Chapter Text
Gods, this entire week has been nothing but frustrating.
Most of the documentation on Dottore- or Zandik as the records call him, are under lock and key by the Mantra. Luckily being the pet favorite of Lesser Lord Kussanali makes that little detail negligible. No, that's not what's been pissing him off. It's that he can't make sense of any of it. How is he supposed to figure out how the fucker is planning to use the Moon Marrows if he can't make sense of anything the mad man has written about it?
Needless to say sitting at a desk was getting him nowhere. He needed to go out into the field- retrace some of Dottore's steps. The visual should help him figure out what he's planning. Probably. Hopefully.
Did he mention how much he hates the fucking desert? Because he hates the desert. The heat is fine. The mechanically perfect nature of his existence prevents him from getting too hot or too cold. He hates everything else about the environment. It's bland and everything looks the same, which makes it awful to navigate or find anything without someone familiar with the land to guide him. And this isn't the sort of thing he can go to Sethos about. He'll start asking questions, and right now he isn't sure how to answer any of them.
There are enough people involved in what's supposed to be his personal business as is.
It’s fine. This is fine. He's clearly just gotten too comfortable with having other people around. He's self sufficient. He found the place he was looking for. Eventually. Now he just has to figure out why he's here, or well- why Dottore was here, he supposes. Eugh, it just looks like another set of crumbled ruins. A dime a dozen in the desert. He swears, this better not turn out to be yet another dead end and waste of his fucking-
“Hat Guy!!!”
The sound of an all too familiar cheery tone has him whipping his head around, then up. His brows shoot up into his hairline before furrowing together in confusion. What the-
“Durin?” He questions, forcing his posture to relax as a pair of arms are suddenly thrown around his neck. “What are you doing here?”
Durin pulls back enough to look at him, but keeps his arms firmly locked around his neck. The end result is a closeness that has their noses brushing together if he moves, so he keeps himself perfectly still to avoid the unnecessary contact. “Well- I came to see you! Obviously.” The dragon's breath smells like the honey roasts back in Mondstadt. Gross.
“Obviously.” He parrots, feeling his eyes flicker back and forth between Durin's before deciding to focus on the bridge of his nose instead. Keeping eye contact this close to someone is weird. He doesn't like it. More importantly- “How did you find me?”
“Uhm…” Durin's shoulders visibly slump at the question. He's always so easy to read. It's one of the things he likes most about talking to him. He doesn't know how to hide his emotions for shit. It makes interacting with him easy. There's not twelve layers of hidden meaning in every interaction, only the emotions plainly written on his face.
Durin's nervous, embarrassed maybe. It's cute, makes him want to grab Durin's face between his hands and smoosh it. Maybe bite his cheek. He feels that way around Durin a lot since he's become human. Something about this new form frequently activates his cuteness aggression.
“Spit it out.” He snaps, sharp and demanding. See? Cuteness aggression.
Durin merely shrugs. He isn't looking at him anymore. Which is quite the feat, given how close they are. Not many other places to look. He still hasn't let go, either. “Intuition?”
“Intuition.” He deadpans.
Durin hums, swaying in place slightly as his tail swishes behind him. After a few seconds of mulling that word over, he nods. “Yup. Sticking with that.”
So much for talking to his guy being easy. He sighs and steps back, ignoring the visible pout that forms on Durin's lips when his arms fall back to his side. “Look, I don't have time for whatever this is, okay? I'm busy.”
Good thing he doesn't have a heart, or the hurt on Durin's face might have very well broken it in two. He shoves the feeling into the back of his mind with all the others he doesn't want to acknowledge, and turns his attention back to the ruins.
Durin pipes up behind him. At least the hurt doesn't reach his voice. “I need the book back.”
Huh. He wasn't expecting that. He hums. “Already? It's only been a week. Did something happen?”
“I-” Durin makes a frustrated noise. “I don't know.”
“You don't know?”
“I just need it back, okay? Then I'll leave you alone and you can go back to doing–” Durin makes a vague gesture towards the ruins, his next words laced with a bitter venom he's never heard from him before. “Whatever this is.”
He shoots a glare back at Durin. What the fuck is this guy's problem? Since when did he become such a brat? “Sorry I can't drop everything for you a second time. As if it hasn't been a week since I saw you.”
Durin's left eye actually starts twitching from irritation. That's new. He half expects the dragon to fly off in a huff, or start yelling at him or something that equally shows how insufferable he feels today. Instead he turns on his heel and takes a seat in the sand, bringing his knees up to his chest and resting his chin on them. His back now fully turned away. It's…oddly passive aggressive for Durin. Why is he acting like this? He's never been the type to jump to anger or pull crap like this, even when his abyssal power was going haywire. His default way of showing distress is to shrink back or shut down, not puff his chest out and act like a prick. It's worrying.
He really doesn't have time for this. Who knows when Dottore will make his next move? He can't risk being caught off guard again. None of them can. Too much is at stake now.
….Durin did just nearly get erased from existence. He gave the original copy of that magic book to him. Durin said he trusted him with it, to keep it safe. His heart. His soul. The object that holds his tether to Teyvat. His very fate itself.
He hates that it takes less than a full second for him to decide which is more important right now.
He lets out a sigh and makes his way over to Durin. The dragon's eyes pointedly look down at the sand when his shadow crowds over him, but that's fine. He can be stubborn.
He lets out a snort and grabs both of those pouty cheeks, one in each hand, and squishes Durin's face together. His finger tips rest on Durin's chin, allowing him to tilt the other's head back until the tips of purple horns are grazing his abdomen. “Quit pouting.”
“I'm not pouting.” Says the pouting dragon. “You're just being a jerk.”
He quirks a brow, pinching one of Durin's cheeks. “I'm acting the same as always. You're the one being weird.”
Durin's mouth opens, then closes. He keeps playing with the other's face as he watches the gears visibly turn without ever clicking into place properly. It's as equally cute as it is amusing. “I'm sorry.”
“It's fine. Everyone has their off days, just don't get in the habit of taking your bad mood out on others. Most people won't take it as gracefully as I do.”
“I'll keep that in mind.” Durin mummers, and for a few moments the two just sorta…stare at each other. Both lost in their own thoughts, maybe trying to figure out what the other is thinking about. He's got a familiar lost look in his eyes, the one he gets whenever he's dissociating about nothing in particular.
“Hey, Hat Guy?”
Durin's voice is softer now, a tone much more familiar to him. The sound relaxes some of the lingering tension in his shoulder.
“Hm?”
“You look really pretty in this lighting.”
Rather than dignifying that comment with an actual response, he buries both the words and the way they make his stomach flip by grabbing Durin by the horns, and shoving his head down until his forehead smacks against his own knees. Conveniently muffling the sound of Durin's hyena cackling in the process.
“Come on. Let's go get your book.”