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Like most of Diluc’s problems, it started with Venti.
Specifically, it started when the bard — fine, his archon, his lover, his whatever — decided that his lap was the more superior throne rather than the expensive (and quite comfy) divan made by the finest Liyuen woodworkers that he had purchased specifically for the god to nap on.
It was infuriating.
It was endearing.
It was his.
And thus Venti remained, perched side-saddle on his thighs, kicking his feet carelessly as he hummed some jaunty tune.
Slender arms looped around Diluc’s broad shoulders, and the archon nuzzled deeper into the crisp cotton of his undershirt, inhaling deeply. A faint, clean scent of ozone and damp earth clung to the fabric.
“Hm. My grumpy beloved has been out in the rain,” he murmured, his voice a warm puff against Diluc’s chest.
“Must you?” Diluc grumbled, the protest automatic and hollow. Even then, one hand settled on the curve of Venti’s waist, and a traitorous tilt of a smile threatened the corner of his mouth.
Venti, sensing his victory, gave a deliberate wiggle, earning himself a pinch on his side. He giggled, the sound like chiming bells. “Oh, but I must! A God must seek His comfort where He finds it.”
Brat.
In his defense, Diluc was trying to focus. Weinlesefest was next week, and Diluc was trying to keep track on which caskets the winery will be offering for the festival, but the words and numbers in his ledger swam.
Alas, he was only a man. A man oh so weak for his beautiful, ethereal, immortal lover.
Then, with impish grace, the archon shifted positions.
In one fluid motion, Venti swung a leg over Diluc’s lap to straddle him properly, settling himself flush against the… growing firmness straining against his mortal lover’s trousers. The idle kicking stopped, replaced by a deliberate, rocking that promised something far less innocent.
Damn it.
A sly smile played on Venti’s lips as he looked up through his dark, long lashes. “And I find it right here~”
Diluc’s groan was swallowed by Venti’s mouth as the god surged up to claim it.
This was how it always went.
The god would tease and push, and Diluc, despite every grumbling protest he showed the world, would break and give him everything he wanted. His hands slid from Venti’s waist down to the swell of his ass, pulling him in tighter, grinding him down against his aching cock.
Venti melted into him with a breathy sigh, his pretty little noises going straight to Diluc’s head, a more potent intoxicant than any damn wine he never drank in his cellar.
The god’s clever fingers were already working open the buttons of his most loyal devotee’s shirt when Diluc’s own quickly undid the other’s corset, slipping beneath the silken fabric of his shorts.
Diluc found him hot and slick and already soaking through his smallclothes. He traced the seam teasingly.
“So sensitive,” he murmured, his voice a husky rasp against Venti’s lips before he claimed them in a deep, searing kiss once more. He broke away only to breathe, forehead resting against Venti’s. His other hand tangled in raven hair, tugging lightly. “So eager… what would the church say? I wonder…”
His God whimpered, His hips stuttering as Diluc’s fingers, first one then two, slid into His tightness. Venti’s entire body went taut, a bowstring quivering under his calloused hands.
His God was so small, so petite that the size difference was dizzying.
Diluc felt like a brute, a monster and a sinner cradling something impossibly delicate and precious. The faith he’d thought long dead now burned in his chest not as prayer, but as a desperate, possessive need to protect and claim the very source of it.
It was blasphemous. To think Mondstadt’s god could be such a little… harlot.
The thought was a live wire. He gave another sharp tug on Venti’s hair, swallowing his resulting whimper with a searing, sloppy kiss, all teeth and tongue.
He tore his mouth from Venti’s, his breath ragged. He trailed a line of searing kisses along the archon’s jaw, down the pale canvas of his throat.
He could feel the frantic flutter of Venti’s pulse against his lips, a wild bird beating against his ribs.
He sucked a dark, bruising claim into that tender skin, a brand of ownership that would be hidden by loose collars and ruffles later.
But for now, it was his to mark. A slow, deliberate curl of his thick digits had Venti seizing up around him, a broken cry catching in his throat.
This tight, velvety, wet heat was the only cathedral Diluc would ever kneel in again.
Venti’s movements were desperate now, his breaths coming in sharp, ragged pants as his head fell to Diluc’s shoulder. He whimpered.
