things that matter, and not on where he’ll spend his Friday evening.
It’s more challenging than he expects.
His mind clouded by pale skin stained blush-pink and wide, endless blue eyes, Diluc curls his fingers tight enough that his nails would likely pierce the skin of his palms were he not wearing gloves. Anything to keep himself from touching—or more accurately from wanting to touch, even though Childe isn’t here. Just to keep his hands full—tamed—Diluc sheds as many of his heavy layers as he feels comfortable doing in exchange for clothes made from cotton and linen—far looser, far lighter, and far more breathable—and takes up a pair of pruning shears.
After a brief moment of hesitation, he returns to his room for just a moment and pulls his ever-present gloves from his hands one finger at a time. He’s hardly ever without them, but he wants to be immersed in what he’s doing. He wants to be a part of it, with no barriers between him and the land that so graciously grows his crops. They drop to the nightstand’s top with a muted thud, and then Diluc is out the door once more.
His role at Dawn Winery is more often overseeing and calculating than it is doing the labor himself, but it feels good to walk beneath the sunshine despite the rising humidity that the rain had left behind. He’s spent many hours checking the quality of the soil and the vigor of the vines already, and his gardeners have left him hardly any weeds to pull—a good thing, in terms of employment—so nearly the entirety of his Tuesday is spent focusing on the foliage. Green pruning is done regularly during this stage, removing excess vegetation to keep the clusters of grapes well-aerated and with a plethora of space to grow, but soon some healthy bunches will have to be removed to ensure a high-quality in the fruits produced. For now, though, Diluc cuts away at leaves that cover the clusters and block them from the light, tugging gently at the stems that don’t fall to the ground until they break away in his hands.
The dirt stains his skin, cakes beneath his fingernails, and dusts his clothes. He can’t ever fully quiet the rush of thoughts in his head, even outdoors and occupied, but the thought that runs tangent in the back of his mind is that he feels human this way. The hard work doesn’t wash away any of the scars he so often hides, but it doesn’t make him feel dirty aside from in the obvious ways. Here he is connected to something—worth something. He feels real. The vineyard does not maintain itself, and he’s proof of that, kneeling in the trenches and wrestling to structure nature into something more man-made despite its every strain to break free simply because it can. Anything to not be controlled; to not be what’s expected of it.
It reminds him of someone for certain, but acknowledging so would defeat the purpose of losing himself in manual labor, so he strains against his nature in the same way the vines do and attempts to forget. Between the two, the vines seem to reach far more levels of success in their rebellion than Diluc does.
By the time Tuesday ends, Wednesday passes, and Thursday rolls over into Friday, Diluc is still thinking about it all. Still wondering what Childe has planned, despite any attempt to forget. The sick feeling in his stomach gives way to something else against his better judgment—excitement.
It eats at him like nothing else.
He rises early every morning regardless of how many hours he has spent sleeping or lying awake, too in-tune with the sun to lumber through the first hints of dawn. He doesn’t bother keeping curtains on his window anymore; prefers it without, actually. He hates the idea of shutting himself away and forsaking his precious days by accident, barred from the rest of the world by the flimsy barrier of a single sheet of fabric. It’s all mind games, as everything else with him is.
The sun drapes itself across his skin, warmer than any blanket, and Diluc wonders how many sunrises he has overlooked as an omen, a sign of comfort to come. There will always be another first light, regardless of how pitch black the night before is. No power in the world can stop that, can change the way the very structure and foundation of nature exists. Time is unchanging in that way. The invariable nature of it all comforts him; there is simplicity in the truth.
He did sleep very little the night before—haunted by vulnerability and the simplicity in his own truths—and yet Diluc knows this morning will be like every other. Laying in bed and wishing for more sleep to come will change nothing. He pushes himself up from where he laid all night, propped against a single pillow on either side, hair untied and jewel-toned in the light. With a thin sheet still draped over his legs, trapped by the rich cherry-red wooden posters of his bed, he feels like a piece of fine jewelry placed into a beautiful, lonely box, waiting to be presented. Adorned. It’s more exposed than he ever likes to be, which is to say he hates to feel exposed at all, but nothing will make tonight come faster. In the meantime this feeling will linger: golden, prestigious, and a symbol of status waiting to be plucked and put to work, however meaningless that work is. That’s the way his thinking always goes, tumbles over itself in repetitive motions, paths of thinking worn down by the same dreary, mechanical trails of thought. It always comes back to this—to viewing himself as an object—and he wonders if Childe feels similarly with his smile sharp enough to be deadly and a disposition made for killing.
Diluc has felt that way. Still does on bad days, lingering remnants from long before his image had shifted into that of a piece of jewelry, pretty but useless.
He had been a weapon, once.
But his excitement doesn’t wane in the presence of his self-doubt. Instead it simmers in his gut, waiting for its chance to be brought to boil, and Diluc wearily eyes the door to his closet.
Being an early riser also means that he has too much time to reflect on his appearance.
Everything is over-thought when it comes to Diluc, even that which he has confidence in. Some people already pawn over him for his looks alone despite his brusque manner; he isn’t enough of a fool to have missed that. After all, his eyes work. The key detail is that few attempts ever get far; Diluc always tries to be a gentleman to everyone—some deserving exceptions aside—but that doesn’t mean he has the patience to socially dance around forever.
But Childe is trying to dance with him anyway. Diluc has felt Childe’s gaze on his skin, hungry no matter how long Diluc seems intent on starving him. If anything, the Harbinger seems to feel challenged by Diluc’s distance, as if he wants to extend a hand in Diluc’s direction despite the bared teeth or the deliberate evasion. As if Childe could pry the Master Ragvindr from his seat and shuffle him to the floor, draw Diluc out from the crowd. What’s more, Diluc admits that at some point the dance had become…entertaining. Enjoyable, even. They haven’t quite made it to the floor of the ballroom, but Childe had allowed Diluc to instead lead him down metaphorical hallways, around imagined corners, and beyond doors that Diluc had believed would stay closed forever.
Childe had followed easily the entire time, laughter trailing down the empty halls while others who had long been in line instead waited back in the ballroom.
For a moment, Diluc sees in this vision a balcony before them, with tall glass doors and sheer curtains drawn to the side. He thinks of the beginning, of their first meeting, when he had described his exchanges with Childe as a dance he couldn’t help but partake in. He thinks of how far they’ve come to be here now, seeking out a private corner just for themselves, a piece of solitude away from the world’s expectant eyes. He wonders if there, against cold stone and crawling ivy, they could actually dance. Away from others, away from any music lest they decide to hum their own, but dancing nonetheless.
The image of his hand on Childe’s slender waist, slipping through that open slit in his jacket, and laying his palm against warm, soft skin. He wonders if Childe has more scars; he may be a good fighter now, but has he always been?
Light pours into his actual bedroom by this point, time slipping away too easily amidst the haze of daydreams, and Diluc sighs. It’s a lot to think about. Some part of him still wills him to fight against himself, to thrash against restraints of his own making while claiming that Childe is a traitor, not to his motherland, but to humanity. He fights against innocence and freedom, an opposer of Mondstadt morals regardless of what diplomats the current political environment allows, and while Diluc and Childe had both killed, Diluc mostly feels heavy at the thought, whereas the Childe he knows seems to only grow lighter by it.
And yet Diluc hadn’t managed to sever this growing attachment regardless. He had cradled the spark like a flame, shielded from the brisk winds of the outside worlds by the makeshift walls of his hands, and kept it alive until he could transfer it to a stack of kindling that would allow it to anchor into something safe, to grow into a brighter blaze. It would be useless to pretend otherwise at this point; though the guilt still lingers around Diluc’s throat, his head swirls with thoughts of Childe, enchanted and eager. He wants to see him again tonight; he wants to know what they’d become outside of their script in Angel’s Share, as terrifying as it is. He simply wants. It is not an ache he often lets himself be familiar with, least of all outside of the realm of punishment and self-flagellation.
He may not have the words to describe what Childe means to him, but Childe is present in his life now. Childe is here, and Diluc… is no longer trying to change that. In the quiet recess of his mind, in a voice gentler than that which he would use to talk to a frightened child, he can admit that he likes that role being filled. He likes having someone who enjoys his company, and who he in return is excited to see. He likes that to Childe, he is no-one and nothing other than Diluc. He likes the way their relationship has formed around an unpredictable nature; where the sun always rises, and that comforts Diluc, Childe comes and goes as he pleases and with no warning whatsoever, and that excites Diluc.
It’s different. Horrifying, addictingly different. Diluc doesn’t know what to do with all of these restless feelings, stirring within his chest with no means of escaping their encasement, but he can string together the thought that he wants to look somewhat more put together for night at the very least. Just in case.
And he won’t be thinking of the why any longer if he can help it. It’s already a strain on his overly-guarded heart.
He pushes himself out of bed at last and looks at himself in the mirror hanging above the set of drawers that hold his belongings. Gold flakes from its wooden frame, touched by time and use in the way that all things are, but both pieces of furniture are sturdy—an attribute that Diluc feels jealous of at this moment. No matter how similar the face in the mirror is, he feels fundamentally different now, different from the man he was upon his return to Mondstadt and even more so from the man who left Mondstadt in the first place.
He feels sluggish, as if long, languid movements can keep his thoughts from racing far ahead of his body as they so often do. As if getting ready this morning in particular could be something closer to that of a ritual, cherished and sacred.
As if he himself is something worth savoring, worth treating with delicacy. The tenderness in his fingertips is so foreign that his hands shake, uncovered and bare.
The dresser he readies himself at every morning is already set for the day despite the sun only beginning its ascension moments ago. It can’t be quite six, not yet, but Adeline often wakes as early as he does. Perhaps earlier, given the pitcher of fresh water—still chilled—and the cleaned basin set atop the dresser. He hadn’t lingered in bed that long. That Adeline manages this routine while still sleeping enough herself, whereas he does not, is one feat upon many that impresses Diluc even after all this time. With Diluc as light and restless a sleeper as he is, she’s mastered such a quiet step that the other servants—and Diluc himself, despite years of stealth survival missions and combat training—have yet to match.
The pitcher isn’t ornately decorated like most of the furnishings downstairs; it’s made of clay, glazed and fired, with lines painted in low-hanging swoops and quick strokes all in one solid, unified shade of blue. Crafted for use, elegant in its simplicity, and reliable. Nothing like the fine plates and teapots in the cabinet downstairs that are only taken off display once or twice a year.
It’s become a staple in Diluc’s routine. He enjoys those, the familiarity of it all. His life had already been dramatically altered more than he thought he’d ever withstand; how odd to now be using these common objects that so often grounded him from said alterations to invite in more change. How far would the invitation extend?
He pours the water into the basin and watches his reflection appear; he can see himself twice now, between the water and the mirror. The small ripples dissipate until the water stills, and Diluc blinks at the version of himself he sees inside the bowl.
Even to his own eyes, his expression looks unreadable. Bound by such a strong need to be this particular version of Crepus’ son, dutiful and obedient in ways he’s never been before, he’s nearly convinced himself that this is who he is. Diluc Ragvindr, Master of the Dawn Winery, married to his work and content to live out the rest of his days that way. His mind is made for business and strategy, that much isn’t a lie, but he pretends that this is enough to content him. That throwing himself into paperwork and meetings with such fervor is the same as how hard he once pushed himself in order to become the Knights’ youngest captain, that it’s just as intense. That he doesn’t miss his blade; that he could quit being the Dark Knight Hero at any point in time should he have to, and that he would mourn its loss only out of a sense of duty and loyalty to the city of Mondstadt.
Diluc Ragvindr does not yearn, least of all for more out of life when his own is already so prosperous.
If he looks at his reflection closely, though, there’s a light in his eyes that reflects differently from most mornings. It’s different. It’s him.
He doesn’t know if he likes it. He doesn’t know if he’s allowed to like it.
He doesn’t know who’s making these rules, either. He just knows that every fiber of his body, from bone to muscle to nerve, screams out for him to follow them.
