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In a graveyard where people laid to die, a young man fell to his knees, head bowed begging in prayer. Master Crepus had tried to spend his whole, short life teaching his eldest heir everything he needed to know; how to run an empire, how to hunt fowl, which berries would keep him alive and which ones would quicken his demise. The only lesson he didn't have time to prepare Diluc for was how to grieve.
In the praying man’s lap laid his lover, the mist surrounding the winery at night kissing their bodies.
Childe was almost unrecognisable like this, beaten, bruised and bloody, but Diluc could recognise him even if Barbatos took back both his eyes. The massive mask that usually sat endearingly in the nest of his floppy hair hid a majority of the damage he had taken to the face but that didn't stop Diluc’s heart from panicking in the tightness of his chest. His breath leaves him all at once, the monstrous body bleeding steadily on top of him and staining the grass and his sleep pants a sickly shade of red disguised by the night.
Childe lifts the mask, showing off the crooked mess that was his nose and dried blood staining his smiling teeth. His body doubled down to its original size, Childe’s lips don’t stop their awkward stretch despite the grimace in the rest of his face as his limbs rearranged themself back into something almost human. Diluc ought to punch his nose straight and knock some common sense into him but his body betrays him and he’s kissing the bastard instead.
Nature is fair. God is fair.
The hare was small and fast, handmade to escape and survive, it has a chance to turn and live, a prospect of a life without danger. But God has also made the fox fast and hungry for the hare in the first place so doesn't that make God cruel. If God truly loved them, the fox wouldn't be ravenous and the hare wouldn't be his favourite meal.
The fox has his mouth open and the hare crawls into it willingly, foolish to think the fox would keep him safe.
God was cruel for making Diluc love him.
Diluc stares straight into the fox’s maw, gulps at the sight of saliva and teeth bared just for him.
“I hope we don't lose our memories in the afterlife,” Childe laughed, rolling over so that he laid next to Diluc, turning his head so that their eyes would meet. His face was softened by the night sky kissing him all over, the sea of stars reflected shining like pools of water in his eyes, another trickle of blood gushing from his broken nose “I really want to remember this one.”
“Stop being overdramatic,” Diluc scolded, heart contracting like it was flinching at Childe’s words, anger at himself for caring. He shouldn’t care. But he did and he was angry with himself.
He didn’t want to remember this night. The fear that possessed him every time Childe came crawling back to him, limping in badly concealed suffering.
“Don't be overdramatic,” Diluc repeated, voice wavering with physical exhaustion and an emotion that was heavy enough to crush him, “You aren't dying . So stop it.”
Childe kept silent then, lips quirking upwards, his hollow eyes uncharacteristically sad. They both knew he was, they were twin partners in purgatory waiting for Childe on death row to finally kick the bucket. But Diluc had always been stubborn, even in the face of God. He would patch Childe each time without question, the tendons in his nimble fingers familiar with every scar that decorated Childe proudly.
He could do this with his eyes closed, wrapping the bandages gently around Childe’s chest, trying to steel himself as he felt every broken rib beneath ghostly skin. There was no need to go back to the Winery just yet, not since Diluc started making a habit of keeping salve on him at all times just in case Childe decided to find him while they were both too far from home. Childe hummed sweetly as Diluc knotted up ends and demanded hydro to clean dried wounds, his eyes full of something horrifying.
“Next time I should just leave you to die,” Diluc whispered, voice hushed and gentle despite the anger in his words, hands brushing sweaty bangs out of Childe’s face as Childe preened into him.
“C’mon Red, you'd miss me too much.”
“In your dreams.” Childe smiled up at him, his teeth still red. “I don't care about you,” Diluc lied, hands curling into fists as he grabbed Childe by the collar of his god awful maroon shirt, red. Red enough to hide the blood. There was always so much red shared in between the two of them
(Diluc would ask Childe to stay but Childe was a stubborn piece of shit and goddamit Diluc loved him all the more for it.)
“I can tell,” Childe teased him, turning so that he was lying on his stomach even as Diluc hit him for it, scolding him for ruining his patchwork, the corner of his eyes crinkling. Diluc turned his head away, he won’t ever be able to go to Falcon Coast again once Childe was gone and he already grieved the scent of sea breeze as he was enveloped by it.
The night kissed them, hides them from prying eyes as Childe crawled up to him on his forearms, distracting Diluc from the ache in his body by kissing the other man desperately. Kissing Childe was like drowning, it filled his lungs and stole his breath and it was horrible. Diluc grabbed Childe by the collar of his armour and kissed him deeper, greedy for it.
The rest of Mondstadt was silent around them, as if the whole world paused to give them a private moment to themselves. A gift, for they had limited moments left. Diluc felt his heart breaking as it lurched into his throat, a litany of sorrow he tried to push away from his mind as he tried to focus on what he had now. Ginger hair in his eyes, strong hands pulling at his shoulders, a prayer of affection whispered against his cheek following a rainpour of small kisses to his skin.
“I love you,” Childe said, as honest as he said anything else. “I love you,” He repeated, tucking Diluc’s hair behind his ear gently.
