[So you're asking him to perform for you, Tartaglia? Don't count on it. Unlike his enemy, Diluc isn't here to show off or make a game out of what can only be a bloodbath, narrowing his eyes to hone in on Tartaglia through the veil of steam and ashen smoke.
His shots are irregular, the only upside of his inexperience with a bow, leaving Diluc to deflect only those which would do the most damage while the others whiff past his sides, drawing thin beads of blood to the surface of his skin.
But death by a thousand cuts is a poor offense, Tartaglia. Diluc's moving into the underbrush, bullying his way into the man's space, flames licking at his retreating feet with every step. A bow and arrow will do him no good if he doesn't think fast and get Diluc out of his face. No matter where he steps, Diluc moves to corner him, pushing him further and further into a corner with hot bursts of Pyro.]
It's a wonder you've survived this long. That ends today.
[ Soothes nothing at all to fall so short in power still, inexperience like a short chain that he always has to abide by, transfixing him to one spot too long as he struggles to straighten his stance. Far too many of his arrows fall short or slice too shallowly, but there is one that does strike Diluc true. Wherever it is, high on the shoulder or low on the thigh or even between the ribs, that blotch of Riptide, radiating blue all the way through and pulsing like a heart, remains. It won't last long, not when the heat is this intense. But it does guarantee that Tartaglia will hit his mark.
No more sophistry, then. No more words, either. Tartaglia dismisses the bow to take up the spear, the line of it whirling and lake-cold, and lunges out. He isn't blending in with the shadows, not like this— too apparent in his intent, and too bloodthirsty for discretion— so he takes up the cavalier approach, the polearm sliding with enough blunt trauma to shatter Diluc's arm in three different places if he doesn't get the fuck out of the way. Mercifully, it'll only hit him once if he knows well enough to dodge.
Smoke's trailing it through; it shoots through the inferno like it's nothing, Tartaglia seeking to pin Diluc to the nearby boulder, short of sending him crashing down the mountainside. Despite everything, this does end today. ]
[It doesn't matter how poorly-shot those arrows are when the one that manages to slice cleanly between his ribs leaves him marked, an easy target in Tartaglia's sights. It doesn't matter how inexperience handicaps him when he's guaranteed to injure him with the next strike, so that's more incentive to stay hot on this man's trail, throw even more of himself into the act of hacking away at a man who has no right remaining on this earth.
So is it worth sacrificing his arm to distract Tartaglia? That remains to be seen, but while his left arm is crippled by his side, Diluc's right drops his blade to take him by the skull and slam him into a nearby tree. The force is so rattling, so injurious that it'd be a miracle of Tartaglia stumbled away from it without a minor concussion at the very least. Try and kick him down the mountain now, trash. He won't go down without a bloody fight.]
Sentenced to that concussion, the pain briefly renders him insensate, the moment blurring on him. Standing in the greenery or the acrid smoke, the heat has gone up like water vapor when Tartaglia ignores the ringing in his ears to shove Diluc back, cornered but unwilling to back down. Blood's on his face. He blinks it out of his eyelashes.
The headache is clawing up. It's on him now, white-hot and killing any higher thinking, and the comparison just gives out there, Tartaglia doesn't have any analogies for this. There's two of Diluc, then three of him, all advancing on him. Too close for comfort, when the space is claustrophobic and shrinking with the sputtering flames. Not too bad, though, he can still take this bastard on.
Dropping the spear, Tartaglia advances with the daggers instead, bare and violent with these urges as he goes in for the stabbing with clean finesse. All of the articulation lives in his hands, since he always fights like he's approaching death. Steadiness in the grip is necessary to carry out everything that's commanded of him. ]
[Nothing speaks to the quality of another's soul like how they act in the wake of grievous injury. Someone who cared to keep their own life would have backed down by now, so what does he call Tartaglia? Brave? Foolish? Does the distinction even matter?
Without his claymore, deflecting those daggers is a matter of hand-to-hand combat, but it's a relatively simple matter with Tartaglia's vision clearly betraying him. His refusal to yield still means he manages to land a cut or two, a laceration across his bad arm, but little more.
