Chapter Text
When Kaeya opens his eyes again, there is no ring of fire.
The air is so cold that it shocks him, and it takes him a moment to remember where he is. Kaeya is in Windrise’s field, covered head to toe in someone else’s blood, and his brother is curled up in his arms. There’s a mutilated hilichurl corpse under where he sits. He tries very hard to ignore the eye pulled halfway from its head.
Wait. His brother. Holy shit.
Now remembering what he was here for, Kaeya frantically presses his head to Diluc’s chest in desperate hopes of a heartbeat. Please. Please. Don’t have been for nothing. I don’t know what else I could even do. Gods, if you’ve ever cared for me, help me now, please. Let me save him. Let me get him home.
…
One thump. Two.
“Oh my god,” Kaeya mumbles, tongue numb with cold. His body feels like it’s been electrocuted. “Oh my god.” He did it. He actually did it. Diluc is alive. Diluc is alive, in his arms, breathing and all, and he’s cold. He could cry with relief. Because there’s a chance now, so much bigger than before, that he can get Diluc home- that someone, somewhere, in the city that cares so much for them, can fix this. He might not lose him. Diluc might not die tonight.
He doesn’t know how long his blast knocked him out, but he doubts it was too long. The moon says it’s been less than an hour; he’s so tired that he almost wishes it had been more. But there isn’t time for wishful thinking right now, not with Diluc vulnerable like this. He has to get his brother home. He has to make it to the cathedral, and soon; hell, he’ll carry him the whole way there, if that’s what it takes. Diluc Ragnvindr does not deserve to die. Even if he did, Kaeya wouldn’t let him.
The cathedral… it will take him probably an hour, in this state, to get them both there. It’ll feel like a longer walk than it is. But he knows he can do it, if this is what it takes. It might genuinely be their only hope.
He stands up eventually, wincing, and bends back down to scoop Diluc into his arms again. Every movement is agony, his vision acting up with the aftermath of channelling so much energy at once, but he will not drop him. Fuck being tired, and how much more than him Diluc weighs- fuck every rational concern, well and truly, and fuck himself for skipping knight’s training so many times. He’s going to get him to Barbara in one piece. He has to.
So, he will.
“Sorry, Diluc,” Kaeya says, pulling his brother’s limp body closer to his chest. “This is probably going to be a rough ride.”
-
Click, clack. The sound of heels on stone is the only sound in the city at night. It’s cold out, with the wind’s guiding breeze- and even the drunkards are asleep now.
When they reach the doors of the Cathedral, Kaeya barely even registers that they’re there.
The trek from Windrise all the way to the top of Mondstadt city was one of the hardest things he’s ever done. In terms of fitness, he’s probably the least trained amongst all the knights (talk about pity position)- for anyone else, it probably would have been easier. But there’s a level of challenge uniquely provided by carrying a near-corpse in your arms, he thinks. And it’s definitely not helped by it being his brother’s life at stake.
He almost fell, a couple times, walking past the first few stalls on the way in. The cobbled streets of the city are significantly harder to walk comfortably on in the dark, and even more so when carrying someone else- the god of the wind will have to forgive him for the things he’s said. Truth be told, Kaeya cried like a baby every time he thought he’d dropped him. His nerves are completely shot. He’s exhausted, and terrified, and he feels sick every time he remembers why he’s here; he doesn’t even know how he got all this way without breaking down. Diluc is dying, he guesses. There’s no other motivation to make his body move.
It feels an odd place to come, for something like this; the sheer godlessness of the injuries in need of treatment strike the stained glass colours shining onto his blood-stained skin as heavily ironic. He doesn’t really have the time to be picky, though. Irony comes second to keeping Diluc alive.
Hesitantly, Kaeya pushes the huge doors with his feet, hoping one of the more conservative sisters isn’t on watch to monitor how he treats the city’s holiest building. In his defence, his hands are very full. Barbatos would probably understand.
“Hello?” Kaeya calls out. His voice echoes back in the huge polished hall, and it’s the first time he realises how bad it’s shaking. “Please, someone, we need help.”
No response. Slight shuffling of feet. He really, really does not have time for this. Sleep can fucking wait.
“Please,” he shouts, tears forming in his eyes. “Wake up. Someone. I can’t let him die. Not like this.”
It takes a few seconds, but eventually the door opens, and a sleepy Rosaria comes into view, rubbing her eye and holding the door with a muscled arm. She’s clearly only just woken up, on what must have been her only night off guard for the month. Kaeya wants, desperately so, to feel bad- but all that comes up is fear.
