he hates the way you look at him.
eyes hard, mouth tight, and your knuckles white around the hilt of your blade. it’s a look he foolishly assumed was his, and his alone.
scaramouche smirks, catalyst crackling and the sharp sting of ozone makes his nose twitch. the veritable lightning storm he sends your way is dodged with a frustrating grace that has his blood boiling in more ways than one. you give no quarter, pressing your advantage as his fellow harbinger is left to scramble away without any semblance of dignity. the indignation on his face is almost enough to quell the violent brew of envy in his heart. almost. because your gaze has not once strayed to his side of the battlefield, even with the activation of his delusion, and he wonders the ramification of snapping scaramouche’s neck in their next “spar”.
then there is a flash of overwhelming heat and the sick smell of sulfur, and he flings himself to the ground as a fiery phoenix goes flying overhead.
“eyes on me, fatui.” ah yes, he almost forgot.
the winery owner is stronger than he looks; his claymore looking to cleave his head from his shoulders with each swing. with great reluctance, he turns his attention back to the second annoyance of his night.
diluc ragnvindr is everything childe is and more. handsome, rich, and good. he hates him almost as much as he hates scaramouche.
maybe even more, if the way your head snaps around as he goes flying by is anything to go by.
“diluc!”
your little fairy of a companion flutters overhead in an annoying frenzy, and you spare scaramouche a single glance before abandoning him in favor of the dazed man childe had just punted into the wall.
your fingers caress his face with infuriating care, trusting in the abilities of the astrologist and favonius cavalry captain to keep them at bay as you tend to his wounds. he snarls as a wall of ice keeps him from closing in, and scaramouche’s shrieks of outrage tells him that your faith is not unfounded.
behind the thick layer frost, he watches you coax the redhead into an upright position and you must say something to paimon because she flits off without a word towards mondstadt.
what burns hotter, the jealousy or the failure?
you pull ragnvindr in close, face taut with worry, and something in the dark of his mind hisses.
kill him.
the whispers follow him back to snezhnaya, and while scaramouche sulks at their humiliating defeat in mondstadt, all he can see is your ashen face and trembling hands.
would you ever look at him like that? with eyes wide with fear as you do your best to staunch the flow of blood from his wounds; holding him close to your chest so you can whisper pleas in his ears? he wonders what it would sound like to hear you so close to tears. to hear your soft cries as you beg him to stay awake, to stay alive for you, and that you love him and can’t imagine life without him.
the fantasies keep him warm even as snezhnaya welcomes him home with her frigid winds.