Frustratingly enough, they're evenly matched. Diluc waits until Tartaglia's swiped poorly with those watery blades and strikes the underside of his elbow, promising a fracture or a bruised bone at the very least.]
Give up.
[You're flagging, Tartar. Even Fatui scum must have some base desire to live and preserve its own life.]
The frustration comes to him unbidden, unable to so much as chaotically scrape away at Diluc, but death by a thousand cuts doesn't suit him either. Anger comes rising and Tartaglia's rising with it; his arm's been dislocated, on the verge of broken, and he isn't the testing the sprain in it so much as he's shoving it back into place with a hiss that rushes all the way into pain.
Inflammation or the beginnings of blood loss are greeting Tartaglia, and he reels and grapples at Diluc to bonk him on the head with his own. How graceful. Fair's fair. So is this: lodging the knife in Diluc's hand so he's sent plummeting down to the ground with him, concussed or mangled or fallen victim to his resolve. ]
[Stupid indeed, but he's not faring much better than Tartaglia with his broken, bleeding arm accounted for. He isn't seeing double, nor triple, but the blood loss makes him slow, his reaction time poor but not as poor as Tartaglia's.
That headbutt smarts, but not nearly as much as the other wounds he's inflicted upon him, but it doesn't need to. It succeeds in knocking him off his feet and to the ground, but grappling Tartaglia's shoulder, he's taking him down for the count with him. The knife in his palm? Patently unnecessary, but he yanks it out of the ground with a hiss and beats the side of Tartaglia's head with the handle.
He's knocked them both to the ground, but Diluc isn't down for the count yet. His aim is poor, what damage he's able to inflict in Tartaglia in this state poorer, left gasping up at the man when the pain in his arm supersedes his ability to beat him senseless with it. A moment to recover is all he needs. Surely, that's all he'll need.]
[ Not that much allure in it, a victim of opportunity that can't outrun this harrowing ordeal with some asshole who hates Tartaglia for merely existing. Can't be helped at all, down on the ground and unable to even seize his fingers around that throat when his body won't obey him. One arm's unusable. The other one is caught in a feeling Tartaglia can't outlast at all, gone numb when it isn't driving him crazy under the pain. Even with Diluc given out to breathlessness beneath him, it's starting to feel a lot like one of them will die.
Huffing and flippant, Tartaglia bites off any further retort in favor of shoving their mouths together. Retaliatory and invasive, he's converging on him with all the adrenaline he couldn't leave behind. The weight of this gesture is heavy on his backbone and bleeding into everything, shoving him down so Diluc doesn't do anything particularly uncouth, like bash his head in again at this junction. ]
[Tartaglia's response is as shocking as it is unwanted, blood thick and acrid on his tongue where they meet somewhere in the nebulous in between. Diluc laughs some harsh bark of a laugh, adrenaline pounding in his ears, the sheer absurdity of the moment driving him to lift a heel and kick the small of Tartaglia's back, but his lips don't break that kiss.
It's all driven by momentum, threading his tongue into that mouth to coax out Tartaglia's and bite it bloody. He's given Diluc nowhere to go but further into him, and so be it. He won't cede as much as he'll make him regret coming anywhere near him, blurring the line between violence and closeness to such a blatant degree.
[ Stay so belligerent and get eaten. Fronting for nothing, Tartaglia's imprisoning him here for the lack of any better alternative, lip gnawed into this wet, acrid mess, parting them for the next biting trespass.
With Diluc's tongue in his mouth, he's drifting out of one offense to commit another. Not enough strength for the knives to keep their form, splashing to nothing when he's yanking down that collar to apply himself more constructively, teeth ragged and scraping down that throat to bruises that'll languish for days. It tastes like blood, all of it, bitter and metallic, all of these feelings rusting in his mouth as he ignores the pounding on his back to divest Diluc of any modesty. If he's wearing a coat, it's coming off. ]
[It burns, deeply and corrosively, heat spreading down from his lips to his throat to the vulnerability of his neck. He should be sick of this by now, being knocked down and stripped away like he has anything left to lose, but he treats it just as he had before: with no small amount of violence and heat.