He was so close.
“P-please… Luc,” the god moaned, rutting on his lap and hand, scrambling for purchase on Diluc’s broad back. His beret had fallen off some time ago, though Diluc didn’t care. “I’m… ngh- I can’t…”
A delighted, possessive thrill shot through him.
“You can,” he murmured, his breath hot on Venti’s earlobe. He nipped it, petting his head. “And you will. Come on my hand, now.”
And so Venti came with a shattered cry, a pulsing wave of warmth soaking Diluc’s hand, his entire body seizing up before going utterly, beautifully limp against him. His fingers stilled, slipping out just enough to grab a handful of holy ass.
Venti shivered, and Diluc added another hickey to his neck.
Beautiful.
Diluc was lost in it. Lost in the taste of wine and freedom on Venti’s skin, the feel of his body yielding so perfectly, the sounds he was wringing from him.
And he intended to make his songbird sing again and again . Right here in his study, paperwork and dignity be damned—
When the door burst open.
The new maid, Colette, froze. Her eyes, wide with horror, scanned the scene: her master, the esteemed and stern Diluc Ragnvindr, shirt hanging open and his face uncharacteristically flushed, with a youthful-looking bard who looked like he belonged with the church’s choir boys nestled in his lap.
The fact that Diluc’s hands are shoved down Venti’s shorts did not help, a fact quickly rectified, fingers retreating from velvet warmth despite the god’s soft, protested whine.
Diluc’s spine was rigid, but he couldn’t resist smearing Venti’s divine slick on his ring and middle finger with his thumb. “Colette. We knock before entering.”
“M-Master Diluc!” she stammered, her voice trembling with a potent mix of shock and disgust. “I… my maman had told me of Mondstadt’s… lax morals, but this…!”
Diluc’s brow furrowed, offense in every line. “Colette, this is not what it—”
“Do not try to explain it away, sir!” she interrupted, distressed. She took a step back, as if the very air in the room was contaminated. “To defile a mere boy in your own study? A child who should be reciting hymns, not… not this! You are no nobleman; you are a beast, a predator preying on the innocent! Your nation’s savagery knows no bounds!”
Without breaking his cold stare from the still-yammering maid, he brought his slick-coated fingers to his own lips. He maintained eye contact with her as he slowly, deliberately, sucked them clean.
The taste of his god was a dark, secret triumph. He lowered his hand.
Then, in a move of pure, unadulterated spite, he couldn’t resist pushing those same two fingers past Venti’s parted lips, deep into the god’s mouth.
Venti gave a choked gurgle, then bit him. Brat.
Diluc pulled his fingers away. He wiped the remaining spit on his trousers, then pressed Venti’s head firmly to his chest, shielding his face — protecting his identity and, for the benefit of their audience, the god’s supposed modesty.
His mind coldly replayed her words, and his eye twitched.
Beast. Predator.
He, who was currently being sexually harassed by a thousands-of-years-old deity who refused to sit on a perfectly good divan and batted his eyelashes for a proper ravishing.
The irony was so thick he could choke on it like Venti likes to on his—
He chased the thought away. Not now, pervert.
This was precisely why he’d instructed everyone to knock. Adelinde knew to knock. Elzer knew to knock, so did Connor and Turner. Even Moco and Hillie, bless their flighty, forgetful souls, had learned to knock after the first… incident.
But this new girl, shipped from Fontaine by her exasperated father to “learn humility via customer service,” seemed to believe her foreign standards gave her the right to bypass all household decorum.
With his cheek smushed to a firm chest, Venti shifted to look at her, teal eyes drooping with the languid haze of one already spent, though Diluc knew his appetite was a bottomless well. His god often begged for more even during slumber, a fact Diluc had indulged more than once to satiate his lover’s whims.
“A child? Me? Oh, no, dear lady, you’re mistaken! I’m—”
“You will be silent,” Colette snapped, voice dripping with venomous condescension. “I will not be spoken to by some… some Mondstadtian urchin procured for his master’s sordid pleasures!”
She didn’t even look at him, her disgusted gaze fixed on Diluc as if Venti were merely a misbehaving pet.
Venti stilled. Diluc held him closer, if possible.
