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. ]
no subject
[ 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. ]