Tartaglia's trespass is allowed only long enough to retaliate, hissing under the pressure of his teeth to tear at the back of his shirt, promising to send him home in tatters if he survives this ordeal at all. His jacket is done away with by Tartaglia's hand, but he removes his gloves of his own volition to claw at his back, draw angry red lines down the skin where he's left it bare.
There's nothing passionate here, only anger and adrenaline and a desire to divest as much of Tartaglia as he's divested of him. An eye for an eye with hostility to spare. His breath his hot and rushing against the side of Tartaglia's neck, but there's nothing warm about it. Nothing inviting.]
[ Too much violence glinting here, like an unsheathed blade he keeps tempting to bite his throat. Too much crassness and unpredictability here to call this anything but a risky venture into inanity and a danger that he can't cut himself loose from. All he can do now is play to his own strengths, back itching with all of that newfangled pain.
The laughter that issues out of Tartaglia is thin and careless, too, those fingers biting into his skin until they find purchase on the skin. Still not fully awake yet, burdened by this headache and blood loss besides, he's frisking open Diluc's shirt, all while his mouth is pooling with so much blood. Panting, he spits the rancor out of it, then lowers his hand to wrench off that belt next. Looks like he'll just keep going. ]
[Ridiculous is what this is, but which of them is truly absurd when Diluc is stooping to Tartaglia's lows? Is he punishing him? Teaching him a lesson?
Regardless, it's adrenaline and spite that urges him to knock Tartaglia off and reverse their positions, knees bloodied where they dig into the soil on either side of him, staring down at Tartaglia like there's any reason to be found in those eyes. There's nothing, nothing at all to be found in eyes so deep and dark, Diluc's hand coming up around Tartaglia's throat like he might choke the reason from his lips if he tries hard enough.
He isn't stopping the advancement of Tartaglia's hands, nor is he holding down particularly hard on his throat, guttering at him low and quiet.]
Are you that eager to be torn apart?
[This is your one chance to side with reason and back out, Tartaglia. This is your one chance to be spared.]
Not at all. I'm eager to tear into you, though. I think you'd show me an interesting sight.
[ Derogatory and vain besides, Tartaglia takes that hand to the thinnest part of his throat with no particular malice, ringed with all of these bruises that Diluc's poured all over his skin. Crossing his mind again and again are all of these filthy thoughts that he does need to keep at bay, so he isn't causing strife and undue chaos everywhere he goes.
His motives should be grander than simple boredom; but lying here on the ground, halfway to concussed and still tasting Diluc in his mouth, his fingers are clambering up to clutch at that soft baby-face. So stupid, how soft this guy looks. Really, if he had the strength, he'd punch him back down until he was gasping to be forgiven. ]
[It's worse having his face touched, worse having those hands fit around his features like he's being mapped out, studied, memorized. He has half a mind to smack Tartaglia, but he doesn't, flipping him around so that offensive face is half-buried in the dirt and grit.]
Serve you? Hardly. You've come to me looking for punishment, so don't expect anything less.
[It's pretty clear what Tartaglia's after, but he'll give it to him on his own terms, yanking his belt free from its loops and casting it aside, Vision and all.]
[ Gasping into the dirt, Tartaglia doesn't so much as outwardly react when his Vision's stripped away. Fuck, he didn't deprive Diluc of his own. Hard to keep track of it through the acrid haze of smoke filling up his line of sight, but he isn't fighting him off, either, as he struggles to keep his breathing relatively even. It's fine. ]
Sure you're not the one seeking punishment here?
[ Someone's got issues that need reconciling with. ]
[What pitiful resistance. Tartaglia isn't objecting to his punishment, so Diluc continues, wrenching down his pants and underwear both. So many chances to call it off, so many chances to preserve his modesty and ego both, and Tartaglia takes none of them. Spreading his cheeks open wide, Diluc harshly spits.]
And you would consider prostrating yourself before me punishment?
[What an ass backwards way of thinking. What's the boner situation here, rem? Is Tartaglia more of a freak than Diluc's given him credit for?]
