[ The key to hiding a lie, Kaeya knows all too well, is to bury it within more of its kind. Too many people make the amateur mistake of pretending they hide no skeletons in their closest, never realizing their shallow attempts at denial only makes it easier to funnel out their dirty little secrets. No, true deception requires effort, requires dedication - thousands and thousands of little lies and half-truths and whole truths twisted the wrong way around, each one individually thin and translucent as a sheet of frost, layered over each other and packed so tightly until they form an impenetrable glacier. Until it's impossible to tell where one ends and another begins, melting away only to refreeze into another form entire.
And so tucked away in a drawer in the nightstand by his bed is a discreet little wooden box, the lid firmly sealed shut with a complicated lock - but not so complicated that a person cunning enough to break into a knight captain's personal chambers wouldn't be able to pick given enough time and dedication. Within, they would find a crystalline bottle filled with what a single sniff would tell them is undoubtedly omega pheromones - and there it would be. Kaeya Alberich's greatest secret: that this man who flaunts his secondary gender so shamelessly is no true omegaborn at all.
Not a particularly exciting scandal, given how such a thing is hardly unheard of in the City of Freedom, but a satsifying one nonetheless. Word would spread across the entire city within the day; how embarrassing, how pitiable, that the sultry Captain Alberich who struts his scent and beauty wherever he goes has had to rely on artificial pheromones all this time! Tongues would waggle over whether he'd been born a beta or alpha, speculations on what his natural scent would consist of. His stupider enemies would attempt to blackmail or taunt him over the reveal; his smarter ones would simply reorganize their strategies against him, calling a halt to all the aggressive alphas and the heat-inducers sent his way thus far. Whatever the case, everyone would leave happy and smug believing they've finally gotten one over their notoriously slippery foe.
And thus, no one would think to check the jar labeled as hair oil sitting innoculously with all his other many beauty products on his vanity table. No locks, no safes, just an ordinary jar left unguarded out in the open - certainly nothing to suggest that within contains the results of an ancient recipe devised by the Khaenrians when they could still walk amongst the people of Teyvat, seeking to mingle amongst the populace by replicating the pheromones emitted by what they called 'beta'.
The contents of the jar are still mostly full - it isn't often that Kaeya finds himself in need of it, after all. The first time had been on his fourteenth birthday (or the date he'd claimed it to be, and whether or not that's a lie too even he doesn't remember anymore); he'd furtively dabbed the potion in the dead of night against where his scent glands should have been had he been normal, then later that day crept into Master Crepus's study and whispered with downcast eyes that he didn't feel like a beta. Afterwards, he's only needed to reach for it twice a year, when his supply of omega pheromones starts running low and he has to drop by the library for another of Lisa's marvelously discreet decoctions.
There's certainly no trace of beta on him tonight as he heads down to Angel's Share, just an extra layer of his usual pheromones, the thickening scent a signal of an omega near pre-heat. A group of alphas purporting to be treasure hoarders are temporarily in town, and while normally he wouldn't pull out all the stops for such small fry, the hint of a Snezhnayan accent behind their words makes him think that perhaps they deserve the...extra friendly welcoming committee. Diluc isn't on shift when he enters the bar, which isn't surprising given the man's nocturnal extracurriculars but is a bit of a shame; it's always amusing watching him try to hide the way his nose crinkles in disgust whenever Kaeya swans about absolutely swimming in pheromones.
(Which is frankly a bit overdramatic of him, because Kaeya has been informed on multiple occasions by his many, many admirers that he smells great. Some enticing combination of a moonlit icy night carrying the subtle fragrance of calla lilies, the sharp chill warmed by a rich exotic spice - and while his noseblind self can't see what's so appealing about what sounds like the smell of a confused cryo whopperflower wandering into an overenthusiastic kitchen, he's had no complaints as of yet. He'd think Diluc's obvious repulsion is just another sign of the tension between them, but the nose-wrinkling's been a thing even in their youth, so clearly the man either has some serious prudishness to work through or his taste in omega pheromones run as boring and bland as his taste in drinks. Probably both.)
At any rate, Diluc's not behind the counter tonight and he's certainly not who Kaeya's targeting anyway, so he forces his thoughts back on track, lounging casually as he sips his drink until his gaze lands on the group of alphas in the corner. All of their eyes are already on him, have been so the moment he opened the door; he gives them a casual wave, smile curling at the edges as he watches the wariness on their faces war with their instinct to impress and possess and own. He waits a heartbeat, lets the tension draw out like a string on a harp, before sauntering over with hips swaying and taking a seat.
Noseblind though he may be, the language of the body is one Kaeya is as fluent in as Teyvat, as his own mothertongue. Impress me, says the cock of his hips as he splays himself over the barstool. Dangerous but tameable with the right price, says the tilt of his wrist as he props his elbow on the table. Give me what I want and perhaps you may just get what you want for the night, says the arch of his neck as he angles it just enough to put the long line of it on display.
(They won't, of course. But where's the fun in knowing?) ]
New in town, gentlemen? I do hope you've been enjoying the sights of our fair city.
[ It isn't long before he's talked them into playing a round of cards with him, and from there the game's over nearly as quickly as it begun. Trained though they may be, there's simply too many distractions for a poor alpha to deal with; an omega thick with pre-heat on offer, adrenaline pumping hot from competition with other alphas, focus stumbling between cards in hand and a wicked smile in front - is it any wonder that a few extra words may carelessly slip the tongue during casual conversation? Nothing as substantial as a name or confession of course, but Kaeya has gotten very good at painting a vivid picture with only a few wisps of information in hand.
He's just about gotten what he's needed and is about to move on to fleecing these suckers of at least half their mora when Hoffman comes rushing in with a report of yet another sighting of Mondsdadt's local vigilante. With an exaggerated sigh, Kaeya stands up from the table, waving regretfully at the flushed faces staring dazedly up at him. ]
Sorry to rush out on you when we've been having such fun, but I'm afraid duty calls. But don't worry, I'm a fairly common face amongst these parts - if you extend your stay here longer, you may get to see a little more of me.
[ Whistling cheerfully, he makes his way out of the bar and into the streets and alleys of Mondsdadt - and if he happens to stop a few times along the way to help out various citizens with their tasks and thereby give that wretched Darknight Hero a window of opportunity to escape, well it can't be helped, can it? He's just fulfilling his responsibilities as a knight, after all. ]
[ just fulfilling his duties, he'd say. gallivanting about with the knights, worming intel from the palms of men more hungry than he is. slicked with the scent of an omega, poured into the spaces of any who seek treasure leave behind, it'd been only right that diluc had been (unpleasantly) surprised. four years away, four years absent — the rot rooted out and the rot receded, but diluc had no such qualms about trusting the institutions that betrayed him. had no such illusions that all had been fixed and mended. had no such hopes that the paths that wound him "home" would be as he remembered, memories a bright and bitter cinder on the tip of his tongue.
where they flounder, diluc rises. pressed against the night, chasing the thin edge of dawn, he strings his own networks along. he knows the names of those who linger in their boundaries, the faces of fatui behind the city walls. he knows how to dispose of such difficult messes before often the knights ever catch wind of it, but kaeya — sir kaeya had always been different. a cold wind against the back, a dagger through the lungs. between the slats of ribs, disarming first with his "given gifts" and the curl of silvered tongue. he'd always stumbled not at all over the social standings, maneuvered his words as pieces across the polish of a board. it'd charmed him, begrudgingly, in his youth. he'd been foolish then.
but now, garbed even as he is against those who would stare not at all closely at him, he finds it infuriating. irritating. enough that he should want to — ah, perhaps he's not thinking too clearly. it'd been enough of a night of errors, another comedy of mistakes. his first had been to approach a group he'd only had a smattering of information on. not as though they themselves were unknown to diluc, not really, but the shipments they were moving to and from liyue? no such knowledge on what the bottles contained that the men threw. not that it mattered now, considering he'd had them dispatched on the far shore and left the smoldering fleet of their boats against the lip of the lake, but —
staggering isn't something the dark knight hero does, per se. he's efficient and fleeting, a shadow that answers no pleading to cease his actions under threat of arrest. he is not ungainly in the way he uses the cobbled stone of the city walls to pull himself along. he does not become overwhelmed, sweat beading at his temples and dry at the mouth. he doesn't become sick on the scent of the knights that flicker still about the city — scattered crystal flies in the vineyard. he does not — ]
Ugh. [ enough of a sound to contain multitudes. if he can just make it back to the winery (or some secluded place in-between) it won't be worth worrying about the searing heat that spreads from the gut to the tips of his fingers. the itch that begins burrow at the blunt of his teeth. he could just sleep it off, he figures. the high rise of his scent like smoke against the mountain paths, a fire lit among the needling pines. it reeks, he's sure. he reeks even more, when he comes from the western exit — backlit by the moon, framed in silver.
diluc attempts to turn on his heel and make a quicker exit, but his body isn't having it. in the mess of bottles that remain, his leaden feet kick through the battlefield of glass. he grimaces. ]
[ They've acted this little play enough times before that Kaeya knows what to expect as he slowly strolls to where Mondstadt's local vigilante had last been spotted. Perhaps some trussed-up vagabonds ready to spend the night in the city's finest prison cells, or an alleyway devoid of any signs of life save for scorchmarks against the cobblestones that will have to be cleaned up before morning light. If he's lucky, he may even be able to catch the tail end of the Darknight Hero's battle from hidden within the shadows; the sight of all that passion and fury and flame so tightly tucked away beneath layers and layers of stiff rigidity these days, whirling in a dazzling dance of devastation, is well worth the price of admission.
It isn't often that his predictions miss the mark entirely. Usually he welcomes such interesting breaks from the expected, but Kaeya can't find any such thrill in him now as he stares at Diluc stumbling crooked against the walls, clumsy and ungainly in a way he hasn't seen in years.
He doesn't panic; the ability for shock had been numbed out of him long before he ever stepped foot in this strange land of grass and flowers, left behind in the sprawling underground caverns of his homeland. Ice instead of adrenaline floods through his veins, freezing time in this moment as he analyzes every detail of the tableau before him. His nose may not be able to detect pheromones, but it's perfectly functional otherwise, and what it tells him now is: no coppery tang of blood in the air, no stink of burnt flesh, just the distinct acrid smokiness from pyro magic and a faint spray of lakewater. The black clothing under the night sky hides any potential stains out of view, but the glow of moonlight casts those remarkable eyes into stark relief, a pair of embers blazing against the dark - sharp with irritation, no trace of the glazed confusion of a head wound to be found.
So then. An injury serious enough to send even the most reticent of warriors reeling on his feet - the aftermath of an electro attack perhaps, or a bad blow to the ankle or ribs - but nothing severe enough that needs to be addressed immediately. Nothing near fatal.
Time restarts. Kaeya breathes out the chill that had gathered in his lungs, vapor hanging in the air for a brief moment against his lips before it's blown away by the wind.
Let's see, how to handle this? He's almost tempted to save the poor guy some pride after an undoubtedly rough night and pretend he was never here, but then Diluc looks up and their gazes catch and hold, inevitably drawn even under the darkness of night. Ah well, mocking amusement it is then. Tucking his hands into his pockets, he casually saunters closer, a teasing smirk on his lips as his eye scans the other's body up and down for any further clues to the nature of his injuries. ]
Well, well. If it isn't the mysterious Darknight Hero, live in the flesh. [ The ridiculous moniker rolls off his tongue as if savoring a fine wine; Kaeya had spent weeks making sure the name caught on like wildfire amongst the citizens, and he considers every second well-spent. ] Such a shame I left my good cuffs at home.
[ Haven’t they just? Captain Kaeya chasing the remnants of the Darknight Hero, who spends much of his evenings tailing him? It’s a stupid fanged thing, Diluc should think, caught forever in the cycle of its own body – its own justifications for remaining entangled with it. No matter how one tries to loosen the bind, it seems like it just means to remain. And Diluc might curtail such fanciful lines of poetry any other day, but the round of his thoughts run roughshod over themselves, scatter like light does across the glass at his feet. His body seems only to sympathize with it, the tension of his frame cut in strange places. His shoulders sag and his chest does not heave, but it is a near thing. Like a tomcat at a scrap, hackles raised, Diluc has no place to beat a retreat to lick at the wounds of his own hubris. He has no place to turn, ‘lest he’d fancy a dip in the lake. And with these stakes – he considers the weight of his claymore, the odd weight in his stomach. He considers the miserable itch, a burn down to the heart and the marrow.
What passes through Kaeya is an unknown to him, unreadable as any star chart that lingers in Teyvat. Once, such little expressions would be translatable to him. The turn of his eye, the cast of his lashes. The way his mouth would quirk at such an angle. The flex of his shoulder or the weight set at his hip. Kaeya, who’d once been – Diluc plants the tip of his claymore in the soft soil of the shore. He pushes himself up by the hilt, knows he needs to shoulder by or not all. Kaeya wouldn’t jail him, he knows, but it’ll come at a price. A piece of information. A new rumor. Something or other from the mouths of their networks. A favor spooled ‘round the fingers. A thread of some worn tapestry, eager to unwind. Perhaps then, he thinks, he’d be able to convince him to step aside. To pay him no further mind. To let Diluc hobble his way home and sleep off the oncoming ache in his joints, the leaden palm of drowsiness. ]
Sir Kaeya of the Ordo Favonius, [ Diluc says, voice a thin fissure of flame against the set of teeth, the tick of his jaw. At the nape of his neck he feels the beading of sweat, the sweet-sick smell of pheromones and something akin to ink. He leans harder against the hilt of his claymore, sets his shoulders square. He does not flinch away from the assessing gaze Kaeya casts, but rather stands (he tells himself) steady. ] Haven’t you more important leads to consider?
Ah, but it seems all my leads have been so kindly taken care of by a mysterious stranger, so I'm free as a bird! What a lucky coincidence, don't you think?
[ He keeps his voice as playful as usual, but there's no mistaking how his expression sharpens as he takes in every detail of the scene. He may not be able to read Diluc's mind the way he used to, but body language is still body language, and right now it's telling him that there's a good chance the man will collapse halfway to the winery and probably be eaten by slimes if he lets him go now. Diluc's grandstanding might be enough to fool most, but Kaeya's seen him at his best and worst more times than he can count; he knows full well there's no way someone so proud and impassive, someone who wields a claymore as lightly as a feather, would ever lean on it for support unless he had no other choice.
Hidden deep within his pockets, his fingers curl with the long ingrained instinct to take the claymore's place, to be the one to catch Diluc when he stumbles. Once, he wouldn't have hesitated to rush over and shoulder Diluc's burdens as his own; once, Diluc would have dropped the facade of the invincible warrior and let him, putting up with the inevitable teasing with long-suffering good humor. He'd been so damn pleased with himself back then, glowing in smug self-satisfaction every time Diluc trusted him and him alone with all his struggles and vulnerabilities, his pride nearly enough to drown out the everpresent siren song of his guilt.
These days, the man's more liable to cut his hand off than take it should he offer it out for help. The ease of their childhood banter has long since been burnt to ashes; now, every conversation they have may as well be a chess game, each sentence carefully examined for traps and hidden meanings, each word planned ten steps ahead. No point in asking Diluc what the hell happened to him, not when it'll just get his hackles up, not when he's lost any right to express concern; no, the only way he can get what he wants is through being exactly what Diluc expects him to be, the coldhearted schemer and manipulator. ]
My, my. [ He raises an eyebrow and lets the smile on his face grow even wider, the crook of his mouth hooking up into a patronizing curl, shifting into a smug expression that multiple people on multiple occasions have informed him makes him look extremely punchable. ] Master Hero, are you drunk?
[ Obviously not - they both know Diluc abhors the taste of alcohol and would never indulge to the point of drunkeness, let alone before a fight. But short of regaining the man's trust - an impossibility for certain - riling him up is the best way he knows to make him slip all the little details that'll give him away. ]
[ all bluster and bluff and show for nothing, he thinks. there has never been a singular coincidence between kaeya and he, never a moment left up to wondering. what is chance when there is destiny written through the firmament? what is destiny when all diluc has learned from his wanderings that kaeya was never meant to be as his right-hand to start? what of them both, polar and binary stars, if not doomed to rip one another apart? for a long time, that'd been all that it was. it was all diluc could convince himself of. alive in the ashes he'd kindled, the embers of what he'd once wished for hot on the tongue — it'd taken more for diluc to realize what anger could do and what anger was. what it could become. and, as he considers the plant of his claymore in the soft sands beneath him, what it wasn't.
but, what good is it? here and now, any recollection and hope for retention slips from beneath him like ice underfoot. heel to the rime with no hope of friction, diluc digs down a little bit more. he doesn't know when to let go, not really. never really has, but he knows there's no immediate danger to be had beyond the damage to his own pride. owing something or other on another night. enduring whatever foolish interrogations kaeya had to satisfy. ]
Very convenient, [ he allots, voice pitching off-course. it rumbles through the grit of his lungs, rolls over itself. comes up thinner, fatigued. wisped. if he can just make it through this, he can turn in at angel's share. he can make it there. he can — his palms are slick on the hilt of his claymore. he feels his fingers tighten, instinctive. at the pale curve of his throat, his pulse jumps in tandem with the low thrum in his chest. it sounds like a low roar, caught in the space between his jaw and his ear. it circles there, tangible as he lifts his head to blink through the dampening curl of his hair.
in another life, it wouldn't have been like this. perhaps it would have been easier entirely. perhaps, right now, diluc veers unsteadily, he'd be asleep in his own bed. kaeya would come in like he used to, smelling of linen and skin. it'd be peaceful. kaeya would have roused him, despite all of his grumblings, and they would have sat on the balcony. early morning, he thinks. watching the crystal flies. kaeya would have never been rain-sodden in those little fantasies. he'd never have been a startling, blue nail through the roof of diluc's heart. he'd have just been him.
diluc wouldn't have wanted for anything at all and it takes a moment for him to refocus and regroup. kaeya is still circling. he's still wearing that kind of smile, fish-hooked for him. he knows the hard line of his expression, the little hold of his shoulders, but there's no hint of him. it's only this kaeya. this one, who turned up in the place of the one diluc had left.
diluc's mouth sets. the pale of its line is an uneven thing, cut through with the notch of his brow as he pins his focus on kaeya's shoulder. just enough to give him space to breathe. to try to spin the little pieces of his thoughts together for this one. ]
If you're looking for drunkards, there's plenty in the city. [ yes. there, he thinks. that's enough. that's something, he thinks, as he shakes through the heat that simmers in root of him. he pushes himself up, like a flame caught on the roll of kindling. if the momentum is there, he knows he has to make use of it. it won't last for long. ] I'd suggest you —
[ — start there, he means to finish. but, it's a touch difficult to get the words out when his palm finally gives and his grip finally slips and the whole structure of his balance is upended as easily as he'd gotten it going. ]
[ once upon a time, he'd been known throughout mondsdadt as the shadow to the ragnvindr heir's light, the moon to his sun, always trailing slightly behind like the cool breeze of autumn towards the end of the hot summer days. those who called him so usually said it with a curl of pity or derision, as if following in diluc's footsteps was somehow shameful instead of the best damn thing that's ever happened to him, as if he wouldn't have been content doing so for the rest of his life. how many nights had he spent sleepless staring up at the stars back then, torn between wishing desperately these halcyon days as diluc's right-hand man and confidante could last forever and wishing desperately that the people of his homeland could too one day look up and see something other than the ruined sky above?
it's been a few years and a lifetime since then, and destiny and their own choices have decreed them walk separate paths than the naive dreams of their youth. even so, the instant he sees diluc falter and begin to fall, kaeya's body moves forward on instinct as if no time's passed at all, bracing him on his back before he can hit the ground. for all their estrangement, he slides into diluc's space exactly as fluidly as he used to, quick dancing steps covering all the blind spots to the other's brute force, fitting as perfectly into the gaps left behind as water into a glass.
...the extra weight is new however, knocking the breath out of his lungs in a wheeze. ]
Oof! Just how many extra claymores are you packing under there?
[ much as he tries to act nonchalant, he can't quite keep the sharp concern out of his voice. diluc's always run warmer than most, but the searing line of heat weighing down his back feels less like the cozy blanket he remembers and more like a sweltering sauna, even through all their layers of clothing. with one hand supporting diluc so he doesn't flop off like a slug, he removes the glove from his other hand with his teeth and reaches up to place it against his forehead, hissing when it burns so hot he swears his palm will blister. ]
...seriously? [ it's a good thing no one is likely to stumble across the two of them in the middle of the night here, because his reputation as a smooth and silvertongued charmer will never recover from the way exasperation colors his tone now like a nagging grandmother. ] Master Hero, as incompetent and slow as we meagre knights are, I assure you we can fight nearly as well as a man with a fever high enough to melt the caps of Dragonspine. You could have just stayed in bed.
[ there'll be too many questions if he drags the both of them into the audience of gossiping drunks still lingering around angel's share; it's a bit of a distant walk, but the winery will be the best option to deposit diluc's flu-ridden body and leave him under the tender mercy of adelinde. he staggers one step forward, then two, and promptly changes his mind - his apartment it is! ]
[ diluc once liked fables, fairytales. he'd once poured over old tomes in late father's library, the dust and weathered pages like the scales of gossamer wings. he'd once thought kaeya was written out like one of those beings — spun into silks, blue as starsliver and eye awash with a burning star. what more could he be, he'd thought? a beautiful, discarded thing turned up in the storms like the cores of wind about the plates of mountains. snow, he'd thought, in the half-dark of the fingerling moon and the corpse of her sisters hung heavy in the belts about the heavens.
but, the world is only honey dark. the truth is an unknown. punished, for all it is pursued. and is diluc not guilty too? no matter how much he has dug through, the mud of warm bodies beneath the tread of his boots, hadn't it been him who'd cut loose? hadn't it been them both? sinners, in the way children are: bickering at the last scraps of something that mattered more than what was thrown between them as though a noose. and yet, it'd hurt. it hurt in the way that deep hurts do, teeth against the marrow and the bone. a thin sliver of a page cut across the pad of a finger. throbbing, for all that it seemed to narrow with age.
but, for all diluc thinks he deserves that earth that comes up to meet him (or perhaps it is the other way around?), it does not embrace him. instead, it is the artificial bloom of sweeter flowers. it is ice fields. snezhnaya, in all of its whiteness, cut through with the warmth of his blood. and yet, for all it should appeal to him, it scrapes along the roof of his mouth as though a brand. it pounds through the bulk of him, hammer-heavy and leaden. it aches in the way his stomach curls tight and weighted as though a musket ball.
he hates it, he thinks. hates this is what he's come back to. hates this is what he smells, when the touch is all he remembers it to be. in part. for a moment, seventeen and at the edge of windrise — kaeya's eye trained beyond him, even back then. how stupid had diluc been? how foolish? how — ]
You wish, [ he slurs into the crook of some body part. his boots scrape at the dirt, the toes marred by the sand at the shoreline. kaeya smells of the lake beneath all the fuss and pageantry. he smells briefly of himself as diluc tries to force himself upright, tries to find the world a more conscious blur of movement. but, for all that he tries and attempts and feels around at the air or the cobble(? when did that appear there?), it matters little. he only recognizes parts of mond here and there, back alleys and angel's share. some tight row of townhouses, at the western-edge.
he probably doesn't notice too much any breaks that kaeya gives himself or affords, half-stumbling through the city where kaeya's strength won't bear him. he'd always been the stronger of the two, diluc. the more stubborn. the more determined to reach the end goal, no matter how much it took from him. dignity, pride — whatever it was that the band of ne'er-do-wells threw at him. it didn't matter.
What, for you to be recuperating snugly in bed while I spend the evening indulging in your establishment's finest vintages? I can't imagine why I would possibly wish for that when I'm having so much fun bearing the - hruf - literal brunt of your delightful company instead.
[ the banter is familiar, if more acerbic than when they'd been young, the warmth and weight of diluc's body pressing down against his back even more so. it's hard, as they stumble their way through back alleys and empty streets, not to recollect the halycon days of yesteryear when they'd lean on each other just like this in exhausted satisfaction after a brutal day's training; it's harder still not to dwell on how diluc only trusts his attempts at aid now when he's near out of his mind with fever. funny the way the mind works sometimes, how even plastered back to front with near every inch of them touching, so close he can feel the heat of the other's breath shiver aross the fine hairs of his nape with each step they stake, the yawning chasm between them seems to grow ever wider.
perhaps it's this strange familiarity that causes his thoughts to come unusually sluggish this night, because it's not until they're facing the door of his apartment that the extremely obvious finally hits him that barbatos' underdeveloped tit, diluc is going to be inside his house. for all the rumors of his promiscuity (rumors he himself helped spread), the number of times anyone has crossed the threshhold into his domain can be counted on two fingers: once, when jean forgoed her usual courtesies in the wake of stormterror's initial attack, and the other, when he'd forgotten to return a library book and opened the door to find lisa on his sofa halfway through his finest bottle of wine. as for actually inviting someone in, willingly and of his own initiative? well, that's happened about as often as one less than how many working eyes he has left.
and now he's letting diluc in? diluc, of all people, who'll take one look at his blank walls and empty rooms and the way his apartment looks no different than the day he'd first moved in, barely furnished and devoid of life, and come to who knows what conclusion? what is he thinking? but then again, what choice does he have?
