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Bright is Dainsleif’s first thought as he wakes, then, tired.
He’d forgotten to close the curtains last night, it seems, and he groans, throwing an arm over his face to cover his eyes. His vision is still red-tinted around the edges, morning sunlight passing through blood and leaving darkness edged with crimson.
He’s met with a twin mumble from the left side of the bed, but rather than trying to escape the light, his lover opts to sit up, legs swung over the side of the bed. He gives a soft sigh of pleasure that—presumably—means he’s stretching, just as he always does, working the knots out of his back, and Dainsleif suddenly finds himself mournful of missing the sight.
The movement means shadow falls over Dainsleif, at least, and he basks in being able to let his arm fall from covering his face and fully take in the view.
Diluc is quite the view, after all.
Dainsleif mumbles out something—he’s not quite sure what it is; maybe a good morning or a come back to bed, but whatever it is, it’s met with a quiet chuckle and a soft “Good morning to you, too, engel.”
Dainsleif still isn’t used to the endearment, as much as it makes his chest sing. Angel, Diluc had said it meant. A common endearment in Mondstadt’s local dialect. The comparison to divinity is something that should make Dainsleif retreat, or perhaps rouse some kind of retort, but all it’s ever done is make Dainsleif forget for a moment how weary he is.
His lover is a blessing Dainsleif will never know how he came to deserve.
It’s well past morning by now, of that much Dainsleif is certain. The sun has risen high enough that any remnants of sunrise are gone, giving way to blue skies interspersed with voluminous clouds. Diluc likely has work to attend to; Dainsleif has his own variety of busywork, but…
Really, would it hurt for them to take the day to themselves?
He voices that, expecting the age-old laugh and shake of Diluc’s head, a promise of a gentle evening—that’s what they both always say, and both always will say—but he’s thrown off-kilter by his lover’s agreement.
This happens, certainly, occasionally, but—on holidays. Times when the Abyss Order seems to lull in activity and the wine industry slows, or, miraculously, both happen at the same time, and Dainsleif and Diluc can relax together. It happens rarely, and never out of the blue.
“I’ve been meaning to show you something anyway,” Diluc tells him, facing the window, and Dainsleif is out of bed and getting dressed before the sentence is even finished.
He’s long since left behind his days of being so fully devoted to wearing his knight’s uniform. It hadn’t been healthy, he’d known that. It was a—a reminder. A self-inflicted punishment for living while his people didn’t, but it was also convenient, and that took precedence.
Life with Diluc had changed that. Dramatically. Another thing Dainsleif doesn’t deserve.
Dainsleif idly messes with the ruffles of the white poet blouse he’s wearing as he’s walking side-by-side with Diluc. His lover is wearing something of the same make and material, only dyed black—“What’s with your insistence on wearing black, ástin mín?” “What’s with yours?”—and the sleeves are rolled up.
“What are you showing me?"
There’s a smile in his voice as Diluc says simply, “You’ll see.”
They left the winery 10-odd minutes ago, at this point, and they’re traveling through a gorge in the ground—if it even counts as a gorge.
(Mondstadt’s landscape has always confused Dainsleif in that way—are there really valleys and gorges if what formed them was not erosion? With Barbatos supposedly having been the one to form the cliffs of Mondstadt, were they even cliffs at all?)
The two of them are headed towards Old Mondstadt, the remnants of Decarabian’s Tower just peeking over the high-rising walls of the gorge. It’s a surprisingly easy journey—for once, there’s no hilichurls or slimes interrupting them as they pass, just swaying grass and distant birdsong. He spares a small comment about the silence, cheerful in a way he’s unused to, and Diluc moves to hold Dainsleif’s hand.
He accepts it, of course. Why would he not?
Dainsleif can tell they’re getting close as the number of windwheel asters begins increasing along their path, spinning in the wind without a care in the world. He needs to study those, really—the concept of an axis and wheel on a plant is fascinating, really, and it should be impossible, but clearly, it isn’t…
It’s a good thing that Diluc has a hold on his hand, evidently, as it lets him gently pull Dainsleif away from the flowers and further into the ruins.