What about this is prostration? [ Not that he's groveling, even now. He's far too cavalier for that, although he won't be able to save face for long. Even he can't turn away from pain inured to him, breathlessness swallowing him up. A bit humiliating if he thinks about the position, though, this undercurrent of bitterness seeping into everything. ] I'm not forcing your hand now, am I?
[ Take some culpability already. This isn't any real punishment, so much as it is a way for Diluc to rationalize what's occurring right now. ]
[You know what? Fine. Morbid fascination dictates that he reach down and grope around to confirm his suspicions, but he doesn't appreciate that accusation, so he squeezes harder than is strictly necessary.]
You've changed your tune rather quickly. What happened to your eager hands?
[Or were you undressing him to kiss his booboos, Tartaglia? There's no attempt to rationalize this beyond pinning the blame solely on Tartaglia, lining up to slowly, painfully shove his way inside of him. It's pain on both ends, but Diluc wouldn't have it any other way. Tartaglia asked for this.]
That isn't the case now, these prevarications gouging a noise full of only unbridled hurt, smothered only when Tartaglia bites down on the sound, gnawing his lips to bloody slivers. Hard to talk, wounded and wounding alike, entangled with Diluc and face-down in the dirt. His fingers are betraying him, closed and then spasmodically open— eager but in a different sense, struggling to contain the urge to wrench away when bored open.
Stupid and ridiculous, how little he's preempting by succumbing now. Really, he'd rather answer in kind, with a sharp tongue and all the witticisms that months in the Abyss and years of militarism have inculcated into him, but Tartaglia has no grasp on any of that now. Only restlessness, poured into him as he bows his head, struggling to get his breathing under control. Come on. This is just pathetic. ]
[Shameful, but not unexpected from a man so eager to get in his pants. Seems that isn't the case any longer, but this wouldn't be happening if Diluc had any intention of making this a pleasurable experience for either of them. As it goes, doling out punishment rarely comes without some kickback.
He'll earn Tartaglia's retaliation whether it finds him a week from now or a month, driving into him with relentless pressure, digging in, carving him out, making the weight of his mistakes too painful to ignore. It's a lesson for them both, isn't it? He'll leave Tartaglia to work out the moral on his own, pounding into him with bone-rattling insistence.]
[ It's just utter agony, down on the ground and suffering the tangible weight of that cock bearing down on him, the pressure so inconsolable that he's struggling not to lock up under it. These contradictions are whirling around in his head, except Diluc's closing him shut in them, and Tartaglia's no longer lunging to get away but to get closer. It hurts a lot less when the shaft of Diluc's dick is buried inside, raw and chafing but not so unbearable that he can't clench up around it. Nothing else to think about when the claustrophobia is only oppressive; getting railed into is the worst of it, white-knuckled when he's unable to deal with it well.
Sawed into, Tartaglia's attention is fragile, like something about to fall, only somewhat divorced from this moment. His thoughts aren't that dissimilar from his view from below, blurry and out-of-focus, save for the pain. That sensation breaks through his concentration, ringing like Tartaglia's just a chord to be struck, so vivid as to be piercing. Should it have been this way? If it's agony for him, then there's no way that Diluc hasn't been cursed for it, robbed of any consolation.
Some noises are ebbing out of him, but it's mostly just swears. The ache burning him is so dry and harsh that Tartaglia's largely preoccupied on his unwillingness to scream. ]
[It cuts both ways, but Diluc is inconsolable with a deeper pain, one that won't make it past his lips for fear of having to articulate it. All that grief spills out in how he handles Tartaglia, hands like vices around his hips so he can go nowhere while he breaks into him, yet against all odds, he doesn't attempt to move away.
Closer. Tartaglia moves closer, inviting pain and retaliation and anger in all the forms Diluc can give it to him. It was the same when they drew blades, wasn't it? He's drawn to the ache just as Diluc is drawn to doling it out, and they're both a little screwed up, aren't they, chasing pain where there ought to be pleasure.
