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Aether was soft, warm, beautiful, with a brilliance so great it seemed to outshine the sun itself. Wanderer, on the other hand, was rough, cold, like a night breeze that forces you to seek warmth.
Maybe that was why he liked to believe he was like a flower drifting through the world in search of his God's permanent warmth.
Or maybe it was because of that ridiculous story the traveler told him a while back, when they crossed a field full of sunflowers in Mondstadt.
It spoke of a distant world where a nymph named Clytie fell hopelessly in love with Apollo, the God of the Sun. But her devotion wasn't enough, for he could never return her feelings. Clytie died of heartbreak, and the Gods, taking pity on her, turned her into a sunflower so she could follow the sun wherever it went, knowing that even after death, she would still want to watch her beloved, no matter where he was.
He thought it was absolute bullshit at the time, probably because they had an audience and he couldn't, nor would he want to, openly show what hearing that story did to him. But he also found it deeply ironic to hear Durin say that Aether was like a sunflower, because... there was no way someone like him could be that pathetic.
The traveler was warm, irritating. He was light, he was heat. If he had to be something, he'd be the sun, the bright stars across the sky, lighting the way for everyone else. And if someone had to long for him, chase him, dream of him... wasn't Wanderer the right one to fill that role?
After all, Wanderer had always longed for things, always chased and yearned for something.
Kunikuzushi longed for his mother's love, for Niwa's, for that poor sick child's.
Scaramouche longed for a distant memory, an ambition that seemed to have the power to rewrite the past. He wanted to become a God and prove to the world it had been wrong, that he didn't deserve to be discarded.
And Murasame, on the other hand... he believed he had no right to long for anything beyond serving his sentence and bearing the heavy cross he'd taken upon himself. But...
Wasn't it his very existence that wanted this? A reason. To be cherished, to be special, to serve a purpose. To have something, or someone, to love. To belong, in some way, to something, to someone.
But it was so fucked up, wasn't it?
His reasons always, always turned out to be someone else. His soul always ended up longing for something that wouldn't last, because nothing ever did. Because this world seemed to have decided he deserved nothing more than to keep watching, keep wanting, unable to touch, unable to belong, unable to do anything but feel the bitterness that had been eating away at him for so long.
Why? Why? Why?
It was always the same, always the same goddamn result.
Why couldn't he control it? Why did this have to be his greatest flaw of all? Why did his soul have to be the very reason he was rejected and abandoned in the first place?
If that weakness, that disappointment, all that betrayal were what hardened Scaramouche and made him swear never to make the same mistake again... why couldn't he get rid of it?
Why couldn't he stop looking, stop longing, stop resisting the idea of letting someone in?
Tell me.
If you hate it so much,
if you despise your own existence so deeply...
Why do you look at him?
Why do you follow him?
Why do you want him as your only God?
Even now, he didn't seem to have answers. And he wasn't sure he wanted them anymore.
✧✧✧
Call me by my name,
over and over again,
until you grow tired of saying it.
Look at me. Talk to me. Touch me.
Shine for me, only for me,
until you become my God.
Aether was God.
Murasame was the sunflower that sought him out. And as fucked up as it was, once he understood that, he didn't even bother fighting it, because it felt so good, and he was genuinely weak against any kind of pleasure his soul could feel. And that included, unfortunately, the sensation of his skin's warmth, as well as the beating of his heart.
Sometimes they would lie together in bed, or somewhere quiet where it was just the two of them. Murasame always found a place on his chest, pressing his ear right against his favorite spot. Aether would laugh, say something strange that would irritate him, and stay there, sometimes holding him tight, other times just stroking his back, playing with the soft strands of his hair.
"I like it when you're honest," he would say, before comparing him to a damn cat.
Murasame could only close his eyes and focus on the steady, sometimes chaotic rhythm of that heart, and the soft, pleasant electric current running through him from his fingertips to the tips of his toes.
The warmth against his body, those calloused hands on his back, sometimes pushing their luck and slipping under the fabric to tickle along his spine. The flush spreading pleasantly from the center of his face to the edge of his ears. The feeling that there was nothing and no one else in the universe but the two of them, completely connected, their souls growing closer and closer to becoming one.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Aether never took long to stop saying stupid things and fall asleep. Murasame stayed there in silence, because he didn't need to sleep. He stayed watching that face flushed from sleep, those long blond lashes against his cheekbones, his lips slightly cracked from the desert heat. And his chest tingled, a pleasant warmth rising from its center toward his hands, toward his neck. He couldn't stop it, couldn't do anything but want to sink deeper into him, keep feeling his existence until his own disappeared.
Damn.
It was annoying, he hated it, it made him want to slam his head against the wall until he died, or at least until he stopped feeling like a complete idiot.
But he couldn't stop.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
It was like a goddamn addiction he couldn't quit.
He loved his bright smile, that infuriating attitude he only showed him when no one else was around. The vulnerability, the stupid weaknesses he tried to pass off as strengths, his fears, the darkest parts of his soul.
He loved all of it, absolutely everything he was ashamed to show others, because... wasn't it exactly what he hated about himself that made him shine so intensely? Wasn't it each one of those things he was so ashamed of that made him who he was?
He loved him, damn it. He loved him so much he felt like he was going insane.
And he was always starving for his soul, his affection, his heart, as if he hadn't eaten or drunk a single drop of water in centuries. He wanted to own the sun, to live in every single one of his thoughts.
Wasn't that a clear sign that he, and only he, was the flower that followed him relentlessly, the one who made up excuses to seek him out, even when he disguised them as simple coincidence?
Weren't those desires to occupy a large place in his heart the most selfish and desperate form of self-loathing?
But he wasn't a naive idiot. He wasn't like Clytie, who accepted her own broken heart like a fool. No, Murasame had carved his own path, been smarter about it, learned to use everything he hated, everything that scared him, as a door straight into him. And now the sun, his beloved God, was still here, shining for him. For and because of him, without tiring, without realizing that none of this was coincidence but a trap he himself had ultimately walked into.
Because if Murasame had the right to keep going, to find a new reason, a home... couldn't his sun's unconditional love and attention be that place?
It didn't matter if he grew bored. It didn't matter if he ended up regretting it.
If he couldn't fight these feelings, why even bother trying?
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Aether opened his eyes for a moment, maybe because of the intensity with which he was watching him, and gave him a soft smile.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. You just look ugly when you sleep."
Aether laughed through his nose and rolled his eyes.
"Well, you look beautiful when you do," he murmured, leaning in just enough to press a kiss to his forehead. "So get some rest. I'll wake you when it's time to go."
"You know I don't need to sleep," he replied, shrugging.
"That doesn't mean you can't," he insisted. "Go on. Try it. Let's see if you manage to dream something interesting this time."
Murasame closed his eyes for a moment, not really believing he could sleep. At least, not feeling like this. But...
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
The sound of his heart made him think otherwise. After all, he could only sleep like this, when he was sure there was no one else. When he was the one holding him in his arms and letting him just be, as if it were okay to set aside his fears, his pain, every part of himself he hated, and simply hold on to him, exposing every scar.
Just him, until his soul and body were satisfied.