(he brushes away the voice that says that actually, between angel's share and his offices and the many hideouts he has around the city for clandestine meetings, he has quite a few choices available to him. bare though it may be, his apartment is at the very least well-stocked with supplies and a comfortable bed, and he isn't so cruel to make a sick man sweat out his fever in some rundown cot.)
all this flashes through his head as his hand lingers on the doorknob - but if there's one thing kaeya's ever been good at, it's covering up whatever interior dilemma he's going through with exterior charm. he only hesitates for a moment before tossing the door open, strolling in as casually as he can while lugging what feels like a brick wall over his shoulder. ]
Now I don't want to hear anything about needing to clean. Some of us aren't blessed with more maids and servants than we know what to do with.
[ perhaps he’d gotten his tongue around a quip, perhaps he hadn’t. even so, the progress is slow and the path becomes less familiar. diluc has always known mond’s topography, knows the ages of the buildings and often their interiors, but there is something in the quiet of himself that comes up steadily. if they are not heading to the barracks, if they are not heading to his home, then surely it is another quarter that they are heading to. an unknown to him in theory, but diluc finds in turn it both unsettling and disappointing that he has not known until now where he was precisely. centered toward the easy walk to the heart of town, the smooth-worn cobble, it strikes him now that it’d have never been this way in another time. another life from now, he thinks. one that he’d clung to as he’d clung to so many other things in the egg yolk pale of dawn before he’d been forced into waking.
kaeya had always been as the bright plumes of summer, the spades of dandelions caught yellow and green between the flash of white teeth. he’d always been acerbic, curious, infuriating in the way that he could lean into all of diluc’s fissures like ivy in the eaves. no matter how hard diluc pulled (and how could he?), what was kaeya and diluc and diluc and kaeya fell at his feet. impossible to untangle, impossible to be without the shadowed smudge of kaeya’s chill in the heat of his periphery – what was diluc left to do, but to seethe? he'd always been quick to anger – been so stubborn and so headstrong –, that wasn’t it an inevitability all along? falling back into old habits, impassioned to the mutilated roots of his father’s suffocating legacy, he’d turned over in the dark earth of his own body and come up new and wounded and ugly. he'd come up hungry to hurt, to be hurt, to hurt in ways he did not yet know how – and now, he thinks he hurts in the bleak of kaeya’s threshold. he thinks he bleeds, little needlepointed teeth, into the soft pink of his lungs. he thinks kaeya has never been messy, never been prone to leaving what he cherished in the open since he was young. he thinks it’d taken him so much trust for kaeya to show him the extent of his little collections, dried lamp grass and the spines of lightning bugs.
he'd always thought it strange then, that such a brilliant sliver of star could covet the light diluc never learned to envy. how odd, that he should want to keep what was in him already. how peculiar, diluc had thought, that the purpling edge of kaeya’s one eye was the same color that hung about the pale of the moon.
it makes sense now. of course it does. all the evenings kaeya had crawled into his bed, all the afternoons he’d watched for hours the crystalflies dance in the vineyards, all the countless seconds he’d leaned up against diluc in the barracks at night – how could he not wish for the light? how could he not hold each, liquid edge of it in the palm of his hands? how could he not drink from what diluc afforded him, affords him, would always keep affording him? how could he not turn his face to the sun? and still, diluc tries to steady himself. he tries to haul himself up enough to say that he is on his feet, closer than they had been since the night he’d cast his vision on the desk at the ordo, left all of himself (he wished, he hoped) in mond. it fills him with something that he does not put name to, but knows intimately. it surges through to the pit of his stomach, tightens in a wince as he turns his palm to the barren walls and rolls his eyes up. ]
You’ve never been messy, [ he grumbles, eventually, mouth parting around the fresher scent of kaeya’s apartment. it smells less of the perfume he wears, more of him, and diluc finds himself inhaling. a stray thought surfaces to remind him of what he’s doing before he snaps his mouth shut. for a moment, as he knows it no better to leave that comment lingering. ] Until I’ve had to haul you out of my tavern.
[ certainly. but, in that too there’s a familiarity. it scrapes at the edge of the absences here, makes them less awkward. less stark. diluc tells himself that he does it for his benefit alone, but he’s always known. with kaeya, there is no excluding. ]
Consider this me repaying the favor, then. In fact, I'd say I'm going above and beyond seeing as how I'm not just dumping you onto the cold, hard, cruel streets by yourself.
[ not that he would have ever expected diluc guiding him back to his place, not that he would have ever accepted it. he's almost never as drunk as he acts, after all, and no amount of wine could ever get him to forget that he cannot allow this man back into his home. he's reminded viciously of why, as they make their way further into the apartment and he lets diluc slide off his shoulders onto the uncomfortably stiff couch, the blaze of his hair blinding enough to leave afterimages dancing in his eye. diluc's always burned bright, too bright, so much so that the bare walls seem to almost reflect his glow - a fire crackling warmly in the hearth, a candle flickering in the window to welcome him home.
it's awful. it's hideous. it sets his skin to prickling a thousand ice shards deep until he wants nothing more than to rip it open and crawl out of himself to escape, a strange metallic taste coating his tongue as he fights back the urge to bare his teeth like some small cornered animal. he's always been a fast learner, after all, and this particular lesson he's had hammered into him twice over: to drift like a ghost within these walls, shedding no slip of his soul behind, because nothing in his life worth keeping ever stays. if, when, he's forced to leave mondstadt, he wants nothing that'll draw his thoughts back to the place he once called a home - no shelves stacked high with tawdry romance novels, no photos of idyllic memories lining the walls, no sweet scent of calla lilies and soft glow of jars full of crystalflies...no blazing sun in human form tempting his tired feet back to a place he never truly belonged.
it's temporary, he reminds himself, fingers restlessly dancing a coin through his knuckles to try to rid the excess energy flowing through him, the instinct to lash out or flee until he's safely cocooned in a shell of his own making again. it doesn't matter, none of this matters - diluc is sick, the unnatural flush of his cheeks and glaze of his eyes painting an all too familiar portrait, and kaeya isn't so coldhearted yet to abandon his, his, his whatever to sweating out a worsening fever in some dirty alleyway alone. of course the ideal would be dragging the stubborn fool to barbara's tender care, but the church is up a thousand flights of stairs and some people here don't have the muscles of a claymore-wielding ox! he tossed aside the concept of manly pride the day he decided to parade around in a half-open shirt, he's fine admitting when he's physically beaten! ]
I'll get you some water. [ unable to stop himself, he reaches out to place a hand over diluc's forehead, hissing dramatically when it burns so high he swears he can feel his palm blistering even underneath his glove. ] Just how the hell did you manage to sneak past Adelinde in your condition, anyway?
[ hadn't it always been? some vile thing reminds him, struck stark against the blackness at the inside of his ribs. like dampened flint, the ache of knowing the darkness won't break for what remains of them never quite leaves as much as it on some days subsides. a weight in the pocket of his memory, a dull sword in the hand, diluc knows these things to be more dangerous the sharpened edge of a knife. at least, diluc thinks hazily, you know when it'll cut you. you know when it will make you bleed.
it wouldn't be this nasty, opened thing that is left upon what kaeya has deigned to call furniture and left to ooze in the wreckage of his own stupidity and the overlay of days spent in the barracks. back then, kaeya had deposited him with the same sort of roughness. he'd never been as able to support him for long distances, made more for the grace of a ballroom and the true artistry of sword form. he'd always made an attempt. foolish as he was too, even knowing — diluc's eyes flutter shut, for just long enough to pull syllables together in the dry of his mouth. ]
Adelinde needn't keep tabs on everything I do anymore, [ diluc gives, grouses more. he bats at the hand that comes up to touch about his forehead, seconds off the mark. instead, what occurs is more of an impotent threat of a waving hand, fingers uncertain of what happened to their target. he heaves a breath, though it's more of a huff. for what he can manage to crystallize into thought, it is just more of the same. familiar, he'd guess now. old and flat and acerbic — ground down by the state of his body, the hot flush of his skin and the parting of his lips. ] Don't bother. [ and still, his eyes fix on the weighted swing of kaeya's earring, the bell curve of a distant star. he'd given it to kaeya on the cusp of seventeen, turned over to the warm cup of his palm. he'd thought of putting it in for him, thumbing against the lobe of his ear. peach flesh and downy, he'd thought of holding the delicate edge of unbitten skin and punching it through.
even now, the memory of it tumbles down the steps of his spine. it terminates at the pit of his stomach, heats him further from the inside, and with it too is the crowding sense of nausea that crests against the back of his teeth and comes out coughing. words, he thinks. defensive and wounded little things, more for his own darkness he cannot burn away through the use of his vision — the endless striking of matches. ]
You've already gone above and beyond, haven't you? [ so stubborn, his father would say. so stubborn, kaeya would have once told him. he feels the bite of sawdust at his back, the poor padding of whatever kaeya's dropped him on. he feels his gradual slip, though he attempts to blindly shove himself upright. ] I can manage.
[ kaeya doesn't want him here, not really. he doesn't want the charity of some misremembered repayment. he doesn't want this looming, the little teeth of his scent at the back of his throat and his lungs full of it. and still, and still — something instinctual and ugly simmers up behind his eyes. it looks out at kaeya, looks out at the gem that stays fixed in the dark of his hair like some guiding light. he'd put it there, he thinks. once upon a time.
once upon a time, he thinks as he leans forward and senseless, he'd have pressed his forehead to the ridge of his hip. he'd have stayed there until kaeya indulged him, idle strokes at the wild curl of his hair. he'd have told him he was tired and diluc would have fallen for it. again. he would have done anything for kaeya back then. the blue nail of his beauty lodged still in his heart, he'd have bore any ache for him. but — that was a lifetime ago, he thinks.
and still, the crown of his head somehow brushes forward enough just to touch him. half-aware and half-alert, knowing distantly that this the closest they been of diluc's own foggy volition, for whatever it's worth. ]
[ ah, he should be used to his own words coming back to haunt him by now, and yet...above and beyond. he huffs a laugh in lieu of any other response he could make, rusty like knives caught jagged against his throat. once, there had been nothing, nothing in all the world he would have considered above and beyond for this man; he would have climbed any mountain, thrown himself into any battle, broken the brittle bones of whatever bonds remained of his birthplace if diluc had ever so much as asked without hesitation or expectation. they'd both known it surely, that whatever air they breathed, victories they'd bleed, prices they'd pay would be shared between them as one life split in two - everything except the dirty little secrets kaeya kept so carefully hidden away, the very essence of his existence.
it could never have worked. he'd known it would only ever end in disaster the moment that vibrant spark held out his hand to a coiled viper lurking in the vineyard on a rainy night. even so, it still stings to face how far they've fallen, that a moment of respite on a far too uncomfortable couch for someone so sick he can barely walk could be considered above and beyond. ]
Clearly she does, if you're out wandering the night delirious with fever. [ what goes unspoken, what he swallows down, is that it had never been adelinde who had dragged diluc out of the rain and wind when he'd stubbornly insisted on flaking every little piece of himself off bit by bit in a futile hope to squeeze into the mold of his father's making. he doesn't think about a child-sized vision tucked away in a drawer, four years of staring at the scarlet glow within, waiting for it to fade, waiting for himself to fade with it. had diluc picked up this habit back then too, uncaring and unnoticing of whatever fever raged through him in the heat of the fires of vengeance? ] Unless your plan was to weaken enemy forces by coughing on them, I don't know what you were hoping to accomplish in this state.
[ diluc's forehead is hot, hot, hot against the palm of his hand - but it's the downturn of his eyes, the lean of his neck, the sway of his body just a fraction closer that sends a wave of heat coursing through his veins. it's a pale mockery of the intimacy they'd once shared, the last echo of the dying gasp of a corpse long since rotted...and yet, and yet. there had been a time once when he'd never known the warmth of the sun, of a smile, of a hand tight within his - when he'd never known he was cold all the way through because he'd never known there could be anything else but cold. he'd felt that encompassing numbness again that torrential night and the years that followed, a shell of ice encroaching around his heart to guard against any attempts to burn, forgetting what fire felt like at all beyond a sick scorching pain.
barbara had told him a story once, some church parable about a bird trapped in eternal night flying for a brief moment into a house filled with light and laughter before out the window into darkness again, left with nothing but the remnant of a memory of brilliant warmth. he isn't sure what lesson he's supposed to take away from the tale, but he suddenly feels a pang of sympathy for that tiny lost soul clinging onto a scrap of borrowed light, knowing it'll never see it again, questioning if it had ever been real to begin with. would it have been better to have never encountered that window into another life to begin with, to be forever blind but ignorant to the blindness?
he drops his hand from diluc's forehead, takes one step back and then another. no. best to leave any such thing forgotten. cryo and pyro are fundementally incompatible after all, and one of those elements has an overwhelming advantage over the other. attempting to close the distance would accomplish naught but melting him away until there's nothing left. ]
From the look of it, I highly doubt you can manage even the steps to my bedroom - but feel free to prove me wrong, Master Diluc. I could always use a laugh.
[ that's what he is, isn't he? the center of some cosmic punchline, soft laughter caught in milk teeth. kaeya, his lone eye upturning, but there is no kindness in its study. there is nothing in the frozen boundary, expanses diluc fought himself to cleave. if emptiness has a weight, he thinks it is measured in the way that kaeya's hand leaves. he thinks it is calculated in every step kaeya takes back, in the way he does not lean as diluc leans into the spaces forged (incidental, accidental) in-between. and for all that the hollow in diluc's body keens, the sound that rises from within is tamped down, chewed up, mangled. the corpse of it piecemeals against the solidifying angles of diluc's body, the warning glimmer of his teeth. it cuts through the heat of his mouth, a sharp little sound that fissures near kaeya's hip. cracks in an ice floe, the molten core of some accursed creature digging its way up to see —
shut up, he thinks he says. devoid of anything, devoid of the sweltering curl of a quip — a nasty repartee, kaeya'd always known how to press. he'd known to how to command. no wonder, diluc had thought so many months back, that kaeya took to where he left. no wonder, diluc had thought, that he'd become captain for all of diluc's bitterness. no wonder, diluc thinks even now as he wobbles his way up on unsteady legs, that kaeya is where he is not. existent, separate but never separated. a singular entity, tied together in ways that diluc once could not fully comprehend.
before, he would have never thought to argue with kaeya. he'd have listened. listened, as kaeya would have listened to him. he'd have torn down the sky if kaeya asked, built him a tower to the pitiless expanse of the divine. he'd have cut through sinew of nations, pulled from himself all his vitality to rest upon his hands. he thinks he'd have carved himself open, if kaeya wanted to rest. and now — it's all of his stubbornness that gets him half-way there. all of the pride that he knows one day will kill him. all of the ugliness of wanting, even now, to show kaeya he capable enough to do anything.
see, he says with the blind stumble of his body, see? he's strong enough. fine enough. strong enough. he's all that the diluc of his sound mind can prove, all that the instinct in him simmers at the challenge. see, he heaves, his arm bracing against something toward what he remembers the lay of these townhouses to be. he doesn't need it. he doesn't.
but, it doesn't mean he doesn't want it. it doesn't mean he does not dip into some odd memory, the moments where kaeya would shadow him as much as diluc would shadow him. it doesn't mean, for all of his momentary fever, that some portion of him still doesn't scrabble at the corpse dirt of his body and grieve. ]
[ the sound that claws its way out of diluc's throat hooks into all the little fissures in the ice of his heart, dragging him backwards through the years until he's fifteen again and hearing that same choked keen buried into shoulder. for a moment he can almost feel the coarse silk of sunset hair twined through his fingers, moonlight glowing down two slender bodies curled so tight it's impossible to tell where they end and begin, a shaky voice whispering shameful secrets into the shadowed curve of his neck. young and already straining under immense pressure, unaware of how impossibly heavier the weight on both their shoulders will soon become, they'd taken advantage of those clandestine nights alone to reveal all the dirty little confessions hidden so carefully from the rest of the world...or at least diluc had, cracking himself open to pull out all his soft and glistening insides, offering the tenderest parts of himself without hesitation into the gaping maw of a wolf in sheep's clothing.
he'd never been able to return the favor. no matter how often diluc had gently reassured him he'd always be there too, no matter how expectant and concerned those too large eyes would get, kaeya had always kept a firm lock on his innermost thoughts. oh, he'd let a few surface tensions slip here and there, but how could he bear to expose the ugly wraiths and twisted corruption burrowed so deeply in the shrivelled husk of his heart to someone so pure he shone? so instead, he'd offered what little he could, a place of respite and a promise: you never have to prove anything to me.
and look at them now. master crepus is dead, the knights of favonius fallen off their pedastal, yet diluc still pushes himself upright with a stubborn set to his jaw, the slow and heavy unfolding of his body putting into mind tetonic plates shifting to prepare for a volcanic eruption. so determined to prove to a man who once watched him cry over a turtle that...what, exactly? that he's strong enough to bear whatever burdens come his way? kaeya's never doubted that for a moment. that he doesn't need anyone's help, certainly not from a slippery liar who's betrayed his trust in the worst possible way? he's never doubted that either.
so much for his vow to be the one person who that wide-eyed boy with so many expectations would never have to work to impress. he'd feel ashamed if he hadn't known all along how little his word is worth. ]
Hey now, my couch can't be that uncomfortable. [ in fact it is, but they both know fulll well that has nothing to do with why diluc has painfully dragged himself to his feet, the flush of his cheeks blooming like bloodspray against the pale snow of his skin. for a moment, kaeya feels every bit the monster diluc must see him as these days, though his face shows nothing but exasperation as he ventures in closer again in case of any sudden falls. ] Don't make me tie you down just to get some fluids into you.
[ were diluc of clearer mind, it’d been easy to tell him it was terrible. his couch and whatever he filled it with, that is. for now, diluc considers kaeya lucky to receive the half-roll of his eyes and a sharp exhalation of doubt that colors itself in the weight of his own irritation and the heft of his own fatigue.
when he was young, he’d thought it different: no burden was too much to bear when kaeya was there, no dream so insurmountable. toeing at the shoreline, the grit of the sand at their skin, he’d thought no matter where kaeya went he would go with him. along the spines of mountains, against the shadow of the world – all the little promises diluc told him, curled up against his against body. a body, diluc had once thought, was too his own. how many moons had they spent pressed along the seams of one another, folded limb against limb as though the closing of correspondences? how many times had diluc thought – wildly perhaps – that if he might find the space inside him, that he’d draw upon his own sword to open it for him? for kaeya, who asked at first for nothing. for kaeya, who looked upon diluc with the bright northern star in his eye and shrunk from him as though kaeya had reason to shrink at all. for him, who still lingers at diluc’s elbow despite the acidity of their exchanges and the looming years that have left mottled the lay of their skin. he no longer knows what kaeya feels like, sounds like when he wakes in the morning. he no longer knows what kaeya does throughout his days in full. he no longer knows if he snores, if he pushes the cold soles of his feet against the bodies he must share space with now.
he no longer knows and diluc does not bend for it, but the ache of its absence wrenches from the pit of his stomach. it simmers against the curve of his shoulders, the flushed curve of his throat. it beads there, a blistering roll of fire. in its wake, it consumes all the sense and patience that diluc knows that he should own. back then, kaeya had steadied him, tempered him. he’d kept the ember of diluc’s grand ambitions softer, more controlled. and his emotions – ah, it’d been so easy, hadn’t it? what diluc had known, kaeya had too. and now?
it is stubbornness, that drags him into kaeya’s room. into kaeya’s bed. he doesn’t think about it, being potentially played again, until his body is half-draped over the mattress and the poor cut of the fabric scrapes against his chin. smells like him, his brain supplies regardless. smells good. and it is that stupidity and his instincts that settle gladly into bed. ]
Like you managed me across town? [ he slurs out, after a long moment. there’s a little swell of victory in his chest regardless, in the way it puffs up a little no matter how ridiculous. even if this is what he was aiming for, diluc had at least provided no laughter for him. not like that. and not like this, as he hauls himself back up enough to messily unlace his own boots and resolve that he’d be gone by morning anyhow.
[ for all that he's often accused of hedonism, usually by the man in front of him now, kaeya is a master at denying himself the comforts in life he truly wants - and that he wants them at all, for that matter. oh, he'll splurge on fine wines and fashionable clothes, but it's all hollow in the end; he still comes home at night to an empty apartment, still smiles distantly through any attempts at close companionship, still avoids the roads that would take him in view of dawn winery when he can. some might call it self-flagellation, but that would imply an awareness of longing to begin with, an awareness he suffocates with drink and distractions whenever it surfaces; what is want, what is desire to a mere mirror of a man, a glittering shell of lies that only reflects whatever it needs to pass as human? khaenri'ans may dream of dreaming, but kaeya dreams of dreaming of nothing at all.
and so he doesn't let his eyes linger on the way diluc is splayed across his bed like an offering, on how the moonlight softens his silhouette into some shimmering fragment of a dream he refuses to remember. he doesn't think about how the banked embers of diluc's eyes and the fire of his hair make his coarse sheets suddenly seem cozy and inviting, or how the last time he'd felt warm at all had been the night before that terrible birthday, tucked tightly together in a bed they'd both long outgrown. when he kneels down to help diluc fumble with his boots, he feels no urge to press his face into his lap to see if his heat will finally melt the ice cold that's settled deep into his bones; when he takes his overcoat, he ignores the way the residual warmth of the other's body curls around his fingertips.
it's fine. it's easy. it's nothing he's not used to by now. he's always been quick on the uptake at whatever he puts his mind to, and that includes putting his mind to having no mind at all. ]
Hey, I got you here in one piece, didn't I? With how much you and that sword of yours weigh, you should consider yourself lucky I didn't just dump you on the street. Ahhh, my back is so sore, how am I going to work tomorrow under the weight of all this ingratitude....
[ the banter is automatic, his mouth running on reflex while his brain tries desperately not to focus on how strange yet familiar the sight in front of him is. someone divested of their heavy outer attire should by logical assumption appear smaller, yet diluc clad in only a single layer somehow manages to fill the entire room with his presence, as if all that extra adornment and armor had merely been holding him back. for the first time, kaeya curses the overly observational instincts trained into him since birth; try as he might, he can't stop himself from cataloguing all the little changes from the years past, the scars now visible on diluc's hands, the extra freckles dotting his neck, how his shoulders are now so much broader than they'd been as a teen...
and that's his cue to leave. he stands abruptly, running a hand through his hair. ]
Well, I'm going to take a shower so I can soothe my aching back. Try not to drool all over my pillows, won't you?
[ ah, but dreams are always like that: torn asunder by the winds of change, battered by the tides of time. each one — little hopes and little promises — caught between milk teeth as though fresh primroses, stuck to the skin as though the residual sap of wayward pines. once upon a time, long ago and in the middle of the night, kaeya had blown in as though any rainstorm. he'd tumbled into diluc's bed and diluc's arms as though he'd meant to fit there, as though he'd never any other choice. pieced together as though the seams of letters, tucked as though dandelion seeds in the palms for prayer, diluc had known back then that no matter what it was that kaeya did to him — and perhaps, diluc knows now, that that wish was childish too.
once upon a time, he'd thought kaeya to be a slip of the moon. a far shore that he might dip his hands into, might hold close to him and know the light he saw as if he were not serving only to reflect his own. back then, he'd never thought he'd assumed, that he'd stifled, that he never burned so hotly that he forbid any hope for kaeya to grow. in the soft soil of their mutual body, how much of it was diluc's own? how much of it did kaeya wish to hold from himself? how much does diluc still not know? how much, he thinks hazily as kaeya pulls off his boots and helps him out of his coat, did diluc just guess he deserved?
none of it. those are the words coiled in the pit of his stomach, caught about his teeth. he was never— diluc wants to slur out a retort, something quick off the tongue and witty too, but the profound ache that surges up from his core leaves him reeling in the next breath, a dull throb of want of anything to quiet the heat of his body a signal to what little is left of himself to grumble out some assent to the word of "showering" and the implication of returning again as he fights (futilely) the slip of his own elbows to faceplant against the bed. and really, the only portion at all that saves him? it is the implication. that kaeya, despite all his huffing, lingers in diluc's space. that kaeya watches him, as much as diluc watches him. that, in the grey down of his scattering thoughts, there is the fact his hands felt as steady as he'd remembered them.
and with that, diluc thinks as he shoves his face deeper into the mess he's already made of kaeya's bed (never mind that he fills his lungs with the scent of what kaeya is), that is enough of those thoughts. ]
[ one of the few luxuries kaeya allows himself in his apartment is his shower, hooked directly to an underground furnace so the water comes out piping hot whenever he wants. strictly speaking, it's not exactly necessary; the resistance granted by his vision coupled with his naturally low body temperature means that a cold shower feels rather balmy to him and a lukewarm one positively toasty, but he's always been addicted to greedily absorbing whatever heat he can get, as if letting enough of it sink through his skin will somehow melt the core of ice he carries in his heart.
tonight, he cranks the heat up to maximum. it's hardly comfortable, the near boiling temperature of the water already too much for anyone normal, let alone a cryo wielder, but he bears the torrent without flinching. drops of molten fire sluice down his body, burning away filth and grime and extraneous thought, leaving searing trails of white-hot pain behind; when they lick across his burn scars, he presses a hand to them closer, as if trying to recapture that startling bright moment of their creation. if he closes his eye, he can almost pretend he's back there now - rain dripping down his hair, the acrid stench of smoke and scorched flesh in his nostrils, an agony that has nothing to do with his wounds pulsing in his chest, a surety and a relief that the next blow would finally put a permanent end to all his lies.