Soon enough, the distinction between the two isn't clear enough to gauge anyway. Diluc exhales, filmy and ragged, yet he's only just begun. This is a first for him in innumerous ways, none of which he cares to highlight, nothing he regrets leveraging as a cudgel to beat into Tartaglia. What is there to lose that he hasn't already lost?]
...Why?
[It's a question with no real answer, none of them correct. Why is this happening? Why is Tartaglia allowing it? So many questions, but it's only that one word that makes it off Diluc's tongue.]
[ Scraping all of his ego out this way, jolting to wariness again under the severity of this onslaught, Tartaglia's less than attentive. He isn't certain what's being asked of him, initially. All of it comes off like forms of deprivation. It's his first time, and it might just be the worst of anything he's faced; it's also searing like a brand, and that's sort of mindless, too. Immobile as Diluc slams to the base of his dick, flush to the hips, there's no endgame so much as there is this deliriousness breaking into him.
Hazily, he's laboring to identify some pattern to the pace that Diluc's set, if it's chronic or intermittent, if he's impaling him under so illusion of control or if he's falling to pieces as badly as Tartaglia.
Held so taut, he can't last at all. The pain is sweet only as long as he opens himself to being mangled. If he'd been the one on top, would it have been exultant? Would it have felt a victory, tearing Diluc apart with his hands, claiming him like the spoils of war? But he's beneath him, and unable to run, Tartaglia's panting, forehead low to the ground, sweat-damp and shuddering all over. ]
... Didn't you need it?
[ Isn't that why he sent that stupid letter? So he could vent out all his aggression under the pretense of a fight? The anger that Diluc came here brandishing was so, so obvious, much further than some mere vendetta against the Fatui would provoke. ]
Immediately, he wants to laugh. Needing this, of all things... this frenetic push and pull, this outlet for all the anger and sadness that's been building up and up since arriving here, this senseless violence that feeds his more base instincts while the rest of him grows a little more hollow.
Maybe he did need this, but he doesn't need Tartaglia, and he makes that known by slamming into him with particular vehemence. Don't talk to him like you know him, like you understand what he needs. There's anger in Diluc's voice, but there's sorrow too.]
...Don't speak as if you understand what I need.
[And yet he does, sickeningly, this Fatui trash. Could it be that Tartaglia is just as angry, just as sad, bereft of purpose in a land where everything he's ever wanted has been taken from him? Are they the same? They're both hell-bound, but don't tell him they're the same. Don't tell him that this was meant to happen, needed to happen, to prove some larger point.
No matter how hard he pistons into Tartaglia, that wellspring of anger and sadness grows. Wishing to bring this to a swift end, Diluc pitches forward and wraps his hand around Tartaglia's cock, jerking at him.]
Don't pretend to understand. Open your mouth again and I'll kill you.
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no subject
His shots are irregular, the only upside of his inexperience with a bow, leaving Diluc to deflect only those which would do the most damage while the others whiff past his sides, drawing thin beads of blood to the surface of his skin.
But death by a thousand cuts is a poor offense, Tartaglia. Diluc's moving into the underbrush, bullying his way into the man's space, flames licking at his retreating feet with every step. A bow and arrow will do him no good if he doesn't think fast and get Diluc out of his face. No matter where he steps, Diluc moves to corner him, pushing him further and further into a corner with hot bursts of Pyro.]
It's a wonder you've survived this long. That ends today.
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No more sophistry, then. No more words, either. Tartaglia dismisses the bow to take up the spear, the line of it whirling and lake-cold, and lunges out. He isn't blending in with the shadows, not like this— too apparent in his intent, and too bloodthirsty for discretion— so he takes up the cavalier approach, the polearm sliding with enough blunt trauma to shatter Diluc's arm in three different places if he doesn't get the fuck out of the way. Mercifully, it'll only hit him once if he knows well enough to dodge.
Smoke's trailing it through; it shoots through the inferno like it's nothing, Tartaglia seeking to pin Diluc to the nearby boulder, short of sending him crashing down the mountainside. Despite everything, this does end today. ]
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So is it worth sacrificing his arm to distract Tartaglia? That remains to be seen, but while his left arm is crippled by his side, Diluc's right drops his blade to take him by the skull and slam him into a nearby tree. The force is so rattling, so injurious that it'd be a miracle of Tartaglia stumbled away from it without a minor concussion at the very least. Try and kick him down the mountain now, trash. He won't go down without a bloody fight.]