He dips his hands into the basin of water, banishing at least one of the two reflections haunting him, and cups them together to lower his face into. A cloth would work, would surely be softer than his calloused hands, but would also perhaps be too kind. He’ll save the folded piece of fabric for drying off when he’s done. He needs to wake up from whatever daze he’s been walking in, and yet the only thing he does when he lifts his face from his hands is to look back at himself in the mirror, where drops of water cling to his low hanging bangs and trail down his cheeks. The thoughts of Childe don’t vanish. Clouds of black curl under his eyes, tired lines evident, but in a way he believes could make his eyes look more striking to the right audience. He knows what others see in him: the cut of his shoulders, the intensity in his gaze, the strength in his hands. Childe would perhaps appreciate that last one the most, and Diluc can hardly stop himself from thinking about it anymore as he finishes scrubbing at his skin, reaching blindly for the cloth to towel off.
The clothes are easy, far easier than having to face himself in the mirror. He often wears the same outfits to bartend as he does to work at the winery, but he has clothes meant for the job specifically. A long-sleeved black shirt, a simple black tie. The white vest he pulls across his chest cinches in the back, pulled tightly against his skin by a lacing of cord.
He usually pairs this attire with a set of black gloves, different from the red-palmed pair he wears most days—a set free of sin. Something stirs in his chest at the thought. If he were really going to dress up, to present himself as a more truthful version of who he is, then his scars are included. All of them.
He doesn’t want to completely abandon them, though. He’ll tuck them in a back pocket as a failsafe for if he changes his mind.
For if Childe pushes him past his limits and makes him angry, really. It’s happened before.
This is usually where Diluc would stop, but if his hands are going to be on display… Childe seems to like them. There’s no reason he shouldn’t draw more attention to them, easily done with a couple of silver rings that stand out when pressed up against the pink coils in his skin. From the same jewelry box—unfortunately more ostentatious than the water pitcher, and certainly not bought of his own violation—he withdraws a pair of pearl earrings. They’re small, more delicate than anything he would usually wear, but the brilliance of their white shine matches the vest.
He thinks about finding a comb to tame his hair into obedience after a night of tossing and turning, but the gentle curls seem sweet, and he truthfully feels their untamed nature mirrors how he feels in this moment. Instead of combing out the waves first, he leaves his hair tousled and otherwise makes to put it up as usual, only tied slightly higher to expose more neck. A thin black ribbon holds the hair in place, the long length of excess hanging down limply where it rests against the red of his hair.
It’s more thought put towards simply getting ready than he’s had to exercise in any number of years, some formal business conventions aside. He isn’t sure yet if he feels foolish for going to all the trouble, but he admits he understands the stares he gets in town more so when he looks the way he does now. If he allows his eyes to drift back towards the mirror, to sweep across his silhouette and linger on his skin, it’s almost pretty. The reflection, that is. That said reflection is his own body—not a separate entity or something he can distance himself from—is much harder to grasp, but having spent enough time breaking his routine already, he decides that it simply is good enough—foolish or not—and that there’s work to be done before he can make his way to Angel’s Share for the evening.
By the time evening has comfortably settled in, the sky above Mondstadt’s city is a dark, milky blue, split open by peals of hazy turquoise and blossoms of opalescent stars. The city itself is dappled by the orange glow of candle lit windows, and amidst it all Angel's Share is as lively as ever. The dry weather draws in a crowd. Shoulders press together where too many bodies try to squeeze onto one bench, and patrons only half-seated on the stools closest to the bartop get comfortable with being jostled as drunkards push closer for their refill. All five hooks on the coat rack behind José’s usual spot are taken, some by more than one jacket, and the layers that don’t fit on a hook are thrown atop the low dresser standing on the other side of the door in a completely disarrayed heap.
Despite the liveliness, none of the orders coming in are particularly challenging. The amount of crowding and noise is, ultimately, rather par for the course now that the rainy season has passed and the weather has warmed up. Diluc is beyond accustomed to it; in contrast to certain previous years of his, or merely to his current extra-curricular activities, this is banal at best.
And it’s particularly boring given the lack of expected company.
Most nights Diluc is content to keep himself busy, relaxing into the easy facade of Angel’s Share’s best bartender. He’s too competent for this type of work to completely quiet the storm of thoughts in his head, but most nights it’s enough to split the effort and let something like relief work itself across his skin like a soothing balm.
Tonight, in contrast, his thoughts are racing ahead twice as fast.
He can feel the way he holds his breath in anticipation every time the door opens, unable to keep his eyes from flickering over just to check. As the night dwindles on, he convinces himself to go longer and longer without looking, but he always gives in regardless. It would be bad for business were he to not greet the incoming patrons, he reasons. The silhouettes are never quite right regardless, never lanky limbs and ginger hair dressed up in grays and reds. At least, that’s what Diluc would assume to see Childe in, not expecting to receive any special treatment from a Harbinger—well. No, that’s not quite right. Not expecting to receive any special treatment from Childe. From someone whom he may actually want special treatment from. The sheer fact that he desires it implicitly makes it in his mind that he cannot have it; the two concepts create friction in his head where they fight against one another, unable to co-exist. Still, it doesn’t seem to matter. Said Harbinger isn’t present, and the dull repetitions of a job he could do blind are hardly enough to satiate him tonight. He feels pent up; he feels hungry. Is this what Childe meant?
It's almost a comfort when, an hour after the evening picks up, Kaeya strolls in and settles into his usual seat. Anything to ground Diluc in familiarity. It was better when I never knew to expect Childe, he thinks. The act of waiting is near unbearable. He finds that anticipation settles heavily in his chest, dressed up as something closer to worry. It's a distraction; Diluc hates distractions.
"Well, don't you look dolled up."
Kaeya wrests his chin on his palm, and Diluc doesn't justify him with an answer. There’s nothing to be said for it, anyway. He is dolled up; the tips for the night are also noticeably—suspiciously—more decent than usual. As foolish as Diluc knew he’d end up feeling when he had gotten dressed this morning, it had been nice momentarily. That sliver of hope had anchored itself to him, unable to be shaken. Now he merely feels like his list of regrets has grown.
He doesn’t give Kaeya the courtesy of ordering; if he wanted something other than a Death After Noon, he shouldn’t have settled so comfortably into a routine. He knows how much Diluc avoids change these days.
It must communicate to Kaeya what Diluc is unable to say as well, because his brother is uncharacteristically quiet. Usually Diluc would press him for answers when that happens, certain the silence could only mean something bad is coming Diluc’s way, but tonight there’s something like understanding and worry in Kaeya’s gaze. Diluc might hate that more than the barbs and witty one-liners.
“Here.” He slides the mix over, determined to keep his eyes on Kaeya instead of glancing around the room one more useless time. He achieves this, but Kaeya must see something there in his expression, because then he, too, is looking around the room.
“Dare I ask?”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
They don’t often bear their souls to one another, but the perks of being raised together is that they rarely have to in order to understand one another. Their communication is efficient and effective, so long as they aren’t arguing, and Diluc appreciates not having to try and translate the mess of thoughts in his head into something coherent or cohesive.
Kaeya seems to have figured everything out on his own regardless. It occurs to Diluc nearly two hours in that Kaeya and Childe are acquainted, though he doesn’t know how closely so, and that Kaeya could have more information than he lets on. Both of them have always been good at keeping their cards close to their chest, after all, Kaeya even more so. That said, Diluc doesn’t press. In part, he tells himself that he doesn’t want to know. It can’t make anything better—only worse, really.
And on top of that, Kaeya is being particularly lenient tonight. He keeps the brotherly-due-diligence of mocking Diluc to a low, casual minimum, just enough to not make Diluc worry. His own gaze makes rounds around Angel’s Share semi-frequently, but any time Diluc’s own eyes start to glare holes into the door, Kaeya is there snagging his attention back. There isn’t much his brother does without purpose, but this is kind in a way Diluc wasn’t expecting.
It almost lets him forget about the disappointment he convinced himself he wouldn’t feel. It seems unfair of him, to be discouraged like this when he had purposefully reduced his expectations, but here he is regardless.
The rest of the evening passes by just like that. Kaeya still needs to be corralled out the door, far too close to offering to actually help Diluc close and clean, as if that wouldn’t light all of his nerves on fire too. He wants to be alone. He needs to be alone.
He can’t really call it time to collect his thoughts. He’s done nothing other than overthink this entire night. More so it’s time to force his body into the same rhythmic motions of closing his bar that he performs every week, so used to it that he can take three steps back in his mind and still function above average. Collect glassware, clear the tables, wipe everything down. Routine. There’s nothing here to distract him, and where his thoughts attempt to use that opportunity to wash over him, he instead lets his eyes glaze over and his muscle memory to lead him through the rest of the night. He was seemingly correct when he said that it's never been two weeks in a row with Childe. By the time all of his tasks are finished, Diluc doesn’t know what time it actually is, just knows that it’s late enough for a chill to have settled over the streets despite this time of year always being warm.
It’s a good excuse for him to layer up before walking home. He ends the night with the black gloves back across his skin, grateful he kept them close after all, and feels like this is the way things are supposed to be.
The thought stretches itself across his dreams, lingers in the back of his mind. Some lessons are meant to be learned this way. There are simply those who are never meant to want, and Diluc is one of those people. He has had his role carved out for him since his own conception, and no one else is meant to be part of it. This is his life, this is who he is meant to be, and the only part of this that is sad is that Diluc continues to need to be taught this lesson over and over again.
He should know better.
The weather dampens once more, dry heat shifting into small patches of rain that are hard to predict. Glimmering sconces ward off the dreary gray of returning downpours, yet Angel’s Share is still quiet for a Friday night. Jack is at his table complaining about the taste of beer with Cyrus hunkered down across from him, José is quietly scribbling down lyrics instead of signing, and there are no Harbingers in sight. Diluc would maybe describe himself as bored, listless even, were his other biggest nuisance not seated at the bar nursing his third glass of wine much slower than the first two.
“Seems you’ve really overdone it this time, Diluc.”
Kaeya has always been a regular at Angel’s Share, content to spend his nights bothering his brother by any means possible, but his presence certainly became significantly more noticeable since watching Diluc set himself up for failure.
“I hope you don’t plan on elaborating.”
“You look dreadful, really.”
A slow weekend is still a weekend, meaning there’s plenty to restock as a means of keeping himself busy. Diluc can’t stray far, but he can at least give himself momentary relief with a trip into the back room for a new keg. He could easily carry two barrels up front at once, but bringing them out one at a time takes longer.
Kaeya knows it, too. “Well?”
“Your opinion is unsolicited.”
“Clearly you haven’t talked about it with anyone else. I’ve waited to be sure despite knowing it to be true the entire time.”
“Your ability to be vague no matter what the conversation is about continues to astound and infuriate me to no end.” The barrels Diluc brings out are made of oak, a durable wood with a straight grain. He slides them in the fitted space under the right-hand counter, beneath the kegs that are currently tapped. He doesn’t need to replace either of the three currently being served—just the back up barrels—so he has no need to fit these ones with a stopcock just yet, but he does so anyway to ensure they’ll be ready when his current kegs run out completely. It’s efficient if unnecessary, especially given the size of his patronage tonight, but acts as a means to an end—avoiding Kaeya’s questions. Diluc doesn’t offer any answers, doesn’t say anything that may encourage the conversation to continue, despite knowing already that Kaeya will continue it on his own regardless of Diluc’s poor attempts to dodge.
“You’re gloomier than usual, Diluc. How many weeks has it been since our Fatui friend has paid you a visit?”
“I don’t know if I’m more offended that you’ve just called a Fatui friend, or that you presume I’ve kept track of his time in Mondstadt.”
“Look me in the eye, then, and tell me you haven’t.”
Diluc doesn’t respond. It’s been something near nine weeks, the longest stretch of time between visits save for maybe the first and second. If anything, the fact that he cares only serves to annoy him more, something Kaeya seemingly refuses to allow him to forget. The fact that he has, in slow moments, wondered what the implication of never seeing Childe again would do to him infuriates him further. Would it be better if Childe’s absence had meant he was done with Diluc, bored of his little play thing, or simply dead?
Diluc hates that he doesn’t immediately answer with the latter.
The sigh that Kaeya lets out is nearly wistful. “My, my. You really are a lost cause sometimes. I know you’ve been spending more and more time in a world of your own lately, but you can’t stay in your head forever. Stop being stubborn and talk about it.”
Kegs in place, Diluc has nothing to keep his hands occupied any longer. Instead he places them down on the counter in front of Kaeya, no longer pretending to be completely consumed by his work, and leans in to speak in a low, threatening tone. “What difference would it have made, Kaeya? I was here, and he wasn’t. Archons, let it go.”
