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Cold. It’s…cold, so cold, too cold. He can’t…remember. Anything. He can’t remember anything.
It hurts, everything hurts—scared, all he feels is scared . He cries, his face hurts, it’s too cold. Hurts, it hurts, he doesn’t stop running. Fight after fight after fight.
Blood, too much blood. On his hands, sometimes his—never his though, not really.
Who is he? Where is he? He wants to go home, but where’s home?
Diluc Ragnvindr , someone calls him. Dottore calls him. He knows that name but not his own. How can he know Dottore’s name but not his own?
Diluc Ragnvindr Dottore called him, but Luc thinks Diluc Ragnvindr died a long time ago.
The eleventh fights differently. The others fight to kill, to injure, to subdue. The eleventh fights for fun, for entertainment, for sport. The eleventh doesn’t look at him with hatred in his eyes, he looks at him in amusement.
He lets Luc go, every time. He never takes him, even when he wins. He listens when Luc struggles, backs off when Luc demands it. He’s kind , nicer than the others. A child who reminds Luc of a brother he can’t remember.
Kaeya, he knows that name. His brother, but not really. A friend, maybe, one he hurt. Killed, he killed him. Luc’s chest hurts and some nights he screams. His father he killed, a memory he only has in nightmares.
His brother he hurt or maybe killed too—Luc left their fight before he could see how bad the injuries were. He left his brother hurt and injured, drowning in the rain, he left his brother to die alone.
Now Luc is going to die alone too.
Ruin Guards, five of them. He can’t do this, can’t fight them. The Delusion burns his hand, his wrist. One Ruin Guard left, it catches him and throws him across the clearing.
Dottore comes, he speaks, Luc can’t hear him. He feels like he’s been punched in the stomach and he screams as Dottore abandons him to bleed out in the snow.
Dying, he’s dying—bleeding out in the snow but he deserves it because the ice saved his brother’s life so how fitting that it takes his.
Scared, he’s so scared , but then the eleventh shows up and saves him and Luc feels safer than he has in a long time.
The eleventh tells Luc his name is Ajax, call him Ajax, and Luc wishes he had a more solid name to give Ajax than just ‘Luc’ but it’s all he has.
And then Ajax sells him out and he’s dragged in chains to face The Tsaritsa herself and suddenly Luc is glad he doesn’t have a real name to give.
He deserves a death sentence, he knows, as he shivers in the frozen air of her throne room. He deserves execution and if that is what she’ll grant him, he will take it with dignity.
She doesn’t.
And Luc wonders why he feels disappointed .
……………………
The Tsaritsa stares down at him. Her gaze is as cold as the air, fogging the breath in front of his face, and Luc tries—and fails—to fight the shivers wracking his body.
“You have spent two years killing my agents across the nations,” she begins, voice echoing across the room and striking Luc deep in his chest. “And now you dare to step into my own region and continue?”
Luc says nothing. He does not dare speak in the presence of an Archon. There is little he can say that won’t sound like an excuse anyway.
“Having said that,” The Tsaritsa goes on—and whether she wanted a response from Luc or not, he isn’t sure. “Despite the fact that death row would be an apt and fitting end for you, I cannot say I have any interest in taking your life.”
Luc shifts then. If there was anything he’d been expecting, it hadn't been that. He still doesn’t dare speak though, even as he wants to ask why . But perhaps she knows that’s what he wants to know or maybe she was planning to share either way.
Regardless, she speaks again. “Information on each agent and location you have taken out has been brought to me by Harbinger Pierro. From what he has compiled, it appears to me that you’re looking for something.” She shifts in her seat and for a moment, her eyes soften. “You didn’t just kill my agents for mindless sport, did you?”
When she remains silent, watching him, Luc finds his voice and replies, “No ma’am.”
Is ma’am the right way to address an Archon? Luc can’t recall if he’s ever met one. He doesn’t know. She smiles though, the expression gentle.
“I didn’t think so. Based on the locations you struck, Harbinger Pierro thinks you’ve been looking for something.” Her gaze, if even possible, softens in a way that reminds Luc of the way Ajax’s mother had watched her children play. “Are you looking for something, Diluc?”
Again with the name. Perhaps it is Luc’s name, though it feels more like the name of a stranger. It can’t be his, for he feels nothing at the sound of it.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. It’s truth, though he doubts she’s happy to hear it. When he hunts the agents, strikes locations, he has single minded determination. He searc hes through their papers and files and knows that whatever he wants, he’ll know when he sees it.
But to ask him now—or ever—he’s afraid he cannot tell you what exactly it is that he’ll know on sight.