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Sentenced to that concussion, the pain briefly renders him insensate, the moment blurring on him. Standing in the greenery or the acrid smoke, the heat has gone up like water vapor when Tartaglia ignores the ringing in his ears to shove Diluc back, cornered but unwilling to back down. Blood's on his face. He blinks it out of his eyelashes.
The headache is clawing up. It's on him now, white-hot and killing any higher thinking, and the comparison just gives out there, Tartaglia doesn't have any analogies for this. There's two of Diluc, then three of him, all advancing on him. Too close for comfort, when the space is claustrophobic and shrinking with the sputtering flames. Not too bad, though, he can still take this bastard on.
Dropping the spear, Tartaglia advances with the daggers instead, bare and violent with these urges as he goes in for the stabbing with clean finesse. All of the articulation lives in his hands, since he always fights like he's approaching death. Steadiness in the grip is necessary to carry out everything that's commanded of him. ]
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Without his claymore, deflecting those daggers is a matter of hand-to-hand combat, but it's a relatively simple matter with Tartaglia's vision clearly betraying him. His refusal to yield still means he manages to land a cut or two, a laceration across his bad arm, but little more.
Frustratingly enough, they're evenly matched. Diluc waits until Tartaglia's swiped poorly with those watery blades and strikes the underside of his elbow, promising a fracture or a bruised bone at the very least.]
Give up.
[You're flagging, Tartar. Even Fatui scum must have some base desire to live and preserve its own life.]
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[ Stupid works out.
The frustration comes to him unbidden, unable to so much as chaotically scrape away at Diluc, but death by a thousand cuts doesn't suit him either. Anger comes rising and Tartaglia's rising with it; his arm's been dislocated, on the verge of broken, and he isn't the testing the sprain in it so much as he's shoving it back into place with a hiss that rushes all the way into pain.
Inflammation or the beginnings of blood loss are greeting Tartaglia, and he reels and grapples at Diluc to bonk him on the head with his own. How graceful. Fair's fair. So is this: lodging the knife in Diluc's hand so he's sent plummeting down to the ground with him, concussed or mangled or fallen victim to his resolve. ]
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That headbutt smarts, but not nearly as much as the other wounds he's inflicted upon him, but it doesn't need to. It succeeds in knocking him off his feet and to the ground, but grappling Tartaglia's shoulder, he's taking him down for the count with him. The knife in his palm? Patently unnecessary, but he yanks it out of the ground with a hiss and beats the side of Tartaglia's head with the handle.
He's knocked them both to the ground, but Diluc isn't down for the count yet. His aim is poor, what damage he's able to inflict in Tartaglia in this state poorer, left gasping up at the man when the pain in his arm supersedes his ability to beat him senseless with it. A moment to recover is all he needs. Surely, that's all he'll need.]
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Huffing and flippant, Tartaglia bites off any further retort in favor of shoving their mouths together. Retaliatory and invasive, he's converging on him with all the adrenaline he couldn't leave behind. The weight of this gesture is heavy on his backbone and bleeding into everything, shoving him down so Diluc doesn't do anything particularly uncouth, like bash his head in again at this junction. ]
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It's all driven by momentum, threading his tongue into that mouth to coax out Tartaglia's and bite it bloody. He's given Diluc nowhere to go but further into him, and so be it. He won't cede as much as he'll make him regret coming anywhere near him, blurring the line between violence and closeness to such a blatant degree.
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With Diluc's tongue in his mouth, he's drifting out of one offense to commit another. Not enough strength for the knives to keep their form, splashing to nothing when he's yanking down that collar to apply himself more constructively, teeth ragged and scraping down that throat to bruises that'll languish for days. It tastes like blood, all of it, bitter and metallic, all of these feelings rusting in his mouth as he ignores the pounding on his back to divest Diluc of any modesty. If he's wearing a coat, it's coming off. ]
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Tartaglia's trespass is allowed only long enough to retaliate, hissing under the pressure of his teeth to tear at the back of his shirt, promising to send him home in tatters if he survives this ordeal at all. His jacket is done away with by Tartaglia's hand, but he removes his gloves of his own volition to claw at his back, draw angry red lines down the skin where he's left it bare.
