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When Diluc was sixteen, his older brother Kaeya, who was in his first year of college at the time, came home with fresh piercings in his earlobes.
They were black studs that were barely visible against his darker skin tone but that didn’t stop their father or the headmaid from noticing, their twins gasps and looks of disappointment still haunted Diluc at night sometimes, especially since Kaeya was smirking as Crepus lectured him about etiquette and presentability. That night had changed Diluc, just a little bit. He knew only Kaeya would be able to get away with such rebellious behavior as an adopted Ragnvindr and Diluc as the blood heir would have faced worse consequences if he tried to do the same.
It made him sad for both him and Kaeya, he was terrified of his father’s disappointment and he wished his father loved Kaeya more to care, he barely slept that night hearing his father’s harsh words through the thin walls.
But Diluc had always silently wished he had holes in his ears too, staring longing at the blue jewelry glimmering under chandelier orange lighting Kaeya started to hang months after the holes had healed completely.
Years have passed and so has his father. In those many years, Diluc had graduated highschool and entered his second year of college majoring in fine arts while Kaeya came home every few months with more metal decorating his body - a bar sitting heavy in the center of his tongue being the most recent addition to his collection.
With no one to bother either brothers about the ‘ desecration of their bodies ’, Diluc found his mind wandering more and more towards the childish idea he used to harbor about whether the needle he watched the piercer used to slide the stud in Kaeya’s nostril would hurt him as much compared to his brother’s built pain tolerance.
And when eighteen year old Diluc had asked Kaeya if it hurt as the older slid off the leather chair casually as if he hadn’t just stabbed a new hole in the side of his nose, his brother only smirked at him and patted his shoulder roughly, casually planting the beginning of a seed that would anchor in his mind with the words “ find out for yourself .”
Diluc was twenty when he finally decided he would find out for himself .
It was inevitable really, with Kaeya as his (begrudgingly decent) role model and after almost three years of being surrounded by hundreds of classmates and lecturers with a million body modifications ranging from stretched gauges to an ex boyfriend with his nipples pierced and countless friends that had to retouch their roots monthly with cheap box dye (the only thing Diluc wasn’t interested in, heart softening at the sight of his red hair as it brushed his waistline, a heirloom of his family name he was much too sentimental to get rid off).
It was a spontaneous decision but it was not a surprising one. He had paid for the supplies himself one night, steeled himself to check out his cart and slammed his laptop shut after out of guilt, willing to get rid of the nagging thought of the amazon package that was going to arrive at his apartment in a week or two. He hadn’t even discussed his plan with Kaeya but he had a sinking feeling that his brother was annoyingly aware of his desire to get his body pierced.
He knew he wanted both his ear lobes pierced at least but his mind was dizzy with the possibility that he might get more in the future. Maybe not to the extent Kaeya had gone but Diluc could admit he had been imagining himself with something in his own bottom lip, maybe even in his eyebrow.
But he was getting ahead of himself. He would start with two studs in his ears and pop his metaphorical cherry.
He swallowed around the shame of disappointing his father as he waited almost impatiently, a boyish fear that clung beneath his skin, but as Kaeya had reassured him with his lips curled around a cigarette (puffing smokes of amusement as he laughed at Diluc’s first attempt to exhale his own cigarette), there was no one left to disappoint.
Ajax was a hindrance in his day, obnoxious and pretentious, the younger film student took every available opportunity to get on Diluc’s nerves.
They had met in a line at the theater to get tickets to an R rated movie. The ginger had gotten carded and had fucking decked the short, prissy ticket box manager. Diluc had found himself caught in the mess of their quarrel and had to drag the idiot away by the collar of his shirt.
Diluc dreaded the sight of the other man but still here he sat, breathing shallowly, legs folded beneath him on Ajax’s shitty dorm room bed with white linen sheets that scratched uncomfortably against his bare thighs. The fluorescent lights of the tiny space hurt Diluc’s eyes but there was no way for them to turn them off unless he wanted uneven piercings in his lobes.