“You were an Allogene who abandoned his Vision,” The Tsaritsa said. “I’m sorry.” Luc doesn’t know what that means. He remains silent. The Tsaritsa doesn’t seem to expect a reply. “It’s unfair of me to execute a man who has a purpose, yet doesn’t even remember it. Your stolen Delusion has been returned to us and while the Fatui are now short several hundred agents, they were evidently too weak if they could not withstand you .”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will not be executed,” The Tsaritsa decided. “But you will be banished. And should you ever return to Snezhnaya of your own free will, I will not be so merciful.” Her eyes sharpen and the cold grows stronger. “Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
……………….
Paperwork on his arrest and following banishment need to be written and filed. This means Luc is locked in a cell until this is finished.
He’s barely alone for an hour before he hears footsteps and two agents stand on the other side of the bars. Instincts Luc cannot name nor recall gaining flare to life when they unlock the cell door and he stands, wary, when they approach him.
“We’ve been given orders to take you to Il Dottore,” they tell him as they clasp his wrists in iron and drag him down the halls. “Don’t struggle as we’ve also been given his permission to use force to ensure obedience.”
Based solely on the smiles on their face, Luc concludes that they desperately want to use force.
He chooses to be annoyingly obedient for the duration of the walk, no matter what they say to try and rile him up. They even throw around the name Ragnvindr a few times, going so far as to mention the name ‘Crepus’.
Luc can’t say who that is or what it makes his chest hurt to hear, but he makes a mental note to seek out the man when he is finally returned home.
That and find Diluc Ragnvindr. He has a feeling whoever that is is highly hated by the Fatui.
They make it to the lab, only to be informed that Dottore has been called away and they solid return the Delusion Thief to his cell before The Tsaritsa notices.
So he’s walked back and just before they put him back in his cell, they kick him to the ground; spitting on his body before slamming the doors and laughing.
…………….
Five hours pass. Footsteps approach his cell and Il Dottore appears. Luc notes that it’s not hard for the man to get the agents guarding his cell to scamper away and within moments, he is once more being led to Dotortre’s lab.
He remained silent for the trip and it was only when they finally entered the lab that Luc felt a lick of fear curl in his chest.
“What do you want with me?” He asks quietly, voice hoarse on account of having not fully recovered from his illness before Ajax betrayed him.
“Those are my own reasons, I assure you,” Dottore replied as he placed a hand on Luc’s lower back, sending warning bells screaming through the redhead’s mind. The doctor gave a gentle nudge towards the table in the middle of the room but Luc had no intentions of going easily, digging his heels into the ground and shooting a glance at the Fatui doctor over his shoulder.
“I could run,” he declared, confident in his skill even without the Delusion on his wrist. “You’d never stop me.”
Dottore merely hummed. “Then perhaps I should remind you which of us has the power here.”
The pain hurt —the electricity not being enough to render him unconscious but yet strong enough to make him fall to his knees where he twitches and gasps on the ground.
He watches through blurred vision as Dottore sets down an electric cattle prod that Luc had never seen him grab. He chokes on a noise of pain as he’s grabbed beneath the arms and dragged over to the table.
He can't fight down gasps and groans as he’s strapped down and he struggles sluggishly, blinking slowly as Dottore begins speaking—voice bouncing around the room.
“When I heard the rumors that Diluc Ragnvindr—and of course, they only called you the Delusion Thief, but I knew of no one else with that same shade of hair—had arrived in Snezhnaya baring a Delusion, I must admit that I had some doubts. After all, you were a very brilliant child but had never struck me as one bold or important enough to be given a Delusion.”
He chuckled as he moved to shuck off his coat and grab a pair of gloves. “Then I heard you’d stolen it and, well, my curiosity was certainly piqued.” He laughed fondly. “Diluc Ragnvindr resorting to theft is just…” he shook his head. “Truly, the boy who was handed everything on a silver platter just wanted more , didn’t he?”
Luc tested the straps as th electricity finally waned enough for him to have enough movement in his limbs but the leather was too tight and he could do little more than lie there and glower as Dottor walked over to stand beside him, still speaking.
“But no, that’s not you,” he murmured. “You were never greedy or selfish. No, you were always the perfect son, the perfect heir, the perfect Ragnvindr male.” He beamed. “Better than your brother, in any case.”
Luc felt rage boil inside of him, even if he couldn’t palace exactly why. All he knew was that this man had insulted his brother who—dead or alive—was still his brother .
“It takes a special kind of person to be able to wield a Delusion,” Dottore told him conversationally. “And an even more special person to wield one he has not been given with no consequences. You are the only such person to exist as of now and I find myself so dreadfully interested in how that is possible and what makes you so special. So forgive me for this.” He beamed. “It may hurt a bit.”