He was the “Darknight Hero” (the damn name still made him uncomfortable, but it stuck), feared by Fatui and treasure hoarders alike.
He could not, would not, be brought down by allegations of being… that.
“You will watch your tongue,” he said, his voice so low and cold it seemed to frost the very air, a stark contrast to the Pyro Vision that hung from his belt, “a slight to the Anemo Archon is a slight to Mondstadt’s people.”
But before he could fully engage, the door swung open again. Adelinde stood there, having clearly rushed over at the sound of raised voices. Her eyes took in the scene in a single, swift glance: her furious Master, the offended Archon in his lap, and the outraged new maid.
“What is the meaning of this commotion?” Adelinde demanded, hands on her hips.
“This- this depravity!” Colette cried, gesturing wildly at the lovers. “And he threatens me for naming his sin!”
From the hallway, just out of sight, came the distinct, poorly-suppressed sound of a snort. It was followed by a frantic, hissed whisper. “Elzer, I swear by the Seven, if you don’t stop laughing—”
It was one of the other maids. Hillie, probably.
The entire staff, it seemed, was eavesdropping.
Diluc was going to dock all their pay if they keep this up.
Venti nuzzled him with a heavy sigh, then worried the lace of Diluc’s jabot between his teeth.
“I’m sorry to keep getting you in trouble, Luc…” he murmured, his voice small and contrite.
Unacceptable. It wasn’t Venti’s fault Diluc liked his… everything, a little too much to be sane.
Diluc shushed him, scratching his scalp in the way he knew made the god go boneless.
It was a ridiculous paradox. Venti could command the storms and rewrite Teyvat’s geography, yet in Diluc’s arms, he melted like a contented kitten, despite being severely allergic to cats.
Adelinde lips thinned into a severe line. She ignored Colette’s hysterics and fixed her with a look that could curdle fresh milk. “Colette, that is quite enough. Master Diluc’s… guest… is a respected bard of the city. He is a regular and a… treasured patron here.”
Colette opened her mouth to argue, her face a mottled purple, but Adelinde was already moving. In a display of strength that belied her gentle demeanor, the head housemaid firmly took the girl’s arm and began to drag her out of the study.
“You cannot be serious! You must be complicit in this degeneracy!” Colette shrieked, her voice fading as she was hauled down the hall. “My mother will hear about this—”
Diluc listened to the ensuing argument — Colette’s fading vitriol met with Adelinde’s low, steely replies — as he carefully gathered a now-slumbering Venti into a cradle carry (bridal carry, his mind corrected, unhelpfully).
The whole ordeal lasted only a few minutes, but the tension made it feel like an agonizing hour. By the time the hallway fell silent, Diluc had already settled Venti on the divan, where the bard immediately curled up, drooling peacefully on a silk cushion, utterly oblivious to the empire of suffering his one single, orgasm-brained mewling had built.
The only saving grace, as it was so often in Mondstadt, was Jean Gunnhildr.
The Acting Grand Master arrived at the estate just after sundown, her expression a mask of professional calm that didn’t quite hide her exhaustion.
She took one look at Diluc’s murderous aura and the snoring bard, listened to his terse, seething explanation for exactly thirty seconds, and sighed the sigh of a woman who regularly had to explain to the public why a small child with bombs was a valued member of their knightly order.
“So,” Jean said, her voice level. “The new member of your staff believes you are… corrupting a minor.”
“He’s not a minor!” Diluc growled lowly, gesturing wildly at Venti, who was now hugging his beret. The cecilia petal tickled his nose, and he sneezed. “He’s the Anemo Archon!”
Jean pinched the bridge of her nose. “Look— as far as she is concerned, you, Master Diluc, are a notorious shotacon who has seduced an innocent bard into your cellar with promises of wine.”
Diluc made a sound like a teakettle left on the fire for too long.
“I’ll handle it,” she said, wearily. “Don’t worry.”
Diluc winced and thanked her, already mentally drafting an order for the finest vintage in the cellar to be delivered to her office, along with a year’s supply of coffee. And perhaps a new sword.
Or better yet, a letter to guilt their wayward Grand Master to finally return to his post.
When Jean left, Diluc sank into his chair, exhaustion and an odd sense of suffering settling into his bones.
