Chapter Text
Diluc was a coward.
Kaeya’s eyes landed on him, and he ran. He could have stayed and called for Barbara. The house wasn’t so large that she wouldn’t have heard him.
Instead of sticking around, he ran and left Aether to bear the weight of everything.
He didn’t know what to say. Did he even have a right to say anything? Did Kaeya even want him to say anything?
And knowing how to act? How does one even act with their distant adopted brother, who you tried to kill once and scarred for life? That he scarred his brother again?
Kaeya was going to forever have his handprint burnt on his throat from the cauterization because Kaeya tried to … he squashed that thought because if he didn’t, he was going to cry or heave.
Once he told Barbra that Kaeya was awake, he escaped out into the lands around the Vineyard, finding a spot under one of the larger trees to watch the water and the sky.
Watching the sky, he forced his body to relax, he watched the sky move on the water. It was the first time he had been alone to even think.
Not that he didn’t understand at least a little. Diluc lived off of spite and anger for years after Everything, and he toed the line but he never actively crossed it but the thoughts were still there. He had more than one person, allies and enemies, who accused him of being on a path of self-destruction.
It was only when one close call too many happened, and it nearly got other innocent people hurt, that it was like the anger in him just died and suddenly all he wanted to do was return home. To see the Vineyard, to feel the wind the way it only blows in Windrise, to see freedom the way Mondstat people express it. Perhaps he even wanted to see the people he had left behind.
So he did, and it was by far the hardest thing he had done.
Adelinde and the rest of those that had been keeping Dawn Winery running welcomed him home, but it was clear they worried about something, and didn’t quite trust him like they used to.
Jean arrived not long after, so someone had to have told her. That conversation had been hard, as was seeing the Anemo vision on her belt.
The first thing she said to him was, “Ragnvindr, I will never forgive you, even if he does.”
Finding out why was agony, “He nearly died Diluc, between the fire burns and ice burns there wasn’t much of him unburnt.”
Jean’s hands trembled as she spoke, and that might hurt the most because Jean had always been a steady person.
“He only lived because Barbatos heard my prayers,” she softly admitted, her hand touching her vision.
Jean’s hands steadied as she laid her last threat out plainly. “If you ever lay a hand on him again, I will kill you, Luc. I won’t let you hurt him more.”
Diluc almost ran again, ever the coward apparently, but he stayed because it was the bare minimum he could do to try to at least repair something.
Mondstat, in general, was cordial to him, but they would never as welcome him as he was before. He had received more threats, some thinly veiled from Lisa and some very blunt ones similar to Jean's threat from Eula. Even some of the younger ones, like Fischl and Bennett, were quick to make him aware that if he so much as sneezed wrong at Kaeya, they would make his life hard.
Mondstat loved Kaeya, and after some people watching, it was clear Kaeya loved Mondstat. He helped any old person who asked. Welcomed the kids that ran about with warmth and indulgence. Ready to help anyone really, and always seemed to know just how to help. Mondstat and their people were truly Kaeya’s chosen home. Any residual worry that was barely there in the first place, he had was gone.
It had hurt that Diluc wasn’t a wanted part of Kaeya’s life, but he was more than aware that it was his own fault. He was the one that burnt that bridge. So he tried to respect that and live with that. Even if sometimes bitterness slipped out, particularly when Kaeya swept in and pushed his buttons.
He was so sure Kaeya had told Jean. Jean and Kaeya were obviously close. They shared a lot of secrets together. So it felt only logical that Kaeya would have told Jean.
Diluc also thought perhaps Albedo would have known as well. He had seen the way the two had looked at each other when the other wasn’t looking.
He thought there was a plan he just hadn’t been privy to.
He hated he was both right and wrong. Kaeya had a plan but it was on no one was told.
Maybe if he had been less of a coward, he could have talked to Kaeya, as in actually talked to him, apologized and asked what the plan was, maybe then Kaeya would never have … Diluc shook his head, he can’t play what-ifs games or he would spiral.
The present was the only thing that mattered right now. The past is the past, and they could handle the future when it happens.
He got Barbra and Paimon to stay with Kaeya, and everyone else was already gone for the evening, to their homes or a tavern.
It only took some searching, but Aether found Diluc under a tree just south of the vineyard, looking out on the water.
“Kaeya’s asleep again,” Aether muttered as he leaned against the boulders letting the chill ground him, beside Diluc, “I am supposed to tell you not to brood, you are already developing wrinkles.”
Silence hung in the air. Aether waited, watching as the air cooled and fog rolled on the water as the sunset.
“He … I …” Diluc starts, but trails off with a frustrated sigh. They hadn’t spoken about anything but a quick conversation about not telling anyone of the actual reasoning and exactly how Kaeya’s throat got slit. It wasn’t their place to reveal Kaeya’s secrets, not even Paimon knew the actual story.
So, in between not having much space to talk without being overheard and how it felt wrong to talk about it over Kaeya’s unconscious body. They haven't spoken about what happened.
“It won’t be easy,” Aether watches as the first star appears, “it will probably be the hardest thing Kaeya will ever do and one of the hardest things you will have to watch him do. Learning to live after years of living to die,” Aether let his hand ghost over the vertical scars his gloves were hiding, “is something we both know isn’t easy.”
He saw Diluc’s hands curl into fists, and press into his legs.
They sat in silence for a moment, watching as the sky came to life with stars.
“I can’t lose him,” Diluc admitted quietly.
“You already did,” Aether didn’t mean it unkindly, even as Diluc flinched as if Aether had hit him, “but there is still time to find him again. Are you going too?” It was a question he already knew the answer to.
“H e is my brother,” Diluc replied.
"Okay," Aether nodded, he found a particular star constellation, Pavo Ocellus, and he let himself wish upon the stars, let us be kind.