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There’s a romance from Fontaine that tells the love between alphas and omegas as “a tale old as time,” so it often is in stories about fated partners. The lead omega is framed using the concept of beauty. The lead alpha is framed as a beast. This framing, in Diluc’s opinion, is because the alpha is a terrible person. The alpha being a cannibal lycanthrope is purely coincidental. To him, the story could function the same way if the beast wasn’t a huge furry monster. He interprets the tale as the love between a warm, kind “beauty” and a piece of garbage.
Being garbage, however, has nothing to do with gender. If his own fated partner were garbage, Diluc would want nothing to do with them. He doesn’t have time to sit through someone else’s redemption arc.
He finishes regaling Lumine with the story of the beauty and the beast. She and Paimon make an enthusiastic audience, save for their reactions to cannibalism.
“Awh. That’s so sweet! Paimon wishes you had someone like that, Traveler. This adventure would be a lot more heart-pounding if you fell in love with a princess. You could have a big wedding and become a queen.” Paimon fusses over Lumine, squealing and wiggling her tiny feet.
Lumine visibly cringes.
“Fated partners are not usually so whimsical,” Diluc says. “Not everyone has one, and they aren’t always romantic. Rivals, friends, colleagues, siblings—any two people can be fated to each other. The love story just happens to be commercially popular.”
“You don’t have to make it sound so boring.” Paimon flops on her back mid-air.
“It sounds normal for Teyvat,” Lumine says.
“Teyvat isn’t normal for Paimon, and Diluc is trying to make it boring.” Paimon scowls while upside-down. She looks ridiculous. She really is like a child.
“I read in the Knights of Favonius Library that everyone with a Vision has a fated partner.” Lumine kicks her feet, the tips of her shoes scuffing the face of the bar as she does so.
Diluc stares at her until she stops. “To the best of anyone’s knowledge.”
Lumine stares back, threatening to resume the assault on the bar. She leans forward on her elbows and eyes him with great suspicion. He can hear the question she is not asking. Diluc’s fate is a poorly-kept secret.
“What should we name our children?” Kaeya asked. He was peppering kisses along Diluc’s jaw while twirling rose-red curls around his fingers. “I love our beautiful children with violet hair and Electro Visions. I love you for carrying them for me. You’re going to be a wonderful father.”
Diluc wished he would shut up. No matter how many times Kaeya came inside him, Diluc couldn’t get pregnant. He was thankful for that—neither of them were in a position to become parents. They were too young, too busy, too complicated. During Kaeya’s heat periods, though, he almost regretted being born a beta.
Even now, if someone unbuttoned his shirt, they’d find him covered in teeth marks and nail tracks. He’s lucky he doesn’t have to deal with the aftermath of knotting, too. If Kaeya were an alpha, Diluc would still allow Kaeya to fuck him, but he wouldn’t be happy about it.
He’s not happy about it now, either, but he is resigned to the reality in which he has sex with his sworn brother.
The door to Angel’s Share swings open, and the competitive silence between Diluc and Lumine dissipates. Diluc turns his back to the entrance. He considers that an end to the conversation.
“Hi Kaeya!” Paimon rolls over, much like a dog, and greets the new guest.
“Good evening, Paimon. Isn’t it past your bedtime?” Kaeya’s greeting is warm. Diluc hears a stool squeak and imagines him sitting himself next to Lumine.
“Hey, you’re not Paimon’s dad!” Paimon fumes. Her angry sparkles fly over Diluc’s head and into the glass he’s cleaning. “...but if you must be nosy, it is later than Paimon likes to be awake.”
Lumine hums an affirmative. “We were supposed to leave for Liyue this morning, but that was earlier than Paimon likes to be awake.”
They bicker like that for a bit. In the future, Diluc thinks, they’ll have a wonderful friendship.
“If you need motivation to leave, I’m doing the last call. You can go now,” he says. He crouches to avoid looking at Kaeya as he turns to shelve his clean cups. Being in close proximity makes him concerned for the safety of nearby objects.
He shoved Kaeya to his knees hard enough to make the floor squeal. The nearest accent table rattled until the vase tipped over. Flowers and petal-water spilled over Kaeya’s calves.
