Fic: The Dance

[navelgazed]

Title: The Dance
Fandom: Genshin Impact
Rating: Teen and up
Ships: Diluc/Kaeya
Content warning: Mention of sexual themes
Summary: Kaeya and Diluc both know the rules of the game. Diluc wants to stop playing.
Ao3 link

There was something almost perverted in the dance they performed.

Kaeya knew it. Diluc pretended not to. It was in the way they looked in each other’s eyes, all hunger and no love, disguised as rivalry and hatred. The way Diluc would leave for days at a time and Kaeya would come around then to show his vulnerabilities only to an empty bedroom and cradle his pillow as if it were precious. The way Diluc pretended not to notice that his room had been disturbed.

Kaeya was very good at his job, and even better at getting under Diluc’s skin. The times they passed each other, often in the Traveler’s company, were opportunities for something others might call tiffs, but Kaeya preferred to think of it as foreplay.

(The Traveler was so good at getting them in the same room. For this, Kaeya was grateful.)

It was in those letters they still wrote to one another, secrets safe enough in words and sealed with wax. The way Kaeya could swear he smelled the scent of sweet wine on the pages. He savored every moment of it. And yet.

Like some proper ball in which they had yet to be coupled, they danced around each other, not with; hands hovering over the small of one’s back, the shoulder, any incidental touch an electric shock. They circled each other like a dance, like each of them was cornering prey.

That was the joy of it. That they never touched, never really met. It was a romantic game of chicken and Kaeya couldn’t wait to see who would give in first–or perhaps neither of them would, and their game would go on indefinitely.

Well, he had thought that. Until Diluc slammed him against a wall and kissed him hard.

It had been a stupid argument. Kaeya had come to the winery at the behest of the traveler, who had already gone back to Mondstadt. She certainly did have a lot to do. And then, somehow, the two of them had ended up re-litigating something silly from the past. It had evolved into shouts, a rare treat for Kaeya to witness Diluc’s open anger, and then in the darkness behind the mansion illuminated only by a single lamp, Kaeya found whatever witty retort he had been saying crushed under the weight of the other man’s lips.

Kaeya melted into it, but only for a second before shoving the other man away lightly and backing off to the side. “You know this isn’t how this works, Diluc,” he said.

“Anything to get you to shut up,” Diluc responded.

“Oh, but you liked it. Don’t try to act coy with me. We both know I know you better than that.” Kaeya tried to come off as though the suddenness of the whole thing hadn’t bothered him in the slightest. “But still. Such a forward move. I thought you were a man of character.”

Diluc grabbed Kaeya’s collar and pushed him against the wall, and Kaeya, with great willpower, kept his mouth closed. “And what if, for once, I didn’t want to be?”

Kaeya smirked. “Why don’t you tell me? I think I’m tired of the chase tonight.”

This time, Kaeya leaned into Diluc’s kiss, hoping the other man didn’t hear the rapid pounding of his heart.