There's nothing passionate here, only anger and adrenaline and a desire to divest as much of Tartaglia as he's divested of him. An eye for an eye with hostility to spare. His breath his hot and rushing against the side of Tartaglia's neck, but there's nothing warm about it. Nothing inviting.]
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The laughter that issues out of Tartaglia is thin and careless, too, those fingers biting into his skin until they find purchase on the skin. Still not fully awake yet, burdened by this headache and blood loss besides, he's frisking open Diluc's shirt, all while his mouth is pooling with so much blood. Panting, he spits the rancor out of it, then lowers his hand to wrench off that belt next. Looks like he'll just keep going. ]
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Regardless, it's adrenaline and spite that urges him to knock Tartaglia off and reverse their positions, knees bloodied where they dig into the soil on either side of him, staring down at Tartaglia like there's any reason to be found in those eyes. There's nothing, nothing at all to be found in eyes so deep and dark, Diluc's hand coming up around Tartaglia's throat like he might choke the reason from his lips if he tries hard enough.
He isn't stopping the advancement of Tartaglia's hands, nor is he holding down particularly hard on his throat, guttering at him low and quiet.]
Are you that eager to be torn apart?
[This is your one chance to side with reason and back out, Tartaglia. This is your one chance to be spared.]
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[ Derogatory and vain besides, Tartaglia takes that hand to the thinnest part of his throat with no particular malice, ringed with all of these bruises that Diluc's poured all over his skin. Crossing his mind again and again are all of these filthy thoughts that he does need to keep at bay, so he isn't causing strife and undue chaos everywhere he goes.
His motives should be grander than simple boredom; but lying here on the ground, halfway to concussed and still tasting Diluc in his mouth, his fingers are clambering up to clutch at that soft baby-face. So stupid, how soft this guy looks. Really, if he had the strength, he'd punch him back down until he was gasping to be forgiven. ]
Eager to serve my needs?
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Serve you? Hardly. You've come to me looking for punishment, so don't expect anything less.
[It's pretty clear what Tartaglia's after, but he'll give it to him on his own terms, yanking his belt free from its loops and casting it aside, Vision and all.]
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[ Gasping into the dirt, Tartaglia doesn't so much as outwardly react when his Vision's stripped away. Fuck, he didn't deprive Diluc of his own. Hard to keep track of it through the acrid haze of smoke filling up his line of sight, but he isn't fighting him off, either, as he struggles to keep his breathing relatively even. It's fine. ]
Sure you're not the one seeking punishment here?
[ Someone's got issues that need reconciling with. ]
no subject
And you would consider prostrating yourself before me punishment?
[What an ass backwards way of thinking. What's the boner situation here, rem? Is Tartaglia more of a freak than Diluc's given him credit for?]
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What about this is prostration? [ Not that he's groveling, even now. He's far too cavalier for that, although he won't be able to save face for long. Even he can't turn away from pain inured to him, breathlessness swallowing him up. A bit humiliating if he thinks about the position, though, this undercurrent of bitterness seeping into everything. ] I'm not forcing your hand now, am I?
[ Take some culpability already. This isn't any real punishment, so much as it is a way for Diluc to rationalize what's occurring right now. ]
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You've changed your tune rather quickly. What happened to your eager hands?
[Or were you undressing him to kiss his booboos, Tartaglia? There's no attempt to rationalize this beyond pinning the blame solely on Tartaglia, lining up to slowly, painfully shove his way inside of him. It's pain on both ends, but Diluc wouldn't have it any other way. Tartaglia asked for this.]
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That isn't the case now, these prevarications gouging a noise full of only unbridled hurt, smothered only when Tartaglia bites down on the sound, gnawing his lips to bloody slivers. Hard to talk, wounded and wounding alike, entangled with Diluc and face-down in the dirt. His fingers are betraying him, closed and then spasmodically open— eager but in a different sense, struggling to contain the urge to wrench away when bored open.
