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Ajax did not dream.
At least, if you would ask, he'd never tell you that he did. The truth is, he had a very vivid imagination, and a photogenic memory. He remembered everything in a dream that his mind would let him.
So, he hated nights like these; the nights where he couldn't remember climbing into bed with his one and only.
He hated the nights when the violence got to him, where the memories of the past and the person he was creeped into the back of his head.
Tonight, for the first time since he was a child, Ajax woke up screaming. He woke up drenched in sweat, with salty tears rolling down his face.
He turned to look at his beloved, expecting him to be awake, but he wasn't. If nothing in this world scared the harbinger, that did.
He crawled up to his lover, cupping his face with gentle, ungloved and calloused hands.
"Diluc?" He whispered. When the other man didn't reply, it sent a pang of absolute fear through his body. He moved his hands to the other man's shoulders and shook him. "Diluc? Are you awake?"
The tears in his eyes began to resurface, and he shook Diluc again, rougher this time.
"Diluc, baby, wake up! Wake up, please wake up-"
"Mmh? For fuck's sake, Ajax..." The redhead groaned, and he opened his eyes to look at his lover.
Ajax's face was flushed bright red in splotches from how hard he had been crying. Diluc had never seen him this way before, and he sat up, pulling his lover close.
"Hey, Ajax, what's wrong?"
The 11th Harbinger of the Fatui hated being vulnerable. It gave his enemies room to strike. But tonight, he simply couldn't muster the energy to care, as he collapsed into his lover's arms with sobs that wracked his entire body.
The ginger mustered up just enough strength to sit up and place himself in his boyfriend's lap, legs around his waist, arms around his shoulders, looking down as tears fell into their laps.
Diluc brought his hands to his blue-eyed lover's cheeks, so Ajax would look him in the eye.
"Hey. What happened to you? I've never seen you this way before." He frowned.
"Nightmare. A bad, bad nightmare. I... I thought you died. I thought... I thought that I-"
"You don't have to say any more than that," Diluc squeezed his boyfriend's face, a sickeningly sweet and accepting smile on his face, "it's okay. It was just a nightmare. I'm here."
"I don't deserve you," He cried, "i'm a bad person, Diluc. I don't deserve you."
"You do. You do deserve me. You deserve good things." He leaned into Ajax's tear-stained face, a gentle smile gracing his features. "You have to believe me when I say that."
The ginger sniffled, looking into his lover's (usually harsh) eyes. "You mean it?"
He nodded.
Ajax burst into another fit of tears and leaned forward, pressing his lips to Diluc's, and they stayed there for a moment, in comfortable silence.
"I love you. I'll love you until my dying breaths." Ajax whispered between peppering kisses all over his boyfriend's face.
Diluc chuckled as he pulled the other man closer. "I love you too."