They stared at each other for a long, sheepish moment. Kaeya had squinted up at him, and Diluc shrugged to remind him whose idea “playing rough” was.
The day before, they had tried an Inazuman wall-slam that broke a treasured family portrait frame. Kaeya laughed hard enough to nearly piss himself. Then he did piss himself while getting fucked against the wall from behind. He cried. Celestia could not have crafted a prettier person for that position.
“That’s helpful. I see you expect us to hike to Liyue in the dark,” Lumine says.
Diluc drags his mind out of the gutter. “The Hilichurls will be asleep if you start now. When you get to the border it should be quiet. That solves half your travel problems.”
“Yet it doesn’t solve the Paimon half.”
Kaeya clears his throat.
Diluc glances up at him from below. He’s pointing to a spot out of view, but eyeing Diluc right back. When Diluc stands, he sees Paimon dozing off in a pile made of Lumine’s backpack. Kaeya continues watching him.
“You could fit her in there,” he says of Paimon.
“I may have no choice.” Lumine’s face flattens. She hops off the stool, bundles her belongings and Paimon in her arms, and heads for the door. She pries it open with her pinky and her elbow. As usual, she proves herself to be a true hero.
“You’ll be fine,” Diluc says. “Safe travels. Enjoy the Rite of Descension.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Take care, Traveler.” Kaeya waves with his fingers.
“You, too. Thank you, again. Both of you. Couldn’t have saved the day without you.” The door hits her behind on the way out.
A strong gust of wind whistles through the bar. There’s the sound of heels clacking wildly on stone, then Paimon complaining into the night sky.
“Phew. Archons, that was a strong breeze, wa’nit? Didn’t know there was an omega in here. Sure smell it now,” someone says. Their voice is loud enough for the remaining patrons to hear.
There’s a group of three situated at a corner table. The speaker fans themselves with their menu card. Their company is digging in their purses to pay their tabs.
The air Lumine let in was a little thick, but Diluc notices nothing out of the ordinary. Lumine couldn’t smell like an omega. She isn’t from Teyvat. Based on what little she’s shared, she doesn’t have secondary sex characteristics. Any omega pheromones are probably Kaeya’s.
Kaeya goes, “Seems tasteless to talk about someone’s pheromones only once they leave the room.”
Kaeya was debasing himself. That’s the only way Diluc could describe it. For the many times Kaeya had come onto him, it had never been so serious. The air was thick enough to turn Diluc’s stomach. His head was pounding. He couldn’t move, but he couldn’t let Kaeya do this to himself, either. Yes, Kaeya had initiated. That didn’t make it feel less wrong.
Kaeya enjoyed being present when they messed around, and he was somewhere unreachable. He was showing symptoms typical of omega hormone fluctuation. Diluc was not an alpha. There was nothing he could offer to sate whatever hunger Kaeya was suddenly experiencing. He tried to crawl away, but Kaeya latched onto him and refused to let go.
“I can’t help you,” Diluc had said into his hand. He was covering his nose and mouth to protect them both, and Kaeya kept trying to ruin it. It was impossible to hold himself together in those conditions.
Kaeya had glared at him, then punched him once, hard, in the stomach while spitting a string of curses. Diluc exhaled through his nose and coughed into his hand. Kaeya’s panicked face was almost pathetic enough for Diluc to ignore the attempted assault. Kaeya collapsed onto him in defeat and wallowed in self-pity on his chest.
“I told you, you’re the only person that does help,” Kaeya muttered. His grip on Diluc waned. It felt lonely. “What do I have to say for you to believe you’re my destined partner?”
“It’s not a courtesy to say it to their face, either,” Diluc adds. He gathers receipts left on the counter and stuffs them in the drawer below. He isn’t feeling like paperwork tonight.
“They’d be better off saying nothing, don’t you think?”
The party of three approaches the bar. Two of them make a point of not looking at the third. That third patron avoids eye contact with Diluc.
“I only meant to say that the atmosphere in here is… Well, you know. It’s just a thing you say when…”
“When you what?” Diluc asks.
“When you’re a child,” Kaeya says. “Grow up.” He slips his hair over his shoulder and bats his eyelashes at Diluc.
Diluc pictures a young Kaeya offering him a flower, and an adult scattering rose petals across a blanket. Growing older is strange.
