Chapter Text
Diluc had been waiting for a long time.
Seated on the couch, the room was empty, barren of any other life other than the redhead sitting alone. Diluc couldn’t help but continuously glance over at the empty couch in front of him. Someone usually occupied it. But now, it was left alone. The pillows were rearranged back to their usual position, and the blankets were folded and cleaned, all done by the maids.
But Kaeya still wasn’t home.
It was not uncommon for Kaeya to come home late. Diluc was used to it. He was used to Kaeya coming home in the middle of the night, hair messy, dark eyes from lack of sleep the night before. He was used to ushering him into the house, usually unable to sleep himself without his brother under the same roof as him.
“Rough night?” He’d usually joke, making Kaeya huff in amusement.
“You’d think that recruits would know how to write a proper report.” It was something that Kaeya would usually stay late past work hours for. He would stay with Jean during those nights, both of them enjoying the company as much as they could.
“Hm,” Diluc would hum in reply, “Let’s get to bed, yeah? I’m tired too.”
“You work too much,” Kaeya once said to him, making Diluc pause, “We should take a break day sometime next week. Just you and me, doin’ nothing and just relaxing.”
Diluc had smiled at that, “Yeah, sure, let’s do that one day.”
The clock continued to tick-tock the seconds down, even if it were past midnight. Diluc’s seated stance continued to remain rigid and tense; sitting at the edge of the couch, his elbows on his knees, his fists underneath his chin, and his eyes remained glued to the front door.
Diluc would consider himself to have a keen sense of hearing, something like an owl. He could hear when someone was pretty far away from the house and if he tried really hard, he could probably guess who it was too. But he heard nothing outside. Not a single crunch of footsteps against the gravel or the dirty pathway through the grapevines. Nothing but the occasional critter of an animal or the wind.
It began to irk him slightly. Normally, he’d get out a book during these moments, maybe even some work he hadn’t gotten the time to finish during the day. But this wasn’t a usual moment. The circumstances had changed since then. Kaeya’s safety and the home he built were crumbling all around him and Diluc couldn’t do anything but watch. He knew close to nothing about Khaenri’ah. Anything he did know about it would be due to Kaeya’s willingness to talk and that wasn’t much to begin with.
Diluc scowled at his own thoughts. At some point, he figured that he needed to force Kaeya to explain everything. He couldn’t save his brother from something that he didn’t even know about.
At that thought, the bubbling anxiety reached a slow peak, and Diluc rose from the couch. The indent he made took a bit to regain its normal form of a couch as the redhead strode over to the front door. It was cold outside, but not incredibly. He took his long dark coat and wrapped it around an arm, taking ahold of the doorknob with the other.
Just as his hand twisted the metal and opened the wooden door, Diluc’s nervous expression dissipated into one of shock and then annoyed frustration.
“What do you want?” Diluc said, not bothering to hide the snarl behind his words.
Childe’s guarded expression didn’t change the slightest bit despite the venom coming from the other, “I need to speak with you.”
It’s late.
It was past midnight and Kaeya still wasn’t home.
He couldn’t help but bring his frail nails into his mouth, biting on them as he stared out the window.
His office was quite similar to Jean’s; the window behind his desk was filled with half-done paperwork, the couch and coffee table a bit further away, and the maps and statues of Mondstadt all around him.
He didn’t bother turning his desk chair completely to face the window, having only turned it halfway, his right side against the backrest of the chair. His legs dangled over the armrest, his back having slight support against the other armrest.
His teeth continued to bite over the tip of his fingers, the small remaining nail plates, and the hangnails. Nervous thoughts began to crawl across his mind, his legs absent-mindedly crossing over each other, his body growing smaller.
Jean was meeting with Pantalone.
Alone.
He closed his eyes tightly, another nervous wave wracking through him as he began to dig into the tens of thousands of reasons it was a bad idea. For him. Not for Jean, not for the Fatui, not for Mondstadt… no, for him .
He had kept his secret for almost two decades. Almost two decades of deceiving his fellow knights, the people of Mondstadt, and even his own brother, about who he truly was.
A liar.
A traitor.
A spy.
He wished his life was so simple. He wished he hadn’t had any memories about his past, wished that he wasn’t the last true heir to the royal throne of Khaenri’ah, a nation known for its sinners and apostates.
But no matter how hard he tried, he could never forget his father’s voice. He was so young, he barely remembered much about the nation he hailed from itself. But that damned voice would ring in his head for those two decades. Yet, he remained quiet. He remained quiet and tried to convince not only the world but himself, that he was one of them.