The silence that follows is loud. The other patrons continue on unaware of the two, staring at each other with nothing more to say. When Kaeya seems like he’s not going to say anything more at last, Diluc pulls himself back from where he’d been leaning over the bar and brushes off the sleeves of his heavy coat, eyes lingering on where his black and red gloves cover his hands. His palms would always be stained red like this; no one could help him.
And yet he can’t stop thinking of how for just a moment there, gaze burning into Diluc’s skin, Kaeya—king of masks, tricks, and underhanded intelligence—hadn’t been able to conceal a look in his eye that could be described as no word other than sad.
The longer Childe is gone, the more Diluc becomes frustrated. There’s no reasonable way for him to know if Childe had been injured, and worse is the idea that Childe, perfectly happy and healthy, had merely been playing Diluc for gratification simply because he could. Either way Childe doesn’t come the week after Diluc’s conversation with Kaeya, nor the next, and what annoys him the most is that he’s so bothered by the situation. He can pick from a plethora of reasons: the Fatui have gotten one over on him again, a Harbinger is out there doing whatever he pleases with no one to keep an eye on him, or simply that Diluc had allowed himself to hope and instead had swallowed down the bitter taste of disappointment. Any answer could be true. He’s full of unrest when he tells Charles, apologetically, that he will be taking a temporary break from bartending at Angel’s Share. It pains him to do so when the routine has been so grounding for him up until this point, but he needs a chance to go unravel himself and use up some of this irritated energy. He’s not sure if Charles is simply grateful for as many days off as he’s gotten, or if he can see the evidence of how unwell Diluc currently feels in contrast to his usual state of mind, because Charles doesn’t press. It’s not often that Diluc willingly gives up work, after all.
And he doesn’t want to be in Angel’s Share right now regardless. Without Childe around, Diluc becomes more aware that no matter how much he loves Mondstadt, endlessly bountiful and rich—he feels distant from the people here as of late. Most of his patrons talk to him in passing, from the other side of the bar like they belong there. They aren’t friends; they aren’t family in the way Diluc thought they were, united under Mondstadt’s blue skies.
Rosaria rarely drops in and speaks to him even less when she’s there. Jean never makes it to Angel’s Share; they only meet for business. Kaeya engages with him, and it’s similar, but it’s not exact. Kaeya has grudges, they have history, and when it leads to steam they always walk away—which is for the best. No one else sees Diluc’s worst and likes it. No one else enjoys riling him up and losing.
No one else makes him want to try so hard to win.
It all makes him feel so recklessly pent up and useless.
For the most part, the hills outside of Mondstadt have been quieter than usual. Diluc certainly doesn’t credit that to the Knights of Favonious, but if he were to do so, then it would come at the price of scrutiny and the need to double check their work. So he does.
This is how he begins spending his Friday evenings instead. He spends the little extra time throwing himself into his work first, followed by longer expeditions at night. He can travel further now, can strike at danger before it’s close enough to the city walls that it proves a threat. Several of the camps that are close to town are shortly staffed and easy to wipe out, but the tougher ones sit off in the distance steadily overlooking their work. Those become his own goal.
Tonight’s goal takes him past Springvale, up the path that heads towards Dadaupa Gorge. There are two lone pairs of hilichurls along the way, but not much else.
He’s feeling impulsive—alive. Alighted by anger, though at what he can’t place. Everything, perhaps. The Knights for being bad at their job. Childe for toying with him. Himself, for falling for it, despite all the numerous warnings he gave himself—had begged himself to listen to.
That last one plays on loop in his head as he fights.
He pushes past their offensive units to take the archers out first, careful to dodge the larger hilichurls as he does so. He doesn’t have a shield to protect him, and he needs to rely on close quarters combat for this fight. Letting the enemy hold onto a ranged unit would immediately put him at a disadvantage.
The first archer is dispatched easily enough, standing alone in the very back of the camp. The other hilichurls haven’t even fully turned around by the time the corpse hits the ground. The second archer is perched atop a shoddily built watchtower, one with crooked wooden planks nailed together and secured by tangled ropes. Red tarp wraps the bottom, emblazoned with crude yellow suns in slanted penmanship. It’s a far cry better than the surrounding fences—the wooden boards warped, sticking out of the ground at odd angles, and placed so far apart that they leave large gaps in the monster’s defenses—and yet Diluc can’t call it anything other than pitiful. It isn’t as if the watchtower had allowed them to see Diluc in time to prepare defenses, or even to attack first in an attempt to gain the upper hand. Instead the tower only serves to slow Diluc down a few seconds as he raises his claymore back in a large arc, preparing an overhead slash to crash through its side. It isn’t an active thought to encase his blade in flames this early in the fight, but a nearly-black smog of red flame curls from the metal’s edges regardless as the blade chops through a panel of wooden slats holding up the watch tower’s left side. Diluc’s vision reacts to his thoughts, to his feelings, as a part of him as any other piece of his flesh; his fire has always been in tandem with his soul, and controlling it is only as possible as controlling his own thoughts.
The flames catch quickly, flickering up and spreading across the splintered board, already weakening the rest of the crude structure. The claymore digs heavily into the dirt where the attack lands, and Diluc tugs the blade free to heft it back for a second time, using the centrifugal force of his turn to increase his power as he swings it fully around and into the tower’s side once more. A loud crack fills the air, and the hilichurl archer that had been attempting to gain a vantage point to fire at Diluc instead tumbles over the side, landing right at his feet. It doesn’t even get the chance to stand back up, the tip of Diluc’s claymore letting gravity pull it down through its neck.
Two hilichurls with clubs approach him as the archer’s blood seeps into the ground, both of them much smaller and much faster than the mitachurl that trails behind them. If they were smart, they would wait, but they never do. Instead they throw themselves at Diluc with neither thought nor coordination in their attacks, and he brings them down quicker than the archers, distributing the heavy weight of his claymore equally across his shoulders as he pulls back for a heavy-hitting initial attack and a barrage of follow-up swings.
Both bodies drop at near the same time. Fire is already crackling and popping beneath Diluc’s feet, turning the grass ashen as it spreads, when the biggest enemy finally approaches. It takes a large, wound-up swing with its axe, and Diluc drags up his claymore to block using the flat back of the blade. As the mitachurl’s axe ricochets off of the ricasso, Diluc utilizes the moment of knockback to find an opening, raising Wolf’s Gravestone back before launching forward to sink it directly between the meat of the mitachurl’s neck and shoulder.
Blood bubbles and pours down the mitachurl’s chest, matting its fur as it falls to its knees with a heavy, resounding thud—still big enough to stand taller than Diluc while on its knees. Still big enough to obscure the cryo abyss mage hiding above on the watchtower, teleporting from its perch and into Diluc’s blind spot.
He hears its laughter only a moment before three shards of ice, sharp and crisp, cut across his back. The wounds are shallow, but he can feel the frost spread over his skin as he stumbles forward, catching himself on the hilt of his weapon before he falls. The claymore still sticks out from where Diluc lodged it, plunged deep into the meaty muscle of the now-dead beast, and he leans against it for support as the shock fades.
How did he not notice?
The answer lingers in the depths of his mind. He’s been pushing himself for days now, running on adrenaline and impulse. It isn’t like him; he’s prone to overthinking, to spending too much time in his head. Contingency planning is his forte. Recently, however, he’s been pushing his body beyond its limits, between long days at work and longer nights finding his own justice. He used to take more breaks in between nightly excursions, but these weeks he finds himself having hardly touched his own bed, spending nearly the entirety of each night out and returning to his office in the morning.
It’s unsustainable. Diluc knows this, of course he knows this—but he can’t stop. The ache in his muscles grounds him, the light wooziness that drapes across his thoughts distracts him. Anything to keep himself from thinking, anything for a mere moment of reprieve from the relentless nature of his own mind. Pushing himself to be useful; that’s his only goal. Be useful, fulfill his role, and bury useless thoughts of desire deep into the ground. Neglecting himself makes existing easier, if only sometimes.
It also leaves too much room for mistakes.
Now Diluc fights against closing his eyes, against freezing, even as pain blooms across his skin and his vision begins to tilt. The flames that had caught in the grass flicker in his peripherals, untamed and spreading faster now. There’s no time to admonish himself for being caught off guard, the consequence of his reckless abandon; the shame will have to come later. He can’t pause, not with his back facing an enemy he hadn’t accounted for and an unnatural chill seeping into his bones. He has to retrieve his weapon and fight, and as is—with his blade still encased in the flesh of the giant mitachurl—the only way to do that is to leave himself open for another few seconds. Careless. As his only option, he tightens his grip on the hilt and hauls his claymore out of the mitachurl’s carcass, blood glimmering across its edge and dripping back into the open wound of the monster.
Another two shards hit him in the time it takes to free his weapon, though these two don’t simply slice: they lodge themselves into the flesh of his side, deep and excruciatingly painful. He’s sure he’s made some sort of pained noise in the process, but they’re rather far from Springvale still; no one is going to hear. At the very least, he assumes that nothing vital has been hit, given that a punctured kidney would probably kill him quickly, but jostling the shards while still embedded in his torso risks forcing them deeper. That said, he doesn’t have time to pull the shards out and stop an increased blood flow—not while this abyss mage still lives.
It’s an easy choice, ultimately.
A flare of pain alights every nerve on his side as he tightens his grip on the claymore’s hilt and raises it once again. It spreads like the familiar touch of a burn despite Diluc knowing that the only flames nearby are his own, underfoot and non-threatening at the moment. Had he been carrying a lighter weapon, this may not have been so painful, but the heavy weight of Wolf’s Gravestone feels comfortable in his palms even through the waves of pain.
Thank the Archons that this mage is cryo. Had it been anything else, this bad situation could have been even worse. As it is, Diluc at the very least knows how to handle this one-on-one fight. The mage’s only advantage now that the surprise is gone is its agility; it relies on distance to attack, and if Diluc can close that gap, its cryo shield won’t last, leaving the abyss mage completely vulnerable. All he needs is to land one singular, flame encased hit.
Grinding his teeth at the searing pain as he stretches, he twists his torso to set himself up for a heavy elemental attack. His swing sets the field they stand in ablaze once more, spreading the flames further than his reach. It’s all to even the playing field, cutting off points of escape and surrounding themselves in flames. Instead of attempting to teleport the opposite direction and maintain distance, the mage moves towards Diluc, seemingly trying to keep itself close to its target. Diluc isn’t sure if the mage’s range is particularly small, or if the creature is too blinded by bloodlust to recognize the flaw in its plan, but Diluc knows that if he can continue to pull this abyss mage close and then press into it, the fight is his.
There’s no other option, really. The fight has to be his.
More shards of ice go flying by, trails of frost following behind. Diluc side-steps these ones now that he can see the attack beforehand. The abyss mage pulls its power from an external source, and reading its attack pattern is even easier than reading an enemy’s body language mid-fight. The mage twirls its wand overhead in a repetitive motion any time it strikes, a tell easy enough to take advantage of. Diluc’s breathing is labored as he watches and dodges, each breath rattling in his chest as he pushes one foot in front of another, forcing himself to ignore the pain.
The mage makes a dramatic twirl within the confines of its shield before it raises its wand once more, conjuring more ice from nowhere: large, pointed chunks raised high in the air so that the force of gravity can drive them into the ground like a spike, heavy and fast enough to spear through just about anyone. Recognizing the type of attack, Diluc sprints forward, pressing closer to the mage in another attempt to close their distance, and the oversized icicles glimmer in the moonlight as they crash into the ground behind him and shatter.
It only takes two swings of his claymore to break through the mages shield, fire trailing behind each arc with a wild, near manic energy. His vision glows as if it’s alive, the thrum of pyro weaving itself through his skin and coming at the call of his desires, conscious or otherwise. The flames caught in the grass blaze higher, and the ice cracks all at once, melting away.
The abyss mage falls from its invisible perch in the air, stumbling onto the ground. Diluc has all but won already, but he feels another throb in his side and stumbles, falling to one knee as a cough rips itself from his throat. One hand keeps its grip on Wolf’s Gravestone, but the other lets go on instinct to cover his face. He doesn’t bother checking his palm afterwards; he doesn’t need to. The cough is wet and painful, like something is tearing itself out of his throat. He knows his already-red gloves are now covered in his own blood.