(he has dreams still, of burning to death in a magnificent blaze borne of betrayal and broken promises. he wishes he could call them nightmares.)
the pain is a penance and a reminder, that regardless of whatever strange circumstances has led to diluc being in his bed once more, they can never go back to what they were - their bridges have been burnt, their paths diverging with no hope of reconnection. it's a reminder he tells himself often to no avail; for all that he attempts to treat their relationship as one of near strangers the way diluc clearly wants, his feet still take him to angel's share every night as if a man possessed, his silvertongue still teases and mocks before he can coil it back. it's pathetic, really, how he vies for whatever attention he can scrape like the child he never was, and yet no amount of pain or willpower or self-loathing recriminations get him to stop.
it's tempting to just stay in the shower until he either boils alive or diluc sneaks out the window and they can pretend this never happened, but he's already gotten more than one complaint about his amount of water consumption. it's when he's drying his hair that he realizes that one, because he normally sleeps shirtless he completely forgot to bring in a change of clothes aside from his usual pair of loose pants, and two, the shower also must have washed away all of the omega pheromones he'd applied, leaving only the neutral scent of a godless creation with no secondary gender behind.
well, it's not like diluc hadn't already known he's unnatural to this land, or that he can possibly do anything to drive the man away further. with a grimace, he slips on his undershirt - it's a bit too tight to be comfortable sleepwear, but it's not like he's going to be falling asleep any time soon with diluc still in his room anyway. taking a deep breath, he pastes a smile on his face before heading back into his bedroom, plunking a glass of water on the stand beside diluc's head. ]
Drink. If you need anything, I'll be on the couch - but don't expect service to the extent of Adelinde's chicken soup, I can't work miracles.
[ and how might he sneak like this? for all that diluc rebuffed him, there is little to do for what has stricken him this night. induced to the misery of his own cycles, forced through the escalation and the slivering pain that comes with it, it is all that he might do to lie here and be silent. it is all that diluc might do to lie here and pull in each shuddering lungful of what he remembers. what he could not forget. and so, muddled and murky as the bottom of each lakebed, diluc is awash. he loses, to the sound of the tap turning on and turning off. loses, as he turns his head against the sheets and the sees the world about kaeya's silhouette distort. tilt.
drink, he hears kaeya tell him. if you need anything— ]
Shut up, [ a reedy little thing, pressed through the teeth and coiled about the neck. he is eleven again. he is fourteen, sixteen, eighteen — bleeding out in the cold, bleeding out on his back. he is every single liquid night between. foolhardy and sanctimonious, his bitterness like the ice that webbed between his fingertips. that burned diluc hotter than any fire he'd ever wielded. his skin had mottled as bruised, tender lamp grass. it'd blackened as soot. it took fissures of his milk-washed skin, grooved it as though silty shores. warm in the springtime, he'd thought of kaeya's hand cut through the blackness of the fertile filament. pain became a pinhole, little bursts of stars each time he'd touched it. then, since — now, as his arm climbs upward. it flings its heft along the bridge of kaeya's shoulder, yokes him tight around the neck.
there is no recognition. how could there be, for all that his body burns and seethes for what he sees as lost? reduced to the smoldering edge of primal instinct, hair matted and skin damp, what little of diluc is left buries itself against the dark crescent of his throat. pulled down to the nest of kaeya's bed, pulled into the vice of diluc's arms, he noses against the thrumming pulse. and with each shallowed, labored breath he tastes the scent of pine. he tastes himself in the mingling of what he knows is right. and for what ugliness he is in his own right, it bears itself to kaeya's judgement, blind and pitiless.
diluc had long since told himself that he'd hated himself for trying to hate him at all. he'd long since told himself there was nothing left to forfeit, nothing left to lose. he'd told himself, but the body is mindless. it throbs as though an opened wound, fingers pushed against the worst of it. and diluc throbs too with it, ceaseless in the way he rubs his wrists along the linen. comforts himself amid the visceral anxiety that seizes him in the aftermath, knowing there is something amiss and yet — he turns the scarred skin to kaeya's back. strokes, trembling and uneven. ]
[ the gritted order to shut up is expected - the arm around his neck is not, and for a wild moment kaeya thinks this is it, diluc's finally had enough and decided to strangle him. an extremely understandable desire, all things considered, which is why he's taken by surprise when instead he's dragged down into the bed, landing face first into a fluffy mass of fiery hair. it's the shock, clearly, that saps all the strength from his limbs, leaving him loose and pliant; it has nothing to do with the warmth suddenly surrounding him, sinking into the marrow of his bones. it has nothing to do with how with every breath, he inhales the scent of aged oak and smoked wood and something deeper, something his noseblind self can't identify but wraps around the corroded strings of his heart to tug him home. it has nothing to do with the way his skin lights up like fireworks, every nerve ending screaming with scalding oversensitivity, forcibly reminding him it's been who knows how long since the last time he's allowed anyone to really, truly touch him.
no, he knows exactly how long it's been. down to the month, the day, the second.
it's the sensation of hands stroking up and down his back, lightning shuddering through his spine, that shocks his brain back into gear. a really slow, stupid, rusty gear, because the only thought that echoes in his head is - what the fuck? what the fuck? since when is clinginess a side effect of fever - okay, sure, they'd cuddled like this whenever they'd gotten sick as children, but there's been an unspoken agreement that it was more for kaeya's sake what with him coming down with far more severe cases than diluc's minor colds, and anyway that had been years and a lifetime ago. it doesn't explain diluc's behavior now, when he's more likely to want a porcupine in his bed than his estranged sworn brother.
for a moment, as diluc's nose presses into the hollow of his neck and nearly gives him a heart attack, he's struck with a sudden memory from a much younger time - rifling through pages of tawdry romance novels under the covers, trying to learn how to imitate the behavior of these strange secondary genders, wondering what it would feel like to truly....
...but no, that can't be it. diluc's biological clock is as strict as the man himself, and a quick check of his internal schedule confirms he's not due for a rut any time soon. that, and there haven't been any of the usual signs of pre-rut recently - no frequent wrinkling of his nose, no subtle leaning back from anyone in scent range, no irritated snap in his voice, none of the little tics that tell kaeya he can skip going to angel's share for the next few nights. (and if anyone asks, not that anyone ever will, he only keeps close track of these details because it's part of his duties as mondstadt's unofficial spymaster, thanks so much. he would know every alpha's rut schedule down to the day if it mattered, it just so happens that none of them aside from the infamous darknight hero are important. )
and anyway, diluc being in rut still wouldn't explain all of...all of this. even reduced down to a base bundle of instincts searching for a warm source of pheromones to embrace, he still wouldn't reach out to kaeya - not to this uncanny creature from a godless land, who produces no scent save for the dead decay of the darkness that lurks underground. without the mask of his artificial pheromones, any alpha in rut should be treating such an aberrant twist of nature with revulsion, not drawing them close enough that every breath they take shares the same inhale and exhale of air.
no, there's only one logical reason for this. clearly, the fever has boiled diluc's brain to the point where it's clouded his memories and caused him to hallucinate. ]
Diluc. [ for once, kaeya's voice is devoid of humor in his worry, as he pushes himself up on his arms to give the other some space, patting his cheeks lightly to try to draw his attention. ] Do you know where you are? Do I need to call Barbara?
[ how funny that he should think that, that each little sign and symbol of his cyclical ruts would never show up outside of bounds of expectation. was it not already obvious that the fatui had no issue sinking to exciting new lows? was it not obvious already that kaeya was the only one that he could stand? in all the time he spent back in mond, kaeya was the only one who could bring him back to the fold. he knew better than anyone who it was that sent kaeya stringing along in the days up to his ruts. he'd known better than anyone, that no one else would dare (could dare) to come close when he found himself in the highlands - covered to the wrists in oil and ichor, singed and sunburnt.
it'd been miserable, with or without him. no matter how far he would roam, the knifepoint of his accursed hormones would wedge into the marrow. it would seize him by the throat, make nuisance of itself in the days and weeks up to. nothing could soothe him. nothing could quiet him. nothing. no herbs or salves or tinctures. no potions, made with the newest ingredients or the newest ideas behind them. and so: what fools would those self-named fools be, if not wield the known against him? what a fool kaeya must be too, to think he doesn't already know. ]
'm in bed, [ diluc tells him. slurs, more so. affront cuts through the fever bright of his expression, the dark of his eyes narrowed against the separation kaeya has stupidly carved. like this, he looks every bit an animal. matted lashes and matted curls, the flush on his skin is high and fresh as blood. beneath kaeya's hand, there is no thought of whether it burns. instead, it is instinct that drives the want to press into his palm. to turn his head and nuzzle up against it, only stoppered by the threads of something more coherent underneath it all. barely, that is. he still blinks and leans in, the process both noticeable and unbearably slow. ] Told you to shut up.
[ he did, didn't he? he tries for it again, but his tongue feels weighted in his mouth. he feels as though a bruise, the darkened skins of stone fruits punctured through. he breathes, lips parted. he hooks the rough crescent of his nails against kaeya's shoulder, bites their edges all along the linen that barely covers it. in his head, he thinks he makes a compelling argument to lie back down and stop asking him pointless questions. he thinks maybe he is seventeen years old, a handful of weeks before everything was upended. he thinks maybe they are in the barracks. he thinks maybe that kaeya's hair is warm and rain-damp. he thinks, without thinking at all. all the little ruinous pieces of himself, shaken out across their makeshift bedclothes. what a bother. ]
Well, at least the fever hasn't robbed you of your sense of humor. That would be a real tragedy, considering how little of it you have left.
[ even so, between the glaze in his eyes and the syrup slur of his voice, it's clear that diluc's nowhere near his right mind, the fever likely fogging his reality until he no longer remembers that what he holds in his arms is no treasured companion but a viper poised to strike. only the cruelest of monsters would let this joke play out any further; what kaeya needs to do now is to get him out. out of his bed, out of his apartment, out into the hands of someone who actually knows what they're doing and won't lead to any further regrets come morning.
it should be easy. he's always both prided and loathed himself for his ability to detach from any given situation, to shield himself with a smile and let his words carry away whatever semblance of sentiment he might have. it should be easy to simply pull away from the circle of diluc's arms, to laugh it off as another embarrassing story he'll tell in the future, to escape this pretense at intimacy that threatens to choke him with all the weight of memories long aged to dust. it should be easy...and yet when diluc turns the flush of his cheek into his hand, all the steel of kaeya's prized self-control melts away like so much frost beneath the sun. when diluc presses down on his shoulders, he can only helplessly follow, a star dropping in free-fall to the inescapable gravity of the sun.
ah. of course it wouldn't be easy. somehow he's forgotten who he really is, that he's selfish, selfish, selfish to the core. ]
If you want someone quiet, you should let me take you to Barbara.
[ 'let' - as if diluc in this state could possibly stop anything kaeya wanted to do, as if he's ever needed permission to interfere in his life. it's just another excuse, another way to deflect the blame, another way to manipulate the narrative so that this - taking advantage of a sick man to play out a pale mockery of the only thing he's ever truly wanted - can somehow not be entirely his fault when reality sets back in. ]
Don't recall you ever being funny, [ diluc mumbles, eyelids heavy. he turns his face against the bare of kaeya's palm, in all ways sluggish and unthinking. when he was young, kaeya used to stroke his hair until he fell asleep. he used to stroke through kaeya's too, the color of it so deep and so blue that it seemed the sheen off a bird's wing. diluc thought of him as a raven back then, a fiercely intelligent and curious thing. shadowed against the sun, brighter than anything — it'd took so long to earn his trust. but, as with all that diluc had ever thought he'd come to know, it'd been only that he was naive. that he was foolish. that he was an idealistic, ignorant thing that circled a peacock of a man in his cloak of new stars.
but, for now, the diluc who should care about distance and time and the inevitable agony of what has already come to be — he curls deep in the dark, instinctive parts of himself. he nests down in the cool of kaeya's body. he breathes, slow and deep. ]
Throw your back out then, [ he continues, more for the sake of something he no longer can hold the shape of in his hands. all that ache in his body finds a singular point of pressure and releases, a slow and trickling valve. the scent of kaeya numbs it down, makes it so that he is able to speak. ] See if I care.
[ and it is only when kaeya lies back down, when he allows diluc the grace to shove himself back up against him as though they are again seventeen and reckless in all of their youth and wonder, does diluc find some glimmering edge of relief. cool as the backs of dragonspine, open as the maw of caverns so deep that they know no end or boundary. ] Dumbass.
Strange, because I seem to recall a certain someone laughing so hard at my jokes that grape juice came out of his nose. More than once, I might add.
[ it's always a risk bringing up what they had been once upon a time, always a good chance he'll drive the wedge between them further by tainting what had once been pure sunlight with all the exposed shadows surrounding him now. usually he does so with a vicious vindictiveness, wielding their shared memories like jagged knives, hooking them under diluc's skin so he can't brush them away no matter how much pain it may cause them both. tonight, curled together as if they're still children yet untouched by the world's cruelties, the words come out with a rueful fondness instead, a trickle of vunlerability leaking out of his chest in this twilight moment that seems separated from time.
they say old habits die hard, but kaeya's never understood the phrase. he's broken himself of his old habits time and time again, ground them into the dust of fossils and forgotten bones; first all the little things that made him other, the tics and traits he carried with him from the land of the dead, and then again with all that made him ragnvindr until only a handful in the city ever remembered he had once hailed from the same home as the famed dawn winery's young master. now, as his hands start automatically stroking through diluc's hair without any input from his brain, he thinks he finally gets just what they mean. it's as if he's stepped back in time...
...but not, he realizes, to the halcyon days of their teenage youth when they'd been less two indivduals and more one soul split across halves. he's too aware for that - the rough silk of hair snagging against his calluses, the heat of his breath against his neck - too conscious of what had once been pure instinct. no, this reminds him of a time much further back than that, to the early months when they'd first met: him, tense and terrified of this strange creature in his bed, reaching out to hide the way his hands trembled, ready to leap back at the slightest sign of rejection. he remembers thinking diluc's hair had been the softest thing he'd ever touched - that diluc had been the softest thing he'd ever seen, round cheeks and huge eyes and bright smile, holding his heart out on a platter as if the world wasn't filled with monsters ready to gobble it up. he remembers thinking how his homeland would have eaten this boy alive, how easy it would be to crush this tender spring flower between the hard ice of his grasp, simultaneously repulsed and intrigued by the thought - caught between the awe of a crystalfly landing gently on his palm and the urge to rip off its wings so it could never leave. he remembers thinking: i will destroy you.
in some ways, he thinks now, he never really did grow up from that feral and frozen child of his past. diluc's hair is still the softest thing he's ever touched. he still wants to both crush their bones together until every part of them intersects, and to run as fast and far as he can and never come back. and look, he was right, wasn't he? it turns out they destroyed each other, in the end. ]
Call me what you want, but I'm still smart enough to stay home when I'm too sick to walk straight. [ a lie, and both of them know it. a lie twice over, because if he were anywhere near smart, he'd have put an end to this long ago. ]
[ old stories, old memories, old habits - diluc does not melt into the snagging of his fingers, the passive taming of his hair. but, there is a moment. there is a quiet, that settles in the ember of his body. it splutters for a moment, stings all along the rawness of his boundary, each edge that diluc wrenched free for his own. ]
I'm surprised you remember at all.
[ fever soft and sleep warmed, his words piece themselves apart against the dark curve of kaeya's throat. smooth as river rock, down soft as the birds who live amongst the snows - diluc thinks of the frost that'd held him through nights far from the remnants of what was once home. picked over, speared upon the thorn of his own ignorance, diluc had thought very little at all of survival or what that had meant. consumed by what he called hatred, brittle down the black of his bones, he'd hoped. he had hoped, in all of the rage that came from realization, that he might bury the body of his youth under the same rooms he had found it. pieced apart and forgotten, rotted down to the root - he thought it better to destroy himself before anything left was destroyed. it had been a momentary death that steadied him. it had been learning what kaeya too must have learned. it was knowing that no matter how he might find himself beyond kaeya's orbit - kaeya would always find his way back to his door.
a cosmic joke, diluc once told himself. a fate bound up in cruelty. no matter how much kaeya held the light to the darkness diluc had made himself apart, there was no halting inevitability. there was no slowing eventuality, the persistent gravity that kept them together. that would one day, too, send them both tearing each other apart. where kaeya went, so too did diluc. again and again, no matter what it was they could do - here they were. tumbled over into kaeya's bed, diluc's breaths a tangible shape against the cool of kaeya's skin, the ugliest parts of himself submit. they quiet in the fever that breaks within his ribs, that settles against the surface in place of any sense that could exist. why now, he would think. why now, would he find him?
why now, would he be led to the days that they would while the afternoons away, tucked against each other as though separation was never something to behold? pressed end-to-end, diluc once thought them a singular soul. he'd thought them once a body, cloven neat in two. he had thought, if he might press himself close enough, he might become him too. and what a fool he had been, still is - what a fool, his father had raised.
what a fool, who still lays in the cradle of kaeya's arms and thinks himself deserving to be held. to hold. to mark him as his own, in the way of his wrists against the broad of his back. against the smooth of his hair, corn silk and soft linen. he is still the most beautiful thing that diluc has ever seen. the glow of a northern star, a sacred wind beneath the blanket of the earth - kaeya had always seized him without pity. he seizes him now, no matter the verbal roll of his eyes and the flutter of his lashes against the mirrored wingbeat of kaeya's thrumming pulse.
diluc had once known kaeya as well as he'd known himself. and in here, in the drifting hours before the clawing light of dawn, he knows kaeya. briefly. ]
[ everything is warm, warm, warm, the scent of summer in his nose, the heat of sunlight leaking through his arms - and then diluc speaks, words rumbling against the hollow of his throat, and the world freezes over again.
ah. how stupid of him, to be swept away by childhood nostalgia, to lose himself in the memory of a bed where their breaths had risen and fallen in sync, their dreams shared as one in their sleep, their hearts thudding to the same beat. how stupid, to forget for a moment what he's become in diluc's eyes - a snake in the grass, a cuckoo in the nest, a wolf who had thrown aside its sheepskin without hesitation to devour its prey. it's an old familiar hurt, every time he's hit with how little the man thinks of him now, yet he's still never prepared for just how much it burns.
and of course he deserves it. and of course it's no surprise...but even so, he wonders, how can diluc accuse him of not remembering their past when every brick that builds the foundation of the crumbling shell of his sense of self is baked in those sunlit memories, when the mortar that barely holds the mess together is scraped from the ashes of the cremation of their relationship? how can he not know that it's the memory of that firebright child whose love blazed like an inferno, of the only time he'd ever been happy, that steadies his blade as he wields it against his own people and keeps him rooted in a city that has no place for him? cavalry captain, wine aficionado, mondstadtian dog - isn't it obvious that even four years gone, what's left of him that doesn't belong to khaenri'ah is wholly, solely, entirely his so much so that cutting him open would find a glass replica of diluc's heart instead of his own?
you're the one who left, he wants to spit out, the words rising up like jagged knives in his throat. you're the one who doesn't want to remember. his hands stiffen with the urge to strike back, to retaliate until they're both left bleeding from reopened scars, until he marks diluc so deeply that he'll never be able to forget him again without breathing for the pain of it; it's only the fact that even he isn't low enough to attack a sick man that keeps him still rather than shoving what now feels like a live coal in his arms away. ]
Ah, Master Diluc, I remember everything about you. [ he regrets his words immediately; even layered in superficial charm, even dripping with saccharine honey, there's still too much sincerity in the sentence for comfort. scrambling to recover himself, he huffs a laugh, forcing a cheeky smile to his face. ] At least all the embarrassing parts, anyway.
soft in the way of his heart, soft in the heat of his lungs – soft, when the world itself fixed upon a solid axis and never deigned to spin. diluc had once been an ignorant thing, blessed by the ironies of the gods that knew not his name or his prospects. he had once been naïve, had once been young and full of dreams, never to be listened to. it was that foolishness, that harboring of sin without meaning, that had allowed him the illusion of sweetness to begin with. spun as though hay into each golden thread, it was the specter of love that filled him with hubris. it was the concept that each fantasy, so bright and unconditional and saccharine, was possible as they were everlasting. held tight in the fist of his heart, tucked firm beneath the tongue, he’d have given kaeya anything. he’d have given him the eggshell of the moon, would have carved from his body the strength of his limbs. but now, he dreams only of the evenings that kaeya would listen. tucked to his chest, hollowed to house him as the chamber of seashells, diluc used to think that kaeya would always fit against him just like this: two stars pinned and binary, balanced as they were fixed. where diluc went, so too did kaeya. and where kaeya went, so too did diluc.
it was no use. no matter how he tried to run, how he tried to forget – how might he have? how might diluc have ground his nails into the flesh of himself, pulled free the boundary that was his before kaeya? even without the heat of his vision, the dawning turn of kaeya’s lone eye, there was nothing in him that he could find. no matter how deeply he dug, no matter how far he’d turned from the sun, the darkness reflected only the truth. no matter how far he might go, he would always be there. in the rain dampened parts of himself, in the death of his father, in the fragmentations of his mother held in the moments before he’d awoken to what diluc could call you - it would always be him. ]
Better I didn't accept your drink, then. [ it is a grumble of a thing, tossed across the sheets. for all that diluc knows not at all the clear lines between sincerity and fabrication, he knows there is no mask in the way kaeya’s hands tighten. instinctive, in the basest parts of himself, he scents the tension that holds no fruit. he thinks how blessed he might have been, to be loved. he thinks he’d never deserved the concept. diluc thinks, as all that is selfish and asleep in him inches up against him stubbornly, that he’d always been a perilous thing – forever pushing his luck, thinking he’d never snuffed out the light that was turned over to his sun-bleached palms.
he huffs out once against kaeya’s shoulder, against the cool curve of his throat. the crown of his head rubs once against the dark underside of his chin, potent for all that it is display. he knows – will know – kaeya cannot discern the meaning in it. blind in this way, a fortune – was there ever any wonder that diluc came to be this because of him? ]
[ there's a niggling itch in the back of his mind as diluc's hair brushes against his chin, a faint alarm that he's missing some vital piece of a puzzle he isn't even aware he's trying to put together. it's not a feeling he's particularly accustomed to or enjoys, he who pries secrets out of most everyone he meets as easily as breathing. but then again, he's always been a little bit stupid when it comes to diluc, since the moment they'd met - clumsy in spite of his grace, foolish in spite of his wits, bewildered and blinded in face of someone who burned too bright beyond his comprehension.
beneath his palms and between his fingers and below his head, the softness of diluc's hair reminds him of fur, some wild creature huddling for warmth against the night. rabbit fur, he remembers suddenly, a memory of far younger days - there'd been a family of them once, nibbling on the vine-ripened grapes of the winery. he'd stared at their twitching noses stain purple as they gorged themselves on the winery's lifeblood, thought about the tenderness of their flesh, the fragility of their bones, about proving his worth to this strange foreign family so they'd keep him around a little longer. it'd taken but a moment to stun the rabbits with his slingshot and then slit their throats with a dagger - mother and child, the kits no bigger than the palm of his hand. the fur had been soft then too, blood pumping out to drench his fingers dark copper; he'd watched the light leave their eyes without any emotion save a vague curiosity on how easily a life could be exstinguished - at least not until he'd looked up and saw the expression on diluc's face, felt that same sick swooping sensation of having missed some crucial step somewhere.
his father had taught him survival at any cost, how to freeze his heart into unwavering ice. the courts had taught him how to lie with a smile, to navigate the seas of conversation without compass or map. diluc had taught him, step by fumbling step, how to be human.
it's the only lesson he's never been able to master. little wonder then, that when diluc left, he'd taken some vital part of kaeya's soul with him - the part that borrowed his flame to burn away the darkness, the part that desperately believed if he pretended hard enough he could do better, be better. and now the rabbit has grown into a wolf, snarling and snapping at the world around him - and yet here he still is, lain in bed with the bloodsoaked hunter he knows far better than to trust, so really who's the stupid one here?
(it's him. it's always been him.) ]
Since when have you accepted anything from me at all? [ too sharp, too personal, and he nearly bites his tongue off, hoping against hope diluc won't remember any of this once his fever's broken. he tightens his grip against diluc's hair and back, curls towards him in some mocking imitation of an attempt at a protective embrace - as if there's anything out there diluc needs protecting from more than the one in his bed. ] Go to sleep, Diluc.
