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His hand burns.
Throbbing white pain building up in each finger of his hand, one at a time, slow and steady, as if Celestia itself was feeling a sick sort of amusement seeing the usually calm and collected ‘Uncrowned King of Mondstadt’ hunched over, face scrunched up in pain, muscles tense. It’s still early in the morning, the sun barely peaking out above the cloud high mountains of Liyue, and still, already, barely awake, Diluc is drowning in shame and pain and remorse.
He's sprawled out on his too big of a bed, blanket kicked off during sometime in the night, now crumbled on the cold hardwood floor, all the remaining heat clinging to the soft fabric from Diluc’s body long since gone. He wants to pick it up, he really does. Mornings are getting colder as winter is approaching rapidly, and Diluc was never fond of the chill running down his spine, not even as a child when he was running around the winery with a wooden sword in his hands, playing pretend. Even now, with a vision carefully clipped to the belt of his pants most days, he’d still rather stay inside in the company of a thick novel and a cup of hot camomile tea instead of being out, running away from those sharp winds with an icy edge to them.
But his vision is too far, just out of reach, lying flat on his nightstand like the backstabbing bastard it was, and Diluc can’t exactly hide the betrayed expression he’s plenty sure he’s making. But he doesn’t care, doesn’t want to care, not when those invisible flames lick at his hand harshly, making him tremble and wail in agony, biting his bottom lip with way more force that was necessary when a wet noise threatens to fall out involuntarily. He doesn’t even dare to think about the excruciating pain moving would put his body through, not when the mere act of keeping his breathing steady had been proven as too difficult of a task.
His vision sways, a thin layer of sweat coating his skin, breathing coming out in short, strained puffs. He’s cold, he’s in pain, and his lack of proper sleep was finally catching up to him, leaving him sluggish against the damp sheets. It’s a bad day, maybe the worst he’d had since his return to Mondstadt one and a half years ago. He wants nothing more than to crawl into his Father’s warm embrace, yearning for his love, his comfort, his healing touches. But there’s no comfort, no love, no healing touches, and definitely no Father. His heart aches.
He glances back to his nightstand, weighing his options at the sight of the small, tinted glass vial filled with those familiar white pills. He has to take them; he knows he does. His nerve endings are screaming in agony, revealing a side of Diluc no citizens of Mondstadt should ever cross; fragile and vulnerable and lost, almost like a little kid searching for his mama in a crowd of people.
Archons, he knows the pills will make him feel better, granting him a brush of euphoria, and it scares him. He’s already too dependent on that prescribed medicine, having to take them every time his hand starts to shake to cover up his rather obvious discomfort. To untrained eyes, he’s annoyed, bored, maybe a bit cranky. To others, he’s in agony.
With a groan, he lifts his good hand, blindly grabbing the vial, his vision getting caught in his fingers as well, the pyro pulsing happily against his colder skin. He retreats slowly, his body still flat on the sheets, pouring some pills out before grabbing a handful, shoving them down his throat like candy. They burn as they scrape the insides of his throat, but the dull pain is nothing compared to the bites and snarls of his left hand.
The pills take affect slower than he anticipated, and he huffs in annoyance – he had gotten used to them quicker than the last one he took. The sharp pain is now reduced to an uncomfortable dull throb pulling on his muscles and scarping his bones raw. As a rather unfortunate side effect, they also make him nauseous and quite sleepy, fatigue weighing down his body more than ever before. He was warned in advance, Albedo secretively sliding a small folded paper into his hand when he had gone to pick up his prescription for the month. He remembers the look he gave him, a blank expression with so much emotion carved out of teal-coloured eyes, but no, he doesn’t tell him, he can’t tell him. Kaeya can’t know.
His stomach turns, and as in que, his room starts swaying as well, crème coloured walls mocking his misery. There’s no way he can make it to the bathroom, and he can only pray to the Seven that he won’t make a mess after his eyelids lose the battle against sleep – for the first time in days maybe. His vision, taking pity on him, pulses brightly next to his face, caressing his skin with a gentle wave of warmth and grounding comfort as he drifts away.