He could already see the letter she would write to her parents in Fontaine, who would tell their friends, and soon the rumor would spread to every salon in the Court of Fontaine, and to the rest of Teyvat: Diluc Ragnvindr, the Uncrowned King of Mondstadt, was a predator of the most despicable kind.
By the Seven.
At least the rest of his staff knew. Moco had walked in on Venti summoning a gust of wind to dry the laundry he’d “accidentally” spilled wine on. Adelinde had long since recognized the face from the statues and the stained glass in the cathedral.
They all treated the Anemo Archon with a sort of weary, affectionate reverence, constantly cleaning up his messes and keeping his divine secrets. They can handle an irate, mildly racist Fontainian.
The Knights of Favonius knew, too. Or, at the very least, they possessed enough collective brain cells to suspect.
Jean knew outright, of course; she’d been there for the entirety of the Stormterror incident.
The other captains had their theories. They’d seen the way the wind always calmed around the Dawn Winery, how more dandelions began to bloom on its grounds, and how their least-friendly citizen tolerated a specific bard’s presence with a fond exasperation that looked suspiciously like love.
Hmph. Maybe the knights weren’t so hopeless after all.
Except Kaeya.
Who would rather believe his brother had developed a scandalous and illegal taste for teenagers than accept that the drunken bard he so enjoyed annoying was the God of Freedom himself.
Denial was a river in Sumeru, and Kaeya was determined to swim in it.
Thankfully, the rumors hadn’t spread. Colette was to be sent back to Fontaine on the next coach to Dornman Port, on the first ship to Lumidouce Harbor, with a letter to her father that may be Jean’s finest diplomatic masterpiece, undoubtedly containing phrases like “unsuited for Mondstadt’s cultural environment” and “profound lapses in judgment.”
Diluc thought the nightmare was over.
He was wrong.
A week later, Weinlesefest was in full swing. The air was sweet with the smell of fermenting grapes and baked sweets. Diluc, ever the diligent vintner, was making a last-minute check of the grand wine casks that were about to be uncasked in the venue outside Springvale’s gates.
He, alongside Elzer, was counting barrels, checking seals, and generally trying to ignore the festive merriment that was an affront to his signature scowl.
But his attention, as it so often did, kept straying to his lover.
Venti was a vision, the heart of the festival. He’d been cajoled onto the stage by a group of children — from the enthusiastic Lily, to the bashful Sage. Even Flora stood by, clutching a slightly smushed flower crown of Windwheel Asters and Cecilias, waiting for her chance.
Nearby, Klee’s bright laughter echoed as she darted between the legs of the Adventurer’s Guild’s youths, Bennett and Razor.
Der Frühling was in his hand, but the true instrument was his voice, a thing of pure, liquid gold that wove through the festival’s noise and made everyone pause to listen. A radiant, unburdened smile graced his face, and Diluc’s breath caught.
“A defender’s will, strong as yesteryear, joining the thousand winds in a song of good cheer,” Venti sang. Diluc could swear the dandelion seeds drifting past began to swirl in time with the melody. “Turning sour into sweet, bitter notes fade away as we wait, wait for a windier day~”
This, he thought, his chest tight with a fond, aching pride, this is how an archon should look. Not on a cold statue nor a tessellation of colored glass, but here, alive and luminous, bringing joy to His people.
“Where do we turn once the thousand winds take flight?” Venti’s voice lifted, mischief laced with profound warmth as he sang to the enraptured crowd. Those teal eyes scanned the faces before landing for a fleeting second on Diluc. “To the tales of the lyre, to the sweet dream of tonight!”
The final note hung in the air, pristine and perfect, before the crowd erupted into cheers and applause. A chorus of young voices immediately piped up, a small mob of tiny negotiators.
“Another, another!” cried Lily, jumping up and down.
Diluc’s lip twitched, and he forced his attention back to the ledger in his hands, running a gloved finger down the list of barrel serial numbers. Cask seven, valberry melomel…
“Sing the one about the brave hunter!”
“No! The crab and the knight!”
Diluc’s brow furrowed, his focus split between the oak staves of a barrel and the melodic laugh that answered them. Focus. The seal on this one looks weak. Needs to be—
“So greedy! You’ll wear out my voice, and then what will your poor bard do? I’ll be left with nothing but a croak, fit only for serenading Timmie’s pigeons!”