( darling i was born to press my head between your shoulder blades )
[ it's way too fucking early in the morning for any reasonable person to be awake, yet here kaeya is staring up at the ceiling, hand absently stroking diluc's hair in an effort to ground himself from leaping out the window to dispel the frenetic energy vibrating underneath his skin. it's a sensation he's well used to, given that he can count the number of times he's managed to sleep through an entire night without the aid of serious injury on one hand - a survival tool trained into him as a child, still an unbreakable habit decades later.
alcohol had helped. multiple rounds of mind-blowing sex with the other half of his soul helped more. but he's known from the start there's no fixing this, this everpresent buzzing of a thousand bees in his brain. he inhales and exhales slowly, trying to go through the breathing exercises jean so helpfully imparted on him, but emptying his mind has always been a completely unfathomable process to him; rather than going calm as still water, his thoughts seem far more like moonlight scattering across a rippling stream, glittering and flickering in a dozen places at once, never settling for long.
he needs to read through fischl's report tomorrow, a task as arduous as it is entertaining. there's an inazuman tourist in town asking slightly too many questions who could use a round of drinks to loosen her tongue. one of the fatui diplomats has a birthday coming up, he'll need to figure out a gift that sends the right message between polite and threatening. lisa's birthday is also coming up, he'll need to figure out the much more difficult gift that conveys sincerity without going over the top. should he get diluc something too? a bracelet of noctilious jade from liyue, perhaps, that'll glitter starlight blue every time he raises his hand to pour another drink. starlight, night, liyue, that's right - there's been rumors of suits of armor walking around a certain area in liyue, ghostly knights bearing a banner with an oddly shaped star. just a rumor, or a sign of a massive storm to come? diluc's weight on his arm, his face slack in a far too trusting sleep, his chest rising and falling as each slow breath puffs against the sensitive hairs of his nape - how long can he keep this before it too dissipates into the realm of dreams? how long can this last?
moods like these, there's really only a few methods of dealing with them. one, wine enough to drown out the singing in his blood. two, lying perfectly still and watching the walls slowly bleed red with sunrise until he can drag himself to work with the bags under his eye expertly covered by concealer. or three, inflicting his misery on someone else. tonight, he goes with option three. ]
[ and yet, it isn't an unexpected foray. in the spaces between the dusk and the dawn, he has known the sound of his voice in the dark. tossed over sheets, pitched up and whining, something or other to chase out the circling ways of his thoughts. and yet, diluc carries on. he acquiesces where others would pry. if there is something he has learned in all of his time spent wandering, there are occasions where one cannot barrel through any such obstacles - cannot shoulder through the door. and so, he lets kaeya keep it. until he spits the pearl of his truth into the palm of diluc's hand, the lone star of his eye alight with some residual fright as he backtracks. and yet - who is to say he does not deserve it? who is to say that diluc is entitled to what he had chosen to lose? if he had ever had it to begin with?
and yet, diluc lies with him. he bends to the weight of his hands, the way he speaks sharp things sweetly. pulled back onto their inextricable course, stained bright with their mutual ichor, diluc knows himself to be uglier than he. he knows himself to know little, but the pieces that kaeya bequeaths. and yet, somehow - kaeya is more beautiful than anything. a gale that strips to the bone, a floodplain that chokes instead of blooms - diluc is half between dreaming and half between waking. muzzy against the cool of kaeya's dark skin, the curl of his silken hair the same sheen off a raven's wing. diluc feels teeth chatter once in waking reflex. ]
Wuh, [ he more grumbles than says. in the dim cast of the lean of hours, diluc blinks once against the shadow of kaeya's throat, but doesn't pull back. he's still sticky from earlier, uncomfortable in odd little ways, but he could ignore it. it's easy, when compared to the caves and overhangs he's slept in and under. everything is easier, he'd never admit, when he's here with kaeya instead. ] What?
[ kaeya infuses his voice with as much obnoxious faux-innocence as possible, delighting as always in rousing any sort of reaction from his far too stoic lover. once, it had stemmed from a twisted need to get under diluc's skin as much as possible, to dig all his thorns in as deep as they could go until there was no escaping the blood of his brambles no matter how much diluc tried to brush him off. now...well, he can admit there's still a little of that selfish sentiment lingering, but the cold curl of his gut accompanying every time he'd lashed out has melted into springtime sun, a frisson of warmth licking through his veins whenever diluc's brow furrows in fond exasperation as he reaches out anyways and stays.
there are no happy endings for a sinner like him, he knows. one day, he will hurt diluc so terribly that the man will have no choice but to leave him for good, whether it be walking away permanently this time or incinerating him until there's nothing left of the worst mistake he's ever made. or perhaps before he gets the chance, khaenri'ah will have dragged him down into the bones and crypts of the earth where no light can ever reach. until then though, he'll take advantage of whatever little moments he can to prod and poke and annoy and wake diluc up at ridiculous hours in the morning just to hear him grumble but pull him in closer anyway, all so he can think with relief: not today.
in the moonlight, diluc's skin shines silver like the glow of an irminsul tree, every scattered scar a leyline holding the memories of this body. kaeya traces his finger down one idly, following the willowy line from chest to rib; branch and bark and root, beauty and pain and strength carved in the map of his skin. how lovely it would be, he thinks, if they could actually be irminsul trees, roots entwined so deeply underground that they sup from the same soil, that the same water and life runs through their veins. how lovely it would be, if he could snap a branch off himself as his people once did, so that diluc could carry a piece of him around no matter how vast the distance between them may grow.
lovely...and also a bit too psychotic. so instead, what he says is, ]
[ you're awake? kaeya asks. he asks, as though diluc wasn't awake before the question tumbled off the curve of his lips. as if he hadn't stirred when kaeya himself did, roused in the slim hours before the dawn breaks golden across the warmth of kaeya's skin. he knows kaeya as kaeya knows him, knows him in the opening valley of wounds, the drag of his mouth against the thrum of his pulse. he knows him as the iron sting of blood in his throat, gutted to the root of all that he is and would be. all that he might have been, adorned in untarnished regalia. white as the nights in the snezhnaya, the mist off the mountainsides — diluc long thought of it as the hoar of long winters, the wetting of crops before the inevitable frost. the ache would always remain, but they would survive it. survive it, as diluc survived it. jagged in the way of his body, carved by the wither and rot — he is open to the way of kaeya's wandering hands. he stretches long and slow as kaeya idly maps, tells himself he trembles only to shake off the residual sleep that lingers at his periphery. he presses the tip of his nose against the dip of kaeya's throat, opens his his mouth against the cords of his neck. ]
Keep you at the winery, [ he says, without much pause. the hand at kaeya's back catches its thumb along the ridge of muscle, the border of a scar. he knows this one, as much as kaeya does not know the one that he plays his own fingers against. it had tormented him, once. it torments him still, in the quietest parts of himself that struggle up to the surface. but — diluc sighs, put-upon in a way that signals it is barely an effort at all. ] Plant you by the window. [ he'd be lovely, he thinks. he'd uproot the vineyard for kaeya, if he asked him. he'd situate him where he could see him, ensure he only ever knew the light. he'd love him, he thinks, just the same. with all the stupidity of a man who knows his death and still chases it, who would willingly bleed to know he bleeds too. it used to startle him. when they were separated, it used to hook beneath his skin as though the barbed ends of thorns. memories of him, his want to be close as they once were — knowing, without knowing then, that diluc was not diluc at all without him.
but, diluc continues. the words are a tangible weight, pressed close as they are to the skin. ]
[ there's an ache that swells in his chest as he watches the moonlight ripple across the shifting plains of diluc's skin, a map laid vulnerable and bare for his greedy hands to lay conquest. happiness is still not a concept he's entirely comfortable with; it comes to him packaged in layers of wariness and guilt, a delicate gossamer bubble all too easily broken with a breath to reveal the poisoned blades lurking within. it's almost painful, that shudder of his heart and thawing of his veins when diluc turns the softness of his mouth to his neck, the same sweet pain he imagines the frost must feel as it gives way to spring and sun - how long, he wonders, before the inevitability of winter again? surely it can't be natural, this constant and overwhelming warmth that sings in his blood, surely the universe will present its price to him sooner or later.
it seems like the story of his life, forever waiting for the dagger to fall. even so, as he shifts halfway over so he can grin insufferably into diluc's face, the midnight tresses of his hair spilling ink against the pale canvas of his body, he thinks for the first time that perhaps the wait isn't so bad after all. ]
Why, Master Diluc, are you going to plant me with your seed? [ his voice trembles with barely restrained laughter as he flutters his lashes theatrically - and oh, he's definitely going to regret this in the morning when he has to drag his sleep-deprived ass into work, but annoying diluc has always been a worthwhile endeavor of his time. ] Shall I come to you adorned in greenery so you can deflower me?
[ and despite his over-the-top dramatics - not that he isn't already designing a skimpy nymph costume to commission for some poor soul - well, there's some appeal in the fantasy, isn't there? there'd been plenty of myths and legends in khaenri'ah of people cursed to become various flora and fauna, long before they'd discovered what a real curse could be - but it wouldn't be a curse at all, with the two of them. to be rooted permanently in the soil of diluc's home, to be pruned and tended to with the same gentle care he shows the vines of the winery - that would be a blessing, if anything. ]
[ wouldn't it be? buried in the black earth alongside their bodies, entwined at the rot of their roots — there would be no greater mercy for either of them. there would be no greater answer to their inevitable end: supping on the blood of the other, entombed by the hubris that they should ever both be permitted to stand in the sun.
it is what he'd once come to want, had once come to need. in the dark, in the absences, in the moments between — he knows it is only a dream about dreaming. it is only a dream of the simpler things. it is only a delusion, to think he might one day grow old with the one that he chose and that all things needn't come to forgone conclusions. he knows it. he knows it, as well he knows the face that looks back him. he knows it, as well as he knows his own body. no matter how he grumbles and grouses and sighs, it tunes itself to the press of kaeya's mouth, the glimmer of his eye. the spill of his hair as diluc, for only a moment, yields to him and his games and his ploys that kaeya knows very well will lead to only one end.
diluc, despite the burgeoning blush that crawls up the back of his neck and over the apples of his cheeks, rolls his eyes with a particular pointedness as he reaches up to instead shove kaeya over onto his back, the palm of his hand leveraged against the square of his shoulder. it serves him right, diluc thinks as he brackets kaeya between the vee of his legs, for waking him to begin with. ]
Ugh, [ he's never been as eloquent, but diluc thinks it sufficient enough. he leans into kaeya's space, the thick of his red hair slipping over the curve of his shoulder to hang about his face. he doesn't give that amount of stupidity more oxygen than it should be afforded, as he tips his head to set the bank of his teeth against the angle of kaeya's jaw. between the movement, the latching of his mouth and the repetition of an earlier bruise, he presses into him: ] I take it back.
[ he doesn't. it's obvious. it's as obvious as the way he leans in part against him, the hand that's long planted itself against his shoulder working its way down the topography of kaeya's raised scars. the other stations itself, with clearer finality, in the mess of linens beside kaeya's head. ]
[ he goes all too willingly as diluc rolls him over, grinning obnoxiously all the while - and this too feels like a minor miracle, the ease to which he lets himself be caged within another's arms. for all his outward amicablity, kaeya only ever bares his neck to lure his prey closer into the striking distance of his venomous fangs - yet here he is now, arching back to press the delicate skin of his jugular into the snap of diluc's teeth, uncaring if it bruises or breaks. eager for it, even; blood looks so good stained against the snow of diluc's skin, highlights the ruby of his mouth, his eyes. better still when it's kaeya's blood painting his face like a warflag, a primal marking of his territory, some dark part of himself thrilling at burrowing so deep he runs through his veins.
not exactly the most romantic of gestures, but then again they're not exactly the most romantic of pairs. the strong arms around him, the firm chest against him, hardly make him feel safe or protected the way one of his tawdry novels would perhaps describe this embrace. in truth, nothing has ever or will ever terrify him more than the proof of diluc's care for him, the suffocating weight and blazing intensity of his regard; even now, he can feel his pulse ratcheting high, his body instinctively shifting into a fight-or-flight response he has to consciously tamper down. anchored is perhaps a better word for it, a shackle around his limbs binding him to this reality - but if it's a cage, then it's one that kaeya willingly walks into with eyes wide open, having long given up the key to a boy who shined brighter than the sun.
cages work both ways, after all - not just to keep some pitiful creature trapped within, but to protect those outside from its fangs and claws. and if the worst were to ever happen...well, he thinks, there would be no better end to him than diluc ripping his throat out with his teeth. ]
Fine, then you come up with something fun if you hate my brilliant ideas so much. [ he injects a petulant whine into his voice that he knows to be extremely aggravating, though it's offset by the way he coyly traces a scar spiraling up diluc's bicep with a finger - on his blind side, but then he's never needed sight to know every scrap of diluc's skin by heart. with his other arm, he reaches up to arch his body in a sinuous display he's well aware perfectly reflects the moonlight's soft glow through the window, eye half-lidded with teasing promise. ] Come on, Master Diluc, surely there's some wish I can grant you?
[ when was the last time they'd needed their vision to know the lay of their boundaries, the divots of flesh and blood and bone? since when, diluc thinks, he has he needed to find with his eyes the narrow of kaeya's waist, the flare of his hip? perhaps when this began again in earnest — turned over to each other palms, known and unknown. known, once again, in the bracket of arms and the parting of legs. how stupid they'd both had been. how foolish, to think that the angle of the stars should ever release them from each other's threads. sewn together from the start, no matter the way they pulled and rallied and seethed — what would he be, diluc, without him? nothing.
nothing, in the way an empty room is. nothing, in the way of a cage door left open. nothing, in the way he dreams of the blood that runs sweet beneath skin — the warm, darkened shadows he bites into the curve of kaeya's throat.
he knows the game kaeya's keen on playing. all the evenings he wakes diluc in the dead of the night, seeking for an ember of reminder. a fragment of light. how bitter it is, that kaeya knows not at all that diluc is an ashen thing. he can give him no more than kaeya himself owns, the silver moonglow made for his skin.
and so: ]
I don't need one granted, [ diluc heaves out, eventual. pulled up from the draw of kaeya's warm body, the subtle press of his hip, the depth of his "agitation" rests more in the furrow of his brow and the curl of his lip. put upon, he hopes. incredulous. he does not lean into the touch kaeya gives, but how can he resist? no more than he might resist the way he seeks out the lidding of his lone eye, the tuck of his palm against kaeya's flank. an easy sort of pet, wolf teeth and snake venom. a willing hand, nonetheless.
how could he even ask? diluc would once have thought this. young as he was, naïve as he was, gentled in the ways of the world — he's not ignorant anymore. he knows. knows, as he knows the hatred that burns in his blood for all that he himself is. diluc ragnvindr — a joke, a residual stain of a former existence.
but, even so: it isn't as though kaeya hasn't dug into the tender recess of his breast. it isn't as though he hasn't dug out the heart that long ceased to be his. diluc can't remember when it last beat without ache of him. he cannot recall a moment without the rot of his love, the loam of his wanting. rolled through the corpse dirt, dredged up from the bogs, he'd long worn their childhood as a noose about his neck. how could he ever be without him? who was diluc, if kaeya did not exist? ]
You're already here. [ for all he has hardened, for all that the world has made of him something foul and free — there still exists that brazen sincerity. there still exists, diluc knows, a world that kaeya was never once lost to him. once upon a time, in the fragile shell of their reality, in a country called mondstadt. there were only two boys, he thinks in the quietest parts of himself, who knew nothing of the machinations of the world.
but, with kaeya laid beneath him as he is, perhaps they can pretend. just for a little while, as though the dagger has not cut already through softest parts of them. as if the scar he runs his fingers across now, a mottling of flesh, was not once inflicted by him. as if he has not marked the one he'd chosen, in fire and iron. as if —
heat burns up the back of his neck. it colors the apples of his cheeks, stains him as red of the wines he spares in the hours after closing. the dangerous cut of kaeya's upturned mouth. ]
If you want to be a tree, be a tree. [ he scrapes along the border of that scar a nail, feels the lurch of guilt and sickness in his chest. does it again, regardless. ] I don't care.
@carceral; ( the curse ruled from the underground down by the shore )
[ everyone knows the cavalry captain of the knights of favonius is a notorious liar - to his enemies, to his friends, perhaps most of all to himself. and the biggest lie kaeya tells himself is this: that khaenri'ah is a dead nation and its people long gone, and any remnants that may linger behind are simply the echoes of ghosts best left to rot. whatever lineage and duties he may have carried burned away with the cataclysm; the last thing anyone needs to remember is the existence of a lost prince, whiling away his days in the city of the enemy.
so when jean assigns him a mission to chaperone klee in the exploration of the chasm in liyue, alarm bells immediately start ringing in his head. he has vague recollections of a mysterious chasm being mentioned way back when, serpentine excavators sent in to find...something, the details of which hadn't exactly been within a child's purview. coupled with everything else - the historical records of abyssal monsters emerging from its depths centuries ago, the recent ban on mining, the reports of hilichurls entering with explanation - and it all paints a ominous picture that while he doesn't have a full grasp on yet, he knows he wants no part of. not him, and certainly not klee, who should be nowhere near the sort of sins staining the soil of his homeland. it'd taken but a moment to contrive a convenient escape; an offhand comment about how helpful it would be for good hunter to have a stronger stove, a momentary lapse of attention as he chatted with sara about her busy work schedule, and he soon found himself tossed back into his office to think about his actions.
he should have known better, really. there's no outrunning the weight of his past, in the end.
that same evening, his ears still ringing from jean's harsh scolding, the thing that had once been his eye suddenly throbs. it isn't pain, not exactly, but rather the wrenching sensation of a sick wrongness - like the sound of metal grating against metal that sets his teeth on edge, like a pulse where no heart should beat, like looking up to find the false sky cracking. time blurs, morphs into shadows flickering on the walls; he doesn't know how long he spends hunched over, dripping with sweat, one hand pressing down hard against his eyepatch, but the pink blush of dawn trickles through his windows by the time he regains enough of his senses to check. and if he had any delusion left of his symptoms being mere exhaustion and alcohol deprivation, that's quickly blown out of the water when the reports start filing in from his informants in mondstadt, liyue, dragonspine, all saying the same thing - hilichurls suddenly collapsing in agony all over the map, with no explanation as to why.
well. there's no avoiding it this time, it would seem. the knights of favonius can hardly ignore such a strange phenomenon, and he can't afford to send someone in his stead to investigate and come back with the wrong information...or worse, the right one. he supposes he should be grateful for small mercies - at least klee won't be in tow this time.
he doesn't head straight for the chasm proper; he's no delver or researcher, after all, and his particular talents are best suited for gathering information elsewhere. instead, he drops into the tavern at the nearby inn and starts striking up conversation with the locals. the innkeeper takes a particular liking to him after seeing how he's free with words and freer with coin, and soon they're exchanging gossip about work and life and everything in between.
"business has gotten a lot livelier since they reopened the mines," she says, cupping her chin. "why, you're not even the first foreigner we've seen in these parts recently!" at this, kaeya's smile sharpens, eye gleaming in predatorial interest. ]
Another foreigner, hm? [ he leans in with a friendly smile, tossing the woman another coin. ] What are they like? Not as charming as me, I hope.
[ after all is said and done, Dainsleif is left to piece together the broken pieces that were left behind. he doesn't leave the Chasm even after he and the Traveler have parted ways, electing to tie up loose ends, helping hilichurls that were uprooted from their final resting place because of what happened to make their way back. he checks up on what the remaining Black Serpent Knights were doing before he leaves them be. one of the last tasks he assigns himself is to take one of the Intevyat flowers to place near the device in order to honour Halfdan's sacrifice. it has been such a long and terribly lonely time since he last saw his beloved comrade and friend, so for their reunion to end like this—
well, he supposes a sinner like him had it coming.
the calming aura from the waters overhead almost feels like benediction, a once sought after token of forgiveness that he no longer thinks he deserves. every part of his aching body is still telling him to stay, to rest easy here because there's only suffering everywhere else. he chooses not to listen to its pleas. there are matters far more important than what he wants, and what he wants can always wait until he's finished what he has left to do. it doesn't matter if it will take another five hundred years to accomplish it, but he's losing time the longer he stays here, so once he's done honouring his friend, he finally turns to leave.
tracking down the Abyss Order has always been a complicated affair. once he gained access to their portal network, his search was made considerably easier, but he knows he can't rely on that for a certain amount of time, not when they're well aware of his reliance on them now. he doesn't think the Herald will take too kindly to him if he attempts to do anything now anyway, so it won't hurt to lay low and search for them the good ol' fashioned way — on foot and talking to locals if they've heard of anything strange. of courses, he stands out like a sore thumb no matter where he goes, but he's used to fielding questions about his origins by now.
most people's curiousities are usually placated by the time he mentions he's a traveler from far away, because he regales them with tales from the other nations, fantastical stories that they may have never heard of otherwise. it's how his presence has grown to be accepted in the nearby village, but he doesn't intend to stay here long. he only lingers because he is presently attempting to track down a certain villager who has been rumoured to see a gathering of creatures whose descriptions remind him too much the Abyss Order's pawns. the only thing he has to go by is that this person likes to frequent nearby taverns so he has been visiting them one after the other.
tonight shouldn't have been any different. just another visit to yet another local tavern in hopes of catching a conversation with this individual. he already planned to have this be his last night here whether or not he is successful, because he might have better luck searching for the Abyss Order himself. still, he enters the tavern as quietly as he usually does, ignoring any curious looks that might have been sent his way. he only has one purpose here and that's to find the person he has been looking for a few days by now.
the innkeeper looks up from behind the counter, eyes gleaming with delighted recognition. "Not as charming, perhaps, but no less mysterious!" her hands have already reached for the coin, fiddling with it as she gestures behind Kaeya with a nod of her head. "I haven't heard much about where he's from, but you can always ask him yourself, yeah?"
by then, Dainsleif has already noticed that she is looking her way. he may not have heard what she told the man right in front of her, but something compels him to engage in the conversation. there's no way he can see the other man's features right until the very last moment, when he stands right next to him and sends an inquiring look his way. the first thing he notices is a sudden sense of familiarity at first glance, an unshakeable one at that. something tells him that he's seen this person before but it's difficult to place exactly where.
the next thing that comes up is something that brings his entire world to a complete stop. when he meets the other man's eye, there's no mistaking it — starry, like the night sky. ]
You are...
[ his voice is quiet, breathless in a way. his words are spoken in a foreign, forgotten tongue, one that he's certain will answer all of his questions should the other man recognize it just as well. ]
[ the innkeeper glances behind him and kaeya follows her gaze, half turning in his seat to get a good look at the man now coming to stand next to him. from his lower vantage point he catches sight of black armored boots first, then sweeps his gaze up, taking mental notes as he goes - up towards the night-patterned cape, up towards the dark blue emblem that rings oddly familiar, up towards the striking mask, up towards the widening eyes with their unmistakable starry pupils--
the coin he'd been idly running over his knuckles drops to the floor from suddenly numb fingers; he barely hears the clattering over the sound of rushing blood to his ears, the thunder of his heart rattling his ribs. he's dreaming. he must be. there is no other explanation for what's standing before him now.
abruptly, he's thrown back to a memory from many months ago: the darknight hero seeking him out of his own initiative, a rare enough situation that kaeya had been instantly on guard for the worst - but the surprise there had been nothing compared to what diluc had said next. 'there was a masked man in the tavern,' he'd said, mouth thin in an uneasy line. 'he had eyes. like yours.'
it had been like lightning striking him from a clear blue sky. it was impossible. there should be only one other living person in all of modern teyvat with the distinct starry pupils of a long dead land, and if his erstwhile father had wandered into angel's share, diluc would have damn well noticed a lot more similarities between the two of them beyond just their eyes. further questioning had gotten him nowhere in figuring out just what hell was going on - and so he'd sent out his network to try to track the man down, and when they'd come back with nothing, he'd...left it at that.
it wasn't cowardice, he'd told himself, just practicality. unusual pupils were nothing new in teyvat - chances were diluc had simply mistaken the shape in the dim lighting of the tavern. and even if he hadn't, even if by some hideous miracle there was one more uncursed khaenri'an walking around than accounted for, well...he'd hardly want to draw their attention to a false hope in form of a lost dynasty, would he? best to just let it die quietly; this world was a vast one, after all, and it would take some twist of fate for two people across miles and miles of land and ocean and sky to ever stumble into each other's paths.
(the lie had tasted bitter on his tongue, even then.)
what a joke, what a fool he was for believing even for a second that he could avoid the whims of fate. of course that mysterious figure would show now, months after there'd been zero signs of him, months after kaeya had tried to push its existence from his mind. and what's worse is that - he knows that face. blond and blue-eyed had been plenty common in his homeland, but even behind a mask, even across a decade of memories, five centuries of time, he knows--
information. he needs more information. he's already given too much away as it is gaping like a slack-jawed idiot, too much visible shock on his face to excuse as mere confusion at the man's odd attire. snapping his mouth shut, he pulls himself together as best he can and smiles, letting the words float by over his head with no sign of recognition - words spoken in the language of the dead and the sinners, the language he still sometimes dreams in. ]
Mysterious indeed. [ he leans back casually against the bar, gesturing at the seat next to him. ] Well, as one foreigner to another, won't you let me buy you a drink? You look like you could have some interesting stories to tell, and I'm always in the mood for entertainment.
[ it feels like the world comes to a standstill in complete silence. Dainsleif had dreamt about this before, maybe not quite this exact scenario, but the idea remains the same: somehow, against all odds, he is reunited with the lost prince of Khaenri'ah again. their eyes meet, and just like his reality right now, recognition comes to life behind star-shaped pupils, followed by a realization that is quite daunting. this can't be real, he wants to say, night-coloured eyes still focused on the man before him. he has long since discarded this possibility as wishful thinking, a lonely man's weak desire for some semblance of hope.
what is he supposed to do now? ]
... A drink, you say? You're too generous.
[ he's thankful for the opening, for the temporary distraction from what they're both trying to avoid.