The mage is quicker to recover than he is, though it's just as much on the defensive as Diluc is at this moment. Were he not to have broken its shield before he had faltered from pain, he would have been dead. There’s no other way to look at it.
The mage barely moves away before it begins to dance in a field of weaving ice, shards swirling circles around the mage as it attempts to turn the area hostile and finally create some distance between itself and Diluc. It needs time to summon and forge a new shield, but it’s too late. Diluc won’t give it the opportunity. He pushes himself to his feet, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand and wincing with every movement. Once standing, he shoves himself through the field of frost, and another shard of ice embeds itself in his skin as it smashes into the area just beneath his ribcage. At the very least, he’s narrowly avoided a pierced lung, an afterthought he’ll be grateful for later but ignores now as he presses onwards, barreling into the abyss mage with his shoulder to push it from the center of the spell’s field. Without a caster the magic shatters, all the weaving ice surrounding them crumbling instantaneously.
Having barely recovered from the first blow, the mage wobbles on its feet as if dizzy—as if it has never needed to stand on its own two feet before. At last Diluc hefts up his claymore for one final swing, this time without any use of his vision; it’s purely cool, glinting metal that slices through the abyss mage’s body and ends it all.
Looking over his shoulder to make one final check that he’s truly alone—driven by instinct and caution—Diluc ascertains that at long last the camp is cleared before he allows himself to drop his guard—before he allows himself to be human. Wolf’s Gravestone hits the ground with a thud, and Diluc drops to his knees beside it.
Everything aches. There are still pieces of ice firmly lodged into his skin, the longer edges having snapped off in the midst of the fight. He can’t leave them there; moving mid-battle had been near unbearable and had nearly cost him his life, and now he no longer has the distraction of adrenaline and necessity. He won’t make it home like this.
Nor will he make it home if he pulls the shards out and bleeds to death.
He has no bandages, no needle and thread, and no healing abilities of his own. There is only one thing that his hands are capable of, Diluc realizes.
And it’s going to hurt like hell.
The decision is quick: cauterize his own wound to stop the bleeding. It’ll hurt like a bitch, but it’ll secure him getting home. Probably.
The claymore is too large, there's no way around it. It isn't a delicate weapon, and though diluc practices finesse with it, this is asking too much. He has a dagger, though; one he keeps strapped to his thigh for emergencies, for when he gets disarmed in battle or to slice through ropes more quickly.
This particular use is unexpected.
He pulls off his gloves, wanting one less item to keep track of mentally. He's peeling back a layer of safety, but it also means he’ll have to worry about the strength of his flame less if it's not contained. With pause he decides eventually to rid himself of his outer layer as well, even though that further jostles his wounds. The cry he wants to let out tangles in his throat, refusing to give in just yet. The shirt he keeps on, pulls and pins it into place with one of the metal clips from his jacket, all so he can better see his own wounds.
They may not be the worst he’s ever seen, but they’re ugly. The skin that had taken the brunt of the impact when he had slammed into the abyss mage is mottled green and yellow, stretched over his muscle in a way that looks unfamiliar to Diluc. He almost can’t recognize it as his own, as a piece of himself. He can feel his thoughts distancing themselves, his body forgetting what it means to feel—all in order to preserve his own sanity. Diluc has no say in this happening; it has no idea what's yet to come. The actual cuts are stretched open in odd shapes from where the shards of ice had twisted, raw and open.
He has to start by pulling out the shards of ice, frozen solid and splintering from his skin. He picks at the piece he can reach with his fingers delicately. The shattered pieces that will require tongs will have to be left alone; with luck, the magic will dissipate and they'll eventually melt, so Diluc won't have to go digging around in the skin on his side, but that depends on how tightly woven the abyss mage’s magic is. The larger chunks he pulls out in singular swift motions, crying out with the removal of each piece. The ice is sheathed in blood; steam rises where it’s held in Diluc’s hand, his skin already warm just from knowing what’s to follow this extraction. His emotions weave themselves in with the thrum of pyro that runs through the entirety of his being, steering his actions on instinct alone.
He tosses each shard to the side before they can completely melt, disregarded from his thoughts immediately. The blood that begins to drip down his side is warm, a dark red stain against his pale skin. The scars won’t be anything new, at least. There's plenty of those decorating his body already.
His mind attempts once again to slither away, to distance itself from the body that’s mauled and twisted up by pain, but Diluc won’t let it happen. He can’t afford fogged over eyes or hazy thoughts; he needs to be locked in to finish this. To survive. With a deep breath and as short a pause as possible so as not to lose his momentum, he returns his gaze to his torn up flesh. He’s saved the ice lodged farthest into his skin for last, his left hand pressing down on the open wounds in an attempt to slow the blood flow as he faces this final shard. He'll have to start his work here. The deepest shard is the easiest to reach, lodged in his torso from where he had pushed through the mage’s aoe attack. He figures it necessitates action the most, and he has to be realistic with his expectations. He may not have the strength left to close each open wound on his body. If he can only grit his teeth through this once, this is the wound to acknowledge.
While his left hand keeps applying pressure where it can, he uses his right hand to do everything else: pulling out and unsheathing his dagger, removing the remaining shard of magically-infused ice, and holding the metal of his blade in his palm, sending flames upward until just the tip glows a bright, angry red. The blisters on his hand sing out in pain just from proximity. He grits his teeth and forces himself to keep his eyes open when he finally, dreadfully, lets go of his more shallow wounds—the trickle of blood down his side immediate—and uses his left hand to pinch the edges of the deeper wound together before pressing the blazing metal against his flesh.
It’s agony.
Shock hits his body first, despite Diluc being the very person in control of these actions. He can hardly feel the heat over the raging screams of pain that light up every nerve he has; his thoughts snap into suspension as he presses the flat bed of the dagger against his skin. There's no word appropriate save for horrid.
He only holds the heated metal there for a moment, a handful of seconds—to ensure the wound is seared close, or because he’s in so much pain that moving his hand feels impossible, he isn’t sure—but it feels like a lifetime. When he pulls away with a gasp of air, his mouth thick with saliva and a sputtering cough forcing its way from his chest, the skin is a blazing, swollen red, pinched together so tight that every slight movement fosters another blistering wave of pain.
The air is putrid, ripe with the unmistakable smell of burning flesh. It’s nothing short of vile. Diluc had grown accustomed to it once, cutting down his enemies with a flaming sword and iron resolve, but he hardly ever lingered and cared even less. Now, sitting amidst a patch of scorched grass with the knowledge that this archons-awful smell is coming from himself, that it’s his own flesh that’s melting, and caused by his own hand at that—he wants to scream.
He could scream.
No one is here to watch Diluc’s facade fall; no one is here to witness this moment of what he perceives to be weakness. The Diluc that all of Mondstadt knows—the Diluc that all of Mondstadt expects him to be—holds himself together ceaselessly. This version of Diluc, battered, singed, and stained red with his own blood—proof of his shortcomings, even on the battlefield—can’t allow himself to falter here, to be anything that steps outside of the role thrust into his hands the day he was born. He has to fight it, to hold himself together at least until he’s done, to subdue the alluring curl of a scream that’s knotted and stuck in his throat by biting down on his lip so hard the skin there splits too.
He should have thought about gagging himself sooner.
He hadn’t truly been sure if he’d make it through this once, and now that he’s experienced it at all, the dread of self-cauterizing his wounds a second time is even worse—but he has to. He should. The deepest wound may now be closed, but his side is still bleeding rather profusely. The walk is too far for him to leave his skin pried apart and dripping when the answer is curled up in his very palm.
It’s so much worse the second time.
The shield of disbelief and shock that had been present the first time is already worn thin, slipping away and leaving Diluc vulnerable. His whole body is tense with what’s to come, the searing pain in his chest still agonizing and his mind all too aware that it’s only about to worsen. Still he heats up the metal of his blade once again, taking forced rhythmic breaths as he does so. Archons, he doesn’t want to do this, but it doesn’t matter what he wants.
It never really has, anyway.
He presses on, and pain erupts across his side. A gurgling sound drips from his mouth, choked up and pathetically desperate. His eyes sting, the tears he hadn’t even known were welling now leaving salt-heavy stains down his cheek. His skin is smoldering, dry and cracked, disfigured beneath the blade and still oozing blood. He sees black; he doesn’t know if it’s his flesh charring, or merely his vision flickering as his body begs him to rest. He can’t hold himself together as long this time, even a few seconds feeling too long, and the dagger clatters into the grass, as forgotten as his claymore.
Diluc places both palms on the ground as the realization that he’s finished shatters his resolve and a strangled, choking scream tears its way out of his throat. Nausea churns his stomach, and amidst the wails that make their way past his lips, so too does the yellow, sour bile of his empty stomach. He feels faint, his chest heaving and desperate for air, and his mouth tastes of acid. Sweat pours down his face, and the strands of hair not pulled back into a ponytail are slicked down and sticking to his face, disgusting and damp.
Fuck. Fuck.
There’s no possible way that he’s going to be able to twist himself around to reach the wounds on his back, but considering that those are the most shallow, Diluc doesn’t dwell on it. It’ll have to be fine. They’re bleeding for sure—he can feel the slow trail of liquid dancing down his back, a mix of sweat and what has to be blood—but it isn’t enough to concern him. Especially not in comparison to possibly ripping open his deeper wounds again. Twice was already two times too many.
Time passes faintly in the background after that, unimportant and weightless as Diluc’s hollow eyes stare at the ground once his screams have petered out and his stomach has truly been emptied. The crust of dried blood around the edges of his wounds cracks as he shifts himself upright, but he doesn't bother even thinking about cleaning himself off. His clothes are torn and stained, trim caked in gore and splotches of blood so large he knows his coat at the very least won't be salvageable.
He can only assume that he looks like death, but he knows for certain that he feels like death, at least. Things wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t been alone, or if he had ventured out with a clearer mind instead of letting himself fight while distracted. The list of his own faults and blame could be nearly endless, were he to let himself start. He doesn’t, too focused on scooping his insides up and pulling himself together for long enough to return to Dawn Winery.
He shakes as he stands, collecting both his weapons and trembling as he puts one foot in front of another, focusing on nothing else for the entirety of the walk. Though Diluc doesn’t realize it at the moment, his thoughts are pleasantly silenced. Nothing swirls in his mind except for the echo of “keep moving” repeating on loop. No guilt, no desires, no Childe.
Just survival and instinct.
He makes it home to the winery, palms pressed against his sides stained so red he thinks that it might be permanent, and sleeps as soon as he hits the bed for the first time in weeks.
Three days later, Diluc tells Charles with a compulsory smile—nothing overdone—that he’s changed his mind. He’ll take the upcoming Friday shift, and he’ll resume taking every following Friday as well.
The pain had been excruciating, and a single night’s sleep had done nothing to alleviate it, not even partially. Not that Diluc expected anything else; he merely had to accept upon his miserable awakening the following day that there was no Darknight Hero work to be had in the upcoming weeks. Not in his condition.
And without Angel’s Share, he’d had nothing to do in his evenings aside from sitting in his office across from his returning thoughts.
Which he absolutely couldn’t stand.
Which is why he’s now standing in his bar, reclaiming his bartending duties so soon after passing them over. Charles’ expression is clearly skeptical. “As my boss, you know I can’t argue. But as your friend…are you sure there’s nothing going on? It’s no big deal for me to work the weekend. This sudden flip-flopping isn’t like you.”
Were he a more casual or expressive person, Diluc would shrug. Instead he adjusts his gloves, getting ready to turn and head out the door. “I thought I needed some time to vacation. Turns out the paperwork only piles up and I can’t bring myself to pass it on to someone else.”
Charles does laugh at this, the skeptical look finally draining from his features, and slaps Diluc on the back in one singular, solid motion—failing to notice the way Diluc grits his teeth at the contact. Every touch and every movement hurts, stretching the tight coils of red, swollen skin. It's a slough of bubbles and hard tissue that decorates Diluc’s side, the skin flared in anger at the lack of attention. He hasn’t been to a healer; it would be too complicated. He’s been using cool compresses at night in an attempt to soothe his ache, but nothing is strong enough to help to a point where he can ignore the pain and fall into sleep. The exhaustion that had been building for weeks has now only drastically heightened as his body works overtime to salvage and patch his flesh, and though sleep would help, it seems out of the realm of his capabilities. Especially given that it wasn’t a lie when he mentioned how much work he has to do; Dawn Winery hasn’t slowed down in light of his situation; there’s always something to be done. Especially if he wants to stay ahead of his schedule in order to make time for returning to combat the moment he can. Diluc has experienced burn damage enough to know that he has to keep moving, at least to a limited degree, to keep himself from losing that range of motion entirely. That doesn’t stop it from stinging like hell, flares of pain rippling through his nervous system through the entirety of every single grating day.