“Kaeya?” She murmurs, trying to process what’s going on. “It’s fucking 4am, Archons, why are you-”
She looks down. For the first time since he found him, Kaeya is forced to really, really deal with what has happened. Rosaria’s face mirrors his own. The gaping hole in his cheek, the burns, the blisters, the blood- he wants to throw up. Holy fuck. This is real. This is something that is happening. This face used to belong to someone he loved.
Rosaria stumbles back, hand covering her mouth. “Oh. My… God. I, fuck- Kaeya, I’ll go wake Barbara, get him on a pew, please, fuck fuck fuck, holy shit,” she stammers, voice rising in pitch as she begins to come to grips with the situation. “Stay here. I can… I can get- get her. Just, fuck, don’t move, don’t let him die, I’ll only be a second, I swear, fuck.”
He’s never seen his friend look scared before- not ever. Rosaria is the sort of person who has seen so much that brutality is trivial. She’s never been afraid of anything they’ve faced together, no matter what. So seeing her like this… he can barely stop himself from screaming and running as far as his legs will take him. All he wants is to lay down and cry.
He can’t, though. As scared as he is, as scared as they all are, Diluc’s life depends on them not breaking down. Rosaria runs off to get Barbara, and Kaeya walks into the church, looking for somewhere appropriate to put the body. He has to stay calm. It’s the only way this will end with his brother alive.
Kaeya lays his brother out on the backmost pew as quickly as he can, hands shaking like a leaf in a gale. Diluc’s body feels so fragile like this- like it might crumble in his grasp. Please, he thinks. Just hold on a little longer. We’re going to get you help. You can survive this, I know you can.
There’s no response except the glisten of bone from an open wound. Bile rises in his throat.
Blood in his shoes. Half-dead brother on a church pew like a monster. Teeth showing in a closed mouth. He really doesn’t know how much longer he can take this.
Thankfully, he isn’t alone for long. Rosaria is swift with her promises, and she brings Barbara through just as Kaeya’s first tears are about to fall; he wipes them away, embarrassed, before turning to them.
“Barbara,” he says, voice still sounding a little choked. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know where else to go.”
Ever gracious, she gives him a sleepy smile. “Don’t worry, Captain- it is my job. Rosaria said there was an emergency?”
Kaeya meets his friend’s eyes, and finds a mutual feeling of panic. She must not have had time to warn Barbara- from the looks of it, she’s scared of how the teenager will react. He can’t blame her. The two of them are fairly well versed in this sort of thing, with their trade, but Barbara… she’s just a kid. Sure, she’s seen some shit here working as a healer, but this is something else. Kaeya doesn’t think he’ll ever stop reliving it when he closes his eyes. No kid should have to see this shit.
Regardless, Barbara moves forward. She is, of course, oblivious to the silent communication between the others- there’s an art to intel that she lacks- and so does not suspect anything until the sight of Diluc’s body smacks her in the face. Kaeya braces for impact.
He watches as a hundred emotions flash across her innocent face in the span of a second, and watches her almost fall back when her body forces her to recoil. There are tears in her eyes as she surveys the damage, gaze lingering against her will on the mess of his face. Her whole body is shaking, twitching, trying to run away- Kaeya wishes he was stable enough to tell her it’ll be okay. He wishes she wasn't his only hope of that ever being true.
“Barbatos,” Barbara whispers under her breath. “I pray; watch over us now.” Her voice is thick with tears. He doesn’t have the heart to not believe in a god right now.
Kaeya watches as she begins her rituals; it never gets less impressive, no matter how many times he feels it first hand. The teenager possesses an incredible skill with her vision, shaping and manipulating it with ease as she addresses the body even though she shakes like she’s about to fall. The air around her is wet with condensation, just like always. Kaeya feels selfish, but can't help it. Please, kid, he thinks. You’re the only shot we have. Please don’t let him die.
It feels pathetic, having to leave his brother’s life in someone else’s hands. Kaeya has never been good at using his vision to heal- it seems to prefer the notion of violence- and he knows he could never do this, but he wishes he had been able to fix it alone. Diluc deserved that from him, and he let him down. Barbara is reliable, sure, but it’s not the same. He should have trained harder. He should be everything his brother could ever need, just in case of this. Irrationality does not trump his guilt.
He lets a soft gaze rest upon the actions, and unwillingly loses himself in thought.
-
When they were kids, Diluc was always the one to make him feel better.
Kaeya was always a poorly coordinated child, even from a young age- thus, his tiny knees were perpetually patterned with the telltale signs of adventure. Bruises, scrapes and cuts adorned his skin like accessories, and he wore them with pride. They were, to him, a display of the things he and Diluc had done together. Every scar was just a funny story to tell.