Dainsleif doesn't miss the way the other man looked at him — wide-eyed and in disbelif. it's too early to tell if that was because this person recognized him for who he is, or what he was (after all, starry eyes are only known to exist in a nation that is no longer around), but a broken emotion has started to take root in his chest. it's one that he hasn't allowed himself to believe in for so many years, and it would be hypocritical of him to start now given what he told the Traveler now too long ago. clinging to false hope is dangerous, he knows this best, and yet— he reaches down to pick up the fallen coin from the floor before he takes the seat that was gestured to him. his eyes haven't stopped looking at the man beside him the entire time he did this, and by the time he settles, the world decides to spin again.
he opens his palm where the coin now rests, as if waiting for it to be retrieved. ]
The kinds of stories I have might not be of particular interest to you, but you're welcome to ask if there is anything in particular you'd like to know.
[ the stories he holds close to his heart are born from forgotten hopes and lost dreams. neither of them are acknowledging how intimately familiar they are with what these stories could be about, but Dainsleif wouldn't dare to be the one to break the fragility of this moment.
as the Twilight Sword, the one who failed to protect the nation he was meant to serve, it's not his place to take the first step. ]
Generous, hm? Haha, I wouldn't flatter myself that far! I am repaying you for your time, after all.
[ it's almost a relief when he turns away from the intensity of that diamond stare to order the drinks, a pressure lifting as if he's been staring at the sun for too long. he takes advantage of the momentary break to collect himself again, trying to slow the thunder of his heart and the rush of adrenaline in his veins. it's just another mark, he tells himself. forget the starry eyes, forget the voice heralding from a distant memory, forget the fact that this thing wears the face of a person he'd long thought dead or lost to the horrors of the celestial curse - this is no different from interrogating an abyss mage or charming information from a hoarder. significantly more dangerous, perhaps, but since when has he ever shied away from that?
he's nearly managed to convince himself that he's got this under control by the time the drinks arrive, smile firmly affixed in place as he slides a glass over - only to falter when he sees the coin shining in the strange man's open palm. slowly, he reaches out to wrap his fingers around it, distantly noting how their hands were nearly the same size now.
it hadn't always been that way. the last time kaeya had slid his hand into that black-clad palm it had completely dwarfed his own, as the twilight sword knelt to swear his loyalty to the youngest member of the royal line. funny, all the things that change with time...for one of them, at any rate.
he withdraws his hand as quickly as if burned, running his thumb over the coin before flicking it up into the air. again and again, the coin spinning as it goes, flashing too quickly for anyone to tell which side it lands. heads or tails, truth or lies, the past or present - all those decisions left up in the air, or so he'd like to pretend. ]
Well, your name would be a good start. I can hardly keep calling you mister man of mystery, after all!
[ he knows the name of course; it sits heavy on the tip of his tongue, burns down his throat as he swallows it back. but he won't say it, not yet - naming the man in front of him would make him real, realer than all the abyss mages and hilichurls and monstrous remnants he's learned to divorce himself from. besides, maybe he's mistaken. maybe his memories have been fogged by time. or maybe the abyss has stolen away this man's identity as well. ]
[ the abyss has already stolen too much from him, but Dainsleif would argue that it's Celestia that has taken way more. not just from himself, but from the people of Khaenri'ah too, its royal family and those he failed to protect when they needed him the most. there are memories he can no longer remember, ones that were precious and fragile back when he could replay them night after night ever since the fall of the godless nation. they brought him comfort when nothing else could, when he had nothing left to hold onto but the grim reminder of his own failures. these memories are now faded around the edges, rotten to the core, lost to a curse that continues to eat away at whatever he has left.
Celestia has stolen too much from him, and yet somehow, they have failed to take this away—
(when their hands touched, he was brought back to a faraway land that glittered in gold and starlight. they both stood in the middle of a glorious chamber, surrounded by others with starry eyes and brilliant smiles. the crowd remained silent as the honourable knight knelt in front of the young prince, gaze downcast as he forgot what it was like to simply breathe.
this was an important moment in his life, and here he was about to make a fool of himself, but when he looked up, he watched as something warm, something innocent and yearning, bloomed on the prince's face.
that was all the encouragement he needed.) ]
... Dainsleif.
[ As Sir Dainsleif of the Black Serpent Knights, all that I am is yours to command.
—Celestia's curse couldn't diminish how important it was to him, to remember the vow he once swore, despite how it all ended. the event remains vivid in his mind, down to the vow he swore to keep on that day. he remembers it so well that he almost forgets where he is. the tavern's local patrons barely pay them any attention, and the innkeeper has already left them to their own devices, serving her next customers with a pretty smile and hearty laugh. there are snippets of conversation floating around about a strange phenomenon that made too many hilichurls suffer for no reason at all.
his own hand retreats once Kaeya's pulls away, almost apologetic for how things are turning out. he wonders if the coin will ever fall on a side that will be favourable to either of them. ]
I hail from a land far away from here. [ an outlander in every sense of the word. an outcast. ] I have been trying to find my way back, but... it has proven to be a difficult task lately.
[ he can only say it in so many different ways, but he has a feeling that the other man will understand. ]
[ he'd been expecting the name, bracing himself for it, but all the preparation in the world still wouldn't have stopped the electric shock that surges down his spine and through his veins at the mere sound of it, leaving every inch of his skin tingling and his hair standing on end. dainsleif. it echoes in his head, opening a door he thought he'd long locked shut.
he remembers. of course he does. no matter how much he lies to himself that he's left that part of him behind to wither in the dust, the golden halls and spiraling towers of his homeland shine as vividly in his mind's eye now as the day he'd left - and there gleaming ever bright in the eyes of the starstruck youth he'd once been, the twilight sword. khaenri'ah had offered little protection for a child growing up, not even for one of royal blood - perhaps especially not then, in a land whose rulers were expected to be as merciless as the machines of war they'd built. in the midst of the ruthless politics and powerclimbing, dainsleif had been one of the few safe havens he could trust, a protective shelter away from the storm.
part of him now feels like that terrified child again - abandoned in a strange land with stranger people, lost in a time not his own with a burden so heavy he can't begin to comprehend it, desperate to reach out to this promise of familiarity and connection that has suddenly appeared like a beacon of hope. it is eclipsed, however, by the far larger part of him who has grown up under wind and sky rather than machine and ground, who has sworn himself in service of a city not his own, the part that whispers in his head that he cannot trust this man. forget the name, forget their history, forget the starry eyes brimming with an emotion that's far too human - there's only two ways he knows of to stave off the effects of their celestial curse, and one of them currently resides underneath his eyepatch. as for the other...well, abyssal power might allow someone to retain their intelligence, but it kills off something vital in them nonetheless.
(he doesn't allow himself to hope for the possibility that there might be a third option, that someone else might have escaped the curse with their humanity intact too. he's known for a long time now that miracles don't exist.) ]
A pleasure. I'm Kaeya, of the Ordo Favonius.
[ he emphasizes favonius slightly, watching dainleif's face carefully for any reaction to a khaenri'an now working for the city of the enemy. no point in hiding it anyway, not when it would only take a few hours asking around to determine who the strange foreigner with the unusual attire could possibly be. his smile does falter at the man's confession of his shaky memory - the delayed symptoms of the curse? a side effect to abyssal corruption? all the more reason to keep up his guard. ]
A faraway land, hm? You sound like someone straight out of a storybook. [ he props his chin on his hand, his other fingers tracing the rim of his glass idly as if this really is just a casual conversation with a stranger in a bar. ] Why the eagerness to return? Perhaps you'll enjoy taking in the sights and making new memories where you are now.
... Of the Ordo Favonius. [ his voice is nearly breathless, but deep down, he feels like he is suffocating. ] What an honour that must be.
[ the implication behind the emphasis is not lost on Dainsleif. for a brief moment, his expression becomes unreadable, difficult to decipher what it is that's going through his mind, but it only lasts as long as it takes for the initial shock to fade away. what replaces it is something much more subdued, something equal parts lost and melancholic, as if he understands where khaenri'ah's last hope now stands. does this mean that it was all for nothing? or is it more like, he's more alone than ever when it comes to finding a way to right the wrongs that the gods have caused?
it's been so long since he last saw anyone with the stars in their eyes like he does that he's struggling to make sense of what he's experiencing. he tries not to let the wistfulness shows but it might be too late to hide it. in the end, he chooses to look away, to focus on the drink that was offered earlier, but he doesn't miss the way that Kaeya's smile just faltered right there and then.
too many questions, so little answers. ]
It has been a long time since I last returned home. [ five hundred years and counting, but he dares not breathe that out loud. ] I've almost forgotten what it's like.
[ in a way, it's an attempt to hint at something — how long he's been alive, how long he's lived alone for so many years. he wonders if Kaeya's voice will falter if he manages to pick up all the little hints that Dainsleif continues to leave behind. ]
I wouldn't even know where to go if I were to continue wandering around. [ this time, he looks at Kaeya again. ] Of course, I'm open to suggestions, should you have any.
[ if he has any secrets left to uncover, they're in the shape of the man sitting next to him. ]
[ it wasn't often that his father now called him to man the bar, much less invited him to spend the night in his childhood home. he was a knight now, after all. duty bound to the city his father before him wished to serve, he was a fixture within the system of their governing as much as kaeya himself was. and what a relief that was, to know that no matter where it was he roamed, that kaeya would be the first to be at his shoulder. he'd be the first to hand him missives, to sling an arm about his shoulder — to tuck himself close under the tarpaulin tent when the others settled in for the night.
he couldn't quite imagine falling asleep without kaeya's weight beside him. it had been an arduous handful of weeks before they were reassigned to bunk together once his position was solidified. and for those long nights, he'd spent it hating it. he'd spent it sneaking into the spaces that kaeya remained and often, he recalled, kaeya crawled into his. it became useless, he thought then, to ever attempt to separate them.
it was a blessing the knights no longer bothered with it.
he suspects it will not be dissimilar this evening, even when kaeya had found himself on patrol until the small hours to cover diluc's typical shift. diluc had told him he'd leave the side-door open once he'd closed up for the night, but still he kept himself busy in the subsequent stretch without him. he knew there was never a firm "time" they would finish up, but— ]
Kae? [ it's a feeling, more than it is the senses. he could always find kaeya no matter the reason, no matter the environment. now, he finds himself turning his head from the idle game of pool he had been playing to occupy himself once he'd straightened the tavern for when the afternoon shift eventually arrived.
leaning the cue against the table, he treads to the edge of the mezzanine and peers into the wide foyer. ] Did you want to join in?
[ there is no visual confirmation yet, but he assumes kaeya paused at the stock room to ascertain that diluc had counted the remaining bottles right. or, maybe, to take a glass himself. kaeya always did like wine more than he did, no matter how he tried it. a shame, everyone told him.
his father once told him he'd come to enjoy it in time. ]
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( the sun will melt a field of sorrow ) @anbruch
And so tucked away in a drawer in the nightstand by his bed is a discreet little wooden box, the lid firmly sealed shut with a complicated lock - but not so complicated that a person cunning enough to break into a knight captain's personal chambers wouldn't be able to pick given enough time and dedication. Within, they would find a crystalline bottle filled with what a single sniff would tell them is undoubtedly omega pheromones - and there it would be. Kaeya Alberich's greatest secret: that this man who flaunts his secondary gender so shamelessly is no true omegaborn at all.
Not a particularly exciting scandal, given how such a thing is hardly unheard of in the City of Freedom, but a satsifying one nonetheless. Word would spread across the entire city within the day; how embarrassing, how pitiable, that the sultry Captain Alberich who struts his scent and beauty wherever he goes has had to rely on artificial pheromones all this time! Tongues would waggle over whether he'd been born a beta or alpha, speculations on what his natural scent would consist of. His stupider enemies would attempt to blackmail or taunt him over the reveal; his smarter ones would simply reorganize their strategies against him, calling a halt to all the aggressive alphas and the heat-inducers sent his way thus far. Whatever the case, everyone would leave happy and smug believing they've finally gotten one over their notoriously slippery foe.
And thus, no one would think to check the jar labeled as hair oil sitting innoculously with all his other many beauty products on his vanity table. No locks, no safes, just an ordinary jar left unguarded out in the open - certainly nothing to suggest that within contains the results of an ancient recipe devised by the Khaenrians when they could still walk amongst the people of Teyvat, seeking to mingle amongst the populace by replicating the pheromones emitted by what they called 'beta'.
The contents of the jar are still mostly full - it isn't often that Kaeya finds himself in need of it, after all. The first time had been on his fourteenth birthday (or the date he'd claimed it to be, and whether or not that's a lie too even he doesn't remember anymore); he'd furtively dabbed the potion in the dead of night against where his scent glands should have been had he been normal, then later that day crept into Master Crepus's study and whispered with downcast eyes that he didn't feel like a beta. Afterwards, he's only needed to reach for it twice a year, when his supply of omega pheromones starts running low and he has to drop by the library for another of Lisa's marvelously discreet decoctions.
There's certainly no trace of beta on him tonight as he heads down to Angel's Share, just an extra layer of his usual pheromones, the thickening scent a signal of an omega near pre-heat. A group of alphas purporting to be treasure hoarders are temporarily in town, and while normally he wouldn't pull out all the stops for such small fry, the hint of a Snezhnayan accent behind their words makes him think that perhaps they deserve the...extra friendly welcoming committee. Diluc isn't on shift when he enters the bar, which isn't surprising given the man's nocturnal extracurriculars but is a bit of a shame; it's always amusing watching him try to hide the way his nose crinkles in disgust whenever Kaeya swans about absolutely swimming in pheromones.
(Which is frankly a bit overdramatic of him, because Kaeya has been informed on multiple occasions by his many, many admirers that he smells great. Some enticing combination of a moonlit icy night carrying the subtle fragrance of calla lilies, the sharp chill warmed by a rich exotic spice - and while his noseblind self can't see what's so appealing about what sounds like the smell of a confused cryo whopperflower wandering into an overenthusiastic kitchen, he's had no complaints as of yet. He'd think Diluc's obvious repulsion is just another sign of the tension between them, but the nose-wrinkling's been a thing even in their youth, so clearly the man either has some serious prudishness to work through or his taste in omega pheromones run as boring and bland as his taste in drinks. Probably both.)
At any rate, Diluc's not behind the counter tonight and he's certainly not who Kaeya's targeting anyway, so he forces his thoughts back on track, lounging casually as he sips his drink until his gaze lands on the group of alphas in the corner. All of their eyes are already on him, have been so the moment he opened the door; he gives them a casual wave, smile curling at the edges as he watches the wariness on their faces war with their instinct to impress and possess and own. He waits a heartbeat, lets the tension draw out like a string on a harp, before sauntering over with hips swaying and taking a seat.
Noseblind though he may be, the language of the body is one Kaeya is as fluent in as Teyvat, as his own mothertongue. Impress me, says the cock of his hips as he splays himself over the barstool. Dangerous but tameable with the right price, says the tilt of his wrist as he props his elbow on the table. Give me what I want and perhaps you may just get what you want for the night, says the arch of his neck as he angles it just enough to put the long line of it on display.
(They won't, of course. But where's the fun in knowing?) ]
New in town, gentlemen? I do hope you've been enjoying the sights of our fair city.
[ It isn't long before he's talked them into playing a round of cards with him, and from there the game's over nearly as quickly as it begun. Trained though they may be, there's simply too many distractions for a poor alpha to deal with; an omega thick with pre-heat on offer, adrenaline pumping hot from competition with other alphas, focus stumbling between cards in hand and a wicked smile in front - is it any wonder that a few extra words may carelessly slip the tongue during casual conversation? Nothing as substantial as a name or confession of course, but Kaeya has gotten very good at painting a vivid picture with only a few wisps of information in hand.
He's just about gotten what he's needed and is about to move on to fleecing these suckers of at least half their mora when Hoffman comes rushing in with a report of yet another sighting of Mondsdadt's local vigilante. With an exaggerated sigh, Kaeya stands up from the table, waving regretfully at the flushed faces staring dazedly up at him. ]
Sorry to rush out on you when we've been having such fun, but I'm afraid duty calls. But don't worry, I'm a fairly common face amongst these parts - if you extend your stay here longer, you may get to see a little more of me.
[ Whistling cheerfully, he makes his way out of the bar and into the streets and alleys of Mondsdadt - and if he happens to stop a few times along the way to help out various citizens with their tasks and thereby give that wretched Darknight Hero a window of opportunity to escape, well it can't be helped, can it? He's just fulfilling his responsibilities as a knight, after all. ]
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where they flounder, diluc rises. pressed against the night, chasing the thin edge of dawn, he strings his own networks along. he knows the names of those who linger in their boundaries, the faces of fatui behind the city walls. he knows how to dispose of such difficult messes before often the knights ever catch wind of it, but kaeya — sir kaeya had always been different. a cold wind against the back, a dagger through the lungs. between the slats of ribs, disarming first with his "given gifts" and the curl of silvered tongue. he'd always stumbled not at all over the social standings, maneuvered his words as pieces across the polish of a board. it'd charmed him, begrudgingly, in his youth. he'd been foolish then.
but now, garbed even as he is against those who would stare not at all closely at him, he finds it infuriating. irritating. enough that he should want to — ah, perhaps he's not thinking too clearly. it'd been enough of a night of errors, another comedy of mistakes. his first had been to approach a group he'd only had a smattering of information on. not as though they themselves were unknown to diluc, not really, but the shipments they were moving to and from liyue? no such knowledge on what the bottles contained that the men threw. not that it mattered now, considering he'd had them dispatched on the far shore and left the smoldering fleet of their boats against the lip of the lake, but —
staggering isn't something the dark knight hero does, per se. he's efficient and fleeting, a shadow that answers no pleading to cease his actions under threat of arrest. he is not ungainly in the way he uses the cobbled stone of the city walls to pull himself along. he does not become overwhelmed, sweat beading at his temples and dry at the mouth. he doesn't become sick on the scent of the knights that flicker still about the city — scattered crystal flies in the vineyard. he does not — ]
Ugh. [ enough of a sound to contain multitudes. if he can just make it back to the winery (or some secluded place in-between) it won't be worth worrying about the searing heat that spreads from the gut to the tips of his fingers. the itch that begins burrow at the blunt of his teeth. he could just sleep it off, he figures. the high rise of his scent like smoke against the mountain paths, a fire lit among the needling pines. it reeks, he's sure. he reeks even more, when he comes from the western exit — backlit by the moon, framed in silver.
diluc attempts to turn on his heel and make a quicker exit, but his body isn't having it. in the mess of bottles that remain, his leaden feet kick through the battlefield of glass. he grimaces. ]
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It isn't often that his predictions miss the mark entirely. Usually he welcomes such interesting breaks from the expected, but Kaeya can't find any such thrill in him now as he stares at Diluc stumbling crooked against the walls, clumsy and ungainly in a way he hasn't seen in years.
He doesn't panic; the ability for shock had been numbed out of him long before he ever stepped foot in this strange land of grass and flowers, left behind in the sprawling underground caverns of his homeland. Ice instead of adrenaline floods through his veins, freezing time in this moment as he analyzes every detail of the tableau before him. His nose may not be able to detect pheromones, but it's perfectly functional otherwise, and what it tells him now is: no coppery tang of blood in the air, no stink of burnt flesh, just the distinct acrid smokiness from pyro magic and a faint spray of lakewater. The black clothing under the night sky hides any potential stains out of view, but the glow of moonlight casts those remarkable eyes into stark relief, a pair of embers blazing against the dark - sharp with irritation, no trace of the glazed confusion of a head wound to be found.
So then. An injury serious enough to send even the most reticent of warriors reeling on his feet - the aftermath of an electro attack perhaps, or a bad blow to the ankle or ribs - but nothing severe enough that needs to be addressed immediately. Nothing near fatal.
Time restarts. Kaeya breathes out the chill that had gathered in his lungs, vapor hanging in the air for a brief moment against his lips before it's blown away by the wind.
Let's see, how to handle this? He's almost tempted to save the poor guy some pride after an undoubtedly rough night and pretend he was never here, but then Diluc looks up and their gazes catch and hold, inevitably drawn even under the darkness of night. Ah well, mocking amusement it is then. Tucking his hands into his pockets, he casually saunters closer, a teasing smirk on his lips as his eye scans the other's body up and down for any further clues to the nature of his injuries. ]
Well, well. If it isn't the mysterious Darknight Hero, live in the flesh. [ The ridiculous moniker rolls off his tongue as if savoring a fine wine; Kaeya had spent weeks making sure the name caught on like wildfire amongst the citizens, and he considers every second well-spent. ] Such a shame I left my good cuffs at home.
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What passes through Kaeya is an unknown to him, unreadable as any star chart that lingers in Teyvat. Once, such little expressions would be translatable to him. The turn of his eye, the cast of his lashes. The way his mouth would quirk at such an angle. The flex of his shoulder or the weight set at his hip. Kaeya, who’d once been – Diluc plants the tip of his claymore in the soft soil of the shore. He pushes himself up by the hilt, knows he needs to shoulder by or not all. Kaeya wouldn’t jail him, he knows, but it’ll come at a price. A piece of information. A new rumor. Something or other from the mouths of their networks. A favor spooled ‘round the fingers. A thread of some worn tapestry, eager to unwind. Perhaps then, he thinks, he’d be able to convince him to step aside. To pay him no further mind. To let Diluc hobble his way home and sleep off the oncoming ache in his joints, the leaden palm of drowsiness. ]
Sir Kaeya of the Ordo Favonius, [ Diluc says, voice a thin fissure of flame against the set of teeth, the tick of his jaw. At the nape of his neck he feels the beading of sweat, the sweet-sick smell of pheromones and something akin to ink. He leans harder against the hilt of his claymore, sets his shoulders square. He does not flinch away from the assessing gaze Kaeya casts, but rather stands (he tells himself) steady. ] Haven’t you more important leads to consider?
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[ He keeps his voice as playful as usual, but there's no mistaking how his expression sharpens as he takes in every detail of the scene. He may not be able to read Diluc's mind the way he used to, but body language is still body language, and right now it's telling him that there's a good chance the man will collapse halfway to the winery and probably be eaten by slimes if he lets him go now. Diluc's grandstanding might be enough to fool most, but Kaeya's seen him at his best and worst more times than he can count; he knows full well there's no way someone so proud and impassive, someone who wields a claymore as lightly as a feather, would ever lean on it for support unless he had no other choice.
Hidden deep within his pockets, his fingers curl with the long ingrained instinct to take the claymore's place, to be the one to catch Diluc when he stumbles. Once, he wouldn't have hesitated to rush over and shoulder Diluc's burdens as his own; once, Diluc would have dropped the facade of the invincible warrior and let him, putting up with the inevitable teasing with long-suffering good humor. He'd been so damn pleased with himself back then, glowing in smug self-satisfaction every time Diluc trusted him and him alone with all his struggles and vulnerabilities, his pride nearly enough to drown out the everpresent siren song of his guilt.
These days, the man's more liable to cut his hand off than take it should he offer it out for help. The ease of their childhood banter has long since been burnt to ashes; now, every conversation they have may as well be a chess game, each sentence carefully examined for traps and hidden meanings, each word planned ten steps ahead. No point in asking Diluc what the hell happened to him, not when it'll just get his hackles up, not when he's lost any right to express concern; no, the only way he can get what he wants is through being exactly what Diluc expects him to be, the coldhearted schemer and manipulator. ]
My, my. [ He raises an eyebrow and lets the smile on his face grow even wider, the crook of his mouth hooking up into a patronizing curl, shifting into a smug expression that multiple people on multiple occasions have informed him makes him look extremely punchable. ] Master Hero, are you drunk?
[ Obviously not - they both know Diluc abhors the taste of alcohol and would never indulge to the point of drunkeness, let alone before a fight. But short of regaining the man's trust - an impossibility for certain - riling him up is the best way he knows to make him slip all the little details that'll give him away. ]
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but, what good is it? here and now, any recollection and hope for retention slips from beneath him like ice underfoot. heel to the rime with no hope of friction, diluc digs down a little bit more. he doesn't know when to let go, not really. never really has, but he knows there's no immediate danger to be had beyond the damage to his own pride. owing something or other on another night. enduring whatever foolish interrogations kaeya had to satisfy. ]
Very convenient, [ he allots, voice pitching off-course. it rumbles through the grit of his lungs, rolls over itself. comes up thinner, fatigued. wisped. if he can just make it through this, he can turn in at angel's share. he can make it there. he can — his palms are slick on the hilt of his claymore. he feels his fingers tighten, instinctive. at the pale curve of his throat, his pulse jumps in tandem with the low thrum in his chest. it sounds like a low roar, caught in the space between his jaw and his ear. it circles there, tangible as he lifts his head to blink through the dampening curl of his hair.
in another life, it wouldn't have been like this. perhaps it would have been easier entirely. perhaps, right now, diluc veers unsteadily, he'd be asleep in his own bed. kaeya would come in like he used to, smelling of linen and skin. it'd be peaceful. kaeya would have roused him, despite all of his grumblings, and they would have sat on the balcony. early morning, he thinks. watching the crystal flies. kaeya would have never been rain-sodden in those little fantasies. he'd never have been a startling, blue nail through the roof of diluc's heart. he'd have just been him.
diluc wouldn't have wanted for anything at all and it takes a moment for him to refocus and regroup. kaeya is still circling. he's still wearing that kind of smile, fish-hooked for him. he knows the hard line of his expression, the little hold of his shoulders, but there's no hint of him. it's only this kaeya. this one, who turned up in the place of the one diluc had left.
diluc's mouth sets. the pale of its line is an uneven thing, cut through with the notch of his brow as he pins his focus on kaeya's shoulder. just enough to give him space to breathe. to try to spin the little pieces of his thoughts together for this one. ]
If you're looking for drunkards, there's plenty in the city. [ yes. there, he thinks. that's enough. that's something, he thinks, as he shakes through the heat that simmers in root of him. he pushes himself up, like a flame caught on the roll of kindling. if the momentum is there, he knows he has to make use of it. it won't last for long. ] I'd suggest you —
[ — start there, he means to finish. but, it's a touch difficult to get the words out when his palm finally gives and his grip finally slips and the whole structure of his balance is upended as easily as he'd gotten it going. ]
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it's been a few years and a lifetime since then, and destiny and their own choices have decreed them walk separate paths than the naive dreams of their youth. even so, the instant he sees diluc falter and begin to fall, kaeya's body moves forward on instinct as if no time's passed at all, bracing him on his back before he can hit the ground. for all their estrangement, he slides into diluc's space exactly as fluidly as he used to, quick dancing steps covering all the blind spots to the other's brute force, fitting as perfectly into the gaps left behind as water into a glass.