With one hand, Diluc slides Kaeya a glass with more ice than water. With the other, he collects the Mora waiting for him. He gestures to the exit with a fist full of coins that would hurt quite a bit to be punched with.
The trio scurries off into the night. That’s all it takes to be alone in the Angel’s Share with Kaeya.
Kaeya frowns. “You could stand to be less childish, too.”
“That’s uncalled for.” Especially coming from the master of creating minor inconveniences. Kaeya would turn into a pumpkin if he had to go a day without being petty.
He sips his water slowly. Deliberately. Without breaking eye contact with Diluc. The corner of his lips twitches toward a smile.
He recognizes water from his favorite spring. Diluc purifies it in-house and nobody else is allowed to pour it.
“You’re right,” Kaeya says. As he should. “Sorry.”
“Last call included you, too. You can go now.”
“It’s dangerous for an intoxicated omega to walk alone at night. Won’t you escort me?” Kaeya sighs a most despondent sigh while gazing helplessly at Diluc.
“Laying it on thick today, are we?” Diluc asks.
“I shouldn’t have to vie for your attention,” Kaeya says. He sighs much more dramatically the second time.
He talks as if there’s been a single moment of their lives since childhood that he didn’t have Diluc’s attention. Diluc is tempted to say as much, but he’d hate to give Kaeya the satisfaction.
He resists the urge to smile. “Poor you. It’s inappropriate to hit on someone at their job.”
“You’re not working. You don’t have to be here.”
“Neither do you. And you got here late. Go home.”
“I’d love to. That’s why I’m asking you to take me.”
“Get one of the other Knights to walk with you.”
“Why would I bother them when I have a big, strong man right here?” Kaeya plants his palms on the bar and nearly folds himself over it. He gets close enough to puff alcohol breath in the general direction of Diluc’s face.
Clearly he was pre-gaming back at the Knights of Favonius Headquarters. It doesn’t take a detective to deduce his intentions.
Kaeya handed him the bottle. It was stolen from a special stash of wine that had been aging since before Diluc was born. He wasn’t going to get himself in trouble by drinking it. Father probably had a purpose for it.
“It doesn’t count if you don’t swallow,” Kaeya had told him.
Diluc asked what he was supposed to do with it. He found himself eating—drinking, more like—his words.
He didn’t like the flavor, but it went down smoother with Kaeya’s spit in his mouth. Between sloppy kisses, Kaeya encouraged Diluc to taste more than his lips. And Diluc—young, dumb, horny Diluc—indulged.
Older, negligibly-smarter Diluc has still been known to indulge.
“Your wiles won’t work forever,” he lies.
“That’s okay. It only needs to work until you let me move back in.”
The winery is emptier without Kaeya. Kaeya, according to himself, is emptier without him.
He doesn’t “get” what Kaeya goes through as an omega, but he imagines they have the same experience. He knows what Kaeya smells like only when Kaeya isn’t around replacing oxygen. There’s a Kaeya-shaped dip in his mattress that he can’t sleep in comfortably.
Diluc hasn’t slept well in a long time.
“That is never happening,” he lies again. “I don’t need the Knights of Favonius breathing down my neck.”
Kaeya’s stool squeaks. His fingers trail along the counter, as he slides around the bar to Diluc’s side. His lips are parted the tiniest bit, and his bangs fall like that, and Diluc is so smitten that it hurts. He wears a facade of being unfazed, but his heart beats hard enough to ache.
Fingertips skim his bare forearm. Gooseflesh rises wherever Kaeya touches him, and a shiver chases close behind. He regrets rolling up his sleeves. He regrets leaving the top button undone—Kaeya buries his nose in the crook of Diluc’s neck and exhales a chill down his shirt. He becomes far too aware of how warm his skin is, how sweat is beading in all the places Kaeya likes to be.
“You don’t mean to include me in that, do you?” Kaeya asks against his jaw. There’s a smile in his voice that drives Diluc mad.
Diluc shakes his head.
Kaeya nips at his earlobe. “Thank you.”
His heat period was miserable that time. He guilt-tripped Diluc about how useless masturbating was.
They had promised that their “fling” was over. This violated all of their new boundaries, many of which were Kaeya’s idea.
