Work Text:
It starts with wine.
Diluc is five minutes away from closing the bar, wiping down the counters and drying the glasses, when the door bursts open. And it does burst, the hinges creaking as the knob slams into the wall, and Diluc thinks about banning whoever caused the racket from the bar for good.
Diluc knows he doesn’t have good fashion sense, as far as Mondstadt’s opinion goes. Yet, the white, gray, and red of a tunic that is purposely hemmed with the most pretentious asymmetrical slit down the whole length of it is by far the worst outfit choice he has ever seen.
“I’ve heard you’ve got the best drinks in Mondstadt! Figured I would be the judge of that myself!”
Diluc’s wrist itches. “We’re closed,” Diluc deadpans. “And you nearly broke my door.” He continues wiping down the bar, using the curtain of his hair to keep an eye on the newcomer.
Diluc knows who he is by appearance alone. Coppery hair, bad fashion sense, a fake smile to charm people with, and a mask on the side of his head. A hydro vision adorned to his belt, perfectly framed by that god awful slit in his tunic.
“Fatui aren’t allowed in my bar anyway. Even if they have the decency to open the door like normal.”
Tartaglia steps closer and slides into the stool directly in front of Diluc, perching an elbow on the table and resting his chin on the palm of his hand. “Just one drink? I promise I’ll be good,” he says, but he’s grinning at Diluc like he just had the best catch of the day. If Diluc were a fool, the way so many others must be, maybe it would be charming. Instead, he feels pinned by it. He feels like prey.
His wrist itches.
“I told you to get out of my bar. Should I alert the Knights to your trespassing? I can’t imagine that would help this… agreement… that the Fatui have with them.”
Tartaglia is still grinning, but it’s a little more crooked now. A little more genuine.
“Just one drink. I’ll even help wipe down the tables for the trouble.”
Diluc sighs and places the glass on the counter.
—
“I see why they call it Death After Noon. It’s good, but it doesn’t have anything on Snezhnayan firewater,” Tartaglia says. He’s pushing in all of the chairs around one of the tables, a wet cloth tossed over his shoulder. Diluc is washing his glass at the bar.
“Don’t try to convince me to start selling firewater. The wine is bad enough,” Diluc says, putting the glass back on the shelf and grabbing another cloth to begun wiping down the rest of the bar with. Tartaglia laughs from across the room.
They wipe down the rest of the bar in relative silence. Tartaglia is humming something unfamiliar to Diluc as he works, and Diluc watches him. To make sure he’s doing as good of a job as Diluc himself would. His wrist itches again, and he finds himself scratching at the skin absent-mindedly, the tips of his gloved fingers skating across the inky marks beneath his sleeves.
Diluc wonders where Tartaglia’s mark is.
“All done, boss!” comes his cheerful voice, approaching the bar and dropping the cloth into the same bucket Diluc had been tossing his own dirty rags. “I did a good job, huh? Are you still going to ban me for life?”
“Yes,” Diluc says without a beat. “Now get out.”
Tartaglia is leaning over the bar. Too far into Diluc’s space. He’s grinning again, the fake one that Diluc imagines he gives to people he has trapped under his blade. “Oh, come on! I can’t even walk you home? The Winery isn’t exactly close, and there’s monsters on the path.”
Clearly someone told this Harbinger too much about Diluc’s personal business.
Diluc is not going to let Tartaglia anywhere near the Winery.
—
Adelinde thinks that Tartaglia is a “handsome young man.”
She’s also eyeing Diluc like she’s worried he’s been replaced by a monster.
Diluc gets it, really.
“It sort of reminds me of my home in Snezhnaya. If my home wasn’t lived in and was owned and decorated by the most boring person alive,” Tartaglia says.
Diluc knows it’s a joke. But he sees Tartaglia standing there with his hands on his hips, eyeing his home with a little too much judgment for Diluc’s taste, and he can’t help himself.
“I think I’ll bury your body in the vineyard. Help fertilize the next crop.”
Adelinde is giving him a disapproving look from the other side of the room, and Tartaglia is still grinning at him. A little crooked.
“You don’t disappoint, do you, Diluc?” he says, and Diluc feels like prey under his gaze again.
“I’m not trying to impress you.”
Tartaglia doesn’t falter. Diluc sees Adelinde watching them for a moment, watching as Tartaglia steps closer, and how Diluc doesn’t move, even though everything in him is screaming at him to make distance. “You know, I’ve been kicking down bar doors just before closing since I was 16. What have you been doing?”
Diluc swallows. He doesn’t move. He hardly breathes. His wrist itches.
“I’ve been serving the best drinks in Mondstadt.”
—
Childe’s mark is on his hip, the one opposite of where his vision rests.
Diluc runs his fingers over the mark again, skin warm beneath his touch, and Diluc can hear Childe’s breath hitching.
“I didn’t think I deserved a soulmate,” Diluc says, and Childe’s hand finds his wrist, thumb brushing over the small words it finds there.
“Does it feel like more of a punishment that it’s me? That I am who I am?”
Childe doesn’t feel like a punishment, as much as Diluc would have labelled him one had he known before now. Diluc dips his head low, lips brushing across the words on Childe’s hip. “Only when you’re causing trouble.”
Childe grins at him, big and crooked.
