Work Text:
It’s not often Diluc asks to sleep in, but Adelinde is always more than willing to agree when he does. This time it comes mid-April and she all but shoves him towards his room that night with the order of if she sees him up before eleven AM at the earliest then she’s going to lose her mind.
Diluc laughs softly and agrees, bidding her goodnight as he goes the rest of the way to his room and closes the door quietly behind himself.
It’s not even that late, at least compared to when he typically turns in for the night, but he’s tired of going to bed at his normal time, only to be woken an hour later and unable to fall back to sleep.
So he’s going to bed earlier in the hopes that it’ll help or that if he wakes up, it’ll still be late enough to justify trying to go back to sleep.
The first thing he does is run himself a bath, heated by his Vision. He knows that his usual routine of just bathing quickly and then getting in bed won’t be enough to help him achieve a proper, deep sleep that he hasn’t had since possibly before his father died.
Which means he’s going to have to, as Kaeya would say, ‘pamper himself’. The thought makes him feel bratty and spoiled and he almost backs out of it, at least until he reminds himself that he’s only doing it to relax.
Once the tub is hot enough— scalding, as Kaeya would say —Diluc undresses and slowly slips in, gripping the sides of the tub as he slowly leans back and forces himself to let out the tension in his muscles.
It does actually feel nice, he has to admit, and he finds himself relaxing almost faster than he’d actually been expecting to. He leans his head back and closes his eyes, reaching up to tug the tie out of his hair, letting it fall over the side of the tub as he returns his arms to the edge.
It does actually feel really nice…
He’s not sure how long he lays there but surely he must fall asleep, because when he blinks his eyes open however long later, the water has a slight chill to it and he feels almost sluggish. It takes him a few moments to process and wake up and he splashes his face with water a few times but when coherency returns, he freezes.
He didn’t dream. He fell asleep and didn’t dream. He hasn’t had dreamless sleep since he was seventeen. He let out a quiet breath, closing his eyes and allowing himself a small smile before he stands and reaches for his towel, wrapping it around himself and stepping carefully out of the tub.
It’s only once he’s out and drying himself off that he realizes he’s forgotten to wash his hair but he decides against refilling the bath for something so small. He’ll do it later.
Wrapping his towel around himself, he pads into his room and picks up his sleep tunic from the bed, removing the towel which he sets aside before dressing for bed and then heading over to seat himself in front of his vanity, fighting down a yawn as he grabbed his hairbrush and began to lazily run it through his long, tangled locks.
Once it’s finished, he tugs his hair over his shoulder to start braiding it for bed, though he finds his head nodding forward and himself dozing off the entire time. A gentle knock startles him and he gives up on his hair as he stands and moves to answer the knock.
“Adelinde,” he murmured. “Is everything alright?”
“Of course, sir,” Adelinde replied. “I simply thought I would offer you help you with your hair, before I turned in for the night.”
“Oh.” Diluc thinks for a moment. “Would it be too much trouble?”
He doesn’t necessarily need Adelinde’s help, but it’s been a long time since she’s done it and truth be told, he’s starting to feel too tired to keep fighting with it on his own.
The head housemaid smiled gently as she replied, “It wouldn’t be any trouble at all, sir.”
Diluc nodded and stepped aside to allow her in, moving back over to his vanity and sitting down, offering her his hairbrush.
“Thank you,” he murmured as she ran the brush through his hair, smoothing the red locks out before her deft fingers began working at putting his hair into braids.
“Of course, sir, it’s the least I could do,” Adelinde assured.
Diluc shifted. “I pay you enough, right Adelinde?”
“Don’t you dare think about raising my pay again ,” Adelinde said, lightly smacking his shoulder. “You’ve done that more than enough times since you returned.”
“Consider those past times an apology, for vanishing for years and leaving everything to you and Elzer with little to no warning,” Diluc murmured.
“You have nothing to apologize for, sir.”
“The least I could have done was leave a note,” Diluc told her, avoiding her gaze in the vanity mirror. “Or not leave in the first place.”
Adelinde sighed softly and didn’t say anything again until she had finished securing Diluc’s hair into the braid.
“Master Diluc,” she began. “If I may speak freely?”
He turned to face her. “Of course,” he assured. “You never have to ask permission.”
Adelinde nodded before shifting so that she was standing beside him. “No one has ever been upset with you for leaving with no notice.”
“But–”
She talked over him, something Diluc didn’t think she had ever done. “You were in mourning, Master Diluc. Your father had died, the Knights had turned against your family, and your brother had revealed a secret he’d spent years keeping from you.” Diluc avoided her gaze, but Adelinde sternly took his chin and forced his eye contact again. “You were a child who was hurting. The last thing you needed to think about was taking over your father’s winery.”
Diluc swallowed thickly. “I still should have–”
“No,” Adelinde said firmly, yet no less gently than before. “You shouldn’t have. What you should’ve had was those you loved with you, supporting you. You shouldn’t have felt so lost and alone that you had to run to the furthest nation from Mondstadt in search of answers you could never hope to find.”
Diluc took a deep breath and Adelinde let him look away, choosing to ignore the way his eyes seemed to shine.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Adelinde placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “What’s done is done, Master Diluc,” she murmured. “There is nothing you can do to change the past now.” When Diluc said nothing else, she squeezed his shoulder and turned towards the door.
Before stepping out, she turned back to him and softly said, “Your father would be very proud of who you’ve become.”
She left then, as he turned wide eyes in her direction.