Ajax’s breath fanned over his face and Diluc squirmed, wishing they weren’t this close.
(Ajax had the audacity to flirt with Diluc and asked for his number as he pressed Diluc’s handkerchief to his crooked nose, the blood dripped down into his mouth and painted his toothy grin red, even if he had probably gotten both of them banned from the nearest theater from their campus.
Diluc was pissy he didn’t even get to see his movie thanks to the moron but maybe there was something in the air like Scarecrow’s fear gas or the moon had lit the side of Ajax’s face just right that he looked like he was captured on film himself, more mesmerizing that any movie shot Diluc has ever seen, that he might have even thought that watching the other boy’s side profile was better than any featured film any cinema would play ever again.
Diluc’s heart had stuttered as tawny hair swept over gray-blue eyes, deep like glaciers drifting aimlessly in the vast ocean. He had considered what they could be and what they could have and wished he had his sketchbook on him to capture the colors reflected on Ajax’s flushed cheeks and the cool tone lighting of the summer night. It would not do the memory justice as it laid imprinted, fresh and vibrant and beautiful, in his mind, but the emotions in his chest swirled anyways.
In a moment of weakness Diluc had offered his hand and lifted the bleary eyed Ajax off the car park concrete, leading them back to his apartment.)
(Ajax still kept that first sketch of himself wrapped in Diluc’s bedsheets for the first, but definitely not last time, in a pocket in his wallet.)
“Sit still, firefly,” Ajax sighed in warning, his voice low and raspy right next to Diluc’s ear, one gloved hand against Diluc’s neck and the other holding onto the sterilized needle they ordered off of Amazon one drunken night at three am with Diluc’s credit card, halfway to wasted on Diluc’s modest kitchen floor.
Diluc huffed despite the heat in his face and the desire dripping down his spine, he has followed Kaeya to enough piercing sessions to know that clients typically did not sit in the laps of their piercers as their piercers left fleeting kisses against the client’s jaw.
Ajax only hummed when Diluc snuck a warm hand up his stupid Evangelion sleep shirt, trying to feel up the tense muscle there out of boredom. “Just get it over with,” Diluc huffed, wandering hands coming up to circle Ajax’s nipple out of habit rather than lust.
“Stop that, you’re the one who wanted me to do this rather than going to the shop.” Diluc couldn’t argue with that, squirming even more in Ajax’s lap just to agitate the taller man.
(He didn't know just exactly how much he trusted the film student to be stabbing a hole in his ears and he hadn’t really bothered to ask if Ajax had prior experience, knowing how unreliable Ajax could be. It didn’t matter though, Diluc wanted to see Ajax again so badly it made him embarrassed.
But the younger man had claimed he had done the ring in his nostril himself and Diluc had stared at said piercing enough times to know it was healed well enough.)
Diluc gasped when Ajax grabbed him by the jaw, tilting his head and keeping it still as he reached for the clamp they also ordered online, the feeling of black latex gloves on his face making him a little delirious (they had stolen said gloves from the tattoo parlor Diluc did his apprenticeship at). “I’m serious this time, keep still and take a deep breath,” Ajax muttered as Diluc froze, not entirely out of fear.
The air stilled as Ajax counted down from three, Diluc’s hands gripping tightly onto his sleep shirt. He could imagine the disappointment of his father all the way from Celestia, watching down on him from wherever he was as his dearest son mauled his body while cuddled up with a delinquent boy .
A quick sting, Diluc could feel the needle pushing through his skin, could feel the blood slowly dripping down his neck, could feel the bile of shame climbing up his throat. And then it was over. A press of lips to his cheek and a hand through his hair. “Good job, baby,” Ajax sighed into his scalp as he screwed the ball onto the titanium bar.
It hurts, Diluc loved it.
Ajax passed him a mirror as he twisted his torso to reach for the forgotten marker somewhere lost on the bed and Diluc gasped in awe at the sight of gleaming silver sitting in his once bare earlobe. He held the mirror with both hands and tilted his chin in different angles. He knew how stupid his usually stoic face must look with so much open emotion on it and he almost wanted to turn around so Ajax couldn’t see his expressions, embarrassed by his ability to feel. But Ajax was grinning at him, his smile softer than the usual smirk he had plastered on his stupid face he wore when he tried his damn hardest to drive Diluc insane.