And as Diluc lays in his too big of a bed, his clothes sticking to his body with sweat, he can only curse past him for acting so recklessly, so impulsively. He has his regrets buried deep down, not quite ready to be spilled yet.
He knew he had his own risks. For putting on such a cursed weapon, he basically handed over his soul on a silver platter.
But grief was a potentate, a being Diluc never quite learned how to act around.
He was desperate for power, and now he has a heavy price to pay.
The delusion on his hand looked weird, out of place, awkward, an uncomfortable weight snapping him out of his usual splendid balance during combat. The red gem looked artificial; a cheap replica of his own vision left at home during the time he wandered across the seven nations. But still, it granted him with great powers, even if it didn’t warm his body and soul the same way his own gem did.
Every godforsaken time he used it, the dark power pulsed through his veins, tainting his body with poison, his blood boiling and popping in his ear, rushing to his hands all the way to the tip of his fingers, black smoky chains ripping out from beneath the skin on command. But the pain, although subtle, was never something Diluc particularly felt dread about. The small wounds healed well enough, some didn’t even scar, not like he would have noticed them underneath his leather gloves.
It started with an ich.
At the time, Diluc didn’t think much of it. If anything, he was rather delighted. His hands, from the tip of his fingers all the way to his elbows are littered in cuts and burns, some older, some newer, making his skin hard and calloused, discoloured patches of reds and pinks standing out of milky whites, untreated wounds healing not quite right. He doesn’t remember how he got most of them, some old, faded pinks all the way from the back of his childhood, well healed ones from his time spent with the Knights, fresh jagged ones from the blades of Fatui agents he crossed paths recently.
The itching was a pleasant surprise, a sign his hand was healing well enough, broken tissue mending. Well enough for him anyways.
Diluc spent the majority of his days outside, the endless night sky as his makeshift roof above his head. It wasn’t ideal, living out of a tattered bag on his back, but he made do of what he owned. Medicine and gauze were a luxury, not a right, he learned it the hard way.
Still, the itch never went away. If anything, it got worse over time.
Soon the itch turned into small needles poking him from beneath his skin, uncomfortable and painful with an edge, almost teasing. It made him frustrated, seeing as no matter what he did, he could never get rib of the troublesome sensation.
Still, he learned to live with it.
Growing up, Diluc was not unfamiliar to the feeling of discomfort. It came with his family, his title, the expectations, prying eyes. He was no stranger to masking, hiding small insignificant injuries, sickness, fatigue. The stinging of his hand was a rather new addition, but nothing he couldn’t live with.
And then one day, it started to burn.
Diluc was frightened out of his deep slumber, feeling as if his hand was hit from a bullet of a Fatui skirmisher, the burn and stretch quite similar in nature. But there was no hole on his black gloves, no blood clinging to his scarred skin, seemingly nothing his panicked eyes could see through.
He could do nothing but burrow his face into his knees, wrapping his right hand around his left, squeezing it hard, as if pain from outside would dull the absolute horror lurking beneath his skin. But Archons, it only made it worse, every feather light touch spiking a new wave of pain, and he could do nothing but wail and sob until his eyes were red and irritated.
It wasn’t long before he got back to Mondstadt after that. His mind was dull with cotton, the pain making it quite hard for him to focus on his goal for long. He hated it, despised it oh so much, the stinging burning sensation and his lack of cure making him frustrated, snappy, grumpy. It had changed him, more than the three years he had spent on foreign lands, more than his brother’s betrayer, more than his father’s death. They say pain changes people, and Diluc was a prime example of this.
It was as if his own body had failed him.
Still, not long after he stumbled back to the manor, right into Adelinde’s waiting arms, he joined the crowd of Mondstadt as if his three year long absence was a mere gush of the wind. And they let him, let him integrate back, although not without a word, hushed deep murmurs circling him wherever he went, but easier than he had predicted. There wasn’t much of a resistance, not with the name Ragnvindr clinging to the back of his head like a silent invitation for a better future.