It’s eerie for Old Mondstadt to be completely devoid of sentient life. Even the birds have quieted here, and Dainsleif’s heartbeat fades into almost the only thing he can process; a thrum of warmth through his body that should be overwhelming but is instead thrilling.
Diluc leads him down, now, the worn path hard to pick out as they cross underneath a crumbled arch and into a—
Into—
Dainsleif has stopped. He realizes this only because Diluc is still holding tight to his hand and has taken more steps forward than Dainsleif has, holding onto him expectantly and looking towards…
It’s—it’s an oasis, really.
A single, elegant tree branching up and away from an island in a small pond. There’s a cave nearby that gives off the telling glow of crystal chunks, but what draws his immediate attention is the bridge over the pond and to the island—a bridge made of wood that would have definitely not lasted the time since Old Mondstadt had been abandoned.
He looks toward Diluc and he can’t even find the words to express his thoughts.
Diluc must be able to read his mind through the way Dainsleif holds even tighter to Diluc’s hand, and he laughs, pulling him along, towards the bridge. “It’s sound, don’t worry. I’ve tested it multiple times and it holds.”
“Did you…?”
“Yes, engel, I put the bridge here. Now follow me.”
Dainsleif trails behind him, staring up at the tree as the two of them pass over the bridge, and as Diluc sits next to the trunk of the tree, Dainsleif is pulled down with him. He’s so absorbed in looking around at—at everything that he doesn’t even notice the crystalfly that settles on his hair.
“How did you even find this place?”
Diluc hums, loosening his grip from Dainsleif’s hand and tipping his head back to stare up through the branches of the tree. “Truthfully, I’m not sure. I was exploring with the Traveler recently, and I just…” He shrugs, not inelegantly. “Decided to keep this to myself.”
There’s nothing much else Dainsleif can think of to ask, and they fall into the sounds of their own heartbeats, steadying into each other’s rhythm.
Hours pass before either of them stir. Dainsleif is dozing, head lolling against his chest with a crick he doesn’t want to exacerbate in his neck. However, with the darkening sky and the threat of walking home at night facing him, he sighs deeply, turning his head to tell Diluc they should head back—
Splinters of light fall to the ground as he moves his head, and before he can realize what he’s done, a crystal core falls to the ground next to them.
“Oh, stars—”
His gasp is enough to rouse Diluc, who immediately pulls himself up to stand against the tree as if he were to protect Dainsleif against the world just by standing like that. It startles a laugh from Dainsleif, and he shakes his head. More remnants of the crystalfly fall from his hair like stars as he does so.
“It’s fine, ástin mín. I’m sorry, I…” He gently picks up the core. A fine film of iridescence covers it, and as he holds it, it transfers to cover his hand instead, leaving the core as just a piece of organic crystal with any luster drained from it.
“You?”
Diluc is still on high alert, it seems, and Dainsleif reaches blindly to hold onto his hand. Instinct fails him this time—not in that he doesn’t find warm fingers, but in how the core tumbles from his hand, forgotten at the prompting of his lover. The iridescence transfers again.
“I simply was startled. Would you like to go home?”
“Let’s.”
Life like this is blissful; all-consuming and sweet. Dainsleif feels whole.
(The core had broken when Dainsleif dropped it. It was fixable, maybe, with time and attention and care, but it had been left behind.
With no sign of being fixed, the crystal core crumbles just as the crystalfly did, no evidence of its existence save iridescence on grass.)
Warm is Dainsleif’s first thought as he wakes, and then, tired.
The dream he’d been having—something he doesn’t want to recall, no doubt, though it’s not as if he ever does remember his dreams—is already falling away, bits sticking to his memory like old cobweb. The last vestiges of it will be gone when he deigns to move, but such a thing is unnecessary at the moment. He is at rest, even if that rest is only of the body, and with cobwebs clinging to him.
(Once, in his years of solitude and travel, he had thought to see how long it took for cobwebs to form on his person. He hadn’t moved for… months, maybe. A year. Any spiders that took him to be part of the environment thought him unsuitable as a place to call home.