A gentle hand brushed his crimson bangs back and gentler lips were pressed to the center of his forehead, Ajax’s eyes soft as he locked his gaze into Diluc’s eyes while he marked the other empty lobe.
“Turn that shit off,” Diluc mumbled, fingers picking the dried blood on his lobes much to Ajax’s agitation, bigger hands slapping his hands away from his ears.
“I’m trying to educate you on culture,” Ajax replied, grabbing Diluc’s wrists and pinning them onto his creaky bed frame. The redhead could only glare at him while Ajax fussed over him, carefully laying each lock of scarlet hair so that it was fanning over his pillow away from Diluc’s fresh piercings all while My Bloody Valentine played in the background, spraying another excessive amount of saline solution over his angry red skin. “Stop touching, you’ll get bumps,” Ajax hissed. Diluc touched him instead, wrapping arms around the taller man’s shoulders and bringing them a breath distance away from each other's faces.
“I’m plenty cultured,” Diluc tried to argue, leaning all his weight into one forearm as he looked down at Ajax.
Ajax rolled his eyes, “You unironically listen to The Smiths.”
Diluc kept his mouth shut at that, burying his face frustratedly into Ajax’s collarbones. Ajax huffed an amused sound and started combing knobby fingers through Diluc’s hair. Diluc didn’t need to see his dumb face to know the younger was wearing a smug grin right now.
“How hasn’t your roommate tried to kill you yet?” Diluc groaned, voice muffled before turning his head to look around the cluster mess that was Ajax’s room, ear still pressed to Ajax’s chest. The movie posters plastered on every available surface of his side was to be expected, Diluc hasn't yet met a film major who didn't have a tacky Pulp Fiction pinup poster in their room.
But Ajax was a sentimental guy, as Diluc got to know him. Photographs of his family. Of his siblings. Of his friends. And most prominently, Diluc. Hung everywhere . There were selfies of them together, laying in Diluc’s bed or passing a blunt on New Years on Kaeya’s couch. Photos of Diluc flipping off the camera while wearing Ajax’s hoodie. Candid photos of him Diluc wasn’t even aware existed, of him sleeping peacefully, or him smiling covered in snowflakes.
Diluc’s heart stuttered in his chest. He could feel Ajax’s eyes on his face as he continued to look around, the heavy weight of the other man’s hand over his own on his chest.
Diluc blushed, proudly displayed everywhere else were framed artworks Diluc had drawn of Ajax, from hasty doodles with a crappy pen on the back of takeout receipts to charcoal assignments Diluc had forced Ajax to model for him, in promise he would receive the piece as compensation after Diluc’s critic. Everything surrounding him was a testament of who Ajax was as a person and everything he held dear, to see Diluc worthy enough, significant enough, was part of it made the young master a little flustered.
At some point people had noticed there was a common person in all of Diluc’s works even if Diluc didn’t always add details to Ajax’s face in his drawings. It was in the tender way he drew the slope of Ajax’s back or the specific way he shaded the way light would hit the side of Ajax’s strong nose that implied this nameless man in all his paintings, his muse , was the same person.
(It was a vulnerable declaration of love Diluc was embarrassed to admit to, how the way he immortalized his darling on paper grew more and more personal each day. They hung proudly in the campus’ gallery. Ajax must know he was on every canvas as he came to each and everyone of Diluc’s exhibitions but Diluc wondered if he could see all of Diluc’s adoration for him in each brush stroke, in every layer of thick paint.
At some point broad shoulders and wiry thighs had become more than just body parts to Diluc, this spine he crafted from oils and turpentine was the spine he bent over his bed and these hands that he smudged charcoal with were hands that held him tenderly on his thrift store couch. He painted Ajax in the snow and he painted Ajax wine drunk on his floor and he painted Ajax in a garden of flowers that pales in comparison to the bright tangerine of his boyish curls and rose-kissed cheeks. He would paint Ajax to the day he died if he could. He wanted to be able to paint Ajax with gray paint streaked at his temples with deep set wrinkles from a lifetime of smiling his charming grin too hard everyday.