He looked down at the bright blue Vision on his belt. Perhaps he convinced them too hard.
As the Vision continued to shimmer and shine, his frown deepened as he thought of his brother.
He would get hurt by association, Kaeya knew this. If worse came to worst, Kaeya knew that he would have to denounce the Ragnvindr name, pretending he had no allegiance to the family whatsoever. Diluc would scream and retaliate, stating it wasn’t true, that they cared for one another. But it would have to be done, so his brother could continue living his life.
The sound of clacking heels against a vinyl floor drove Kaeya’s fingers out of his mouth, rubbing them against his uniform. The heels sounded familiar.
Jean.
Kaeya glanced back up towards the window, the starry night of Teyvat shined back at him, the mix of blue, green, and purple twinkling. Celestia poked out of the edge of the window.
He looked back down at the Vision hanging on him, twinkling right back.
What do you want me to do? He silently asked.
Do I lie? He glanced back towards the window. The trees around his view remained unmoving.
Do I give the people of Mondstadt the show of their life? Nothing.
Do I pretend more, pretend that I was always against them? For Diluc?
His heart pattered against his chest, rhythmically, as if it were trying to tell him something.
What do you want me to do?
A gust of wind made the trees move from side to side, left to right.
Kaeya paused his train of thought, his hand tightening around his Vision. The clipped wings dug into his palm.
The past two decades of his life were filled with falsehoods, fabrications of who he was, and denial.
Did he have to…
No.
Did he want to keep this up? Not only to himself but to the people he cared for and loved?
He thought of the day he told Albedo everything, a blur of words and phrases he barely understood flooded out of him and no dam could stop it. He thought of Albedo's understanding, his kind eyes and frighteningly perfect skin glowing with excitement. The excitement that someone understood what he was feeling.
With his hand tightly around his Vision, his back no longer against the rest but up and straight, his other hand began to make its way up to his eyepatch, where his secrets remained, untouched and unprovoked.
He looked out the window, the trees now unmoving and eerily still, as if waiting for him.
What…
He asked.
What do I want to do?
Like magic, a sudden gust of wind shook the trees. It shook the leaves, making a few green leaves fall down toward the ground and a few brown and crunchy leaves flew upwards. They danced around one another, going up and down.
A breath of relief he didn’t realize he was holding in left Kaeya as he smiled.
Before he could waste any time, he ran out of his office, towards someone who understood, someone who knew.
Albedo’s laboratory.
“I don’t have time to deal with you.” Diluc said coldly, his arm going through his other jacket hole.
Childe’s hand was flat against the door, preventing it from shutting in his face, “We can walk and talk-”
He glowered, “I refuse to repeat myself, especially to someone the likes of you.”
As he spat out those words, Diluc had to forcibly push down a wave of something hot that suddenly arose inside him. It was warm and vibrant. It started in his gut and began to swim through his veins… almost like adrenaline.
Childe was leaning against the doorframe, his chest rising and falling as if he’d just run there. His uniform was nowhere to be seen, now sporting a loose white button-up shirt and his signature gray pants. Somehow, he’d gotten another pair of gloves, to cover his hands. While one arm was up over his head as he leaned against the side of the frame, the other was palm-flat against the door itself, stopping Diluc from closing it. Diluc wondered why he didn’t feel the need to do so though he desperately wanted to.
“Master Diluc, I’m not asking, I’m imploring you to listen to me.” Childe reasoned once again, his voice tittering over to a whine, “Something bad has happened to me and I believe you could-”
Diluc tsked, interrupting him as the highlights of his cheeks flushed red for reasons he didn’t know and didn’t want to figure out why, “There is no reason on this land why I’d help you and your damn Fatui issues-”
“It’s about Kaeya! He’s in trouble!”
A stone suddenly sunk to the bottom of Diluc’s stomach, making him bite the inside of his cheek. Ah yes, the one thing Diluc dreaded to hear these past few weeks was this. Fatui intervention in his brother’s life.
Diluc closed his eyes, counting slowly to ten, breathing in and out. Unconsciously and unsurprisingly, thoughts of Kaeya bloomed into his mind, making his chest ache with worry.
He released a sigh, opening his eyes back to up stare up at a vast endless dead sea of a pair of blue eyes. Buttoning up his coat, he opened the door and closed it behind him as he stepped out of the mansion.
A quick analysis of the tone Childe used and his stance told Diluc more than he needed to know. He was desperate and acting out of character. Something was wrong, and a gut feeling told the redhead that it wasn’t only about his brother, but beyond it.
He took a quick glance at Childe’s face and licked his lips.
“We’ll walk and talk.”