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Diluc is woken from slumber by the rattle of lungs. Not his own, no, his breath rests easy in his chest, but he knows the other set of heartbeats as well as his own regardless. He rolls over, the duvet slipping off his tense shoulders.
“Zhongli,” he murmurs, groggy. Diluc grips the other man’s shoulder lightly, and he trembles, his lips held in a shaky line, “ Zhongli, wake up.”
A hand reaches to cover his own and Diluc lets out a breath. “I’m fine,” Zhongli whispers, he looks almost dazed, whatever nightmare it was still clinging to his consciousness as it tries to pave its way out of sleep. He sits up properly, he’s still trembling but his breathing is even. Diluc can’t help but place a hand on his elbow, as if to steady him.
Zhongli’s expression softens as he takes in Diluc’s frown, “I’m alright. Promise.”
He leans forward and presses a kiss onto Diluc’s forehead, pushing aside his bangs to do so, lifting the other hand to cup his jaw. He’s comforting Diluc, instead of the other way around, and it would spark his temper, normally, but Zhongli’s hands still shake so he keeps his mouth shut.
As usual Zhongli holds Diluc’s face in his hands with the utmost tenderness; as if he’s cradling a newborn star, still learning how to brighten the darkness. Is Zhongli that darkness? Is that why he holds Diluc so close now, not solely as a comfort but to chase away the shadows that haunt him during dawns like these? Nights like the one just past.
“So...another nightmare?” Diluc murmurs. He smooths out the lines beneath Zhongli’s eyes with gentle fingers and he leans into it. Never, in the time he has known the man, has Zhongli flinched away from the burns which call his hands home.
Zhongli’s own hands push back Diluc’s bangs again, as if he’s still spooling himself together. “Yes,” he murmurs. “The same one as usual.”
Ah.
Osial .
In the nine months since Zhongli had ended his contract as the geo archon—and thus begun his retirement sojourn in Monstadt—his sleeping hours have been plagued by nightmares. Not every night, but it happens often enough that the skin underneath Zhongli’s eyes is constantly shadowed. He sleeps much better when Diluc is there, or so he says, though this night seems to be a rare exception.
Of all the awful memories Zhongli relives in his sleep, Osial is the worst. It’s not the original battle against the god that plays in his mind, but his reawakening. When Osial had attacked Liyue Harbour after he was released by the Eleventh Harbinger. Diluc knows the story well, through both his network of informants and what details Zhongli has quietly shared with him. If he hadn’t lived to see Dvalin become Stormterror and back again he might not believe it. But he does, he has to, the haggard shadows in Zhongli’s eyes the most awful proof he could ask for.
According to Zhongli the dream starts the same way the day played out in real life. After he and the traveller return to the harbour, the Tinquan’s Jade Chamber floating high above the city, and they part ways. Only an hour later rain starts pouring from the sky, the cries of the Millelith sounding off around the city, a chorus of alarm. The worst part, Zhongli tells him after each nightmare, is that he always ends up in the same place watching as Osial, one of his worst and oldest enemies, breaks through his rocky spears and tears the Jade chamber from the sky. In this dream most of the adepti never come, only Xiao, the Yaksha who had served him for thousands of years, and Ganyu, a half-illuminated beast, stay and fight with the mortals.
And they both fall along with the chamber, and then the harbour, the boats, the redwood shopfronts and finally Zhongli himself, are swallowed by the waves into Osial’s waiting jaws.
“And I can never move from that place,” Zhongli explains, once again, curled up next to Diluc and resting against the bed’s headboard.. “I know— knew— that day in the harbour that, if things became too dire I could intervene and end my ruse but when I’m asleep I…”
Diluc tucks a piece of dark hair behind his ear. “You feel helpless.”
A sigh. “Indeed.”
“Why,” Diluc asks quietly, “Do you think it is that memory that stays with you? Thousands of years of war, contracts and experience and it is that moment that gives you grief. Why ?”
Zhongli sighs again, the breath warm against Diluc’s neck. “Technically I have died three times in my life. Not death of the body necessarily but of the spirit,” he tucks his face into Diluc’s shoulder, the press of his cheek warm through Diluc’s sleepshirt. “The first was when Guizhong died, alone, when I could not help her. It killed me, I think, how it seemed like I failed her,” his voice drags slowly through the air. “I’m sure you know the feeling of failing a loved one.”
Diluc’s hand halts where it rests twisted in Zhongli’s dark hair. His throat is tight. “ Mhm .”
“The second time I died,” Zhongli continues calmly, in that neutral tone of voice he uses towards most things, lovely or painful alike, “Was, of course, The Rite of Descension. It was very dramatic,” He looks up at Diluc, mouth lifting slightly, “I think you would have liked it.”
Diluc pinches his cheek. “You’re terrible.”
“I’m trying to be funny.”
“You’re fine as you are,” Diluc replies gruffly, and Zhongli’s smile is something he feels against his skin rather than sees.
After a moment of quiet Zhongli’s smile drops and he clears his throat. “The third time I died was during that battle with Osial. Well, perhaps Zhongli did not perish” he amends, “but anything left of Rex Lapis, of Morax, disappeared that day. I think that is why I dream of it so often. Victory for the mortals of Liyue was a seal of death for their archon.”
“Would you change your decision?” Diluc asks softly. He’s always soft with Zhongli, he can’t help it, can’t bear to touch the man next to him with anything but a gentle hand; to prove that he can touch someone else and it won’t be something akin to a constant ache. And he can’t help but ask his next question; “Would you go back?”
“No,” Zhongli answers, shifting until he’s sitting opposite Diluc and their knees touch. He lifts one of Diluc’s scarred hands and presses a kiss to the back of it. “A few months of unpleasant dreams do not tarnish my newfound freedom,” his eyes are warm, “Nor what I have found in you.”
Diluc breath slips out in a rush, warm from the tips of his toes to the crown of his head. No , he thinks, this could never be tarnished . The fledgeling feelings his heart has borne for Zhongli have turned it from lead into pure gold. Gold is one of the few metals that does not rust, and though it may soften it rarely ever breaks, the heat only reforges it into something stronger.
His mouth quirks a little, “I think three deaths is enough for one lifetime so perhaps, while you’re in Monstadt, for however long that may be,” Diluc grips Zhongli’s fingers just that bit tighter, “Please refrain from dying anymore. For my piece of mind.”
Zhongli tilts his head, neither an acceptance or a denial but Diluc supposes it will have to do, until the day he can get a concrete promise from the man, a contract to stay alive, for as long as Diluc does. So that he won’t have to wander a world void of the god, the man —just a man now—in front of him.
Almost shyly Zhongli lies down again, half resting on his elbows, and tugging Diluc down to lie beside him and he- he lets himself tip forward a little, easily pulled in. Dawn is breaking but they’ve spent their night sleepless, so the light creeping through the curtains is less of a beckon to rise than a call to sleep again.
“Will you stay?” Zhongli murmurs, hovering half over him. His hair falls into his face, loose and ruffled and Diluc can’t help but curl his fingers into it. Everything he does with Zhongli is an indulgence, to whom he can’t really say since they both enjoy such things equally.
“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere but here,” Diluc answers, voice rough.
A kiss is their only goodnight, before a peaceful slumber takes them both into darkness.