[ Just when he thinks he's grown used to this, to the new status quo - or at least, just when he's told himself enough that things won't change that he begins to believe it - Kaeya has to go and do something like this, to upend everything on its head once again.
At this late hour, Kaeya has been the only patron left in the bar for a long time; everyone has gone home, the rest of the staff, the bards, even the stragglers that wait until Diluc levels them with a glare to head on out. Such circumstances weren't uncommon; Kaeya often stayed late at the Angel's Share, whether or not Diluc is tending the bar that night, and with the weather the way that it is, Diluc keeps hoping it will lighten up enough for Kaeya to go home without him feeling too guilty about it.
For better or for worse, he knows all the other man wants is company. Tonight he yet again begrudgingly accepts the fact that he is the target of that focus, much as he might wish otherwise. Wouldn't it be so much easier if Kaeya would hang around The Cat's Tail? Or any other tavern in Mondstadt? There's certainly no shortage of them for him to choose from, and many with owners that will treat him with a warmer reception than Diluc will. If Kaeya hadn't shown his face here tonight, Diluc could have had a nice, quiet, average evening, tending to his work.
Yet merely the idea of Kaeya going somewhere else makes his chest tighten in a way he thought he left behind long ago, broken on the night Kaeya confessed the truth to him and unmade the world that was already crumbling at his feet. His heart won't let him off the hook for feelings left lingering, an unconfessed truth. They had both kept secrets from one another, but now, Diluc's seems so...childish. That they still cling to him when so much time has passed, when it's been so long since he and Kaeya were brothers, is nothing but empty foolishness.
And now Kaeya does this. Grasping his wrist, grazing his skin, teasing him in a manner that he cannot possibly know the depths of. He's just a shameless flirt, as he's always been, and very drunk, making him even more tactile than usual. It doesn't mean anything. It shouldn't mean anything.
Diluc doesn't want it to mean anything.
He clears his throat. ]
No, I think I'd rather be cruel. I'm cutting you off before I have to carry you home myself. I can't promise I wouldn't get tired halfway through and abandon you in the street.
[ He wouldn't, of course. The barest moment of hesitation, and then he is snatching his wrist away, skin burning where Kaeya had touched him. Damn him. ]
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At this late hour, Kaeya has been the only patron left in the bar for a long time; everyone has gone home, the rest of the staff, the bards, even the stragglers that wait until Diluc levels them with a glare to head on out. Such circumstances weren't uncommon; Kaeya often stayed late at the Angel's Share, whether or not Diluc is tending the bar that night, and with the weather the way that it is, Diluc keeps hoping it will lighten up enough for Kaeya to go home without him feeling too guilty about it.
For better or for worse, he knows all the other man wants is company. Tonight he yet again begrudgingly accepts the fact that he is the target of that focus, much as he might wish otherwise. Wouldn't it be so much easier if Kaeya would hang around The Cat's Tail? Or any other tavern in Mondstadt? There's certainly no shortage of them for him to choose from, and many with owners that will treat him with a warmer reception than Diluc will. If Kaeya hadn't shown his face here tonight, Diluc could have had a nice, quiet, average evening, tending to his work.
Yet merely the idea of Kaeya going somewhere else makes his chest tighten in a way he thought he left behind long ago, broken on the night Kaeya confessed the truth to him and unmade the world that was already crumbling at his feet. His heart won't let him off the hook for feelings left lingering, an unconfessed truth. They had both kept secrets from one another, but now, Diluc's seems so...childish. That they still cling to him when so much time has passed, when it's been so long since he and Kaeya were brothers, is nothing but empty foolishness.
And now Kaeya does this. Grasping his wrist, grazing his skin, teasing him in a manner that he cannot possibly know the depths of. He's just a shameless flirt, as he's always been, and very drunk, making him even more tactile than usual. It doesn't mean anything. It shouldn't mean anything.
Diluc doesn't want it to mean anything.
He clears his throat. ]
No, I think I'd rather be cruel. I'm cutting you off before I have to carry you home myself. I can't promise I wouldn't get tired halfway through and abandon you in the street.
[ He wouldn't, of course. The barest moment of hesitation, and then he is snatching his wrist away, skin burning where Kaeya had touched him. Damn him. ]