He’s done this before, though, and he can do it again—even while running a winery.
Even while bartending despite an apparent lack of free hours.
He’ll be busy, exceptionally so, and that’s the point. He won’t have to think anymore. That’s all that matters.
Every day up until Friday drags, with Diluc spending hours alone in his office working. His routine already involved frequent overtime; now that it’s become the only distraction he has, he pours the entirety of himself into it, the emptiness of his cup notwithstanding. This is all he has; this is his life’s work: pouring over documents, developing new marketing ideas, and drawing up collaborative plans that wouldn’t need to be brought to life for months to come. It’s the only tangible thing in reach of his grasp, and his fingers curl into the opportunity. Anything to keep busy; anything to help him ignore the growing hollowness in his chest.
Childe may have been the catalyst, and his face is certainly the center of many of Diluc’s pained distractions, but he hadn’t been Diluc’s everything. What he had been was a mirage of choice; he had stormed into Diluc’s life like he had wanted to be there, had pushed Diluc to consider that he might have wants of his own, and then vanished the moment Diluc had actually begun to contemplate reaching out. It reveals things to Diluc that he already knew, but apparently hadn’t learned. It’s the way he can’t pinpoint a real, true purpose for himself. The way he sees his brother and thinks only of the pain he caused. The way his hobbies haven’t been touched for weeks; the way his hobbies hardly exist in the first place. Who is Diluc, really, underneath all the layers? What makes him who he is?
When at last Friday comes, he expects the day to drag all the same. And it nearly does.
The patrons are noisy but uninteresting. These are the people he claims to love, to fight for, and yet he can’t spare so much as a thought for them above the pain that haunts his body. It sickens him; he’s not sure he’d be able to keep anything down, could he stomach the idea of eating at all. At the very least Kaeya’s company has become nearly a staple every Friday now, and yet he, too, barely anchors Diluc anymore. “Perhaps what you need is a real vacation—not whatever it is you claimed was a cut-short vacation last time.”
“Right.”
He knows he’s grinding himself into dust. No sleep, no food. His thoughts oscillate between scorning himself for letting any Fatuus have the power to catalyze this, even if he wasn’t the sole cause, and between acknowledging that the person with the power to keep him here, withering, is just himself. That he, most importantly, is the one who seems to think he deserves this. “Dragonspine is peaceful this time of year. Not exactly cozy, but I find the climb to be both contemplative and tranquil. You could probably use some time to burn off all that hot headed energy of yours, risk free.” Kaeya’s voice trails after him, but his brother’s commentary is unmatched in comparison to Diluc’s own thoughts. It can’t catch up.
There’s probably more he could be doing currently to stay ahead of business, to prep, to wash, but Diluc lets muscle memory steer his actions while his thoughts shift like clouded water, murky and uninviting. He lets the same happen with his voice, responding to Kaeya more by instinct than by conscious effort.
“That’s not what I’m saying, Diluc.”
He doesn’t pay any more attention to his own response than he does to bar’s patrons. He’s supposed to be their foundation, reliable and justly fair—and yet he’s lost in his own thoughts, stuck in his own head, only thinking about himself. It feels uniquely selfish, a stark contrast against everything he has ever tried to uphold. This isn’t Diluc; this isn’t even Master Ragvindr. This is something else entirely, he thinks. Something hazy, a thought he can’t quite reach, but a feeling so familiar that he must have been holding onto it for quite some time.
“Diluc?”
Years. Longer, even. It’s shaped like humanity, but it so clearly is a something in place of a someone that Diluc doesn’t even think to ask who he is, but rather what. What had he turned into?
The piece that draws him back to reality is the sound of shattering glass, which he realizes has fallen from his own hand in a slowed down, detached sort of way. Kaeya’s voice is garbled and faint, something he only registers because he can see the blur of Kaeya’s mouth move as the Captain stands, far too late. By the time Diluc’s head meets the wooden planks of the floor in a crooked angle, glass shards crunching beneath his weight and biting into his skin, Diluc’s vision has already turned black before his eyes close and he loses consciousness.
Diluc comes too to the sound of voices, quiet yet harsh. They sound as if they’re in the same room as him, just stepped away so as not to be having this conversation directly next to him. It makes his head ache all the same. The pain is still there, lingering underneath the groggy waking up of his entire body, but it hasn’t quite registered as quickly as being conscious has. If anything, it’s softened enough that it isn’t his only waking thought—a low bar, but the one he uses nonetheless. Diluc can still tell, more or less, that he’s overhearing an argument of some sort, and while he isn't sure exactly what’s happening–or where he is, for that matter–he tries to listen in regardless, hoping it’s something he can make sense of later.
“You tucked your tail between your legs and ran. Convenient.”
“You can’t lie and tell me that Diluc had really closed Angel’s Share for the night just for me.”
The responding voice is familiar in a way Diluc doesn’t want it to be, but he has no say in the matter. He’s hardly awake, let alone coherent; now is not the time to be having or processing any involuntary emotions.
“I don’t need to. Angel’s Share may have stayed open, but you and I both know that neither of you sleep normal hours of the day. There would have been plenty of time afterwards to spend together; I was under the impression that was your very suggestion. If I was feeling more petty than I already am, I’d describe to you just how dolled up Diluc got himself, whether he knew it or not. As it stands, I’d rather let your imagination work.”
There’s a huff of reaction. Kaeya is cold when he’s working; Diluc almost manages to curl his lips into the slightest smile at that—at Kaeya pretending that he isn’t taking the more tortuous route, though Diluc can only tell that to be true from years of familiarity with the way Kaeya works and by the tone of his voice. Diluc knows anger on Kaeya, feels it the same as the scars on his skin, and this is it. What Diluc doesn’t know is why this is meant to be a stab at someone, or why he’s so angry in the first place.
“Business came up. You know how it is.”
Everything hurts, Diluc’s head worst of all, which is maybe only because he can’t feel most of his own body right now. But the headache makes thinking hard, and keeping track of this conversation even harder, which only serves to frustrate Diluc more than if he’d simply slept through the entirety of this exchange. He doesn’t like feeling incompetent.
“Do I?”
The silence reeks.
“Neither he nor I have ever asked you to forsake your country and run away together. Not even after Diluc broke your nose, not during the ten thousand times he thought about breaking it again.” Oh. It’s Childe, then, letting Kaeya do most of the talking. That’s why this conversation is so quiet despite the ferocity, but Diluc can’t fathom why Childe would suddenly be here. “But if that’s the way it is always going to be, then you may as well cut your losses here before you deal more damage than can be repaired. So many months of you begging for Diluc’s attention like a hungry dog, and the first time he makes himself vulnerable, you’re gone. If it’s going to keep being like that, then stop.”
There’s no answer, no pleading, no breaking the way Kaeya may have expected–no, hoped for. Diluc can’t see either party’s eyes, but he’s sure they’re having a wordless conversation now, waiting to see who breaks first.
He’s not sure who he genuinely expects to win, given the personalities clashing here, just as he’s not actually sure who’s won when at last Kaeya speaks again. Had Childe stood firm and Kaeya given up? Had Childe shaken his head, either a yes or a no or a noncommittal in-between to prompt Kaeya further? There’s no way to tell from where he lies prone, limbs tucked tight against the bulk of his body and head rolling limply to the side against the too-warm pillow. He can’t even open his eyes, let alone level a glance at the exchange to see who’s in control here.
“Right. That’s how I thought it would play out, then.” Was that smugness in Kaeya’s voice, or tension in an attempt to keep it from breaking? “Diluc doesn’t ask for things; hell, Diluc doesn’t admit he needs things. You were someone who let him care, regardless of everything he thinks he has to be. And he is not generous with forgiveness.”
Diluc will never know if a chill runs down Childe’s spine the way one runs down his own.
Childe does, at the very least, seem to regain his voice though. “You’re spinning an awful lot of pretty words, yet you won’t tell me what happened. I had to find out from coincidental reconnaissance, and then from Charles, and all he’d tell me is that you both were here.”
Kaeya’s voice is degrees colder when he responds, aloof and near automatic—like he’s trying to distance himself from it all. “In your absence Diluc went on a lone-wolf spree through the Abyss Mages’ camps, cauterized several wounds on himself, told absolutely no one, sought no medical care, and continued working until he blacked out mid-conversation. I think you’re done here.”
There’s another large, palpable silence. Rustling, shifting. Diluc wishes he could see what Childe’s eyes look like right now, what expression he’s making while he speaks. “You can’t stop me. The knights have no business here anyway.”
“The knights may not, but as his brother, I do.”
Ah.
And it’s true, isn’t it? For all their history, Kaeya has been here these several long, slow weeks—albeit in a strange, roundabout way unique to Kaeya. Though, for as much as he can reflect, Diluc admits that his methods of watching out for his younger brother are, in a way, rather similar.
Something to note to improve upon, for some time in the future when he can think clearly and fully feel his fingers.
“Diluc takes bad care of himself because he thinks he deserves it. He only lets me help when he isn’t looking. I may be your friend, but he is my brother. My only family. I’m not going to encourage this unless I know you’re ready to step up and do something, Childe. If he hands you his heart, I need to know you’ll protect it, not eat it.”
If any response comes, Diluc can’t hear it. He feels the lightheadedness returning despite his position laying down, the nausea that wants to stir in his stomach, and the heavy pull of exhaustion crushing him beneath its weight. As much as he wants to pay attention, to make sense of what he’s hearing—to hear Childe respond, for Archons’ sake—sleep is taking him back into its arms once again with an overdue vengeance.
The most coherent thought he has, right before slipping under, is that surely he wasn’t meant to hear most of that.
Childe isn’t there when Diluc wakes for the second time. Instead only Kaeya is in the room, off in a chair by the window and pretending to be absorbed in whatever book rests in his hands. As if he isn’t perched with his good eye facing Diluc, the chair skewed ever so slightly out of the sunlight streaming through the windows—just enough to keep an eye on him.
“Oh, good. Sleeping beauty wakes, and from an ever-pleasant dream, no doubt.”
They’ve spent so many years dancing around each other. So many years pretending not to know each other’s vulnerabilities, pretending that they miss each other’s weak spots because they don’t know where those spots lie, rather than acknowledging the simple truth that it’s always been done on purpose. This has always been their gift to each other: wounding, but never fatally.
Diluc is so, so tired of performing.
“You don’t seem to be very far in that book. Have you been too distracted keeping an eye on me, or was our visitor here for longer than I thought?”
Kaeya’s eye widens only a fraction, nearly unnoticeably, but Diluc sees it regardless. The stillness in Kaeya’s fingers where they rest against the page mid-turn, the pause in whatever comeback had already been prepared on his lips—he knows exactly what Diluc is playing at now, though not how much Diluc heard.
They’ll blame the pain later when a small, irresistible smile curls the corners of Diluc’s mouth, soft in a way he’s sure Kaeya hasn’t seen on him since their younger years. It feels almost childlike, the way he can’t fight it off. Guilt still pools in his stomach when he thinks of Kaeya attempting to aid him from the shadows, not from shame, but to protect Diluc’s own pride. Anxiety curls tightly in his chest in a way that makes it hard to breathe. But they are here, and they are alive, and for all Diluc has felt he has no future ahead of him other than the one his father set into stone for him since birth, he thinks of all the future Kaeya has. The future they may share, one day down the road. That perhaps a hand will grab him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him, draw him from the floor and to his feet so that he can finally walk out of his father’s shadow.
Today will not be that day. But someday, maybe. He’ll have to think on Kaeya’s words more, somewhere in private where he can let them cut open his ribcage and let himself sit with all the uncomfortable pieces that doing so exposes. For now he hides the tiny, childlike smile with groans as he pushes himself into a sitting position, and finally Kaeya throws down the book he was barely reading and stands to help him.
