╰┈➤ ❝ Relentlessness is one of the most defining traits of humanity. To persevere even in the face of adversity. To thrive in even the harshest environments and succeed despite the failures of the past and against the expectations of others. To suff...
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contains:diluc x gn!reader, hurt/comfort, this is 60% me exploring diluc's mental state and 40% actually including reader, diluc processing his trauma and learning how to see the good in the little things and how you make him see them
warnings: diluc's ptsd from learning a bit too much about the fatui while he was abroad, dottore's horrifying nightmare experiments (including: addiction, child abuse, test subject vending machine), angst
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
As long as he kept himself busy, Diluc would be fine. Maybe part of the reason why he'd hunt down monsters every night wasn't only for the protection of Mondstadt. Maybe part of it was selfish. For a brief moment, being the Darknight Hero gave him the illusion that he was able to do something about the presence of evil in this world. The presence of evil that had never truly left the back of his mind ever since he returned from the cold lands of Snezhnaya. In a way, it had latched onto him, infested him to his very core and now? Now he carried it with him wherever he went.
He had come far with the underground intelligence network he had joined in his absence. Perhaps that was something to be proud of. That he contributed to something bigger than himself. But in the grand scheme of things, Diluc never felt like his work was finished. Like he could truly rest. The monsters of the abyss kept coming, the Fatui were now in possession of the anemo gnosis and Il Dottore was still conducting his experiments without a care in the world.
Peace for Diluc would mean to ignore the things he could never truly bring his heart to find closure with. Ignore the fact that his father had never received the recognition he deserved. Ignore how involved the Fatui were in every nation across Teyvat. Ignore the horrors he had seen and the full scale of justice that never came. Ignore how the rest of Teyvat seemed to be blind to it and how he was a lone observer, silently calling out to the world to answer his indictments. Diluc sometimes felt like a ghost haunting a past that had long since gone by and a present that seemed far out of his reach. He was just there. Doing his self-appointed duty, running his winery, working as a bartender at Angel's Share on some nights; all whilst the shadows in his mind never truly left him. That was the curse of having come face to face with the bottom of the iceberg. Of having been ripped away from the life he led growing up, traversing into the unknown in search for answers. In his search for reasons, Diluc only ever found more why's. There were things that were never meant to touch him and yet they did. Death did. The abyss did. Evil did. He felt like he had ventured out behind the curtains of his little world equipped with nothing but a wooden sword and shield. Driven by anger and the need for justice.
He read it in the books when he was a child. That good things would come to those who chose to be good and that victory would come to those who were dedicated and worked hard. That was what he truly believed when he had joined the Knights of Favonius. His mind used to be so naive, unable to comprehend that reality was a lot more complicated than the principles he had accepted as the foundation of fate. Fate itself seemed like a fairytale now. Life had no rules of cause and effect, at least not in the way he had counted on long ago. Life was unpredictable, it could bring him happiness in one moment and throw him off his path in the next. Life was a constant dance on a tightrope and Diluc had traveled far, trying to find out how to find stability in his cloudy mind and below his weary feet again. And in the process he had grown but he had fallen too.