That didn’t mean he didn’t cry when it happened, though. Every new injury brought him to tears, no matter how small; he had always been a sensitive kid. He never learned how to pick himself up, really. When he was hurting, all he knew to do was sit and cry. Some things never change.
Diluc, though, was always tougher than him. When he fell down, he’d just laugh it off- he didn’t even cry when Crepus poured rubbing alcohol on his cuts, or when the maid bandaged his broken bones tight. He was way stronger than Kaeya ever was. It made him jealous.
Despite this, though, Diluc was never anything but kind. When Kaeya fell, he wouldn’t expect the same from him as from himself; he would simply offer a hand, and help him to his feet. He didn’t call Kaeya weak for not being able to bounce back alone.
“I don’t care about that stuff,” he would say. “You won’t ever need to do things like that by yourself when you’ve got me.”
When Kaeya cried, Diluc never laughed at him like the other kids did. His brother wasn’t ever mean to him, didn’t call him a crybaby, didn’t make him feel weak and afraid. When Kaeya cried, Diluc just sat down next to him, and held his hand.
He always was the one to ask Kaeya how he felt, clean him up after a rough day. Diluc protected Kaeya with his life, made sure everything was perfect- he would say it, over and over again: “You’re my brother. It’s my job to look after you. You can always ask for help.”
It was entirely true too; all Diluc ever wanted was for Kaeya to be okay. He’d do almost anything to make him cheer up- give him hugs, bring him snacks, pull silly faces. It was just the sort of person he was. If Kaeya got a cut, Diluc would be first in line to kiss it better.
“I don’t think that’ll fix it,” Kaeya would cry.
Diluc would just smile. “It might. Can’t hurt to try.”
(And sure, it never did. But it did make him feel better. He thinks that might have been the plan all along.)
-
When he comes back to his body, Barbara is running away.
The air around him is wet, and the healer’s nightdress is soaked- something has gone wrong. He’s never seen Barbara need to use this much energy from her vision to fix something before. Fucking hell.
Rosaria is quick to follow her, catching her before she can run out of the hall and pulling her into an uncharacteristic hug. The older woman looks confused by her own actions for a moment, definitely new to physical contact with the teen, but accepts it when Barbara finally stops struggling and holds onto her like her life depends on it.
“Hey, hey,” Rosaria murmurs. “It’s alright, kid. I’ve got you. You’re okay.”
The words seem to do nothing for Barbara, who can barely keep herself standing up. Her face is deathly pale in the moonlight, and even from across the room, Kaeya can see her shaking. Whether it’s from overusing her vision or something else, she is fully distraught. The innocence that usually paints her face is long gone.
“H-he,” she starts, retching between words. “His teeth, Rosaria. I could… I saw his teeth, and his mouth was closed. There was so much blood, Archons, and the burns- I can’t- I have to, have to do it or he'll die, but I can’t, I can’t look at it any more, I can’t.” She’s barely coherent, with every word punctuated with a gut-wrenching sob. He’s never seen anyone look so scared, not even himself. It’s so easy to forget that their healer is just a kid.
Rosaria looks like her heart is shattering. “It’s okay, Barb, I’m not making y-”
“I can’t,” Barbara shouts, clutching her head in her hands as she sinks to the floor. “He… he’s dead. He has to be. There’s no way, no way, no way- no way he’s alive. I can’t. I can’t- can’t do it- can’t, fucking, fix this.”
The deaconess kicks her feet pathetically, curling tighter into a ball as though it’ll make any of this go away. “No, Barbatos forgive me, I can’t heal him. I can’t- can’t, can’t fix it, can’t make this, fucking, okay. I can’t.” She rocks back and forth. He hears her finally begin to cry. “I can’t do it.”
Wordlessly, Rosaria crouches beside her. Sharp talons run gently through ringlet curls, and Kaeya watches as the stoic sister of the church brings Barbara into her chest and holds her tight. The look in her eyes… it is so familiar. He knows, through that alone, from across the whole room, that Rosaria will do anything in this moment to help Barbara be okay, even if it’s impossible. He knows that notion well. It hits him like hot oil from a pan.
Because Diluc is still there, bleeding out on the pew next to him. As much as he draws parallels, as much as he reminisces, it will not fix this fact. There is nothing he can do now that can change this course of fate. His brother is dying. Their only hope is catatonic, and a fucking teenager, for Archon’s sake. None of them will ever be able to erase the image as long as they live. Underneath the agony, there is guilt.
Diluc’s face, his brother’s face, is torn apart, his tongue visible from the side, and it will never be whole again. He’ll never see anything but this version of events in his mind’s eye. The skin on his arms will never be anything but burned. His brother’s hands… Fuck. Kaeya takes one in his own and holds it tight, feeling more hopeless than he ever has. They might well stay cold forever, now.