[ 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.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
( 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.
no subject
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?
no subject
[ 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?
no subject
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?
no subject
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. ]
no subject
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. ]
no subject
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?
no subject
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.