...the extra weight is new however, knocking the breath out of his lungs in a wheeze. ]
Oof! Just how many extra claymores are you packing under there?
[ much as he tries to act nonchalant, he can't quite keep the sharp concern out of his voice. diluc's always run warmer than most, but the searing line of heat weighing down his back feels less like the cozy blanket he remembers and more like a sweltering sauna, even through all their layers of clothing. with one hand supporting diluc so he doesn't flop off like a slug, he removes the glove from his other hand with his teeth and reaches up to place it against his forehead, hissing when it burns so hot he swears his palm will blister. ]
...seriously? [ it's a good thing no one is likely to stumble across the two of them in the middle of the night here, because his reputation as a smooth and silvertongued charmer will never recover from the way exasperation colors his tone now like a nagging grandmother. ] Master Hero, as incompetent and slow as we meagre knights are, I assure you we can fight nearly as well as a man with a fever high enough to melt the caps of Dragonspine. You could have just stayed in bed.
[ there'll be too many questions if he drags the both of them into the audience of gossiping drunks still lingering around angel's share; it's a bit of a distant walk, but the winery will be the best option to deposit diluc's flu-ridden body and leave him under the tender mercy of adelinde. he staggers one step forward, then two, and promptly changes his mind - his apartment it is! ]
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but, the world is only honey dark. the truth is an unknown. punished, for all it is pursued. and is diluc not guilty too? no matter how much he has dug through, the mud of warm bodies beneath the tread of his boots, hadn't it been him who'd cut loose? hadn't it been them both? sinners, in the way children are: bickering at the last scraps of something that mattered more than what was thrown between them as though a noose. and yet, it'd hurt. it hurt in the way that deep hurts do, teeth against the marrow and the bone. a thin sliver of a page cut across the pad of a finger. throbbing, for all that it seemed to narrow with age.
but, for all diluc thinks he deserves that earth that comes up to meet him (or perhaps it is the other way around?), it does not embrace him. instead, it is the artificial bloom of sweeter flowers. it is ice fields. snezhnaya, in all of its whiteness, cut through with the warmth of his blood. and yet, for all it should appeal to him, it scrapes along the roof of his mouth as though a brand. it pounds through the bulk of him, hammer-heavy and leaden. it aches in the way his stomach curls tight and weighted as though a musket ball.
he hates it, he thinks. hates this is what he's come back to. hates this is what he smells, when the touch is all he remembers it to be. in part. for a moment, seventeen and at the edge of windrise — kaeya's eye trained beyond him, even back then. how stupid had diluc been? how foolish? how — ]
You wish, [ he slurs into the crook of some body part. his boots scrape at the dirt, the toes marred by the sand at the shoreline. kaeya smells of the lake beneath all the fuss and pageantry. he smells briefly of himself as diluc tries to force himself upright, tries to find the world a more conscious blur of movement. but, for all that he tries and attempts and feels around at the air or the cobble(? when did that appear there?), it matters little. he only recognizes parts of mond here and there, back alleys and angel's share. some tight row of townhouses, at the western-edge.
he probably doesn't notice too much any breaks that kaeya gives himself or affords, half-stumbling through the city where kaeya's strength won't bear him. he'd always been the stronger of the two, diluc. the more stubborn. the more determined to reach the end goal, no matter how much it took from him. dignity, pride — whatever it was that the band of ne'er-do-wells threw at him. it didn't matter.
it doesn't matter now. ]
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[ the banter is familiar, if more acerbic than when they'd been young, the warmth and weight of diluc's body pressing down against his back even more so. it's hard, as they stumble their way through back alleys and empty streets, not to recollect the halycon days of yesteryear when they'd lean on each other just like this in exhausted satisfaction after a brutal day's training; it's harder still not to dwell on how diluc only trusts his attempts at aid now when he's near out of his mind with fever. funny the way the mind works sometimes, how even plastered back to front with near every inch of them touching, so close he can feel the heat of the other's breath shiver aross the fine hairs of his nape with each step they stake, the yawning chasm between them seems to grow ever wider.
perhaps it's this strange familiarity that causes his thoughts to come unusually sluggish this night, because it's not until they're facing the door of his apartment that the extremely obvious finally hits him that barbatos' underdeveloped tit, diluc is going to be inside his house. for all the rumors of his promiscuity (rumors he himself helped spread), the number of times anyone has crossed the threshhold into his domain can be counted on two fingers: once, when jean forgoed her usual courtesies in the wake of stormterror's initial attack, and the other, when he'd forgotten to return a library book and opened the door to find lisa on his sofa halfway through his finest bottle of wine. as for actually inviting someone in, willingly and of his own initiative? well, that's happened about as often as one less than how many working eyes he has left.
and now he's letting diluc in? diluc, of all people, who'll take one look at his blank walls and empty rooms and the way his apartment looks no different than the day he'd first moved in, barely furnished and devoid of life, and come to who knows what conclusion? what is he thinking? but then again, what choice does he have?
(he brushes away the voice that says that actually, between angel's share and his offices and the many hideouts he has around the city for clandestine meetings, he has quite a few choices available to him. bare though it may be, his apartment is at the very least well-stocked with supplies and a comfortable bed, and he isn't so cruel to make a sick man sweat out his fever in some rundown cot.)
all this flashes through his head as his hand lingers on the doorknob - but if there's one thing kaeya's ever been good at, it's covering up whatever interior dilemma he's going through with exterior charm. he only hesitates for a moment before tossing the door open, strolling in as casually as he can while lugging what feels like a brick wall over his shoulder. ]
Now I don't want to hear anything about needing to clean. Some of us aren't blessed with more maids and servants than we know what to do with.
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kaeya had always been as the bright plumes of summer, the spades of dandelions caught yellow and green between the flash of white teeth. he’d always been acerbic, curious, infuriating in the way that he could lean into all of diluc’s fissures like ivy in the eaves. no matter how hard diluc pulled (and how could he?), what was kaeya and diluc and diluc and kaeya fell at his feet. impossible to untangle, impossible to be without the shadowed smudge of kaeya’s chill in the heat of his periphery – what was diluc left to do, but to seethe? he'd always been quick to anger – been so stubborn and so headstrong –, that wasn’t it an inevitability all along? falling back into old habits, impassioned to the mutilated roots of his father’s suffocating legacy, he’d turned over in the dark earth of his own body and come up new and wounded and ugly. he'd come up hungry to hurt, to be hurt, to hurt in ways he did not yet know how – and now, he thinks he hurts in the bleak of kaeya’s threshold. he thinks he bleeds, little needlepointed teeth, into the soft pink of his lungs. he thinks kaeya has never been messy, never been prone to leaving what he cherished in the open since he was young. he thinks it’d taken him so much trust for kaeya to show him the extent of his little collections, dried lamp grass and the spines of lightning bugs.
he'd always thought it strange then, that such a brilliant sliver of star could covet the light diluc never learned to envy. how odd, that he should want to keep what was in him already. how peculiar, diluc had thought, that the purpling edge of kaeya’s one eye was the same color that hung about the pale of the moon.
it makes sense now. of course it does. all the evenings kaeya had crawled into his bed, all the afternoons he’d watched for hours the crystalflies dance in the vineyards, all the countless seconds he’d leaned up against diluc in the barracks at night – how could he not wish for the light? how could he not hold each, liquid edge of it in the palm of his hands? how could he not drink from what diluc afforded him, affords him, would always keep affording him? how could he not turn his face to the sun? and still, diluc tries to steady himself. he tries to haul himself up enough to say that he is on his feet, closer than they had been since the night he’d cast his vision on the desk at the ordo, left all of himself (he wished, he hoped) in mond. it fills him with something that he does not put name to, but knows intimately. it surges through to the pit of his stomach, tightens in a wince as he turns his palm to the barren walls and rolls his eyes up. ]
You’ve never been messy, [ he grumbles, eventually, mouth parting around the fresher scent of kaeya’s apartment. it smells less of the perfume he wears, more of him, and diluc finds himself inhaling. a stray thought surfaces to remind him of what he’s doing before he snaps his mouth shut. for a moment, as he knows it no better to leave that comment lingering. ] Until I’ve had to haul you out of my tavern.
[ certainly. but, in that too there’s a familiarity. it scrapes at the edge of the absences here, makes them less awkward. less stark. diluc tells himself that he does it for his benefit alone, but he’s always known. with kaeya, there is no excluding. ]
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[ not that he would have ever expected diluc guiding him back to his place, not that he would have ever accepted it. he's almost never as drunk as he acts, after all, and no amount of wine could ever get him to forget that he cannot allow this man back into his home. he's reminded viciously of why, as they make their way further into the apartment and he lets diluc slide off his shoulders onto the uncomfortably stiff couch, the blaze of his hair blinding enough to leave afterimages dancing in his eye. diluc's always burned bright, too bright, so much so that the bare walls seem to almost reflect his glow - a fire crackling warmly in the hearth, a candle flickering in the window to welcome him home.
it's awful. it's hideous. it sets his skin to prickling a thousand ice shards deep until he wants nothing more than to rip it open and crawl out of himself to escape, a strange metallic taste coating his tongue as he fights back the urge to bare his teeth like some small cornered animal. he's always been a fast learner, after all, and this particular lesson he's had hammered into him twice over: to drift like a ghost within these walls, shedding no slip of his soul behind, because nothing in his life worth keeping ever stays. if, when, he's forced to leave mondstadt, he wants nothing that'll draw his thoughts back to the place he once called a home - no shelves stacked high with tawdry romance novels, no photos of idyllic memories lining the walls, no sweet scent of calla lilies and soft glow of jars full of crystalflies...no blazing sun in human form tempting his tired feet back to a place he never truly belonged.
it's temporary, he reminds himself, fingers restlessly dancing a coin through his knuckles to try to rid the excess energy flowing through him, the instinct to lash out or flee until he's safely cocooned in a shell of his own making again. it doesn't matter, none of this matters - diluc is sick, the unnatural flush of his cheeks and glaze of his eyes painting an all too familiar portrait, and kaeya isn't so coldhearted yet to abandon his, his, his whatever to sweating out a worsening fever in some dirty alleyway alone. of course the ideal would be dragging the stubborn fool to barbara's tender care, but the church is up a thousand flights of stairs and some people here don't have the muscles of a claymore-wielding ox! he tossed aside the concept of manly pride the day he decided to parade around in a half-open shirt, he's fine admitting when he's physically beaten! ]
I'll get you some water. [ unable to stop himself, he reaches out to place a hand over diluc's forehead, hissing dramatically when it burns so high he swears he can feel his palm blistering even underneath his glove. ] Just how the hell did you manage to sneak past Adelinde in your condition, anyway?
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it wouldn't be this nasty, opened thing that is left upon what kaeya has deigned to call furniture and left to ooze in the wreckage of his own stupidity and the overlay of days spent in the barracks. back then, kaeya had deposited him with the same sort of roughness. he'd never been as able to support him for long distances, made more for the grace of a ballroom and the true artistry of sword form. he'd always made an attempt. foolish as he was too, even knowing — diluc's eyes flutter shut, for just long enough to pull syllables together in the dry of his mouth. ]
Adelinde needn't keep tabs on everything I do anymore, [ diluc gives, grouses more. he bats at the hand that comes up to touch about his forehead, seconds off the mark. instead, what occurs is more of an impotent threat of a waving hand, fingers uncertain of what happened to their target. he heaves a breath, though it's more of a huff. for what he can manage to crystallize into thought, it is just more of the same. familiar, he'd guess now. old and flat and acerbic — ground down by the state of his body, the hot flush of his skin and the parting of his lips. ] Don't bother. [ and still, his eyes fix on the weighted swing of kaeya's earring, the bell curve of a distant star. he'd given it to kaeya on the cusp of seventeen, turned over to the warm cup of his palm. he'd thought of putting it in for him, thumbing against the lobe of his ear. peach flesh and downy, he'd thought of holding the delicate edge of unbitten skin and punching it through.
even now, the memory of it tumbles down the steps of his spine. it terminates at the pit of his stomach, heats him further from the inside, and with it too is the crowding sense of nausea that crests against the back of his teeth and comes out coughing. words, he thinks. defensive and wounded little things, more for his own darkness he cannot burn away through the use of his vision — the endless striking of matches. ]
You've already gone above and beyond, haven't you? [ so stubborn, his father would say. so stubborn, kaeya would have once told him. he feels the bite of sawdust at his back, the poor padding of whatever kaeya's dropped him on. he feels his gradual slip, though he attempts to blindly shove himself upright. ] I can manage.
[ kaeya doesn't want him here, not really. he doesn't want the charity of some misremembered repayment. he doesn't want this looming, the little teeth of his scent at the back of his throat and his lungs full of it. and still, and still — something instinctual and ugly simmers up behind his eyes. it looks out at kaeya, looks out at the gem that stays fixed in the dark of his hair like some guiding light. he'd put it there, he thinks. once upon a time.
once upon a time, he thinks as he leans forward and senseless, he'd have pressed his forehead to the ridge of his hip. he'd have stayed there until kaeya indulged him, idle strokes at the wild curl of his hair. he'd have told him he was tired and diluc would have fallen for it. again. he would have done anything for kaeya back then. the blue nail of his beauty lodged still in his heart, he'd have bore any ache for him. but — that was a lifetime ago, he thinks.
and still, the crown of his head somehow brushes forward enough just to touch him. half-aware and half-alert, knowing distantly that this the closest they been of diluc's own foggy volition, for whatever it's worth. ]
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it could never have worked. he'd known it would only ever end in disaster the moment that vibrant spark held out his hand to a coiled viper lurking in the vineyard on a rainy night. even so, it still stings to face how far they've fallen, that a moment of respite on a far too uncomfortable couch for someone so sick he can barely walk could be considered above and beyond. ]
Clearly she does, if you're out wandering the night delirious with fever. [ what goes unspoken, what he swallows down, is that it had never been adelinde who had dragged diluc out of the rain and wind when he'd stubbornly insisted on flaking every little piece of himself off bit by bit in a futile hope to squeeze into the mold of his father's making. he doesn't think about a child-sized vision tucked away in a drawer, four years of staring at the scarlet glow within, waiting for it to fade, waiting for himself to fade with it. had diluc picked up this habit back then too, uncaring and unnoticing of whatever fever raged through him in the heat of the fires of vengeance? ] Unless your plan was to weaken enemy forces by coughing on them, I don't know what you were hoping to accomplish in this state.
[ diluc's forehead is hot, hot, hot against the palm of his hand - but it's the downturn of his eyes, the lean of his neck, the sway of his body just a fraction closer that sends a wave of heat coursing through his veins. it's a pale mockery of the intimacy they'd once shared, the last echo of the dying gasp of a corpse long since rotted...and yet, and yet. there had been a time once when he'd never known the warmth of the sun, of a smile, of a hand tight within his - when he'd never known he was cold all the way through because he'd never known there could be anything else but cold. he'd felt that encompassing numbness again that torrential night and the years that followed, a shell of ice encroaching around his heart to guard against any attempts to burn, forgetting what fire felt like at all beyond a sick scorching pain.
barbara had told him a story once, some church parable about a bird trapped in eternal night flying for a brief moment into a house filled with light and laughter before out the window into darkness again, left with nothing but the remnant of a memory of brilliant warmth. he isn't sure what lesson he's supposed to take away from the tale, but he suddenly feels a pang of sympathy for that tiny lost soul clinging onto a scrap of borrowed light, knowing it'll never see it again, questioning if it had ever been real to begin with. would it have been better to have never encountered that window into another life to begin with, to be forever blind but ignorant to the blindness?
he drops his hand from diluc's forehead, takes one step back and then another. no. best to leave any such thing forgotten. cryo and pyro are fundementally incompatible after all, and one of those elements has an overwhelming advantage over the other. attempting to close the distance would accomplish naught but melting him away until there's nothing left. ]
From the look of it, I highly doubt you can manage even the steps to my bedroom - but feel free to prove me wrong, Master Diluc. I could always use a laugh.
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shut up, he thinks he says. devoid of anything, devoid of the sweltering curl of a quip — a nasty repartee, kaeya'd always known how to press. he'd known to how to command. no wonder, diluc had thought so many months back, that kaeya took to where he left. no wonder, diluc had thought, that he'd become captain for all of diluc's bitterness. no wonder, diluc thinks even now as he wobbles his way up on unsteady legs, that kaeya is where he is not. existent, separate but never separated. a singular entity, tied together in ways that diluc once could not fully comprehend.
before, he would have never thought to argue with kaeya. he'd have listened. listened, as kaeya would have listened to him. he'd have torn down the sky if kaeya asked, built him a tower to the pitiless expanse of the divine. he'd have cut through sinew of nations, pulled from himself all his vitality to rest upon his hands. he thinks he'd have carved himself open, if kaeya wanted to rest. and now — it's all of his stubbornness that gets him half-way there. all of the pride that he knows one day will kill him. all of the ugliness of wanting, even now, to show kaeya he capable enough to do anything.
see, he says with the blind stumble of his body, see? he's strong enough. fine enough. strong enough. he's all that the diluc of his sound mind can prove, all that the instinct in him simmers at the challenge. see, he heaves, his arm bracing against something toward what he remembers the lay of these townhouses to be. he doesn't need it. he doesn't.
but, it doesn't mean he doesn't want it. it doesn't mean he does not dip into some odd memory, the moments where kaeya would shadow him as much as diluc would shadow him. it doesn't mean, for all of his momentary fever, that some portion of him still doesn't scrabble at the corpse dirt of his body and grieve. ]
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he'd never been able to return the favor. no matter how often diluc had gently reassured him he'd always be there too, no matter how expectant and concerned those too large eyes would get, kaeya had always kept a firm lock on his innermost thoughts. oh, he'd let a few surface tensions slip here and there, but how could he bear to expose the ugly wraiths and twisted corruption burrowed so deeply in the shrivelled husk of his heart to someone so pure he shone? so instead, he'd offered what little he could, a place of respite and a promise: you never have to prove anything to me.
and look at them now. master crepus is dead, the knights of favonius fallen off their pedastal, yet diluc still pushes himself upright with a stubborn set to his jaw, the slow and heavy unfolding of his body putting into mind tetonic plates shifting to prepare for a volcanic eruption. so determined to prove to a man who once watched him cry over a turtle that...what, exactly? that he's strong enough to bear whatever burdens come his way? kaeya's never doubted that for a moment. that he doesn't need anyone's help, certainly not from a slippery liar who's betrayed his trust in the worst possible way? he's never doubted that either.
so much for his vow to be the one person who that wide-eyed boy with so many expectations would never have to work to impress. he'd feel ashamed if he hadn't known all along how little his word is worth. ]
Hey now, my couch can't be that uncomfortable. [ in fact it is, but they both know fulll well that has nothing to do with why diluc has painfully dragged himself to his feet, the flush of his cheeks blooming like bloodspray against the pale snow of his skin. for a moment, kaeya feels every bit the monster diluc must see him as these days, though his face shows nothing but exasperation as he ventures in closer again in case of any sudden falls. ] Don't make me tie you down just to get some fluids into you.
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when he was young, he’d thought it different: no burden was too much to bear when kaeya was there, no dream so insurmountable. toeing at the shoreline, the grit of the sand at their skin, he’d thought no matter where kaeya went he would go with him. along the spines of mountains, against the shadow of the world – all the little promises diluc told him, curled up against his against body. a body, diluc had once thought, was too his own. how many moons had they spent pressed along the seams of one another, folded limb against limb as though the closing of correspondences? how many times had diluc thought – wildly perhaps – that if he might find the space inside him, that he’d draw upon his own sword to open it for him? for kaeya, who asked at first for nothing. for kaeya, who looked upon diluc with the bright northern star in his eye and shrunk from him as though kaeya had reason to shrink at all. for him, who still lingers at diluc’s elbow despite the acidity of their exchanges and the looming years that have left mottled the lay of their skin. he no longer knows what kaeya feels like, sounds like when he wakes in the morning. he no longer knows what kaeya does throughout his days in full. he no longer knows if he snores, if he pushes the cold soles of his feet against the bodies he must share space with now.
he no longer knows and diluc does not bend for it, but the ache of its absence wrenches from the pit of his stomach. it simmers against the curve of his shoulders, the flushed curve of his throat. it beads there, a blistering roll of fire. in its wake, it consumes all the sense and patience that diluc knows that he should own. back then, kaeya had steadied him, tempered him. he’d kept the ember of diluc’s grand ambitions softer, more controlled. and his emotions – ah, it’d been so easy, hadn’t it? what diluc had known, kaeya had too. and now?
it is stubbornness, that drags him into kaeya’s room. into kaeya’s bed. he doesn’t think about it, being potentially played again, until his body is half-draped over the mattress and the poor cut of the fabric scrapes against his chin. smells like him, his brain supplies regardless. smells good. and it is that stupidity and his instincts that settle gladly into bed. ]
Like you managed me across town? [ he slurs out, after a long moment. there’s a little swell of victory in his chest regardless, in the way it puffs up a little no matter how ridiculous. even if this is what he was aiming for, diluc had at least provided no laughter for him. not like that. and not like this, as he hauls himself back up enough to messily unlace his own boots and resolve that he’d be gone by morning anyhow.
easy. ]
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and so he doesn't let his eyes linger on the way diluc is splayed across his bed like an offering, on how the moonlight softens his silhouette into some shimmering fragment of a dream he refuses to remember. he doesn't think about how the banked embers of diluc's eyes and the fire of his hair make his coarse sheets suddenly seem cozy and inviting, or how the last time he'd felt warm at all had been the night before that terrible birthday, tucked tightly together in a bed they'd both long outgrown. when he kneels down to help diluc fumble with his boots, he feels no urge to press his face into his lap to see if his heat will finally melt the ice cold that's settled deep into his bones; when he takes his overcoat, he ignores the way the residual warmth of the other's body curls around his fingertips.
it's fine. it's easy. it's nothing he's not used to by now. he's always been quick on the uptake at whatever he puts his mind to, and that includes putting his mind to having no mind at all. ]
Hey, I got you here in one piece, didn't I? With how much you and that sword of yours weigh, you should consider yourself lucky I didn't just dump you on the street. Ahhh, my back is so sore, how am I going to work tomorrow under the weight of all this ingratitude....
[ the banter is automatic, his mouth running on reflex while his brain tries desperately not to focus on how strange yet familiar the sight in front of him is. someone divested of their heavy outer attire should by logical assumption appear smaller, yet diluc clad in only a single layer somehow manages to fill the entire room with his presence, as if all that extra adornment and armor had merely been holding him back. for the first time, kaeya curses the overly observational instincts trained into him since birth; try as he might, he can't stop himself from cataloguing all the little changes from the years past, the scars now visible on diluc's hands, the extra freckles dotting his neck, how his shoulders are now so much broader than they'd been as a teen...
and that's his cue to leave. he stands abruptly, running a hand through his hair. ]
Well, I'm going to take a shower so I can soothe my aching back. Try not to drool all over my pillows, won't you?
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once upon a time, he'd thought kaeya to be a slip of the moon. a far shore that he might dip his hands into, might hold close to him and know the light he saw as if he were not serving only to reflect his own. back then, he'd never thought he'd assumed, that he'd stifled, that he never burned so hotly that he forbid any hope for kaeya to grow. in the soft soil of their mutual body, how much of it was diluc's own? how much of it did kaeya wish to hold from himself? how much does diluc still not know? how much, he thinks hazily as kaeya pulls off his boots and helps him out of his coat, did diluc just guess he deserved?
none of it. those are the words coiled in the pit of his stomach, caught about his teeth. he was never— diluc wants to slur out a retort, something quick off the tongue and witty too, but the profound ache that surges up from his core leaves him reeling in the next breath, a dull throb of want of anything to quiet the heat of his body a signal to what little is left of himself to grumble out some assent to the word of "showering" and the implication of returning again as he fights (futilely) the slip of his own elbows to faceplant against the bed. and really, the only portion at all that saves him? it is the implication. that kaeya, despite all his huffing, lingers in diluc's space. that kaeya watches him, as much as diluc watches him. that, in the grey down of his scattering thoughts, there is the fact his hands felt as steady as he'd remembered them.
and with that, diluc thinks as he shoves his face deeper into the mess he's already made of kaeya's bed (never mind that he fills his lungs with the scent of what kaeya is), that is enough of those thoughts. ]
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tonight, he cranks the heat up to maximum. it's hardly comfortable, the near boiling temperature of the water already too much for anyone normal, let alone a cryo wielder, but he bears the torrent without flinching. drops of molten fire sluice down his body, burning away filth and grime and extraneous thought, leaving searing trails of white-hot pain behind; when they lick across his burn scars, he presses a hand to them closer, as if trying to recapture that startling bright moment of their creation. if he closes his eye, he can almost pretend he's back there now - rain dripping down his hair, the acrid stench of smoke and scorched flesh in his nostrils, an agony that has nothing to do with his wounds pulsing in his chest, a surety and a relief that the next blow would finally put a permanent end to all his lies.
