𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞
In advance, I apologize to those who have already seen this post. I’ve had to transfer it to a new blog thanks to a seemingly permanent ban on my former main blog, @niicevibe. So this is just copy & paste from there. Sorry!
This is part one of a two-part series, formerly a drabble! This part is sfw, while its eventual part two will not be!
pairing -> diluc x fem!reader
warnings -> minors dni, slightly suggestive at the end; reader is too forward for diluc to handle; not beta'ed.
character mentions -> kaeya, fatui
word count -> 1.46k
In feeling a pair of eyes on him as he worked, and in sensing a knowing smirk coming from the same source, Diluc sighs, lowering a freshly polished glass back down on its rack and turning your way.
“You’re staring again,” he tells you, as if you weren’t aware you’d been doing it.
“Can you blame me?” you ask him from the furthest seat of the bar, leaning your chin into your palm where your elbow rests against the bar rail. “You’re just much too pretty not to be stared at, Master Diluc. Haven’t you looked at your reflection lately?”
Clearing his throat into a gloved hand, you note the catch in his voice, and the slightest pigment of red on the apples of his cheeks, and smile.
“You’re really not used to hearing this kind of thing, are you?” you muse to him, failing to stifle a giggle when he sighs brokenly again. “Hehe.”
“When it’s coming from someone like you, _______? No. Not particularly.”
“Someone like me?” you repeat, feigning being offended by his words by placing an innocently poised hand over your heart. “Whatever do you mean, Master Diluc?”
“I mean, you’ve been hanging around Kaeya too much lately, and it’s somehow translated into you enjoying teasing and taunting those around you.”
“Not everyone,” you disagree. He raises an eyebrow. “Just you.”
“And whatever did I do to deserve such a thing?” You laugh lightly, a breathy sound that makes Diluc turn his attention down to checking on the garnishes – unfortunately for him, they’re all full; nothing to distract himself with or to excuse himself briefly from the bar area.
“Okay, well, perhaps those Fatui jerks staying at Goth’s, too, but they’re such easy targets.” Diluc doesn’t bother to repress a snort of amusement – it’s true, he agrees in his thoughts, they are. “But you’re a smart man, Master Diluc. Surely, you’ve… at least… noticed the difference?”
The difference?
It became a grand habit of sorts, you entering the Angel’s Share on the days he comes in to relieve Charles. He’d always wondered about you– is she stalking me? How in Teyvat does she know when I’m here every time? – until he'd discovered your apartment to sit adjacent to the bar when he’d notice you making your return there from the end of your shift. You’d waved to him once after that, calling his name from your balcony while he bused away empty glasses from the patio tables, something that’d startled him into nearly dropping one that had a sharp, minty fragrance settled in a pool of green at the bottom of it. But he would return an awkward raise of his hand in greeting back, anyway. And from then on, your visits became too ever-present, never ordering an alcoholic beverage, but something sweet while speaking sweetly to its maker from your coveted end stool.
Some days, you would be joined by his brother Kaeya who, after realizing you frequented the bar slightly more often than he did, took it upon himself to rub off on you. On his days at the Angel’s Share, he noticed Kaeya in you, in the way you teased him; another frustrating feat his adoptive brother managed to achieve. Yet somehow, eventually, the effect that it had on him changed. Eventually, the teasing didn’t make him heave his sighs, or have him switch with Charles when maybe, you became too much to handle on top of Kaeya. Eventually, he looked forward to whatever witty comments you threw his way so he could dish his own back, clever enough that they would have you both chuckling from the end of the bar.
So, isn’t it that you’ve become good friends? Or, at the very least, good acquaintances?
“You’ve never shied away from being an honest person, Miss _______,” Diluc finally says, his voice quiet though still audible over the noise circulating through the bar. “It’s one of the many qualities you have that I enjoy. At the very least, you seem to favour me more than most others I’ve seen you interact with.”
Your entire body pauses, lips parting in response to his words.
“What?” he says, eyebrow raised. Frustrated, you aggressively gesture at him, startling the man, from unable to form the words resting on the tip of your tongue until you realize you don’t have a choice.
“Apparently, I haven’t been honest enough,” you gripe, “if that was your reaction.”
“_______—""Because the difference in the way I mess around with the Fatui stationed in Mondstadt versus the way I like to tease you, stationed here in your bar, or on the streets, is that I don’t harbour romantic feelings for the Fatui.”
In the shadows his bangs cast, Diluc’s eyes widen, the red of his irises suddenly burning like the flames he controls. His mouth opens and closes at you like a fish out of water several times, the only sounds escaping him being ones of utter speechlessness and complete shock.
“Diluc…” Face propped up against your hand, your soft smile squished by your palm pressing your cheeks into it, and suddenly, looking at you, Diluc’s cheeks fill with the same shade of rouge as his hair, and once more does he avert his eyes. “I only tease the ones I love.”
Diluc huffs, shaking his head down at the bar top and wearing the smallest of smiles you think you may have ever seen. Content, you polish off the remainder of your non-alcoholic beverage and slide out of the stool, sliding the glass along with you on your way to where Diluc stands, only to abandon it and lean over the counter, unsuspecting to the other regulars. His throat tightens by your closeness, and to combat the pressure building in his chest, he clutches the underneath of the counter, fingers digging painfully hard into the wood in the hopes it would keep him grounded.
“I think I’ve bought enough juice here over the past year to have established myself to you,” you say, speaking quietly enough that the incoming patrons don’t overhear but at a volume that only Diluc could hear you. He swallows. “But if you care to want to reciprocate things, well…” And you chuckle breathily, your warmth hitting his already burning cheek. “You know where I live.”
© nc-vb/niicevibe 2022-2023
please don’t repost! reblogs & comments are always appreciated.
(i lowkey can't wait to get into writing the part two to this lol.)
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