He’d lubricate himself using Kaeya’s slick then get fucked senseless for days at a time with minimal breaks. The breaks started with sex. The breaks typically had sex during them and ended with more sex.
He covered Diluc in bite marks and swore to Barbatos they’d be together the rest of their lives. Diluc told him how ridiculous that sounded, only to receive a proper mating bite on the back of his neck. He came on his stomach with Kaeya inside of him.
Both of them were so surprised by the climax that the fact they nearly bonded went unaddressed.
Kaeya reaches to stroke the back of Diluc’s neck, where he’s affirmed and reaffirmed their bond countless times. The skin there is perpetually tender. At last, it is safe to relax.
“How was your day?” he asks.
“Busy,” Diluc says. He lifts Kaeya onto the bar so he can stand trapped in the best thighs in Teyvat. His forehead lands in the fluff of Kaeya’s collar. The material makes his face tingle, but it doesn’t smell of pheromones like it usually does. It bothers him.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“There was a celebration for the Traveler.”
“That sounds fun. Lumine is good company. She and Paimon are cute.”
Lumine and Paimon are cute. That doesn’t mean Diluc wants to hear about it. He spent all day listening to people sing their praises, thanking Barbatos for bringing them to aid in a time of great need. The need wouldn’t be so great if the people in charge of providing aid were competent. He wouldn’t moonlight as a vigilante if they were.
“The Knights are trying to adapt to this new Traveler-centric era. The Honorary Knight title is sweet, but she makes things complicated for us. She’s a paperwork nightmare,” Kaeya says.
Diluc grunts into his white fur collar in response. It’s full of meaning that he doesn’t have to verbalize at this stage in their relationship. His hands spread across Kaeya’s thighs, squeezing every bit of skin they can. He massages deep near the heat of Kaeya’s groin.
Kaeya bites his lip and groans. “I know. You don’t want to listen to Knight business.”
Diluc nods. Being near one’s bonded partner is supposed to be soothing and Knight business is not soothing. Lisa has told him repeatedly that he needs to let himself relax. He is making a concerted effort to “chill.”
He grabbed Kaeya by the chin and made him look at his reflection in the mirror. His naked thighs were forced apart by Diluc’s foot. A sickening combination of slick and spend dripped from above, ruining the leather of Diluc’s boot.
Diluc had found it disgusting. The sight of his cock dangling from his undone pants, hitting Kaeya’s face, should have been attractive. He got a sense of dysphoria, instead, from wondering if the scene would be better if he had a knot, like an alpha.
“You’re thinking about your fancy shoes, aren’t you?” Kaeya had asked. He was side-eyeing Diluc in the mirror as if he never got testy over his own clothing. It snapped Diluc out of his thoughts. Kaeya has an amazing way of finding the worst “right” thing to say.
The hypocrisy nudged Diluc’s foot further up, until the sole of his boot pressed Kaeya’s still-hard dick flat to his abdomen. Kaeya thanked him.
His fingers seek out Kaeya’s belt and hook into it to tug him closer. He unclasps the metal accessories dangling off of it, then drops it near his feet. The pieces clink and clatter against each other on the wood floor.
“Oh? Is that what you want?” Kaeya teases.
Diluc nods again. His eyes are closed, so he has to picture Kaeya being smug over their free use arrangement finally being taken advantage of.
“I thought you had a busy day. Do you even have the energy to fuck me?”
“Do you have the energy to take it?” Diluc asks. Because he always has the energy to fuck Kaeya.
“As long as I won’t be doing the cleanup.”
The thought reminds Diluc of where they are. The tavern is not as clean as he would like after a long day, and they’re going to make it worse. Sanitizing everything afterwards is going to be a nightmare. Airing the place out will take all night. If they’re going to have sex in the tavern, however, Diluc would prefer not to see the mess they’re about to make of the counter.
Between both of their Visions, they manage to extinguish the lamps on the first floor without separating. It’s a skill that they have a concerning amount of practice with. But they haven’t mastered it yet, and a melt reaction triggers on their intertwined bodies. Their clothes are soaked.
“Wow,” Kaeya whispers. “Look how wet I am.”
Diluc bites him. Kaeya laughs, and Diluc falls in love with him for another endless time.