“We aren't in love,” Diluc said- lied , eyes shifting from Childe's earnest face to the damp grass beneath their rotting bodies. He has half the mind to ask Childe about funeral plans, what kind of flowers would he like atop of his casket? The lampgrass he picked for Diluc every time he came home? Does he want Diluc to dig a plot next to him with his bare hands? Childe stared at him, something soft in his features ( so young, so boyish, it wasn’t fair ) as he gathered Diluc in his arms.
“Can’t we just pretend, my dear?” Childe asked, sighing at the pained look on Diluc’s face.
Diluc said nothing in reply, shifting his limbs and contorting them into a palatable shape, tucking himself under Childe’s chin and melting into his chest as if he was made by God’s hands to do so, head tilted up to watch the stars.
They were dying boys. Diluc begged Childe to kiss him. He begged and begged and begged, burning hands finding Childe’s neck and the gentle curve of his back.
There was blood slick in between his fingers, warm and sticky. Childe only smiled down at him, the look in his eyes no less reassuring as the corners of his mouth ticked upwards, a gloved hand not any less red finding Diluc’s cheek and tilting his face upwards, kissing him breathlessly like spring had come early.
They were killing each other, Diluc thought, lips pursed together in desperation. He was gasping. They were killing each other, Diluc cried as Childe squeezed him tighter to his chest like Diluc was the one dying.
He would not be losing. He will not die. Diluc screwed his eyes shut to avoid the sight of blood streaming down Childe’s broken nose but it does nothing to mask the scent of rust in between their tired, hungry mouths.
The fox will never be satisfied, God had made him born to hunt. The hare loved him but he knew the fox would never settle for him, the promise of safety over the danger he was created to chase on dying breath. The hare will love the fox anyway, even if it meant seeing his lover mounted with broken bones, even if it meant knowing any day he would come home to a corpse instead of a man. Diluc felt helpless, he spent his whole life serving others but it was all for nothing, he could not save the man he loved.
The hare- Diluc, Diluc offers Childe his neck, bares it bravely- foolishly. Childe hummed against the column of his throat, teeth sinking into the pale flesh above his pulse, hands curled possessively into Diluc’s hair. The break of skin, the slickness of blood pooling down his collar, the gasp that escaped his lips. It hurts but Diluc lets himself feel it, the meaning of being loved by the Harbinger. He would keep the other full, and would offer any of his limbs to keep his lover alive and fed, but even he knew he wasn’t enough. Childe hummed against his Adam's apple, hot tongue cleaning up his teeth mark in apology. Diluc tilted his head further, offering more.
“Diluc,” Childe whispered, reverent. Diluc didn't dare open his eyes, blindly finding Childe’s hand and letting the other man squeeze him until they were not two individual people but instead one pair of skeletons separated by layers of skin, waiting to be reunited again the moment their owners rotted away. His knuckles were white with how hard Childe gripped onto him, his palms burning hot and a strange shade of pink from his vision. “Diluc,” Childe said again, kissing him from his wet eyes to his heartbeat, “Why are you crying, sweetheart?”
Was he crying? Diluc blinked his eyes open, feeling the struggle of exhaustion and damp eyelashes and thinking it would be easier to keep his eyes sewed shut. He tilted his head down to look at his lover, only to hiccup when he saw a corpse instead.
“Hey,” The corpse shushed him, gentle as the day he had met him, “Hey, don't worry about it, it's just a scratch.” He laughed, sheepish. He was lying to Diluc as if Diluc was one of his naive younger siblings, smiling with his eyes crinkled as if this was a joke. Diluc would have killed him himself for that, if Childe wasn't already doing that for him.
“ Just a scratch ,” Diluc scoffed in reply, unable to mask the hurt in his voice, hands finding Childe’s face instead of his throat. Childe slumped into him, a breathy wheeze slipping past his lips as Diluc’s thumb pressed into the plump flesh of his mouth, parting open sweetly just for Diluc. Childe kissed the back of his knee and Diluc could cry. Only the sun has ever been this close. No one would ever touch him like this again. “I worry about you.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Childe confessed, letting Diluc prod at his face. “This was part of the deal, remember?”
(Diluc does remember. They were much younger then. Childe was covered in blood that night too, the night he limped to the Winery and collapsed into Diluc’s arms for the first but not last time.
“You're going to spend the rest of your life worrying if I’ll make it home alive,” Childe had warned him, back slumped against Diluc’s chest. Diluc’s heartbeat had stuttered when Childe called Diluc his home . “Are you sure you still want that?”
Diluc, embarrassed, young and shy, buried his face into Childe’s shoulder. It had made the other man laugh at him, endeared, hands combing through the curtain of red hair that flowed over the both of them.
“I want you,” Diluc confessed back then. Those words have remained true since.)
Diluc turned his head to the sky. There is no space up in Celestia for both of them.
Diluc wouldn't go alone. So he won't go at all.
“Yeah,” Diluc sighed in defeat, he had made his mind years ago, “Yeah, of course I remember.” Childe crawled up to sit properly in Diluc’s lap, gentle hands tilting their faces together into another heartbreaking kiss.
Tucked sweetly against his temporary lover, Diluc stared up at the stars as warm lips kissed a line against his artery, wondering why God did not bother making them as beautiful and timeless as he made the night sky.