“We’ll get you apple cider!” Sage offered, his face earnest.
He’s already had three glasses, Diluc thought, fond and exasperated. He’ll be insufferable by sundown.
He motioned for Connor and Ernest to take over. As usual, Venti somehow effortlessly pulled Diluc’s gaze back up to Him.
“A tempting bribe!” Venti conceded with a dramatic sigh, placing a hand over his heart. “But I’ve already sung three songs! My fingers are getting sore. Perhaps a story instead? I know a grand one about a sword in a stone… though I hear a certain young man by the city gates has already claimed that legend for his own.” He winked at Arthur, who blushed furiously.
“A story’s not a song!” Nora protested, shuffling forward. “Please? Just one more? I’ll… I’ll never climb the statue again!”
Giggling, Venti leaned forward conspiratorially. “Ah, but climbing is half the fun! Why, I’ve scaled that very statue myself! The view up there is simply divine.”
The other children ooh’d.
Nora’s eyes went wide as saucers, her self-imposed banishment forgotten in an instant. “You… you have?!”
“Of course! A bard must seek inspiration wherever he can find it,” he beamed. “Don’t let the sisters catch you though, ehe~”
It was then that Flora, seeing her opening, stepped forward with the flower crown. “For you, Master Bard! For your next performance!”
Venti’s theatricality melted into genuine delight. “For me? Why, it’s beautiful!”
He hopped off the stage and knelt with neither a second thought nor a hint of condescension, bowing his head so she could place the flower crown atop his beret.
Something in Diluc’s chest gave a strange, uncomfortable lurch. Then a sudden, unbidden image flashed in Diluc’s mind: a child with Venti’s bright, teal eyes and a mess of dark red hair, in his childhood bedroom at the estate, listening to a lullaby.
The ledger nearly slipped from his suddenly numb fingers. What in the Seven—?
Thankfully, or unthankfully, Diluc didn’t get to ponder and panic any further.
It was then that Bennett, ever the enthusiastic disaster, tripped over a loose cobblestone. His elbow caught the corner of the table Draff was tending with an irritated Diona, sending a towering pyramid of empty wine glasses teetering.
They began to fall, a crystalline avalanche destined for Klee’s unsuspecting head.
“Klee!”
Time seemed to slow. Literally. Diluc’s blood ran cold; he was too far to intervene. Jean, deep in conversation with Lisa, turned too slowly, their eyes widening in horror.
But Venti moved quickly, his hand reaching out.
It wasn’t the clumsy stumble of a bard. It was a flicker of motion, a shift in the air itself. The space around him shimmered, humming with a power that made the hair on Diluc’s arms stand on end.
A single, perfect gust of wind — sweet and fresh as a thousand spring mornings — erupted from the epicenter of his will.
It didn’t blast; it cradled, teals of Anemo elemental energy catching every single falling glass and settling them back onto the table with impossible grace, arranging them into a flawless, glittering circle without a single crack.
For a heartbeat, the glasses themselves seemed to chime with a final, pure note, the last echo of the wind’s divine song. The air remained charged and filled with glowing feathers and dandelion seeds, thick with the scent of cecilias and a power that had not walked so openly among them in centuries.
Silence. Absolute, dead silence descended upon the entire festival.
Venti blinked, the divine light in his eyes fading to be replaced by sheer, panicked mortification. He scratched his cheek awkwardly, a painfully human gesture from a being who was suddenly, undeniably, so much more.
“Ah… oops?”
For a moment, nothing. The silence was so complete Diluc could hear the distant rustle of the windmills in the city.
Then, the spell broke.
Not in fear, but in a wave of pure, unadulterated awe. A collective gasp swept through the crowd, followed not by panic, but by a surge of delighted murmurs. It was as if the entire festival had been holding its breath and now exhaled in a single, joyous rush.
People surged forward, not in fear, but with open palms, reaching not to grab, but as if to simply feel the air where a miracle had just occurred, to be near its source.
“Lord Barbatos!”
“It’s Him? It really is Him!”
The children, especially, were a chorus of gasps and wide-eyed wonder, looking at their favorite bard as if he’d just hung the moon in the sky.