He never dreams of that period. There isn’t much to dream about.)
Dainsleif’s eyes remain closed as he tries to pull sleep back to him, his body relaxed and unmoving, but sleep is a silk rope slipping through his fingers, and he gradually becomes aware of where he is.
Well—he’s aware, of course, he’s always aware, if disbelieving. Waking awareness is different than knowing he’s home. Waking awareness is feeling a strip of sunlight fall across the bed and warm only a patch of his body. It’s knowing what he’s wearing; knowing the texture of the sheets, the pillows, the thin summer comforter that’s rumpled with sleep. He’ll make the bed later; no doubt it’s early and he doesn’t want to trouble Adelinde with something so trivial.
With bitterness towards nothing in particular, Dainsleif’s eyes crack open, and star-studded pupils are met with a sea of red. A backlit dawn edged in pink and orange and something else similar to the shade of an autumn star hibiscus. He can’t remember the word for it, his mind as sleep-addled as it is, but it is beautiful, and—if he can dare to think of it as such—it is his.
Diluc is facing away from him, likely having fallen asleep watching the stars. Dainsleif has always loved that, though, truly, there’s not much he doesn’t love about Diluc. Everything he learns of his lover is treasured and adored, careful to never be forgotten.
With Diluc facing away from him, Dainsleif can admire his silhouette, strong and sloping and yet muscles softened with sleep, all tension gone. The comforter has been pushed off of him—even in the winter months, he finds himself overheating. It’s another thing that Dainsleif is besotted by.
With the blanket pushed away, Dainsleif can admire toned, muscular arms that speak of hours of artful combat. He’s not particularly scarred on the upper arm area—that’s focused to his forearms and hands—but there is a lengthwise scar on his bicep. He’s never asked about it; there’s never been need to. Diluc doesn’t ask about Dainsleif’s scars. Dainsleif never asks about his. It’s safe.
A sigh falls from him, barely enough to disturb any brilliantly-red wisps of hair, but it’s evidently enough to make Diluc aware of Dainsleif being awake. His voice, warm and rough with disuse, floats up from beyond where Dainsleif can see.
“It’s early. You could sleep more.”
“I could.”
They lapse into silence. Dainsleif’s thoughts begin to wander, dragging themselves to musings on stars and sunrise. His eyes start to close in something that could melt away into sleep, but—
“I can’t remember what I dreamt.”
It’s out of nowhere, which isn’t unusual for Diluc, but the tone…
Dainsleif files through his memories, trying to identify something with Diluc’s preference towards remembering his dreams, and—yes, he’s said something on the subject before.
(It had been months ago, maybe a year, during a dawn similar to this one. Dainsleif had awoken to panicked breath and an uncomfortably warm room, and he’d spent a few hours just holding Diluc. His lover had hidden his face in Dainsleif’s chest, and he hadn’t asked for an explanation—the desperate don’t let me see, I don’t want to see it anymore I can’t stop looking at it I just want to forget—
That had been enough of an explanation.
Diluc had told him, after, that he remembers dreams hours after he wakes. His voice had been so shame-saturated that Dainsleif didn’t offer his own experience with dreams and memories. It might’ve seemed like a kick to the ribs while Diluc was down, and that was the last thing Dainsleif wanted to give him.)
Dainsleif pulls himself up, his back to the headboard, and he’s running a hand through Diluc’s hair by the time he’s in a sitting position. It’s soothing for the both of them. Diluc leans into his hand, just as he always does, and Dainsleif tugs at his hair affectionately, just as he always does. It’s a pattern.
“You can’t remember anything?”
A sigh, floating up in the same way his voice had. “Details. Something to do with the sky, maybe, or a void.” The Abyss. It goes unsaid. It always goes unsaid. Diluc is kind enough to ensure that ‘always’. “I don’t know how you manage it.”
Dainsleif’s hand slows. He’s never told Diluc of his tendency to forget dreams.
