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Diluc hadn’t meant to fall in love. It seems foolish, when people call it an accident. A way to take inconsequential human blame and pin it on the stars. He knows far too well that the fire burning inside him has nothing to do with the celestial.
It’s ironic, probably. That Diluc is the one burning and Childe refuses to put it out. Can’t, really. It’s not his fault that Diluc is foolish and self-destructive and horribly, horribly fond.
Love.
That’s the word for it. The word he’d grown up reading fairytales about. The word people have killed and died and torn themselves open for over and over and over again. A mere cursory flick through the pages of history would prove that much.
Diluc hadn’t guessed it would be a knife in his back, though. Love, not cold steel. Feeling, not flesh torn open.
He hadn’t guessed he would look at someone likely to be his ultimate undoing, someone likely to betray him the second he turned away, and decide I want that one.
Deception isn’t Childe’s forte, and yet—
Diluc has rarely been as surprised as he was the day he discovered that the most dangerous and bloodthirsty of Snezhnaya’s Fatui Harbingers is, in fact, just a boy.
Is made from flesh that tears and bleeds just as red as anyone else’s. Just as red as Diluc’s.
Childe comes to him, though. Childe comes to him hurt and bloodied, and it’s the first time in a long while that Diluc has felt his chest ache so suddenly and sharply.
…
It feels fitting, that what began with blood should continue the same way.
Even if Diluc goes from being the cause of Childe’s injuries to being the one to glare at him with arms crossed over his chest when he shows up wounded on Diluc’s doorstep.
“Aren’t you supposed to be good at what you do?” he asks.
Derision has always been a safe hiding spot.
Childe smiles, only to clutch at his stomach and grimace in the middle of it. “I am,” he says. “You know that well enough, master Diluc. Besides, that’s precisely why I’m standing here talking to you and not ten feet below ground. Because I’m— because I’m good at what I do.”
Diluc tsks. “Sit down,” he says. “You’re going to get blood on the floor.”
“We can’t have that, now can we?”
It’s going to be a long night.
Diluc doesn’t say anything, and leads Childe further inside instead.
…
Diluc doesn’t ask. He knows Childe must have others he could resort to, enough fatui funds at his disposal to convince anyone to help him.
There are very few reasons why he keeps coming to him instead, and sometimes (especially on nights like these) Diluc doesn’t feel like knowing the answer. Doesn’t feel like flaying himself alive over and over again.
Instead, he wraps fresh bandages over all the spots where Childe’s skin has stopped looking like skin, the spots Diluc’s mouth wouldn’t recognize if he traced over. He’s not a healer, and his work must surely reveal that much, but Childe smiles through pain Diluc can’t even bear to think of like he’s thankful.
(Diluc has gone weak, ever since he met Childe. Has gone so, so weak. Pliant and malleable.)
“Thank you,” Childe says.
“Why do you keep coming here?” Diluc asks, arms crossed over his chest. It comes out harsher than he intends it to. Like a wounded animal lashing out because it knows nothing else of safety, of how to keep its heart from being torn out, away from its chest.
Diluc is—
Well, he’s not that far from it. Wounded. Or animal.
“I thought you didn’t mind,” Childe says, almost shy. Almost boyish and bare and—and terrifying. Because that’s what Childe is. Terrifying for all the wrong reasons. Terrifying because Diluc let him in. Keeps letting him in. (Because Diluc loves him.)
“I don’t,” Diluc says. Then, softer, “You’re welcome anywhere I go.”
Childe smiles at him, weak with pain, still. “I’ll remember that,” he says. Then, teasing (almost like usual, almost like when he’s not dripping blood on the floors), “Master Diluc.”
“You should rest,” Diluc says.
Childe waggles his eyebrows gracelessly. “There are nobler ways to get me in your bed, you know."
Diluc doesn’t answer.
(He does get into bed with Childe. Over the covers. Sits there and doesn’t sleep, presses the back of his hand to Childe’s forehead to check for a fever.)
…
It’s a long night. With his bed occupied, Diluc has nothing better to do than wait it out. Flip mindlessly through pages of worn books, of family heirlooms that don’t serve him at all if the boy—the man, the ruthless hunter, the one about to carve his heart out from his chest like it’s a children’s game to begin with—sleeping next to him in his bed doesn’t get better, doesn’t make it through the night.
He will. Childe is strong. Diluc knows that much like he knows there’s blood under his skin, running through his veins. Childe is going to be okay, will make it through this night and many more. (Many more where Diluc won’t be by his side. Where Diluc will not be available to disinfect each cut and wrap them up with utmost care.)
Diluc just—
Well, it’s simple.
He wants. Like many foolish, selfish men pretending to be selfless that walked the earth before him, Diluc wants. He turns to look at Childe’s sleeping face and is filled with it. With the urge to count his eyelashes or trace a gentle hand along his cheek without disturbing these precious few hours of sleep he will manage to get.
Because Diluc knows him.
(Because Diluc loves him.)
It is not selfless, this knowing. It is a memory etched into the very flesh. Loving someone like Childe. The first time they’d shared a bed—as enemies, still—Childe had goaded him into each kiss and spar and licked droplet of sweat just to hide that he couldn’t fall asleep. And Diluc almost hadn’t noticed at all. Because noticing didn’t matter then. Because then he was sharing his bed with an enemy, someone to stab in your sleep or perhaps kick out at the light of dawn if you’re feeling particularly charitable.
It matters now. Noticing matters, now.
So Diluc sits there, and pretends to read just for the threadbare excuse of it.
…
Come morning, Diluc, fallen asleep over the covers in all his clothes, wakes up to an empty bed.
It scares him, terrifies even, until he spots Childe up right beside him.
He’s not wearing a shirt. Diluc is far too old to blush. And yet—
“Morning,” Childe says.
Diluc’s heart occupies itself with something anatomically improbable inside his chest. “Good morning,” he says. “I see you were awake.”
“Woke up before dawn,” Childe says, and it’s then Diluc notices the blanket thrown haphazardly over him, the reason for the lack of morning chill on his skin.
Childe covered him with a blanket. Childe saw him asleep, when he could hurt as much as he liked and flee before the repercussions of it followed him, and chose to care anyway. Chose to pick up a blanket instead of a knife.
Oh, Diluc thinks, mind still muddled with sleep. Oh.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Diluc shakes himself out of it. “Like what?”
Childe stretches. He’s always liked putting on a show. Too bad for him that Diluc is already a damned fool, with or without the theatrics. “Like you lost something and you’re looking for it,” he says.
Diluc sits up. “I have already found it,” he says.
For inexplicable reasons, Childe’s eyes go wide, and he goes still. “Did you?” he asks. “Are you sure?”
Diluc nods. “I’m certain,” he says. “Extremely certain.”
Childe shakes his head, but smiles as if specifically to contradict the action. “You’re going to regret that,” he says, and then he leans down, and then in, and his smile tastes sweet enough that Diluc can’t bring himself to ponder on regrets.
He might regret this, and everything before it, and everything after it too. But what does any of it matter when Childe is here, is safe, is his? When he whines delightfully as Diluc’s hand accidentally brushes a nipple, and then kisses him like he’s got something of his own to test or prove or say.
(Love, Diluc thinks. That’s what all of it is. Love, love, love.)
The rest of the morning can wait. Right now, in this particular instance with Childe’s gasping mouth on his, he’s got more important things demanding his immediate attention. (He’s got Childe, safe. And he intends to keep him that way for as long as he can manage to.)