—
Childe comes and goes as he pleases, and as the Tsaritsa demands it. Diluc never complains. If he complains, everything will grind to a halt.
It only works so long as neither of them address the bigger issues. The ones outside of closed doors, outside of Dawn Winery and Angel’s Share.
Diluc loves loves loves Childe. And when Childe smiles at him, it doesn’t even matter if he is loved back.
He knows that he is, though. Childe whispers it against his skin in the dead of night, pressing lips to the inside of his wrist, and hands to the insides of his thighs. Childe says it when he keeps the war away from Mondstadt—The Tsaritsa has Barbatos’ Gnosis, and there is nothing more that she needs from them. Childe shouts it when he tells Diluc everything he knows about the Tsaritsa and her plans, so that when he leaves, Diluc can still protect his people.
Yet, Diluc knows that no matter what she asks, Childe will say yes.
—
Ajax’s home is everything Diluc imagined. Unfortunately, Ajax was right, and it does look like the Winery, but full of life and family, something Diluc’s home was lacking. And now, Diluc is the “handsome young man,” according to Ajax’s mother.
Teucer decides that Diluc is his new best friend, though Diluc doesn’t mind. What free time he has when Ajax is busy is spent with Teucer, or Tonia, or Anthon. Tonia is a sweetheart and Anthon is as much a troublemaker as his older brother, but Teucer is curious. Diluc becomes a better liar than he ever knew he could be when Teucer starts asking about Ajax, and their life together.
Diluc knows that part of this trip is for work. Ajax may have brought him to visit his family, but he spends full days gone, with the Fatui. With the Tsaritsa.
Diluc’s wrist itches when he leaves.
Ajax doesn’t tell Diluc what has been said and done when he comes back. He tells Diluc that they can talk about it back at the Winery, when there are less prying eyes and ears. Diluc doesn’t think Ajax means his little siblings.
When they leave, Diluc does not cry. He thinks about how lovely their visit was, how much he wishes that they could live like this, like a normal family, but he does not cry. Ajax grasps his wrist, fingers smoothing over his mark. Diluc pulls Ajax into an embrace a slides one hand beneath his tunic, finding the matching mark along Ajax’s hip.
—
It has been an entire year since Ajax turned up at the Winery. Diluc stopped receiving letters four months ago. All the letters were belated, anyway—getting them weeks after Ajax had written them, if only to make sure they were transported securely.
It has been four months since he’s received a letter, and nearly six since the last letter was dated.
Diluc marks the days in a crude tally along the leg of the desk in his office. It was his father’s once, and there was once a time that Diluc would have never forgiven himself for carving into it.
Now, Diluc carves the crooked lines into the wood to keep from carving them into his own skin. From carving them into his mark to stop the godawful itch.
He cries.
He weeps.
It has been three-hundred-ninety-one days when Diluc boards a ship headed for Snezhnaya.
Ajax’s home is still lit up in most windows, and he can see Tonia in her room, and her mother at the dining table.
She greets Diluc with a smile. It reminds Diluc of the smile Kaeya had given him after their father’s death.
She hands him a letter with his name on the front, in Ajax’s handwriting. It’s been torn open and worried at the edges. “It came two days ago. It’s the only letter we’ve received in months. I’m sorry for reading it.” She hands him a second letter, this one addressed to herself. “I was going to send them both off tomorrow. But I am happy to see you here. This is a time to be with family.”
Diluc feels small arms wrap around him, and finds Teucer latched onto him, tears in his eyes.
Diluc does not open the letters until late that night, because he knows what he will find. Instead, he spends his time with Ajax’s family—with his family—until the children are too exhausted to be awake any longer. When he takes the letters again, he only opens one, and it is not addressed to him. Ajax’s mother sits beside him as he reads.
“I’m glad Ajax found you. And I am glad that you loved him so.”
Diluc’s wrist does not itch.
—
It is with deep regret and our condolences to inform you of the loss of your family member Ajax, Eleventh of the Fatui Harbingers, known as Tartaglia.
The cause of death is unknown, however his body has been recovered.
Due to the state of his body, he will be cremated, and you will receive his ashes via delivery in the coming weeks.
Her Majesty, The Tsaritsa, sends her regards.
—
It ends with a letter, tucked into a cord that’s tied around the neck of an urn, with Diluc’s name scrawled across the front in the same handwriting as the words on his wrist. Diluc never reads it.
—
Diluc,
I don’t have any information for you. I think she’s keeping me in the dark, but I haven’t figured out why. I don’t believe she suspects anything, I promise I’ve been careful.
I think my family would like Dawn Winery, don’t you? I don’t think I could convince them to move, though. And that would be asking you for a lot, bringing trouble your way.
How’s business? Has Venti paid his tab yet? Have you been fighting with Kaeya again? How’s Charles? Jean? Adelinde? I bet she misses me.
I miss you so. If you’ve been counting the days, it’s been 243. Not that I’ve been counting. You should get a cat to keep you company. And, no, I’m not making a joke about Diona.
I think I’ll be able to go home soon. Maybe only for a short visit, but enough time to see you again. Maybe I can even make it there before this letter does.
I think I’d like to marry you when I get back. If you get this letter first, pretend to be surprised when I ask you, okay?
I love you, Firefly. Don’t miss me too much. You’ll see me before you know it.