He blinks; swallows. “I would think my memory to be rather sharp. Have I forgotten something important?” Perhaps that’s all there is to it, but in recent times he hasn’t found himself at a loss. Maybe he missed something? Diluc could be holding on to some long-irrelevant piece of early conversation, when Dainsleif had lied through his teeth of his likes; dislikes; wants and dreams and needs. He’d thought that had all been cleared up—?
“Oh, Dainsleif.” Diluc’s floating voice is so unbearably fond. He finally moves from his place of rest, finally shifts, pulling himself up as Dainsleif’s hand falls away into soft sheets. The sheets underneath where Diluc had been are body-warm. “You know what you forgot.”
“I—Diluc, really, I don’t know what you’re referring to, what—?”
“Shh, Dainsleif, it’s okay.” His voice is still floating despite the closed distance, clouding over Dainsleif’s thoughts with warm honey and woodsmoke. His eyes slip closed and he basks in the gentle reassurance—
“Don’t close your eyes, Dainsleif.” Diluc’s voice is floating just in front of him by now, close enough for his breath to brush Dainsleif’s skin. It doesn’t. It doesn’t? “Look at me, engel.”
Who is he to say no to his lover?
Stars meet red. They only meet red.
Nothing about Diluc’s face stands out, save that. He could be any other dozen of Mondtstadtns, a passerby on the street, he is—his features are indistinguishable. A picture of a picture, faded and blurry and he doesn’t quite—he doesn’t?—he wouldn’t be able to put a name to this face if it wasn’t for the eyes.
A gasp is forced out of Dainsleif, and he wants to push—away, from a face he doesn’t remember—recognize. A face he doesn’t recognize; that’s all it is, he’s still tired; his memories still messy and cluttered; that’s all it is—that’s all it is—
He just pushes back against a headboard he’s trapped against and he’s caged in by red hair and red eyes and a wash of the colors of dawn, and he cannot breathe. He can’t remember how to breathe.
“You know what you forgot,” his lover-not-his-lover repeats, voice floating from a mouth that could belong to anyone. “It’s okay, Dainsleif. I understand.”
“Stop.” He can barely say the word. His lungs burn.
“You can’t live like this, engel.” Diluc-not-Diluc reaches to brush against his cheek with a flame-scarred hand and that, at least, is familiar. He jerks his head away nonetheless. Diluc’s non-expression remains the exact same, generic sympathy that should not be on his face.
Dainsleif can’t even say that the image of Diluc’s not-face is burned into his memory. It’s not. It’s anything but; grains of sand crumbling away from solid shape when he thinks too hard about what it could-be-should-be-isn’t. He has to look away, he can’t look away—
He looks away. Diluc sighs, and what should be warmed air doesn’t reach Dainsleif.
“You know it won’t be like this when you wake up.”
Focusing on scarred skin and dark red sheets gives Dainsleif his breath back, and he can almost feel his ribs rattling as he breathes. “I said stop.”
Not-Diluc stays in front of him for a long, long moment. Dainsleif stays afraid.
“I know you did, engel.” He pulls back; twists to face the window once again. Dainsleif can look up, now. He does. Dawn is starting to give way to blue skies, taking away the rosy hue of his lover’s bedroom. “But you can’t—”
“I can.” The words are snapped out, vicious, and Dainsleif regrets the tone the moment he speaks.
“Dainsleif…”
“Let me have this, Diluc.”
Dainsleif can see Diluc swallow. He doesn’t look up beyond his lover’s jaw. He doesn’t want to look at a face he can’t remember.
“Okay.”
Cold is Dainsleif’s first thought as he wakes, and then, tired.
There’s rough bark against his back, and when he blearily opens his eyes to look around him, he’s at a place of—significance. Some kind of significance. He gravitates towards this island-bound tree for a reason he, weighed down by sleep, cannot recall. Maybe once he’s more awake, he’ll be able to.
He already can’t remember what he’d dreamt of—a specific person, maybe, or watching the sunrise; basking in dawn. There was red, he knows that, but the rest of it has already retreated to the depths of his mind.
He doesn’t try to reach for it.