“You always have to be pushing yourself, don’t you, Diluc?” Kaeya’s hands are firm against his back, and Diluc laughs briefly, the vibrations rattling through his ribcage and seering him in a pain no fire can even hope to match.
His second day awake, Childe finds him.
It doesn’t catch Diluc off guard, exactly, because he knew Childe was in Mondstadt at least a day or so ago. He hadn’t known Childe had stayed, though. That’s not the outcome he would have expected after overhearing that bit of his and Kaeya’s conversation.
“Hey, Red.”
Childe closes the door behind him quietly, and Diluc may not have even noticed him come in at first had he not been idly staring at the reflection in his windows, eyes glazed over and body intensely aware of how still the room around him had been. Only the sudden movement had snapped him to attention, had reeled back that hazy, out of focus vision and the feeling that his body was not quite his own. Now, as the planes of his room become clear once again, as he registers the texture of the sheets beneath his body and the twitch of his fingers at his side, he can feel Childe’s gaze, sharp and centered. Waiting. By reflex, Diluc nearly tells Childe to get out—not that Childe would have listened now anyway, even if those words had slipped out. He‘s already ignored Diluc’s demands before, back in Angel’s Share; he certainly wouldn’t listen now with Diluc laid up in his bed, half-lucid, underdressed, and shivering.
The sky is grey, today, stained with dark washes of clouds that roll into one another endlessly. The pattering of rain can be heard in the quiet of the room, a steady tapping against tiles above their heads and the brick patio down below. The fireplace had been lit this morning, trimming the edges of Diluc’s furniture in vibrant orange light, but now it sits nearly exhausted. The crackling of the last dying flames are faint.
He hadn’t felt like calling for help, nor had he felt up to rising from bed to reignite the fire himself. Even his vision seems insufficient to keep him warm, and he wonders how much of this chill is in the air and how much of it, his mind.
So no, Childe would not be listening to any of his oppositions today. Instead of bothering, Diluc says nothing at all, just watches as Childe finally looks away from Diluc’s face and takes in the details of the room as if he hadn’t been here some odd number of days ago. Diluc doesn’t need to look with him; he knows it all: the worn gilding on the fireplace, the dresser that doesn’t see enough use, the desk that does despite the fact that Diluc has an entire office of his own. The lattice styled windows with their dark wood and wide window panes, and the flush window boxes just outside them. The jewel toned rug, embroidered with depictions of Mondstadt’s native wildlife and a border of tangled grapevines far fuller than any Diluc has ever seen. It’s the only home Diluc has ever known, and yet almost nothing in the room did Diluc actually pick out himself. Nothing is uniquely his—perhaps save for a third of the books on his shelves, and that water-pitcher on his dresser. Most of it was here before he was born, before he inherited a legacy, before he knew who he wanted to be.
Not that he’s ever figured that last one out.
Childe doesn’t ask, just kneels by the fireplace. It takes Diluc a moment to realize that he’s not putting it out of its misery, but rebuilding it. “I got wind that you were taking some time off. That’s always a red flag with you, Firefly.”
It’s Tuesday now, Diluc thinks. He wouldn’t be at the bar anyway.
“Head woozy.” They’re the first words he’s said all day, and he can feel how rough they must sound, clawing their way out of his throat and dragging a dry cough behind them.
Childe watches him from the floor in front of the fireplace while the cough fully rattles through him, the scrape and sting of it enough to have him squeezing his eyes shut. It’s only once Diluc has taken a couple of deep, steadying breaths afterwards that Childe turns back, pulling several logs out of the storage rack to stack atop what’s still burning. “Archons, you really don’t take care of yourself. And you play so hard to get, Diluc.”
The flames don’t take long to catch again. Diluc wonders how it would feel, to be rebuilt by those hands. “Not sure if it's considered playing if I am hard to get.”
Childe laughs, and all Diluc can think about is how hard the floor must be beneath Childe’s knees.
There’s a loud pop as the fire grows, stronger in its second life as Childe pushes the logs around with the iron stoker that usually hangs from the fireplace’s side. The silence, too, builds, until Diluc thinks it might smother him. Usually he would make an effort to sit with the uncomfortable feeling and bear it; he is simply so exhausted after this week—after these few long months, moreso, or maybe just the entirety of his life—that he can’t right now. He hates himself for it, even as he prods at the silence. “I thought you liked a challenge.”
Childe’s lack of an answer speaks for itself.
“So this is a game, then.”
“Was, is, the specifics aren’t necessary.” Diluc wonders if he’s imagining the way Childe seems to imply that this, that being here, is what matters. Perhaps he’s simply already delusional, barely drawn out of his slow, muddled morning thoughts.
Childe seems ready to say more, but exhaustion is quickly wrapping its arms around Diluc, stepping between him and any conscious thought, so keeping up is a strain. It must be fairly evident that he’s flagging, because Childe’s gaze cuts over to him from the now-stable fire. Diluc certainly feels warmer. “It wasn’t on purpose. Really.” Childe’s voice is quieter now, and he closes his eyes by the end of just those few words, as if they’ve taken a great deal of strength to speak aloud. Diluc watches his face and is reminded of how Childe had softened when Diluc most needed it and yet couldn’t ask for it, back when the anniversary of his father’s death had approached. He’s soft here, in the privacy of Diluc’s bedroom, and seemingly smaller than he’d ever been before his eyes open once more to seek out Diluc’s face. “I know I fucked up. That’s who I am.” Diluc watches him, transfixed, and wonders how Childe speaks in such a way that this translates into an admission rather than an excuse. Like Childe doesn’t want to blame fate, but that he’s resigned himself to this role—one people hate on site, one who fucks up the plans of those who give him a chance, one who can’t help but shatter all the good things placed into his palms.
Diluc would bet his bones are stronger, though. His grip is steadfast.
He doesn’t say this yet, though the thought makes it abundantly clear to himself that he already intends to forgive Childe—regardless of whether or not he should. That’s twice, now, that he’s unintentionally done this for Childe. “I’m always going to make mistakes, Diluc.”
Diluc knows. It doesn’t matter, though. He, too, will surely make the same mistakes again. If that weren’t true, he wouldn’t currently be on mandatory bedrest from driving himself into the ground. Childe isn’t really giving him an answer, but Diluc also isn’t asking for one. For now, he settles into the comforting warmth of Childe’s presence, closing his eyes but resisting the pull of his pillows. His blankets still spill across his lap, loose around his hips, and he resists pulling them tighter around himself—all for the sake of getting something he wants.
It’s always about wanting, when he’s with Childe.
“Comb my hair.”
Childe lets him change the topic, the command made gentle with sleep. “Do you have a comb?”
Childe could find one, if he looked around or rummaged through Diluc’s things. He can’t remember if he’d left one atop his dresser or put it away. He doesn’t care at this point, either, nor does he open his eyes to look at Childe while he speaks. “Just use your fingers.”
It’s an expressive request, letting Childe so near without even watching him. Asking Childe to express something akin to care for him.
He wants it regardless.
He can hear Childe stir from his spot, movements slow and hesitant before a body slides between Diluc’s back and the pillows he was propped up against. He lets Childe’s hands guide him, shift him forward as slightly as he can to give them both room. The movement certainly hurts, but not nearly as badly as it would have a couple days prior, and this much Diluc can tolerate. He’s good at taking pain; he can do it again this once if it gets him what he wants. That longing is all that fills his mind, aside from how warm he feels where Childe’s legs press against his thighs.
Diluc can’t quite register the other sounds he hears once he thinks Childe is settled, something shifting and dropping against his nightstand, until Childe’s fingers are in his hair and free of the gloves that usually adorn them. They run through the curls near his temple and brush loose, sticky strands away from the skin of his face. He’d been cold, before Childe had rebuilt the fire, but still sweating. He can only imagine how unseemly he must still look, but regardless Childe is kind and attentive with his movements.
Childe then works slowly at the tangles near the end of his hair, again gentle just as he had been the last time Diluc needed care. There’s surface level thoughts that Diluc wants to reach, swimming in his head: since their first meeting, Childe has been revealing a complexity that casts himself in a more generous light—a human light. One where strength is used to protect, where fortune and luck are shared, where energy becomes joy in place of anger. It had haunted Diluc, until he could understand it. Childe, the eleventh Harbinger of the Fatui, slowly creeping in as an image in his head that Diluc found he rather liked, actually. One wholly human, just as flawed as he himself is, and still trying.
He can feel himself dozing off again under the lull of Childe’s fingers, assured movements trying so hard not to snag or pull, and he surprises himself to find that he feels at peace enough to do so. Maybe, were this happening under normal circumstances, he would fuss and fight. Maybe, were his body no longer aching and desperate for sleep, he would resist the heavy weight of his limbs and the comfort of Childe’s firm support behind him—but at this point he’s comfortable. He wants to finally, finally welcome in some type of reprieve.
“It always surprises me, how gentle you are.” They’re the softest words Diluc can remember ever speaking to Childe, and it seems fitting he should do so here, at his most vulnerable. Perhaps at his safest, too.
Childe’s hands pause, then drop from his hair, and Diluc would protest were they not instead pulling him down against Childe’s chest, encouraging him to tuck his face against the pink skin of Childe’s neck. "There’s a saying I like to use, when I think about all my time spent away from Snezhnaya. I may have told it to you before, yeah? The more time you spend somewhere, the more joy it brings you when you return."
If he were more awake, he might have heard those words as a sort of epiphany. As it is, he’s warm, comfortable, and allowing himself to be taken care of for the first time in far longer than he can remember. Instead of a sudden realization, or a world-altering strike, Childe’s words settle something in Diluc’s chest, weigh him down comfortably, and he succumbs to sleep at last.
Childe is sparse, after that, for a while. He waits until Diluc wakes back up to say goodbye, footsteps trailed by laughter and a quiet promise to return when he’s a little more rested, claiming he’d otherwise just get in the way.
After that, it’s just Diluc and his thoughts for a while.
He spends most of Wednesday trying to read and fighting sleep. He hates it, feeling restless and useless, but his body aches too much to do more. Even his reading choices have been limited, hand-picked by Kaeya to be “less stressful” novels with little plot and too much shameless romance, or non-fiction texts detailing hobbies that Diluc has only dappled in. Kaeya had stacked them on his nightstand knowing full well that Diluc wouldn’t be ready to stand up and pick his own off his shelves yet.
The thoughtful bastard.
In between it all, his thoughts encircle him, trapping him like prey. Kaeya’s voice lingers in the back of his mind, sounding like something suspiciously akin to forgiveness. Diluc isn’t ready for it to be directed his way just yet, but he doesn’t chase it away, either.
Kaeya had seen through his defenses and described in excruciating detail exactly how the mechanisms of Diluc’s mind had worked. It seems he had been lying when he told Childe all those months ago that no one understood how Diluc thought, only how Diluc would act; Kaeya had been covering for him, then. He knew exactly what sort of self-flagellation Diluc was doing in his mind, attempting to spend every day making up for wrongs that had long faded in the minds of everyone surrounding him—as if they had blamed him for anything in the first place.
Diluc’s understanding of himself was—is—delicate. He hates ascribing to such a word, but it fits. He’s been overlooking his brother’s kindness and hiding his own all the same. He’d never grant forgiveness to the Fatui as a whole, or the Knights either, but he can’t deny that he’d begun seeing Childe for more than just his uniform some time ago. He’s a person underneath it all, alive and intricate, and Diluc wants to know him. He wants to see who that version of Childe is. He wants to give Childe the chance to show him, and he wants Childe to take that chance.
“Less stressful,” he mutters to himself. Please. The books Kaeya picked are just boring, and Diluc is already prone to overthinking even while he has apt distractions for demanding his attention. With so many dangerous thoughts flaring to life in his mind, these novels don’t stand a chance. He’d have better luck staring out the window or giving in and napping, sleep schedule so far beyond ruined that it would hardly matter now. He does hope that Kaeya visits again this evening, though, so he can at the very least thoroughly ream him out for his utterly awful taste in literature.
The room is empty most of Thursday. Diluc expects someone to come keep him company—or more truthfully, to try and keep him from pushing himself out of bed and into his office. No one comes, not for many hours, and Diluc’s first thought is to wonder where Kaeya went off to. If he’d decided he’d done more than necessary, if he’d gone beyond fulfilling his brotherly duties, and left. But that conversation Diluc overheard would contradict that line of thinking, and once the sound of the front door opens, Kaeya’s voice drifts up the staircase and across the banister. It sounds happy, light, and Diluc’s next thought is that he’s glad Kaeya’s home.