(he has dreams still, of burning to death in a magnificent blaze borne of betrayal and broken promises. he wishes he could call them nightmares.)
the pain is a penance and a reminder, that regardless of whatever strange circumstances has led to diluc being in his bed once more, they can never go back to what they were - their bridges have been burnt, their paths diverging with no hope of reconnection. it's a reminder he tells himself often to no avail; for all that he attempts to treat their relationship as one of near strangers the way diluc clearly wants, his feet still take him to angel's share every night as if a man possessed, his silvertongue still teases and mocks before he can coil it back. it's pathetic, really, how he vies for whatever attention he can scrape like the child he never was, and yet no amount of pain or willpower or self-loathing recriminations get him to stop.
it's tempting to just stay in the shower until he either boils alive or diluc sneaks out the window and they can pretend this never happened, but he's already gotten more than one complaint about his amount of water consumption. it's when he's drying his hair that he realizes that one, because he normally sleeps shirtless he completely forgot to bring in a change of clothes aside from his usual pair of loose pants, and two, the shower also must have washed away all of the omega pheromones he'd applied, leaving only the neutral scent of a godless creation with no secondary gender behind.
well, it's not like diluc hadn't already known he's unnatural to this land, or that he can possibly do anything to drive the man away further. with a grimace, he slips on his undershirt - it's a bit too tight to be comfortable sleepwear, but it's not like he's going to be falling asleep any time soon with diluc still in his room anyway. taking a deep breath, he pastes a smile on his face before heading back into his bedroom, plunking a glass of water on the stand beside diluc's head. ]
Drink. If you need anything, I'll be on the couch - but don't expect service to the extent of Adelinde's chicken soup, I can't work miracles.
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drink, he hears kaeya tell him. if you need anything— ]
Shut up, [ a reedy little thing, pressed through the teeth and coiled about the neck. he is eleven again. he is fourteen, sixteen, eighteen — bleeding out in the cold, bleeding out on his back. he is every single liquid night between. foolhardy and sanctimonious, his bitterness like the ice that webbed between his fingertips. that burned diluc hotter than any fire he'd ever wielded. his skin had mottled as bruised, tender lamp grass. it'd blackened as soot. it took fissures of his milk-washed skin, grooved it as though silty shores. warm in the springtime, he'd thought of kaeya's hand cut through the blackness of the fertile filament. pain became a pinhole, little bursts of stars each time he'd touched it. then, since — now, as his arm climbs upward. it flings its heft along the bridge of kaeya's shoulder, yokes him tight around the neck.
there is no recognition. how could there be, for all that his body burns and seethes for what he sees as lost? reduced to the smoldering edge of primal instinct, hair matted and skin damp, what little of diluc is left buries itself against the dark crescent of his throat. pulled down to the nest of kaeya's bed, pulled into the vice of diluc's arms, he noses against the thrumming pulse. and with each shallowed, labored breath he tastes the scent of pine. he tastes himself in the mingling of what he knows is right. and for what ugliness he is in his own right, it bears itself to kaeya's judgement, blind and pitiless.
diluc had long since told himself that he'd hated himself for trying to hate him at all. he'd long since told himself there was nothing left to forfeit, nothing left to lose. he'd told himself, but the body is mindless. it throbs as though an opened wound, fingers pushed against the worst of it. and diluc throbs too with it, ceaseless in the way he rubs his wrists along the linen. comforts himself amid the visceral anxiety that seizes him in the aftermath, knowing there is something amiss and yet — he turns the scarred skin to kaeya's back. strokes, trembling and uneven. ]
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no, he knows exactly how long it's been. down to the month, the day, the second.
it's the sensation of hands stroking up and down his back, lightning shuddering through his spine, that shocks his brain back into gear. a really slow, stupid, rusty gear, because the only thought that echoes in his head is - what the fuck? what the fuck? since when is clinginess a side effect of fever - okay, sure, they'd cuddled like this whenever they'd gotten sick as children, but there's been an unspoken agreement that it was more for kaeya's sake what with him coming down with far more severe cases than diluc's minor colds, and anyway that had been years and a lifetime ago. it doesn't explain diluc's behavior now, when he's more likely to want a porcupine in his bed than his estranged sworn brother.
for a moment, as diluc's nose presses into the hollow of his neck and nearly gives him a heart attack, he's struck with a sudden memory from a much younger time - rifling through pages of tawdry romance novels under the covers, trying to learn how to imitate the behavior of these strange secondary genders, wondering what it would feel like to truly....
...but no, that can't be it. diluc's biological clock is as strict as the man himself, and a quick check of his internal schedule confirms he's not due for a rut any time soon. that, and there haven't been any of the usual signs of pre-rut recently - no frequent wrinkling of his nose, no subtle leaning back from anyone in scent range, no irritated snap in his voice, none of the little tics that tell kaeya he can skip going to angel's share for the next few nights. (and if anyone asks, not that anyone ever will, he only keeps close track of these details because it's part of his duties as mondstadt's unofficial spymaster, thanks so much. he would know every alpha's rut schedule down to the day if it mattered, it just so happens that none of them aside from the infamous darknight hero are important. )
and anyway, diluc being in rut still wouldn't explain all of...all of this. even reduced down to a base bundle of instincts searching for a warm source of pheromones to embrace, he still wouldn't reach out to kaeya - not to this uncanny creature from a godless land, who produces no scent save for the dead decay of the darkness that lurks underground. without the mask of his artificial pheromones, any alpha in rut should be treating such an aberrant twist of nature with revulsion, not drawing them close enough that every breath they take shares the same inhale and exhale of air.
no, there's only one logical reason for this. clearly, the fever has boiled diluc's brain to the point where it's clouded his memories and caused him to hallucinate. ]
Diluc. [ for once, kaeya's voice is devoid of humor in his worry, as he pushes himself up on his arms to give the other some space, patting his cheeks lightly to try to draw his attention. ] Do you know where you are? Do I need to call Barbara?
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it'd been miserable, with or without him. no matter how far he would roam, the knifepoint of his accursed hormones would wedge into the marrow. it would seize him by the throat, make nuisance of itself in the days and weeks up to. nothing could soothe him. nothing could quiet him. nothing. no herbs or salves or tinctures. no potions, made with the newest ingredients or the newest ideas behind them. and so: what fools would those self-named fools be, if not wield the known against him? what a fool kaeya must be too, to think he doesn't already know. ]
'm in bed, [ diluc tells him. slurs, more so. affront cuts through the fever bright of his expression, the dark of his eyes narrowed against the separation kaeya has stupidly carved. like this, he looks every bit an animal. matted lashes and matted curls, the flush on his skin is high and fresh as blood. beneath kaeya's hand, there is no thought of whether it burns. instead, it is instinct that drives the want to press into his palm. to turn his head and nuzzle up against it, only stoppered by the threads of something more coherent underneath it all. barely, that is. he still blinks and leans in, the process both noticeable and unbearably slow. ] Told you to shut up.
[ he did, didn't he? he tries for it again, but his tongue feels weighted in his mouth. he feels as though a bruise, the darkened skins of stone fruits punctured through. he breathes, lips parted. he hooks the rough crescent of his nails against kaeya's shoulder, bites their edges all along the linen that barely covers it. in his head, he thinks he makes a compelling argument to lie back down and stop asking him pointless questions. he thinks maybe he is seventeen years old, a handful of weeks before everything was upended. he thinks maybe they are in the barracks. he thinks maybe that kaeya's hair is warm and rain-damp. he thinks, without thinking at all. all the little ruinous pieces of himself, shaken out across their makeshift bedclothes. what a bother. ]
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[ even so, between the glaze in his eyes and the syrup slur of his voice, it's clear that diluc's nowhere near his right mind, the fever likely fogging his reality until he no longer remembers that what he holds in his arms is no treasured companion but a viper poised to strike. only the cruelest of monsters would let this joke play out any further; what kaeya needs to do now is to get him out. out of his bed, out of his apartment, out into the hands of someone who actually knows what they're doing and won't lead to any further regrets come morning.
it should be easy. he's always both prided and loathed himself for his ability to detach from any given situation, to shield himself with a smile and let his words carry away whatever semblance of sentiment he might have. it should be easy to simply pull away from the circle of diluc's arms, to laugh it off as another embarrassing story he'll tell in the future, to escape this pretense at intimacy that threatens to choke him with all the weight of memories long aged to dust. it should be easy...and yet when diluc turns the flush of his cheek into his hand, all the steel of kaeya's prized self-control melts away like so much frost beneath the sun. when diluc presses down on his shoulders, he can only helplessly follow, a star dropping in free-fall to the inescapable gravity of the sun.
ah. of course it wouldn't be easy. somehow he's forgotten who he really is, that he's selfish, selfish, selfish to the core. ]
If you want someone quiet, you should let me take you to Barbara.
[ 'let' - as if diluc in this state could possibly stop anything kaeya wanted to do, as if he's ever needed permission to interfere in his life. it's just another excuse, another way to deflect the blame, another way to manipulate the narrative so that this - taking advantage of a sick man to play out a pale mockery of the only thing he's ever truly wanted - can somehow not be entirely his fault when reality sets back in. ]
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but, for now, the diluc who should care about distance and time and the inevitable agony of what has already come to be — he curls deep in the dark, instinctive parts of himself. he nests down in the cool of kaeya's body. he breathes, slow and deep. ]
Throw your back out then, [ he continues, more for the sake of something he no longer can hold the shape of in his hands. all that ache in his body finds a singular point of pressure and releases, a slow and trickling valve. the scent of kaeya numbs it down, makes it so that he is able to speak. ] See if I care.
[ and it is only when kaeya lies back down, when he allows diluc the grace to shove himself back up against him as though they are again seventeen and reckless in all of their youth and wonder, does diluc find some glimmering edge of relief. cool as the backs of dragonspine, open as the maw of caverns so deep that they know no end or boundary. ] Dumbass.
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[ it's always a risk bringing up what they had been once upon a time, always a good chance he'll drive the wedge between them further by tainting what had once been pure sunlight with all the exposed shadows surrounding him now. usually he does so with a vicious vindictiveness, wielding their shared memories like jagged knives, hooking them under diluc's skin so he can't brush them away no matter how much pain it may cause them both. tonight, curled together as if they're still children yet untouched by the world's cruelties, the words come out with a rueful fondness instead, a trickle of vunlerability leaking out of his chest in this twilight moment that seems separated from time.
they say old habits die hard, but kaeya's never understood the phrase. he's broken himself of his old habits time and time again, ground them into the dust of fossils and forgotten bones; first all the little things that made him other, the tics and traits he carried with him from the land of the dead, and then again with all that made him ragnvindr until only a handful in the city ever remembered he had once hailed from the same home as the famed dawn winery's young master. now, as his hands start automatically stroking through diluc's hair without any input from his brain, he thinks he finally gets just what they mean. it's as if he's stepped back in time...
...but not, he realizes, to the halcyon days of their teenage youth when they'd been less two indivduals and more one soul split across halves. he's too aware for that - the rough silk of hair snagging against his calluses, the heat of his breath against his neck - too conscious of what had once been pure instinct. no, this reminds him of a time much further back than that, to the early months when they'd first met: him, tense and terrified of this strange creature in his bed, reaching out to hide the way his hands trembled, ready to leap back at the slightest sign of rejection. he remembers thinking diluc's hair had been the softest thing he'd ever touched - that diluc had been the softest thing he'd ever seen, round cheeks and huge eyes and bright smile, holding his heart out on a platter as if the world wasn't filled with monsters ready to gobble it up. he remembers thinking how his homeland would have eaten this boy alive, how easy it would be to crush this tender spring flower between the hard ice of his grasp, simultaneously repulsed and intrigued by the thought - caught between the awe of a crystalfly landing gently on his palm and the urge to rip off its wings so it could never leave. he remembers thinking: i will destroy you.
in some ways, he thinks now, he never really did grow up from that feral and frozen child of his past. diluc's hair is still the softest thing he's ever touched. he still wants to both crush their bones together until every part of them intersects, and to run as fast and far as he can and never come back. and look, he was right, wasn't he? it turns out they destroyed each other, in the end. ]
Call me what you want, but I'm still smart enough to stay home when I'm too sick to walk straight. [ a lie, and both of them know it. a lie twice over, because if he were anywhere near smart, he'd have put an end to this long ago. ]
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I'm surprised you remember at all.
[ fever soft and sleep warmed, his words piece themselves apart against the dark curve of kaeya's throat. smooth as river rock, down soft as the birds who live amongst the snows - diluc thinks of the frost that'd held him through nights far from the remnants of what was once home. picked over, speared upon the thorn of his own ignorance, diluc had thought very little at all of survival or what that had meant. consumed by what he called hatred, brittle down the black of his bones, he'd hoped. he had hoped, in all of the rage that came from realization, that he might bury the body of his youth under the same rooms he had found it. pieced apart and forgotten, rotted down to the root - he thought it better to destroy himself before anything left was destroyed. it had been a momentary death that steadied him. it had been learning what kaeya too must have learned. it was knowing that no matter how he might find himself beyond kaeya's orbit - kaeya would always find his way back to his door.
a cosmic joke, diluc once told himself. a fate bound up in cruelty. no matter how much kaeya held the light to the darkness diluc had made himself apart, there was no halting inevitability. there was no slowing eventuality, the persistent gravity that kept them together. that would one day, too, send them both tearing each other apart. where kaeya went, so too did diluc. again and again, no matter what it was they could do - here they were. tumbled over into kaeya's bed, diluc's breaths a tangible shape against the cool of kaeya's skin, the ugliest parts of himself submit. they quiet in the fever that breaks within his ribs, that settles against the surface in place of any sense that could exist. why now, he would think. why now, would he find him?
why now, would he be led to the days that they would while the afternoons away, tucked against each other as though separation was never something to behold? pressed end-to-end, diluc once thought them a singular soul. he'd thought them once a body, cloven neat in two. he had thought, if he might press himself close enough, he might become him too. and what a fool he had been, still is - what a fool, his father had raised.
what a fool, who still lays in the cradle of kaeya's arms and thinks himself deserving to be held. to hold. to mark him as his own, in the way of his wrists against the broad of his back. against the smooth of his hair, corn silk and soft linen. he is still the most beautiful thing that diluc has ever seen. the glow of a northern star, a sacred wind beneath the blanket of the earth - kaeya had always seized him without pity. he seizes him now, no matter the verbal roll of his eyes and the flutter of his lashes against the mirrored wingbeat of kaeya's thrumming pulse.
diluc had once known kaeya as well as he'd known himself. and in here, in the drifting hours before the clawing light of dawn, he knows kaeya. briefly. ]
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ah. how stupid of him, to be swept away by childhood nostalgia, to lose himself in the memory of a bed where their breaths had risen and fallen in sync, their dreams shared as one in their sleep, their hearts thudding to the same beat. how stupid, to forget for a moment what he's become in diluc's eyes - a snake in the grass, a cuckoo in the nest, a wolf who had thrown aside its sheepskin without hesitation to devour its prey. it's an old familiar hurt, every time he's hit with how little the man thinks of him now, yet he's still never prepared for just how much it burns.
and of course he deserves it. and of course it's no surprise...but even so, he wonders, how can diluc accuse him of not remembering their past when every brick that builds the foundation of the crumbling shell of his sense of self is baked in those sunlit memories, when the mortar that barely holds the mess together is scraped from the ashes of the cremation of their relationship? how can he not know that it's the memory of that firebright child whose love blazed like an inferno, of the only time he'd ever been happy, that steadies his blade as he wields it against his own people and keeps him rooted in a city that has no place for him? cavalry captain, wine aficionado, mondstadtian dog - isn't it obvious that even four years gone, what's left of him that doesn't belong to khaenri'ah is wholly, solely, entirely his so much so that cutting him open would find a glass replica of diluc's heart instead of his own?
you're the one who left, he wants to spit out, the words rising up like jagged knives in his throat. you're the one who doesn't want to remember. his hands stiffen with the urge to strike back, to retaliate until they're both left bleeding from reopened scars, until he marks diluc so deeply that he'll never be able to forget him again without breathing for the pain of it; it's only the fact that even he isn't low enough to attack a sick man that keeps him still rather than shoving what now feels like a live coal in his arms away. ]
Ah, Master Diluc, I remember everything about you. [ he regrets his words immediately; even layered in superficial charm, even dripping with saccharine honey, there's still too much sincerity in the sentence for comfort. scrambling to recover himself, he huffs a laugh, forcing a cheeky smile to his face. ] At least all the embarrassing parts, anyway.
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soft in the way of his heart, soft in the heat of his lungs – soft, when the world itself fixed upon a solid axis and never deigned to spin. diluc had once been an ignorant thing, blessed by the ironies of the gods that knew not his name or his prospects. he had once been naïve, had once been young and full of dreams, never to be listened to. it was that foolishness, that harboring of sin without meaning, that had allowed him the illusion of sweetness to begin with. spun as though hay into each golden thread, it was the specter of love that filled him with hubris. it was the concept that each fantasy, so bright and unconditional and saccharine, was possible as they were everlasting. held tight in the fist of his heart, tucked firm beneath the tongue, he’d have given kaeya anything. he’d have given him the eggshell of the moon, would have carved from his body the strength of his limbs. but now, he dreams only of the evenings that kaeya would listen. tucked to his chest, hollowed to house him as the chamber of seashells, diluc used to think that kaeya would always fit against him just like this: two stars pinned and binary, balanced as they were fixed. where diluc went, so too did kaeya. and where kaeya went, so too did diluc.
it was no use. no matter how he tried to run, how he tried to forget – how might he have? how might diluc have ground his nails into the flesh of himself, pulled free the boundary that was his before kaeya? even without the heat of his vision, the dawning turn of kaeya’s lone eye, there was nothing in him that he could find. no matter how deeply he dug, no matter how far he’d turned from the sun, the darkness reflected only the truth. no matter how far he might go, he would always be there. in the rain dampened parts of himself, in the death of his father, in the fragmentations of his mother held in the moments before he’d awoken to what diluc could call you - it would always be him. ]
Better I didn't accept your drink, then. [ it is a grumble of a thing, tossed across the sheets. for all that diluc knows not at all the clear lines between sincerity and fabrication, he knows there is no mask in the way kaeya’s hands tighten. instinctive, in the basest parts of himself, he scents the tension that holds no fruit. he thinks how blessed he might have been, to be loved. he thinks he’d never deserved the concept. diluc thinks, as all that is selfish and asleep in him inches up against him stubbornly, that he’d always been a perilous thing – forever pushing his luck, thinking he’d never snuffed out the light that was turned over to his sun-bleached palms.
he huffs out once against kaeya’s shoulder, against the cool curve of his throat. the crown of his head rubs once against the dark underside of his chin, potent for all that it is display. he knows – will know – kaeya cannot discern the meaning in it. blind in this way, a fortune – was there ever any wonder that diluc came to be this because of him? ]
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beneath his palms and between his fingers and below his head, the softness of diluc's hair reminds him of fur, some wild creature huddling for warmth against the night. rabbit fur, he remembers suddenly, a memory of far younger days - there'd been a family of them once, nibbling on the vine-ripened grapes of the winery. he'd stared at their twitching noses stain purple as they gorged themselves on the winery's lifeblood, thought about the tenderness of their flesh, the fragility of their bones, about proving his worth to this strange foreign family so they'd keep him around a little longer. it'd taken but a moment to stun the rabbits with his slingshot and then slit their throats with a dagger - mother and child, the kits no bigger than the palm of his hand. the fur had been soft then too, blood pumping out to drench his fingers dark copper; he'd watched the light leave their eyes without any emotion save a vague curiosity on how easily a life could be exstinguished - at least not until he'd looked up and saw the expression on diluc's face, felt that same sick swooping sensation of having missed some crucial step somewhere.
his father had taught him survival at any cost, how to freeze his heart into unwavering ice. the courts had taught him how to lie with a smile, to navigate the seas of conversation without compass or map. diluc had taught him, step by fumbling step, how to be human.
it's the only lesson he's never been able to master. little wonder then, that when diluc left, he'd taken some vital part of kaeya's soul with him - the part that borrowed his flame to burn away the darkness, the part that desperately believed if he pretended hard enough he could do better, be better. and now the rabbit has grown into a wolf, snarling and snapping at the world around him - and yet here he still is, lain in bed with the bloodsoaked hunter he knows far better than to trust, so really who's the stupid one here?
(it's him. it's always been him.) ]
Since when have you accepted anything from me at all? [ too sharp, too personal, and he nearly bites his tongue off, hoping against hope diluc won't remember any of this once his fever's broken. he tightens his grip against diluc's hair and back, curls towards him in some mocking imitation of an attempt at a protective embrace - as if there's anything out there diluc needs protecting from more than the one in his bed. ] Go to sleep, Diluc.
( darling i was born to press my head between your shoulder blades )
alcohol had helped. multiple rounds of mind-blowing sex with the other half of his soul helped more. but he's known from the start there's no fixing this, this everpresent buzzing of a thousand bees in his brain. he inhales and exhales slowly, trying to go through the breathing exercises jean so helpfully imparted on him, but emptying his mind has always been a completely unfathomable process to him; rather than going calm as still water, his thoughts seem far more like moonlight scattering across a rippling stream, glittering and flickering in a dozen places at once, never settling for long.
he needs to read through fischl's report tomorrow, a task as arduous as it is entertaining. there's an inazuman tourist in town asking slightly too many questions who could use a round of drinks to loosen her tongue. one of the fatui diplomats has a birthday coming up, he'll need to figure out a gift that sends the right message between polite and threatening. lisa's birthday is also coming up, he'll need to figure out the much more difficult gift that conveys sincerity without going over the top. should he get diluc something too? a bracelet of noctilious jade from liyue, perhaps, that'll glitter starlight blue every time he raises his hand to pour another drink. starlight, night, liyue, that's right - there's been rumors of suits of armor walking around a certain area in liyue, ghostly knights bearing a banner with an oddly shaped star. just a rumor, or a sign of a massive storm to come? diluc's weight on his arm, his face slack in a far too trusting sleep, his chest rising and falling as each slow breath puffs against the sensitive hairs of his nape - how long can he keep this before it too dissipates into the realm of dreams? how long can this last?
moods like these, there's really only a few methods of dealing with them. one, wine enough to drown out the singing in his blood. two, lying perfectly still and watching the walls slowly bleed red with sunrise until he can drag himself to work with the bags under his eye expertly covered by concealer. or three, inflicting his misery on someone else. tonight, he goes with option three. ]
'Luc. Hey, 'Luc. Diiiiiiluc.
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and yet, diluc lies with him. he bends to the weight of his hands, the way he speaks sharp things sweetly. pulled back onto their inextricable course, stained bright with their mutual ichor, diluc knows himself to be uglier than he. he knows himself to know little, but the pieces that kaeya bequeaths. and yet, somehow - kaeya is more beautiful than anything. a gale that strips to the bone, a floodplain that chokes instead of blooms - diluc is half between dreaming and half between waking. muzzy against the cool of kaeya's dark skin, the curl of his silken hair the same sheen off a raven's wing. diluc feels teeth chatter once in waking reflex. ]
Wuh, [ he more grumbles than says. in the dim cast of the lean of hours, diluc blinks once against the shadow of kaeya's throat, but doesn't pull back. he's still sticky from earlier, uncomfortable in odd little ways, but he could ignore it. it's easy, when compared to the caves and overhangs he's slept in and under. everything is easier, he'd never admit, when he's here with kaeya instead. ] What?
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[ kaeya infuses his voice with as much obnoxious faux-innocence as possible, delighting as always in rousing any sort of reaction from his far too stoic lover. once, it had stemmed from a twisted need to get under diluc's skin as much as possible, to dig all his thorns in as deep as they could go until there was no escaping the blood of his brambles no matter how much diluc tried to brush him off. now...well, he can admit there's still a little of that selfish sentiment lingering, but the cold curl of his gut accompanying every time he'd lashed out has melted into springtime sun, a frisson of warmth licking through his veins whenever diluc's brow furrows in fond exasperation as he reaches out anyways and stays.
there are no happy endings for a sinner like him, he knows. one day, he will hurt diluc so terribly that the man will have no choice but to leave him for good, whether it be walking away permanently this time or incinerating him until there's nothing left of the worst mistake he's ever made. or perhaps before he gets the chance, khaenri'ah will have dragged him down into the bones and crypts of the earth where no light can ever reach. until then though, he'll take advantage of whatever little moments he can to prod and poke and annoy and wake diluc up at ridiculous hours in the morning just to hear him grumble but pull him in closer anyway, all so he can think with relief: not today.
in the moonlight, diluc's skin shines silver like the glow of an irminsul tree, every scattered scar a leyline holding the memories of this body. kaeya traces his finger down one idly, following the willowy line from chest to rib; branch and bark and root, beauty and pain and strength carved in the map of his skin. how lovely it would be, he thinks, if they could actually be irminsul trees, roots entwined so deeply underground that they sup from the same soil, that the same water and life runs through their veins. how lovely it would be, if he could snap a branch off himself as his people once did, so that diluc could carry a piece of him around no matter how vast the distance between them may grow.
lovely...and also a bit too psychotic. so instead, what he says is, ]
Hey, if I turned into a tree, what would you do?
