LOYALTY. | diluc x reader

six - snark

the ground crunched beneath your feet, you sent the orange leaves flying left and right with a kick of your feet and a sour look on your face. you held your arms crossed over your chest, partly as a puny attempt at body heat.

you held your eyebrows pushed together and your eyelids low, a frown present as well. your unstoppable thoughts didn't help the fact your head hurt, they filled your brain up and spilled over like an overflowing pot of boiling water.

a salty chuckle escaped from your mouth, blowing air out of your nose. after a while of propelling the leaves into the air, you found a place to sit down at. you didn't want to have to deal with any person today, you wanted to be alone with your thoughts no matter how hard that was.

-"stupid, stupid..." you held a monologue.

you hugged your knees that stood up against your chest, resting your chin atop of them. you couldn't help but think of the celebratory party that took place only about a week ago. diluc was avoiding you and refusing to talk to you or hold any kind of contact with you ever since the party, and you didn't understand why. was it something i did? you ask yourself for the third time today.

every time something was wrong you'd go to the docks, but this week you felt you just needed some time alone (at a newer place) whether it was only an hour or two. so here you were, somewhere in a random field of orange trees and to some extent wet grass.

the bark of the trees was darker then the usual, the ground moist and the sky cloudy as a few rolls of lightning passed every now and then. it never stopped raining, at least not since the night of the party, it only took a few breaks.

you remembered the conversation you had with diluc just one day ago. how he said he "didn't see a reason to cling to things that have outlived their purpose" once you unevitably mentioned what happened the night of the party.

it wasn't like what he said was unexpected, of course. you had to prepare yourself for rejection no matter how you saw it. no matter how many times he proved you wrong, you still thought you knew him.

-"how did we get here, diluc?" you asked into the space around you while staring at one point on the ground.

although you were physically alone at the moment, you were never completely alone. the nature around you proved your point, as the sky showed you its white veins and its grey cotton-like bones.

the mondstadt wind kissed your cold nose, assuring you it was okay to be emotional as it was the same.

you wondered if he ever knew how he made you feel, not just now but years ago, even when you were only teenagers. often times you wondered if he ever felt the same way; if he ever tried his hardest to make you happy when you cried; if he ever stood up for you when you most needed it; if he ever held you so tight to his own body, not wanting to lose you?

of course he did, he did all of those things, but that was once upon a time. he changed, as people do. surely his emotions changed as he grew out of his old shoes, right?

this was all too much thinking, your head wasn't getting any better either. two drops of water slid down your face, one came from your eye and the other from the sky. it cried with you, it wasn't pouring as if shouting, it was slowly and softly dropping as if comforting you.

you wiped the back of your thumb over your eyes, feeling calm in the cold. you finally got up, brushing off anything that decided to stick to your ass when you were sat.

diluc had himself propped against the fence of his balcony, the tassels on the back of his coat danced like seaweed as the air flew against his side. he pulled his collar further up, moving his head to where the wind didn't flow from. his hair flew in the same direction as everything else, especially the trees.

-"master diluc, captain kaeya is here to see you," a young woman in a maid dress spoke softly to the grieving man, "he says he wants to talk to you"

-"fine," he sighed, already done with the man even though they didn't speak at all, "send him up here"

the maid nodded and quickly left off, leaving the man to loaf about whatever seemed to be clouding up his mind. it was an emotional fight he was losing, going back and forth only to complicate his own feelings further.

-"i suppose you know why i'm here" kaeya said as he approached diluc, standing next to him.

kaeya purposefully stood in the opposite direction of which the wind came from, refusing to create a shield for the other man in a subtly petty way.

-"i'm not sure, mind explaining?" diluc deadpanned at him.

-"are you living under a rock?"

-"there's nothing to talk about" diluc retorted, looking at his gloved fingers.

-"don't give me that," kaeya began, "there's obviously something to talk about"

diluc stood silent. he knew kaeya was right and he hated it, he wasn't sure if he hated kaeya or the fact that kaeya was right about this. or both. probably both.

-"you know she loves you, right?" kaeya said without putting a second thought into it, looking at the view in front of him while a piano was played from the lobby of the winery.

-"and you know that how?" diluc asked, looking over at him.

-"she shows it by protecting you" kaeya said after a moment of thinking.

-"protecting me?" the red haired man thought out loud, still looking at the man next to him in expectation.

-"you are so blind to it aren't you?" kaeya asked after a short snicker, "now i know you have those superhero complexes of yours where you so desperately want to protect everyone even though you refuse to admit it-"

-"have you come here to bash me? again?" diluc interrupted him, this time he was the blunt one. kaeya just laughed.

-"as i was saying- everybody needs somebody who would be willing to protect them, as do you. have you ever wondered who that person might be for you?" he paused, looking at the man who shot daggers at him, "she is. she always has been. that's the way she shows she loves you, truly." he ended, his blue orbs scanning diluc's red ones.

-"i want to be able to forgive her, kaeya, i really do." diluc admitted.

-"so then forgive her" kaeya spoke as if it seemed so easy, holding his arms on his hips in pride, "as i said, if you don't tell her, i will"

🔺🔻🔺

a/n: wow. over 1k reads and over 100 votes?? literally so grateful for you, thank you from the bottom of my heart :,) this chapter was much more of a filler then anything, as it has fewer words then my normal chapters.

also an update on the xiao x reader: its coming along! as is an idea for a modern day au xinyun fanfic, though im still thinking about how to shape the story.