Stupid and ridiculous, how little he's preempting by succumbing now. Really, he'd rather answer in kind, with a sharp tongue and all the witticisms that months in the Abyss and years of militarism have inculcated into him, but Tartaglia has no grasp on any of that now. Only restlessness, poured into him as he bows his head, struggling to get his breathing under control. Come on. This is just pathetic. ]
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He'll earn Tartaglia's retaliation whether it finds him a week from now or a month, driving into him with relentless pressure, digging in, carving him out, making the weight of his mistakes too painful to ignore. It's a lesson for them both, isn't it? He'll leave Tartaglia to work out the moral on his own, pounding into him with bone-rattling insistence.]
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Sawed into, Tartaglia's attention is fragile, like something about to fall, only somewhat divorced from this moment. His thoughts aren't that dissimilar from his view from below, blurry and out-of-focus, save for the pain. That sensation breaks through his concentration, ringing like Tartaglia's just a chord to be struck, so vivid as to be piercing. Should it have been this way? If it's agony for him, then there's no way that Diluc hasn't been cursed for it, robbed of any consolation.
Some noises are ebbing out of him, but it's mostly just swears. The ache burning him is so dry and harsh that Tartaglia's largely preoccupied on his unwillingness to scream. ]
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Closer. Tartaglia moves closer, inviting pain and retaliation and anger in all the forms Diluc can give it to him. It was the same when they drew blades, wasn't it? He's drawn to the ache just as Diluc is drawn to doling it out, and they're both a little screwed up, aren't they, chasing pain where there ought to be pleasure.
Soon enough, the distinction between the two isn't clear enough to gauge anyway. Diluc exhales, filmy and ragged, yet he's only just begun. This is a first for him in innumerous ways, none of which he cares to highlight, nothing he regrets leveraging as a cudgel to beat into Tartaglia. What is there to lose that he hasn't already lost?]
...Why?
[It's a question with no real answer, none of them correct. Why is this happening? Why is Tartaglia allowing it? So many questions, but it's only that one word that makes it off Diluc's tongue.]
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Hazily, he's laboring to identify some pattern to the pace that Diluc's set, if it's chronic or intermittent, if he's impaling him under so illusion of control or if he's falling to pieces as badly as Tartaglia.
Held so taut, he can't last at all. The pain is sweet only as long as he opens himself to being mangled. If he'd been the one on top, would it have been exultant? Would it have felt a victory, tearing Diluc apart with his hands, claiming him like the spoils of war? But he's beneath him, and unable to run, Tartaglia's panting, forehead low to the ground, sweat-damp and shuddering all over. ]
... Didn't you need it?
[ Isn't that why he sent that stupid letter? So he could vent out all his aggression under the pretense of a fight? The anger that Diluc came here brandishing was so, so obvious, much further than some mere vendetta against the Fatui would provoke. ]
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Immediately, he wants to laugh. Needing this, of all things... this frenetic push and pull, this outlet for all the anger and sadness that's been building up and up since arriving here, this senseless violence that feeds his more base instincts while the rest of him grows a little more hollow.
Maybe he did need this, but he doesn't need Tartaglia, and he makes that known by slamming into him with particular vehemence. Don't talk to him like you know him, like you understand what he needs. There's anger in Diluc's voice, but there's sorrow too.]
...Don't speak as if you understand what I need.
[And yet he does, sickeningly, this Fatui trash. Could it be that Tartaglia is just as angry, just as sad, bereft of purpose in a land where everything he's ever wanted has been taken from him? Are they the same? They're both hell-bound, but don't tell him they're the same. Don't tell him that this was meant to happen, needed to happen, to prove some larger point.
No matter how hard he pistons into Tartaglia, that wellspring of anger and sadness grows. Wishing to bring this to a swift end, Diluc pitches forward and wraps his hand around Tartaglia's cock, jerking at him.]
Don't pretend to understand. Open your mouth again and I'll kill you.
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