Love was mirrored in his work and Diluc may be embarrassed but he was not ashamed.
He would show the whole world his bleeding heart.)
“Well for starters, I never kick him out to bring someone over anymore,” Ajax finally answered, “Not when my boyfriend has his own apartment.”
“I am not your boyfriend-” Diluc started to protest, being cut off by Ajax’s wet lips on his own, a silver of teeth catching onto the plump meat off his bottom lip. “ I am not .” Diluc gasped against Ajax’s open mouth as the taller man grabbed a fistfull of his ass, spreading it apart over his lap as Diluc’s back started to arch.
“Who cares about labels?” Ajax said, Diluc glaring down at him despite panting, his lips swollen and red with a string of saliva contacting their open mouths. “I am yours and you are mine .”
Diluc would never say out loud in words but Ajax was gorgeous and every horrible part of him wanted to devour the other man. They weren’t technically boyfriends because they weren’t really dating, Diluc had called that word childish when Ajax first started referring to him and introducing him to people as his boyfriend. But his heart flutters in his chest regardless and he surges up to capture Ajax’s lips again and again and again.
“Possessive bastard,” Diluc pretended to protest but Ajax was already impatiently lifting both their shirts over their head, minding the silver studs in Diluc’s still sensitive ears.
“ Your possessive bastard,” Ajax smirked at him, thumb rubbing soothing circles in the jut of Diluc’s already bruised hip bones. Diluc sighed in exasperation at the horrible, horrible man he had given his heart to, letting himself melt into the safety that Ajax’s pulse lulled him into as sweet kisses were pressed from the top of ear to the space right in between his chest where a tattoo of the three of swords laid. “You’d look good with a helix,” Ajax muttered in the crook of his neck, large hands simply rubbing any bare skin he could find, from Diluc’s ribs to the side of his thighs, “Or maybe even snakebites. Gods , you’d be so hot.”
“I’ll think about it,” Diluc groaned, tilting Ajax’s jaw away from his shoulder to connect their lips again, “But that would mean no kissing for a few months.”
“I’ll make do,” Ajax smirked against his mouth, their breaths panting as Diluc breathed in every one of Ajax’s exhales, “Your mouth will be out of order but you can always use mine.”
Diluc sighed at him even if the blush running from his hairline to the band of his shorts gave him away, “You’re gross.” Ajax smiled back at him and distracted him with another flurry of pecks to his mouth. Diluc grabbed him by the side of his face with both hands and deepened the kisses, greedy as ever for Ajax’s touch.
“Think about it.”
“Why would I ever follow your suggestions, moron, you dislocated Kuni’s jaw over ID.”
“We are in the same major, he knew my age, he was asking for it.”
Ajax grinned up at him and Diluc was liquid in his palms, smiling against his lips, the mood ruined as they laughed so hard their teeth clacked against each other instead of kissing. Ajax brushed his thumb over Diluc’s eyelashes and Diluc ran his own thumb over Ajax’s bottom lip. They kept their gazes on each other and let the rest of the world fall away.
"Well I'm glad you punched him."
Ajax smiled up at him, face soft and blooming in the sunlight curl of his lover's mouth, their hands intertwined in between their chests as their heartbeats caught up with each other like a never ending race, "Me too."
(Kaeya had taken one look at the atrociously uneven piercings in Diluc’s lobes and nagged him to Celestia and back about only going to certified piercers as he cleaned the crust around the metal studs.
Diluc never took them out to heal and repierce, secretly glad he had another part of himself to remind him of Ajax, grinning stupidly to himself every morning as he got ready for an appointment at the studio when he caught a glimpse of the piercings in the mirror along with their piercer plastered clingy and adorable against his back as he tried to brush his teeth, exchanging toothpaste flavoured kisses along the sink's edge.)