Which, for all they knew, He might have.
“I knew it!” Lily shook a baffled Chloris by the shoulder. “I knew he was Papa Toes! He looks just like the statue!”
Bennett looked mortified as Klee, blissfully unaware of what happened, grabbed his and Razor’s hand, dragging them upfront.
Jean’s eyes met Diluc’s. Her professional mask had slipped, and she gave him an exasperated look that said, ‘Really? Here? Now?’
Diluc’s answering glare was a silent, ‘Don’t look at me, I didn’t tell him to do that.’
From across the festival venue, a very specific sound cut through the murmuring awe.
Kaeya, who had been taking a sip of Death After Noon from the open bar (that Diluc did not remember approving), choked spectacularly, sputtering denials that nobody listened to.
Albedo patted his back sympathetically as the Cavalry Captain coughed out what seemed like a lung and a half.
Amidst the chaos, Venti’s gaze finally found Diluc’s. The god’s expression was a priceless mix of sheepish panic and a silent plea for help, his eyes wide. He gave a tiny, helpless shrug that seemed to say, Well, the cat’s out of the bag now.
Diluc’s stern expression softened for a fraction of a second. He gave a single, almost imperceptible nod. It was an acknowledgment of the mess, a promise of protection, and a silent, I know. It’s alright.
Before the crowd's murmuring could coalesce into a thousand questions, Jean’s voice, amplified by a practiced command, cut through the noise. “Everyone, please! Let’s not overwhelm our Lord Barbatos! The first cask of wine is about to be tapped! And for the children, you may ask Charles and Diona for sparkling apple cider only.”
The promise of free alcohol and food worked flawlessly, the crowd’s attention successfully and mercifully diverted.
In the created pocket of space, Venti ambled over to Diluc, looking far too pleased with himself for someone who had just accidentally revealed his divine identity to the entire nation.
“So,” he said, rocking back on his heels. “That happened.”
Diluc crossed his arms, fixing Him with a look. “Oops?”
“It was the first word that came to mind!”
“You have existed for over two thousand years. That was the best you could manage?”
“Panic makes poets of us all,” Venti declared. He hesitated, his playful demeanor softening into something more vulnerable. With a quiet sigh, he lifted his cherished beret from his head, cradling it briefly before placing the flower crown properly upon his dark hair. He finally looked up, a nervous hope in his bright eyes. “You’re not… angry, are you, Luc?”
Diluc let out a long sigh, the last of his tension leaving him. He reached out, straightening the lopsided crown. Then he took the discarded beret from Venti’s grasp and tucked it neatly beneath his own arm.
“I am perpetually annoyed. There’s a difference.” His thumb gently brushed a stray petal from Venti’s cheek. “And no. I could never be angry with you for protecting a child.”
Lightening up, Venti merely giggled, standing on his tip-toes to steal a quick kiss. Brat.
A beat of stunned silence fell over the nearest onlookers before it shattered into bewildered murmurs.
“Wait, did the bard– Lord Barbatos just—”
“But Master Diluc never— with anyone—!”
“Wait, does this mean all those times he was ‘chasing him out of the tavern’...”
“That wasn’t chasing, you fool, that was flirting!”
Kaeya finally regained his bearings. “Ha! I knew that bard paid his tab in more than just ballads— ow, fuck, Jean, alright, I’m sorry— ”
The whispers swelled into a wave of astonished chatter, and Diluc fought the urge to fidget in his suddenly too-warm, too-constricting suit. Just as the weight of a hundred stares began to feel unbearable, the air around them shimmered.
A faint, gentle wind swept into a protective circle, enveloping them in a pocket of quiet and blurring the baffled onlookers into a muffled, distant hum.
Unbothered by the chaos he’d just ignited, Venti just smiled up at Diluc, teal eyes full of affection. “A defender’s will, strong as yesteryear,” his god sang softly, echoing His song from mere minutes before.
Diluc couldn’t help the fond, exasperated smile that finally broke through. “Joining the thousand winds,” he finished, his voice a low rumble, “in a song of good cheer.”
He kissed Venti again, softer this time. His thumb gently stroked the line of Venti’s jaw before pinching His cheek. “Now behave. Or I’m cutting you off.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”