Then there’s steps on the staircase, and his door is being pushed open, but it’s not Kaeya that comes in.
For once, Childe looks surprised. “You’re still up.”
“I was right. All of your plans do start at two in the morning.” The sun is low, but it hasn't even set yet, so Diluc can’t help but tease. As if he'd be asleep this early in the evening, injured or not. In what world?
Childe finally shakes off his surprise, slips out of the facade he uses for people who think they already know him based on their own assumptions—people like Diluc had been, once. He shifts into himself, into something less tense and more wild, something Diluc…missed. Then he settles onto a chair by the window, and Diluc raises a brow at him. When Childe doesn’t stir, Diluc pats the bed beside him, and is surprised that it takes Childe a few seconds to compose himself and make his way over. Like he didn’t think he’d be invited.
As he comes closer, Diluc takes a long look at him. Either Childe had already planned to spend the night—and perhaps his conversation with Kaeya had been pointing him in the direction of the guest rooms—or he’d ruined his clothing in a fight, because he’s rather dressed down. No jacket or insignias anywhere, just a plain pair of pants and a simple sleep shirt, like he’s comfortable here.
Childe hesitates, head tilting and eyes wandering before he follows Diluc’s silent request. He looks warmer like this, soft and worn and far more human than Childe ever lets himself be. The shirt is loose and oversized, but the pants seem to be two inches too short despite their stretch, and Diluc wonders how long Childe has had these garments for. He wants to ask Childe how often he wears them, if he keeps them despite their ill fit because they’re one of the last remnants of home that he can hold on to.
He wants to ask who Childe thinks Diluc is, to be invited to see him dressed like this—to touch it, even, to feel the soft glide of well-loved cotton as Childe slips into bed beside him, eyes on Diluc through all of it.
There is a world in which they exist tragically. Diluc knows this to be true, has seen how close the lines touched, and feels tinged with annoyance—or perhaps, in truth, regret; a somber understanding—at how easily that could come to be. He doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want them to be miserable and apart because they are flawed, because their lives have been harsh. He doesn’t want Childe to watch him from across the room, taking to a chair instead of Diluc’s side in his bed. He doesn’t want Childe to not show up at all. And it’s a strange thing, to know what he wants and not push it away, but it’s reached the point where it is killing him to do so. Nearly literally.
It’s not that they would never fight, were they to attempt being together, but that their defeats wouldn’t have to be crowned with a knife. That their lows could be met instead with adrenaline and a determination to do better next time. That their passion and intensity could spur them forward instead of burning them, the way Diluc is already so used to. Maybe they both cared too much and worked too hard, and maybe it’s true that often those things truly opposed each other, but they didn’t always have to. Diluc had been living in a world of black and white for twenty something exhausting years; he wanted to see the grey areas, just for once—a limbo in which they existed outside of politics and only within the strengths of their person.
They had aspirations, and where Diluc could be the one to ground them, Childe could be the one to dream. Diluc could remind Childe of his humanity, his fatality, and Childe could in turn convince Diluc that he could be more than that. It would be a game of push and pull, one that never needed to demand a loser be chosen and put to rest forever—and when their goals met, when they grew calloused and ready to fight, Diluc thinks perhaps there could be little to stand in their way. Neither of them deserved to be underestimated, and now that Diluc lets himself breathe and examine the actuality of the dance they had begun so many months ago, he can acknowledge just how well they met. How balanced they are when united by similarities and differences of equal weight.
Childe sits next to him, watches him like he’s wondering what has Diluc so quiet and his gaze so distant and thoughtful. They sit like that for a while, in a silence that is unusual for them but not uncomfortable. It makes Diluc feel warm to be so noticed, his skin hot beneath the blanket that Childe must have brought for him. He lets the feeling sit in his chest and wonders when Childe will break the silence, but no running commentary comes. It would be nice, were he not becoming increasingly aware of how clammy his skin is, of how muggy the air in his room feels now that he’s been sat in it for days.
“Hmmm.” He turns away from Childe, reaching over to unlatch the window and pull it open, letting the everlasting breeze of Mondstadt flow into his space and into his lungs, and—though he wouldn’t admit it out loud—cool the area enough that he can keep on the blanket Childe brought to him. That was what they were like, he and Childe. A breeze and a blanket; an unconventional combination, one allowing the other to exist.
Childe had come and found him, after all. Even if he had run away first.
He still feels clammy, though, even with the addition of the breeze. He’s been trying to keep busy, to avoid going stir crazy, but in truth, he is exhausted. Better, healing, but exhausted—too much so to drag himself to the shower alone. Adeline had helped him manage a bath two days prior, and she’s been near constantly switching out his sheets when she can, but that had all been before the rain and the humid heat.
“I need a bath.”
Immediately, Childe lights up. “Need help, Firefly?”
It’s a show of good temperament that he lets Diluc smack his shoulder at the suggestion.
“Not from you.” The response is sort of automatic, but like this, set up in his bed with light pouring in through the windows, he can see Childe’s smile turn watery and fond. Like he’s being played with.
After attempting to unbutton his own shirt twice, three times to be sure, Diluc sighs. “It looks like I’m going to need help after all.”
Childe is gentle where he touches him, tender how he undresses him. He lets Diluc lean against the headboard while his fingers make quick work of the buttons on Diluc’s oldest nightshirt, and Diluc can’t help but watch them. Slim, quick, confident. He has thoughts about that.
Childe folds the shirt like he doesn’t know how—like he never does this for his own clothes—before he drapes it over the edge of the chair by Diluc’s desk. “I have to get fresh water. I’ll be back.” He pushes Diluc’s bangs away from his forehead to kiss the skin there, warm and probably sweaty, and Diluc can’t pull himself together to say anything before Childe is already out the door.
He does try to stand while Childe is gone, wanting to work his way to the washroom while Childe is busy. His pride aches almost as much as his body does, and his injury has done nothing to reduce his stubbornness. If anything, his limitations have only made him more eager to push himself, even if it is rather nice to have Childe thinking about him. He might ask Childe about lighting a fire to boil water over rather than pulling on his small reserve of energy to heat it with his vision as he usually would. The idea of soaking in a bath is nice, but the thought is lost amidst the sound of sharp bone meeting the floorboards; he can’t make it to his feet on his own, and Childe must hear the thump of him falling to his knees, palms pressed into the cold hardwood floor. He’s thankful at the very least that his hair shields his face, though he’d be more grateful if he could have pulled himself up before Childe has come thumping back into his room, bare feet padding against the floor and whatever he’s carried back discarded on the dresser.
“Always impatient, aren’t you? The water isn’t even heated yet, I know how you do it here in Mondstadt.” Childe drops to his own knees by Diluc’s side, brushing the aegis of hair away from Diluc’s face and tucking the loose strands behind his ear. Most of it immediately falls free again, but for a moment Diluc can see concern written into the furrow of Childe’s brow despite the levity in his voice.
“I could heat it myself.” This entire scenario is already his own fault for trying to walk in the first place. He knows he’s being stubborn, even if he doesn’t know why. He’s never shaken this need to do things on his own, to prove that he can. He can’t help it, can’t shake it even now. But he lets Childe oh so gently cradle his wrists, long fingers wrapping all the way around despite the fact that Diluc is by no means small, until Diluc lets out a sigh that’s a little too shuddery for his tastes and lets Childe peel his palms from the floor. There’s little pieces pushed into his skin, of rocks or dirt he doesn’t know. His room needs a sweep, clearly, something he’s neglected while bedridden—maybe longer. He can feel Childe’s huff of laughter against his neck before Childe presses his hands to Diluc’s chest, firmly guiding him back up into a sitting position. Diluc feels himself reach for Childe’s arm as if to steady himself, but there’s no need; Childe’s support is solid and unwavering, his hands only pulling away once Diluc is securely upright. Their faces are close, and Diluc takes in one slow, deep breath.
Childe’s smile is all he can see, wide and brimming in a way that seems ill fit given the situation, and Diluc doesn’t even care. He wants to kiss him. They’re still on the floor, he’s sweaty, his palms are dirty, and he wants to kiss Childe.
“And pass out from over exertion? Diluc.”
And then Childe is moving, pulling Diluc into his arms to fully lift him and place him on his bed.
Diluc doesn’t know if he’s in the state of mind to be thinking about how much bulk that is that Childe’s effortlessly supporting.
Childe deposits him back on his bed, then carefully traces over the tender skin, red from where it hit the floor. “Maybe just a wipe down, for now. I’ll still wash your hair if you behave.” Childe laughs even as Diluc pinches him.
“You have a point.” Diluc lets his eyes trail over to the dresser, which is significantly more covered since Childe had returned. Diluc can see an assortment of things from his bathroom, dropped unceremoniously in Childe’s rush to help him. Two washcloths from the linen closet, an unscented bar of soap. A lotion that looks like Adeline’s, though Diluc wonders about the medicinal properties and if his wounds are anywhere near ready to handle lotion. Something that looks clear, vaguely medicinal in nature. His own shampoo, a new pitcher of water, and an absolutely tiny bottle that’s certainly not Mondstadt in design.
Diluc squints in Childe’s direction. “How did you even carry all of that in?” And Childe just laughs at him, a real laugh, loud and unrestrained in the kind of way that squints his eyes shut and lights up Diluc's room brighter than his fireplace ever could. “That’s what you’re concerned about?”
Diluc huffs and turns his head to face the window. It’s a fair question.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, come here. Let me do this for you.” Diluc doesn’t expect the delicate hand on his face, barely pressing into his skin until he tilts his head in Childe’s direction. “Okay?” The hand doesn’t leave his cheek, and all Diluc can think about is that the last time his own hands touched Childe’s face, he had broken his nose.
“Okay.”
Childe gets more focused, after that. Gathers the pillows and props Diluc up in bed so that he isn’t straining while he waits for Childe to reorganize all of the things he dragged in here.
“Do you want me to warm the water? It’s cold.”
Diluc thinks about it, just for a moment. Just a second of indulging in a chance to decide what he wants, regardless of how small a thing it’s for. He has to start somewhere, doesn’t he? “No. Thanks.” A warm bath had sounded good, but if he can’t soak, he’d rather the water be cool to relieve him of some of this heat that’s been building inside him. His skin aches, and he already normally runs hot.
Childe doesn’t second guess his decision. He helps Diluc finish stripping off nightwear, then brings a cool, damp cloth over to Diluc’s bedside. His work is methodical, that of a soldier if not for the tenderness. He thoroughly wipes down each limb, trails down Diluc’s scarred arms and in between his fingers, and saves Diluc’s torso for last. Childe lets his eyes roam over Diluc’s chest, not even slightly ashamed, but he keeps his mouth shut and hardly even smirks, so Diluc lets him have this.
It’s as the rag, cool in a near painful relief, touches the skin of his back that Childe speaks.
“It was work. That wasn’t a lie.”
“Is it the full truth?”
Childe sighs. “You know I don’t like schemes.”
A beat of silence, another cool glide of the rag, careful to avoid his wounds. Then, “I was afraid. Is that enough?” And it isn’t, not really, but it's also more than Diluc would ever have been able—greedy enough—to ask for.
Childe switches to a clean washcloth before he finally touches Diluc’s wounds. It’s dressed with a different soap, something much milder in scent, and it stings. They don’t talk while this goes on; Diluc grits his teeth, and Childe focuses on the task before him—on Diluc. When at last it’s done, Childe rings out the cloth over an empty bowl, faintly red water staining the sides. There are implications, Diluc thinks, that come from Childe beginning this conversation while he washes Diluc’s back. While they can’t look eye to eye. He’s grateful, if he’s honest. Perhaps they’re both afraid that they’ve bit off more than they can chew, that they’ve played their hand without entirely knowing what cards they hold. Diluc isn’t sure that Childe knew what he wanted when he first returned to Angel’s Share. He’s sure that he himself was confused—then mortified—by discovering that he does in fact have feelings that cannot be stored in a box and disregarded until a later time, which was always “hopefully never.” He thought maybe his love for Mondstadt and its people would be all he ever cared about. That was simple. His feelings towards Childe are not simple. Anything but, really.