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Keep you at the winery, [ he says, without much pause. the hand at kaeya's back catches its thumb along the ridge of muscle, the border of a scar. he knows this one, as much as kaeya does not know the one that he plays his own fingers against. it had tormented him, once. it torments him still, in the quietest parts of himself that struggle up to the surface. but — diluc sighs, put-upon in a way that signals it is barely an effort at all. ] Plant you by the window. [ he'd be lovely, he thinks. he'd uproot the vineyard for kaeya, if he asked him. he'd situate him where he could see him, ensure he only ever knew the light. he'd love him, he thinks, just the same. with all the stupidity of a man who knows his death and still chases it, who would willingly bleed to know he bleeds too. it used to startle him. when they were separated, it used to hook beneath his skin as though the barbed ends of thorns. memories of him, his want to be close as they once were — knowing, without knowing then, that diluc was not diluc at all without him.
but, diluc continues. the words are a tangible weight, pressed close as they are to the skin. ]
Water you?
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it seems like the story of his life, forever waiting for the dagger to fall. even so, as he shifts halfway over so he can grin insufferably into diluc's face, the midnight tresses of his hair spilling ink against the pale canvas of his body, he thinks for the first time that perhaps the wait isn't so bad after all. ]
Why, Master Diluc, are you going to plant me with your seed? [ his voice trembles with barely restrained laughter as he flutters his lashes theatrically - and oh, he's definitely going to regret this in the morning when he has to drag his sleep-deprived ass into work, but annoying diluc has always been a worthwhile endeavor of his time. ] Shall I come to you adorned in greenery so you can deflower me?
[ and despite his over-the-top dramatics - not that he isn't already designing a skimpy nymph costume to commission for some poor soul - well, there's some appeal in the fantasy, isn't there? there'd been plenty of myths and legends in khaenri'ah of people cursed to become various flora and fauna, long before they'd discovered what a real curse could be - but it wouldn't be a curse at all, with the two of them. to be rooted permanently in the soil of diluc's home, to be pruned and tended to with the same gentle care he shows the vines of the winery - that would be a blessing, if anything. ]
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it is what he'd once come to want, had once come to need. in the dark, in the absences, in the moments between — he knows it is only a dream about dreaming. it is only a dream of the simpler things. it is only a delusion, to think he might one day grow old with the one that he chose and that all things needn't come to forgone conclusions. he knows it. he knows it, as well he knows the face that looks back him. he knows it, as well as he knows his own body. no matter how he grumbles and grouses and sighs, it tunes itself to the press of kaeya's mouth, the glimmer of his eye. the spill of his hair as diluc, for only a moment, yields to him and his games and his ploys that kaeya knows very well will lead to only one end.
diluc, despite the burgeoning blush that crawls up the back of his neck and over the apples of his cheeks, rolls his eyes with a particular pointedness as he reaches up to instead shove kaeya over onto his back, the palm of his hand leveraged against the square of his shoulder. it serves him right, diluc thinks as he brackets kaeya between the vee of his legs, for waking him to begin with. ]
Ugh, [ he's never been as eloquent, but diluc thinks it sufficient enough. he leans into kaeya's space, the thick of his red hair slipping over the curve of his shoulder to hang about his face. he doesn't give that amount of stupidity more oxygen than it should be afforded, as he tips his head to set the bank of his teeth against the angle of kaeya's jaw. between the movement, the latching of his mouth and the repetition of an earlier bruise, he presses into him: ] I take it back.
[ he doesn't. it's obvious. it's as obvious as the way he leans in part against him, the hand that's long planted itself against his shoulder working its way down the topography of kaeya's raised scars. the other stations itself, with clearer finality, in the mess of linens beside kaeya's head. ]
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not exactly the most romantic of gestures, but then again they're not exactly the most romantic of pairs. the strong arms around him, the firm chest against him, hardly make him feel safe or protected the way one of his tawdry novels would perhaps describe this embrace. in truth, nothing has ever or will ever terrify him more than the proof of diluc's care for him, the suffocating weight and blazing intensity of his regard; even now, he can feel his pulse ratcheting high, his body instinctively shifting into a fight-or-flight response he has to consciously tamper down. anchored is perhaps a better word for it, a shackle around his limbs binding him to this reality - but if it's a cage, then it's one that kaeya willingly walks into with eyes wide open, having long given up the key to a boy who shined brighter than the sun.
cages work both ways, after all - not just to keep some pitiful creature trapped within, but to protect those outside from its fangs and claws. and if the worst were to ever happen...well, he thinks, there would be no better end to him than diluc ripping his throat out with his teeth. ]
Fine, then you come up with something fun if you hate my brilliant ideas so much. [ he injects a petulant whine into his voice that he knows to be extremely aggravating, though it's offset by the way he coyly traces a scar spiraling up diluc's bicep with a finger - on his blind side, but then he's never needed sight to know every scrap of diluc's skin by heart. with his other arm, he reaches up to arch his body in a sinuous display he's well aware perfectly reflects the moonlight's soft glow through the window, eye half-lidded with teasing promise. ] Come on, Master Diluc, surely there's some wish I can grant you?
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nothing, in the way an empty room is. nothing, in the way of a cage door left open. nothing, in the way he dreams of the blood that runs sweet beneath skin — the warm, darkened shadows he bites into the curve of kaeya's throat.
he knows the game kaeya's keen on playing. all the evenings he wakes diluc in the dead of the night, seeking for an ember of reminder. a fragment of light. how bitter it is, that kaeya knows not at all that diluc is an ashen thing. he can give him no more than kaeya himself owns, the silver moonglow made for his skin.
and so: ]
I don't need one granted, [ diluc heaves out, eventual. pulled up from the draw of kaeya's warm body, the subtle press of his hip, the depth of his "agitation" rests more in the furrow of his brow and the curl of his lip. put upon, he hopes. incredulous. he does not lean into the touch kaeya gives, but how can he resist? no more than he might resist the way he seeks out the lidding of his lone eye, the tuck of his palm against kaeya's flank. an easy sort of pet, wolf teeth and snake venom. a willing hand, nonetheless.
how could he even ask? diluc would once have thought this. young as he was, naïve as he was, gentled in the ways of the world — he's not ignorant anymore. he knows. knows, as he knows the hatred that burns in his blood for all that he himself is. diluc ragnvindr — a joke, a residual stain of a former existence.
but, even so: it isn't as though kaeya hasn't dug into the tender recess of his breast. it isn't as though he hasn't dug out the heart that long ceased to be his. diluc can't remember when it last beat without ache of him. he cannot recall a moment without the rot of his love, the loam of his wanting. rolled through the corpse dirt, dredged up from the bogs, he'd long worn their childhood as a noose about his neck. how could he ever be without him? who was diluc, if kaeya did not exist? ]
You're already here. [ for all he has hardened, for all that the world has made of him something foul and free — there still exists that brazen sincerity. there still exists, diluc knows, a world that kaeya was never once lost to him. once upon a time, in the fragile shell of their reality, in a country called mondstadt. there were only two boys, he thinks in the quietest parts of himself, who knew nothing of the machinations of the world.
but, with kaeya laid beneath him as he is, perhaps they can pretend. just for a little while, as though the dagger has not cut already through softest parts of them. as if the scar he runs his fingers across now, a mottling of flesh, was not once inflicted by him. as if he has not marked the one he'd chosen, in fire and iron. as if —
heat burns up the back of his neck. it colors the apples of his cheeks, stains him as red of the wines he spares in the hours after closing. the dangerous cut of kaeya's upturned mouth. ]
If you want to be a tree, be a tree. [ he scrapes along the border of that scar a nail, feels the lurch of guilt and sickness in his chest. does it again, regardless. ] I don't care.
@carceral; ( the curse ruled from the underground down by the shore )
so when jean assigns him a mission to chaperone klee in the exploration of the chasm in liyue, alarm bells immediately start ringing in his head. he has vague recollections of a mysterious chasm being mentioned way back when, serpentine excavators sent in to find...something, the details of which hadn't exactly been within a child's purview. coupled with everything else - the historical records of abyssal monsters emerging from its depths centuries ago, the recent ban on mining, the reports of hilichurls entering with explanation - and it all paints a ominous picture that while he doesn't have a full grasp on yet, he knows he wants no part of. not him, and certainly not klee, who should be nowhere near the sort of sins staining the soil of his homeland. it'd taken but a moment to contrive a convenient escape; an offhand comment about how helpful it would be for good hunter to have a stronger stove, a momentary lapse of attention as he chatted with sara about her busy work schedule, and he soon found himself tossed back into his office to think about his actions.
he should have known better, really. there's no outrunning the weight of his past, in the end.
that same evening, his ears still ringing from jean's harsh scolding, the thing that had once been his eye suddenly throbs. it isn't pain, not exactly, but rather the wrenching sensation of a sick wrongness - like the sound of metal grating against metal that sets his teeth on edge, like a pulse where no heart should beat, like looking up to find the false sky cracking. time blurs, morphs into shadows flickering on the walls; he doesn't know how long he spends hunched over, dripping with sweat, one hand pressing down hard against his eyepatch, but the pink blush of dawn trickles through his windows by the time he regains enough of his senses to check. and if he had any delusion left of his symptoms being mere exhaustion and alcohol deprivation, that's quickly blown out of the water when the reports start filing in from his informants in mondstadt, liyue, dragonspine, all saying the same thing - hilichurls suddenly collapsing in agony all over the map, with no explanation as to why.
well. there's no avoiding it this time, it would seem. the knights of favonius can hardly ignore such a strange phenomenon, and he can't afford to send someone in his stead to investigate and come back with the wrong information...or worse, the right one. he supposes he should be grateful for small mercies - at least klee won't be in tow this time.
he doesn't head straight for the chasm proper; he's no delver or researcher, after all, and his particular talents are best suited for gathering information elsewhere. instead, he drops into the tavern at the nearby inn and starts striking up conversation with the locals. the innkeeper takes a particular liking to him after seeing how he's free with words and freer with coin, and soon they're exchanging gossip about work and life and everything in between.
"business has gotten a lot livelier since they reopened the mines," she says, cupping her chin. "why, you're not even the first foreigner we've seen in these parts recently!" at this, kaeya's smile sharpens, eye gleaming in predatorial interest. ]
Another foreigner, hm? [ he leans in with a friendly smile, tossing the woman another coin. ] What are they like? Not as charming as me, I hope.
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well, he supposes a sinner like him had it coming.
the calming aura from the waters overhead almost feels like benediction, a once sought after token of forgiveness that he no longer thinks he deserves. every part of his aching body is still telling him to stay, to rest easy here because there's only suffering everywhere else. he chooses not to listen to its pleas. there are matters far more important than what he wants, and what he wants can always wait until he's finished what he has left to do. it doesn't matter if it will take another five hundred years to accomplish it, but he's losing time the longer he stays here, so once he's done honouring his friend, he finally turns to leave.
tracking down the Abyss Order has always been a complicated affair. once he gained access to their portal network, his search was made considerably easier, but he knows he can't rely on that for a certain amount of time, not when they're well aware of his reliance on them now. he doesn't think the Herald will take too kindly to him if he attempts to do anything now anyway, so it won't hurt to lay low and search for them the good ol' fashioned way — on foot and talking to locals if they've heard of anything strange. of courses, he stands out like a sore thumb no matter where he goes, but he's used to fielding questions about his origins by now.
most people's curiousities are usually placated by the time he mentions he's a traveler from far away, because he regales them with tales from the other nations, fantastical stories that they may have never heard of otherwise. it's how his presence has grown to be accepted in the nearby village, but he doesn't intend to stay here long. he only lingers because he is presently attempting to track down a certain villager who has been rumoured to see a gathering of creatures whose descriptions remind him too much the Abyss Order's pawns. the only thing he has to go by is that this person likes to frequent nearby taverns so he has been visiting them one after the other.
tonight shouldn't have been any different. just another visit to yet another local tavern in hopes of catching a conversation with this individual. he already planned to have this be his last night here whether or not he is successful, because he might have better luck searching for the Abyss Order himself. still, he enters the tavern as quietly as he usually does, ignoring any curious looks that might have been sent his way. he only has one purpose here and that's to find the person he has been looking for a few days by now.
the innkeeper looks up from behind the counter, eyes gleaming with delighted recognition. "Not as charming, perhaps, but no less mysterious!" her hands have already reached for the coin, fiddling with it as she gestures behind Kaeya with a nod of her head. "I haven't heard much about where he's from, but you can always ask him yourself, yeah?"
by then, Dainsleif has already noticed that she is looking her way. he may not have heard what she told the man right in front of her, but something compels him to engage in the conversation. there's no way he can see the other man's features right until the very last moment, when he stands right next to him and sends an inquiring look his way. the first thing he notices is a sudden sense of familiarity at first glance, an unshakeable one at that. something tells him that he's seen this person before but it's difficult to place exactly where.
the next thing that comes up is something that brings his entire world to a complete stop. when he meets the other man's eye, there's no mistaking it — starry, like the night sky. ]
You are...
[ his voice is quiet, breathless in a way. his words are spoken in a foreign, forgotten tongue, one that he's certain will answer all of his questions should the other man recognize it just as well. ]
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the coin he'd been idly running over his knuckles drops to the floor from suddenly numb fingers; he barely hears the clattering over the sound of rushing blood to his ears, the thunder of his heart rattling his ribs. he's dreaming. he must be. there is no other explanation for what's standing before him now.
abruptly, he's thrown back to a memory from many months ago: the darknight hero seeking him out of his own initiative, a rare enough situation that kaeya had been instantly on guard for the worst - but the surprise there had been nothing compared to what diluc had said next. 'there was a masked man in the tavern,' he'd said, mouth thin in an uneasy line. 'he had eyes. like yours.'
it had been like lightning striking him from a clear blue sky. it was impossible. there should be only one other living person in all of modern teyvat with the distinct starry pupils of a long dead land, and if his erstwhile father had wandered into angel's share, diluc would have damn well noticed a lot more similarities between the two of them beyond just their eyes. further questioning had gotten him nowhere in figuring out just what hell was going on - and so he'd sent out his network to try to track the man down, and when they'd come back with nothing, he'd...left it at that.
it wasn't cowardice, he'd told himself, just practicality. unusual pupils were nothing new in teyvat - chances were diluc had simply mistaken the shape in the dim lighting of the tavern. and even if he hadn't, even if by some hideous miracle there was one more uncursed khaenri'an walking around than accounted for, well...he'd hardly want to draw their attention to a false hope in form of a lost dynasty, would he? best to just let it die quietly; this world was a vast one, after all, and it would take some twist of fate for two people across miles and miles of land and ocean and sky to ever stumble into each other's paths.
(the lie had tasted bitter on his tongue, even then.)
what a joke, what a fool he was for believing even for a second that he could avoid the whims of fate. of course that mysterious figure would show now, months after there'd been zero signs of him, months after kaeya had tried to push its existence from his mind. and what's worse is that - he knows that face. blond and blue-eyed had been plenty common in his homeland, but even behind a mask, even across a decade of memories, five centuries of time, he knows--
information. he needs more information. he's already given too much away as it is gaping like a slack-jawed idiot, too much visible shock on his face to excuse as mere confusion at the man's odd attire. snapping his mouth shut, he pulls himself together as best he can and smiles, letting the words float by over his head with no sign of recognition - words spoken in the language of the dead and the sinners, the language he still sometimes dreams in. ]
Mysterious indeed. [ he leans back casually against the bar, gesturing at the seat next to him. ] Well, as one foreigner to another, won't you let me buy you a drink? You look like you could have some interesting stories to tell, and I'm always in the mood for entertainment.
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what is he supposed to do now? ]
... A drink, you say? You're too generous.
[ he's thankful for the opening, for the temporary distraction from what they're both trying to avoid.
Dainsleif doesn't miss the way the other man looked at him — wide-eyed and in disbelif. it's too early to tell if that was because this person recognized him for who he is, or what he was (after all, starry eyes are only known to exist in a nation that is no longer around), but a broken emotion has started to take root in his chest. it's one that he hasn't allowed himself to believe in for so many years, and it would be hypocritical of him to start now given what he told the Traveler now too long ago. clinging to false hope is dangerous, he knows this best, and yet— he reaches down to pick up the fallen coin from the floor before he takes the seat that was gestured to him. his eyes haven't stopped looking at the man beside him the entire time he did this, and by the time he settles, the world decides to spin again.
he opens his palm where the coin now rests, as if waiting for it to be retrieved. ]
The kinds of stories I have might not be of particular interest to you, but you're welcome to ask if there is anything in particular you'd like to know.
[ the stories he holds close to his heart are born from forgotten hopes and lost dreams. neither of them are acknowledging how intimately familiar they are with what these stories could be about, but Dainsleif wouldn't dare to be the one to break the fragility of this moment.
as the Twilight Sword, the one who failed to protect the nation he was meant to serve, it's not his place to take the first step. ]
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[ it's almost a relief when he turns away from the intensity of that diamond stare to order the drinks, a pressure lifting as if he's been staring at the sun for too long. he takes advantage of the momentary break to collect himself again, trying to slow the thunder of his heart and the rush of adrenaline in his veins. it's just another mark, he tells himself. forget the starry eyes, forget the voice heralding from a distant memory, forget the fact that this thing wears the face of a person he'd long thought dead or lost to the horrors of the celestial curse - this is no different from interrogating an abyss mage or charming information from a hoarder. significantly more dangerous, perhaps, but since when has he ever shied away from that?
he's nearly managed to convince himself that he's got this under control by the time the drinks arrive, smile firmly affixed in place as he slides a glass over - only to falter when he sees the coin shining in the strange man's open palm. slowly, he reaches out to wrap his fingers around it, distantly noting how their hands were nearly the same size now.
it hadn't always been that way. the last time kaeya had slid his hand into that black-clad palm it had completely dwarfed his own, as the twilight sword knelt to swear his loyalty to the youngest member of the royal line. funny, all the things that change with time...for one of them, at any rate.
he withdraws his hand as quickly as if burned, running his thumb over the coin before flicking it up into the air. again and again, the coin spinning as it goes, flashing too quickly for anyone to tell which side it lands. heads or tails, truth or lies, the past or present - all those decisions left up in the air, or so he'd like to pretend. ]
Well, your name would be a good start. I can hardly keep calling you mister man of mystery, after all!
[ he knows the name of course; it sits heavy on the tip of his tongue, burns down his throat as he swallows it back. but he won't say it, not yet - naming the man in front of him would make him real, realer than all the abyss mages and hilichurls and monstrous remnants he's learned to divorce himself from. besides, maybe he's mistaken. maybe his memories have been fogged by time. or maybe the abyss has stolen away this man's identity as well. ]
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Celestia has stolen too much from him, and yet somehow, they have failed to take this away—
(when their hands touched, he was brought back to a faraway land that glittered in gold and starlight. they both stood in the middle of a glorious chamber, surrounded by others with starry eyes and brilliant smiles. the crowd remained silent as the honourable knight knelt in front of the young prince, gaze downcast as he forgot what it was like to simply breathe.
this was an important moment in his life, and here he was about to make a fool of himself, but when he looked up, he watched as something warm, something innocent and yearning, bloomed on the prince's face.
that was all the encouragement he needed.) ]
... Dainsleif.
[ As Sir Dainsleif of the Black Serpent Knights, all that I am is yours to command.
—Celestia's curse couldn't diminish how important it was to him, to remember the vow he once swore, despite how it all ended. the event remains vivid in his mind, down to the vow he swore to keep on that day. he remembers it so well that he almost forgets where he is. the tavern's local patrons barely pay them any attention, and the innkeeper has already left them to their own devices, serving her next customers with a pretty smile and hearty laugh. there are snippets of conversation floating around about a strange phenomenon that made too many hilichurls suffer for no reason at all.
his own hand retreats once Kaeya's pulls away, almost apologetic for how things are turning out. he wonders if the coin will ever fall on a side that will be favourable to either of them. ]
I hail from a land far away from here. [ an outlander in every sense of the word. an outcast. ] I have been trying to find my way back, but... it has proven to be a difficult task lately.
[ he can only say it in so many different ways, but he has a feeling that the other man will understand. ]
My memory is not quite what it used to be.
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he remembers. of course he does. no matter how much he lies to himself that he's left that part of him behind to wither in the dust, the golden halls and spiraling towers of his homeland shine as vividly in his mind's eye now as the day he'd left - and there gleaming ever bright in the eyes of the starstruck youth he'd once been, the twilight sword. khaenri'ah had offered little protection for a child growing up, not even for one of royal blood - perhaps especially not then, in a land whose rulers were expected to be as merciless as the machines of war they'd built. in the midst of the ruthless politics and powerclimbing, dainsleif had been one of the few safe havens he could trust, a protective shelter away from the storm.
part of him now feels like that terrified child again - abandoned in a strange land with stranger people, lost in a time not his own with a burden so heavy he can't begin to comprehend it, desperate to reach out to this promise of familiarity and connection that has suddenly appeared like a beacon of hope. it is eclipsed, however, by the far larger part of him who has grown up under wind and sky rather than machine and ground, who has sworn himself in service of a city not his own, the part that whispers in his head that he cannot trust this man. forget the name, forget their history, forget the starry eyes brimming with an emotion that's far too human - there's only two ways he knows of to stave off the effects of their celestial curse, and one of them currently resides underneath his eyepatch. as for the other...well, abyssal power might allow someone to retain their intelligence, but it kills off something vital in them nonetheless.
(he doesn't allow himself to hope for the possibility that there might be a third option, that someone else might have escaped the curse with their humanity intact too. he's known for a long time now that miracles don't exist.) ]
A pleasure. I'm Kaeya, of the Ordo Favonius.
[ he emphasizes favonius slightly, watching dainleif's face carefully for any reaction to a khaenri'an now working for the city of the enemy. no point in hiding it anyway, not when it would only take a few hours asking around to determine who the strange foreigner with the unusual attire could possibly be. his smile does falter at the man's confession of his shaky memory - the delayed symptoms of the curse? a side effect to abyssal corruption? all the more reason to keep up his guard. ]
A faraway land, hm? You sound like someone straight out of a storybook. [ he props his chin on his hand, his other fingers tracing the rim of his glass idly as if this really is just a casual conversation with a stranger in a bar. ] Why the eagerness to return? Perhaps you'll enjoy taking in the sights and making new memories where you are now.
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[ the implication behind the emphasis is not lost on Dainsleif. for a brief moment, his expression becomes unreadable, difficult to decipher what it is that's going through his mind, but it only lasts as long as it takes for the initial shock to fade away. what replaces it is something much more subdued, something equal parts lost and melancholic, as if he understands where khaenri'ah's last hope now stands. does this mean that it was all for nothing? or is it more like, he's more alone than ever when it comes to finding a way to right the wrongs that the gods have caused?
it's been so long since he last saw anyone with the stars in their eyes like he does that he's struggling to make sense of what he's experiencing. he tries not to let the wistfulness shows but it might be too late to hide it. in the end, he chooses to look away, to focus on the drink that was offered earlier, but he doesn't miss the way that Kaeya's smile just faltered right there and then.
too many questions, so little answers. ]
It has been a long time since I last returned home. [ five hundred years and counting, but he dares not breathe that out loud. ] I've almost forgotten what it's like.
[ in a way, it's an attempt to hint at something — how long he's been alive, how long he's lived alone for so many years. he wonders if Kaeya's voice will falter if he manages to pick up all the little hints that Dainsleif continues to leave behind. ]
I wouldn't even know where to go if I were to continue wandering around. [ this time, he looks at Kaeya again. ] Of course, I'm open to suggestions, should you have any.
[ if he has any secrets left to uncover, they're in the shape of the man sitting next to him. ]
( pool hall blues. )
he couldn't quite imagine falling asleep without kaeya's weight beside him. it had been an arduous handful of weeks before they were reassigned to bunk together once his position was solidified. and for those long nights, he'd spent it hating it. he'd spent it sneaking into the spaces that kaeya remained and often, he recalled, kaeya crawled into his. it became useless, he thought then, to ever attempt to separate them.
it was a blessing the knights no longer bothered with it.
he suspects it will not be dissimilar this evening, even when kaeya had found himself on patrol until the small hours to cover diluc's typical shift. diluc had told him he'd leave the side-door open once he'd closed up for the night, but still he kept himself busy in the subsequent stretch without him. he knew there was never a firm "time" they would finish up, but— ]
Kae? [ it's a feeling, more than it is the senses. he could always find kaeya no matter the reason, no matter the environment. now, he finds himself turning his head from the idle game of pool he had been playing to occupy himself once he'd straightened the tavern for when the afternoon shift eventually arrived.
leaning the cue against the table, he treads to the edge of the mezzanine and peers into the wide foyer. ] Did you want to join in?
[ there is no visual confirmation yet, but he assumes kaeya paused at the stock room to ascertain that diluc had counted the remaining bottles right. or, maybe, to take a glass himself. kaeya always did like wine more than he did, no matter how he tried it. a shame, everyone told him.
his father once told him he'd come to enjoy it in time. ]