………………….
Somehow, Luc manages not to scream. Maybe Dottore gives him some sort of painkiller—he highly doubts it—or maybe the fear has just made him numb.
But he feels nothing but terror as he watches, silently, as Dottore cuts into his abdomen with a scalpel. Blood spills over his pale skin and Diluc feels sick as he watches Dottore reach inside to withdraw his organs and he gags, barely preventing himself from being sick because the gag in his mouth will only cause him to choke.
How long he’s been here, he has no idea. Days, he thinks. His body is covered in scars and scabs and fresh cuts, blood coating nearly every inch of his skin and he can’t say he remembers getting all of them.
His head hurts. He feels weak and lightheaded. He lays, barely conscious, as Dottore measures his intestines.
He hopes, somewhere distant, that if Dottore doesn’t kill him that he at least puts his organs back in the right place.
……………….
Luc blinks. He swears it’s all he does. Yet between his eyes opening, closing, and opening his eyes something changes and he finds they’re no longer the only two in the eroom.
Ajax is with them, yet there’s something off about his demeanor. He’s cruller, colder, and Luc shudders at the thought of Dottore having an extra set of hands to hurt him with.
Just several hours earlier—what he thought was hours, anyway—Dottore had torn open his chest cavity, snapped open his ribs, and lovingly caressed Luc’s heart within his hands.
He doesn’t want to know what the doctor will do with help.
He’s barely conscious—weak, hurting, exhausted—but some part of him is still just aware enough to pick up on their conversation.
“Are you familiar with the technique of waterboarding?”
“I am.”
“It’s the process of causing a victim to suffer the physical and psychological sensation very similar to drowning, though they don’t actually drown.”
“I just said I know what it is.”
“Fill his throat with water.”
Luc feels his blood run cold. No he pleads, at the same time as Ajax asked, “What?”
“Must I repeat everything I say?” Dottore demanded. “This is why I prefer to work alone. I said , fill his throat with water, but do not allow it into his lungs. We’re simulating drowning. I want to see how he responds.”
For just a moment, Luc thinks Ajax will say no. He thinks—hopes—that Ajax will fight and kill Dottore then get him out of there and free him.
He wants to go home. Luc just wants to go home but he nearly weeps when Ajax grins brightly and says,
“Cool!”
……………….
Luc coughs and gags as the water is forcefully withdrawn from his throat and he can breathe again. He thrashes in his restraints, heaving and struggling to get away, even as water begins to fill his throat and he chokes again.
Over and over and over for ages and they never stop. They never let him pass out but they never give him a break. Over and over again, Ajax tortures him and finally, Luc breaks and lets out a weak sob on his next permitted break.
He’d trusted him, trusted Ajax. He had been brought to the man’s home, seen his family, brought back from the brink of death.
All so Ajax could keep torturing him.
“Oh dear,” Dottore purred from nearby. A tacky finger swipes under his eye, smearing blood across his cheek. “We’ve made him cry.”
“You say, as though you don’t get off on that sort of thing,” Luc hears Ajax mutter.
Through tear-blurred vision, he sees Dottore just shrug.
………….
They keep going. They keep fucking going, and Luc has no idea how he hasn’t bled to death or passed out from pain. Dottore’s doing, he assumes. Torture is’t any fun when your subject isn’t awake to watch themselves bleed or to have a front row seat as you pull their heart out of their chest while it’s still beating in the palm of your hand.
Luc knows that, without a doubt, if he ever makes it out of here alive that this is not a moment he is ever going to forget.
…………
They do stop, eventually. Luc only knows this because he suddenly wakes up back in his cell with no scars or blood or any signs that whatever the hell he’s just spent the last length of time living through even happened.
He doesn’t get much time to question his sanity or to wonder if any of it was real. Within an hour, Ajax and another Harbinger arrive and escort him to the border to Liyue and Mondstadt.
There a small burning warmth in his chest that has started growing the closer they got to Mondstadt and every time he looks towards the city, he burns hotter.
There’s something within those stone walls, calling to him. He just…doesn’t remember what it is.
The silent Harbinger leaves back towards Liyue almost as soon as they’ve passed the snow covered mountain marking the border but Ajax, annoyingly, stays and smiles as Luc as he remarks,
“It’s been really lovely to get to know you, Luc.”
Luc doesn’t feel the same. Luc feels angry and scared and betrayed because he had actually been stupid enough to trust someone from Snezhnaya, just because he was welcomed into his home and brought back from the edge of death.
He shoots him an unimpressed look and tells him seriously, “I’ll kill you if we ever see each other again.”
And Ajax, the freak that he is, just grins and replies, “I can’t wait.”