He took over the winery and sold the manor with millions of small, pleasant memories, opting to stay in the winery instead, closer to the city, closer to the people. Mondstadt had suffered greatly in his absence, his mind plagued with revenge forgetting just how important his family was to the City of Freedom. He felt guilt eating through his soul, chewing loudly in his ears.
And so, he buried himself in tedious work, of long hours spent hunched over thick stacks of paperwork, of boring meeting with potential business partners, of empty parties held to keep up his image of the renowned wine tycoon of Mondstadt. He contacted Jean after being blissfully unaware of her new title as acting grandmaster for probably longer than he should have been left in the dark, offering a helping hand in diplomatic affairs. It is what the people of Mondstadt expected of a man holding onto the Ragnvindr name, after all.
Diluc was never a fan of such demanding work. The pressure and expectations, the image of a refined young man, a businessman, a tycoon, a noble. Archons, such a bitter title to hold onto.
He never quite got used to the way master rolled off the tongue of his people while addressing him either. In his childish mind, Master was reserved to his father and father only. Such title didn’t fit him, him with a tendency to drown in violence and bloodshed, not the way he brute forces himself through difficult tasks, almost like the wild boars residing in the nearby forest. Master is for people like his father was, noble and gentle with words but firm with actions.
If anything, master could fit Kaeya more than it ever did him.
But still, expectations are made to be met somehow, and as the hair of Ragnvindr blood, he is to be kept at high regards. And so Diluc caves in, bows for the citizens of Mondstadt like the slave he is, biting his lips harshly when his hand throbs in pain.
Because no matter what he does, what he takes, how he moves, that insufferable burning is still there, buried deep into his bones, tearing his muscles, bubbling up from under his skin with so much force it leaves him breathless by the time he gets into bed each day. Upon returning to Mondstadt, he had locked away that damned artificial delusion, right next to his father’s belongings he wasn’t quite ready to separate with yet. Tiny nothings, sentimental pieces of a life taken too soon.
But still, the damage was done, and Diluc may never live a life without his past taunting him in the form of nasty flames licking his hand raw.
As in queue, a row of soft knocks on his door shake him from the half asleep state those pills reduced his mind and body to just earlier this morning. The sun is much higher now on the sky, gentle rays of yellows and oranges sneaking into his room through half closed curtains, dancing on his hair and scarred skin. He groans, still sluggish, his body cold from drifting off without a blanket, but upon feeling the burning reduced to dull throbbing, he can’t help but murmur a soft thank you to Albedo who was kind enough to make the medicine for him without as much as a second guess.
He's slow to rise, but he blames it on going to sleep late, vigilante work keeping him awake at awkward hours of the night. He really is rather cold, his vision doing a poor job at keeping him warm, but it’s not its job in the first place, and Diluc is not one to put blame on others. The red gem just being there, hanging from the belt of his pants with that familiar weigh grounds him well enough, keeping him calm and collected. And beyond everything else, it keeps his memories intact, something he had trouble with while walking across unfamiliar lands.
Before stepping out the comfort of his room, he’s quick to pull on those familiar red and black leather gloves, hiding years’ worth of silent suffering under roughed up faded fabric. He doesn’t even spare one glance at his bare hands, the blisters, burn marks, scratches, cuts, both old and new, some still angry red, some nothing beyond thin white lines.
He walks with confidence, with purpose, greeting his maids, his employees, noble men from far lands, the citizens of Mondstadt, his customers, his own estranged brother. He stays on his feet all day, pouring drinks, signing papers, with that carefully painted mask crafted from the finest porcelain. His smile is small and practiced, fake, not quite reaching his eyes, but it never does, not anymore. The cover is well enough, just convincing enough to not trigger a flow of questions from Kaeya when his hand shakes while pouring his third Death After Noon for the night.
His city needs his steady hands, and so he just pops a painkiller into his mouth when the tavern is finally clear of customers. He sighs, tired, but the night is still young, and his day is far from ending.
He ignores the throb, the burn, the pull, because it’s not his place to play victim.
The less he thinks about it, the better.