He thinks this as Childe continues speaking, voice more somber than Diluc is used to hearing. “You said you would think about it. That was the first time you didn’t directly tell me no. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted from this, thought I was following my whims, and then you said maybe, and I—“ He trails off, and Diluc gives him a moment of quiet, though he figures at this point Childe is done speaking, his sentence left unanswered.
Diluc twists in his spot, even though the stretch of his skin burns. He places his hand over Childe’s, wet from the rag and the traces of blood. “Childe.”
Childe’s eyes are wide, exposed, like he never thought he’d really need to be himself. But he never seemed to doubt Diluc either, never seemed to really believe it wouldn’t end here. His breath is even. He isn’t scared.
He’s in awe.
When at last they’re kissing, Childe’s back pressed roughly into the wood of the headboard behind him, it sears his flesh like no flame ever has.
He’s vaguely aware of Childe maneuvering the bowl out of the way, dropped onto the nightstand with water sloshing over the side in his speed to instead be turning Diluc fully around and guiding him into his lap. The cloth is dropped—on the bed, the floor, Diluc doesn’t care—and with his free hand, Childe is sliding his fingers between Diluc’s and lacing them together, palms pressed together. It’s surprisingly intimate, gentle.
Childe’s lips are warm, and hungry, and Diluc squeezes Childe’s hand in his as he chases Childe’s mouth for a second kiss, then a third. Their lips part and return, and Diluc feels insatiable. He doesn’t know where to place his other hand. He’s overthinking it as usual, but his cognitive abilities have drastically dropped, washed over by the intense desire and happiness of finally being able to kiss Childe. His body feels alive, thrumming with heat, eager to press closer like it can’t get enough now that he’s finally being touched. In the hand his hand dips to Childe’s waist, and he thought that would anchor him, but Archons is Childe’s waist tiny. He’s so much more slender than he seems with all his layers and buckles and broaches, and when Diluc realizes this is the strip of skin he had once caught sight of—thanks to Snezhnaya’s terrible choices in fashion and function—he groans into Childe’s mouth. He can’t help it, but Childe must not mind, because the hand not interlocked with Diluc’s suddenly slides into the hair at the back of Diluc’s head, pulling him in as if they could be any closer. His tongue presses into Diluc’s mouth and Diluc lets him, their kisses turning wet and heady as Diluc curls his fingers into Childe’s skin.
His hand stays there for a while as they kiss, before Diluc’s curiosity and ambition get the better of him. He slips his fingers under the hem of Childe’s shirt and slides it up Childe’s torso, movements steady and smooth as he feels every stretch of skin that slides beneath his palm. He can feel the shape of Childe’s muscles, the warmth of his skin, the rise and fall of his chest as he takes in quick, shallow breaths, unwilling to part his lips from Diluc’s for more than a moment. Across all that skin is the drag of scars both ridged and smooth, raised lines that tell a thousand stories about Childe—all ones that Diluc wants to ask about when their mouths are less busy. Maybe one day he’ll see them all and map them out. He wants to memorize the lines of Childe, to be able to know his past by his flesh alone.
Childe’s hand moves from Diluc’s hair to down across the planes of his back, his long, agile fingers splayed over the skin like Childe wants to be touching as much of him as possible. Diluc tries to slide forward, ignoring the singing tells of pain from his own body as he raises his hips and presses in towards Childe. His thighs are trembling, and he can hear—feel—Childe’s huff of laughter before they finally pull apart to breathe. “I thought you were supposed to be the patient one.”
Diluc leans back as best he can, which admittedly is not far given the strain that moving himself like this puts directly on the wounded areas of his torso. He tries to take one deep breath, but he still ends up gasping for air, chest rapidly rising and falling as he breathes. “You want me,” Diluc begins. “I want you. I think we've danced around it long enough.” His voice feels low, rough. He must look disheveled, even more of a mess than before Childe had so graciously wiped him down, and yet—he can see the way the ring of blue in Childe’s eyes nearly vanishes, overtaken by darkness as his pupils dilate.
“You do know that I'm insatiable, don't you?” He can feel the restless twitch of Childe’s fingers against his skin, like he's using all of his restraint to hold himself back until Diluc says that it’s alright. Diluc pictures a dog with a treat on its nose and finds it extremely fitting.
“I’m counting on it.”
Diluc kisses Childe again, not thinking about the amount of pressure in his strong hands as he presses into Diluc’s skin, right over his bruises and broken rib. The pain is kind of intoxicating, and Diluc can feel himself getting light headed.
He’s the last to realize that he’s slowing down, movements sluggish. Childe can't pull away any further with his back against the headboard, but he’s gentle when he finally untangles their hands to place both of his on Diluc’s face, gently pushing him back. He spends a moment just looking, light reflecting in his eyes from the window in a way Diluc never had the chance to see in the dark hours of Angel Share’s bar.
“You’re like a wildfire.”
“A natural disaster?”
“And beautiful, too.”
Diluc pushes at his chest with the weak amount of force he can muster right now, and Childe catches his hands, laughing. “You have to be tired. Rest. I’m not going anywhere.”
Diluc looks at him for a long time.
“I’m not. Really.”
It’s as close to a promise as he’s going to get. He has to trust Childe—and he finds that he does. He isn’t sure if trusting a Fatui agent should surprise him more than kissing one, more than becoming infatuated with one, more than devising plans to make things work with one. And he doesn’t care. He’s riled up, but he’s also exhausted. Fatigue weeps from every joint he has, and his body feels so much heavier now that he’s no longer leaning on Childe for support. Childe is more than all of that, anyway. Diluc learned that long ago—is seeing it be proven again right now.
And Diluc said he’d try to stop lying to himself. Beginnings never have a better opportunity than in the present. “I want you in my life.” He doesn’t say as what. He doesn’t say forever. He thinks that would be a lot, right now. They aren’t anything yet. But that’s also a lie, because they are, they have been something for a while. Childe squeezes his hand, and he doesn’t think he has to specify to be known.
It’s going to be hard. Their lives aren’t suddenly easier, and they don’t suddenly live or work closer to one another. Their wants and desires and goals—there’s still some conflict there. But they also both want this. Diluc knows that now. They want it, and they deserve…good. They deserve to have something good. They do.
Diluc settles back in between his sheets with a hiss slithering through his teeth, head cushioned by a single pillow and his arm curled up beneath him. It will kill him to sleep like that all night, but it gives him a better vantage point. He’s considerably better than before, but he’s still in pain, and all he can really do now is rest to let his body mend himself back together. He should be sleeping on his other side—his good side—or his stomach even, but this way lets him look at Childe while he’s still there. He lets his gaze roam freely, lets himself finally really drink Childe in, no games or wayward glances. And Childe lets him. Like this, Childe looks more wild than before. He looks stunning. There’s still a reflection of light in his eyes, the depths of that blue entrancing, despite the sun having set by now. His grin is lazier, relaxed. His hair is tousled, vibrant and wild. His grin is stretched across his face, pleased and unwavering, and Diluc would be unnerved at the absolute attention if he wasn’t so admittedly infatuated by it. By Childe. Wild, gentle, ambitious Childe.
It’s everything Diluc wants, apparently. He hopes, for once, that he dreams.
As they settle, the crackle of the still-burning fire and their slowing breathing are the only sounds in the room until a thought occurs to Diluc, slowly and groggily pushing to be heard before he falls into sleep. “You said that you’d give me your name. Your real name.”
There’s a silence lingering around them. Pleasant, but quiet. His head against the pillow now, and Childe’s presence secure and firm against his side, Diluc is comfortable. Sleep is coming for him quickly. He thinks that for once he won’t fight it, but it’s instinct—he’s never liked sleep. And it pays off. He’s awake just long enough to hear the word “Ajax” slipped into the loud silence of the room, to tell Childe thank you, and then he passes out.
Childe spends the night at Dawn Winery to ensure that Diluc stays put and doesn’t push it.
The next Friday, despite Diluc’s overabundance of rest and general agitation at staying still, he insists that Diluc is unfit to work, and takes it upon himself to do the job—against, of course, all of Diluc’s protests.
Diluc ultimately lets him anyway. Naturally.
He takes one of Diluc’s white vests—too broad in the shoulders, not tight enough around the waist—and pins it up in the back until it looks natural. Natural enough, at least. The fact that Diluc knows this is his clothing stirs something in him. He simmers just watching Childe from one of the stools at the bar, watching him wear Diluc’s clothes and do Diluc’s job and make it look so good. His hair is as much a mess as ever and his smile inviting, though its quality changes to something unreserved and blinding whenever Childe glances in Diluc’s direction and sees a second, third, chance. For just a moment, Diluc gets it—what Childe saw when he first walked into Angel’s Share.
Still, Diluc hates to be on this side of the countertop. Recent self-reflection aside, he’s not a different man. He hates to sit there idly instead of working, no matter how alluring it is to watch Childe pour drinks, or barely stretch to reach the top most shelf, or slide glassware across the bar with an amount of fluidity and control that should have taken far more practice—another facet of Childe’s life to ask about later. It’s still torturous, to sit and wait, but when Diluc starts to seem antsy—like he may climb over the counter himself just to start making drinks—Childe is there half crawled over the bar top, leaning into Diluc’s personal space. “Come on. You need to rest before we can have a real fight. I want to see you carry that massive claymore.” His voice is low, and his gaze drops, hungry and smug, and Diluc wants to absolutely destroy him. In a couple of ways.
His thoughts must show on his face more clearly than he meant to allow them to, if Childe’s ringing laughter is anything to go by. “Exactly the type of man that’s too good for me. Don’t look so annoyed about it.”
Diluc sighs. “I am annoyed. You’re the worst man in the world, truly—and yet I’m endeared by it.”
It’s frightening, if he’s honest with himself. Diluc doesn’t know how to care like that. He isn’t familiar with the kind of love that runs on quality time, or words of affection, or by paying attention to the little details. Those things fit clumsily in his hands, bigger and louder than Diluc knows what to do with, but he’s trying. He’s never had the model for it, but he wants to, and that’s his driving force. Don’t think about it, just do it. That’s gotten him this far.
Childe laughs again, the lightest sound in the world, and maybe wanting to really is enough.
Childe doesn’t stay for much longer, and doesn’t return for just as long. By the time he is back in Mondstadt, Diluc isn’t lying when he says he’s fine.
They pick up where they left off, more or less.
It’s late by the time Childe gets to Angel’s Share, but Diluc lets him stay even when the door is locked and the sign reading closed is placed firmly on the door. Most of the lanterns are unlit by now, and the dim lighting in combination with the late hour and the locked door is distinctly intimate. It’s giving Diluc ideas.
“Are you coming back to the manor with me, Childe?” Diluc doesn’t look up, collecting the last of the scattered mugs and glasses and sliding them into a soapy basin of water. He wants to get the dishes washed and over with as soon as possible, and he’s so focused on speeding up the routine of this task that he doesn’t immediately realize that there’s no instant response from his own personal chatterbox.
When he looks up, Childe is staring at him. “Come on, Diluc. Still?” Pouting, even. Now that he’s already kissed those lips, Diluc supposes there’s no reason he shouldn’t be allowed to look at them some more. It’s cute, the face Childe is making. He likes it.
Diluc goes back to his dishes. All he wants is to be home, out of his coat, and in bed with Childe. It’s not much to ask for, though it’s far more than he would have asked for just a year ago. “Ajax is somewhere in Snezhnaya protecting his siblings. Tartaglia is at the Goth Grand Hotel, or Liyue, or anywhere else doing things I simply do not wish to know about. Childe, though, is a regular at my bar. In my bed. Childe is mine.”
The fog that once obscured so many of his inner thoughts has begun to clear, lately, and he now can admit it—he sees a future. One more crafted towards this version of Diluc than the version his father had begun building so many years ago. One filled with hard work and far more effort, but one more aligned with who he wants to be instead of who he has always been.
Childe will leave soon, yes—he won’t suddenly have a different job or a different life. And Diluc will still be here, struggling to mend his relationship with Mondstadt, with his work, with Kaeya, and with his own internal monologue. But Childe will come back. Diluc will still be here. By no means will it be easy, but it will be theirs.
“Well, when you put it like that, I suppose I am.” Childe grins at him before elbowing Diluc out of the way to help with the dishes, his smile hungry and happy and honest, and without any thoughts or internal dialogue, Diluc lets himself smile back.