Chapter Text
Diluc had been confident enough to see Kaeya’s return, making sure he was back all in one piece, and then suddenly leaving just as he always did.
He saw Kaeya a little too down for his usual self, though it didn’t bother him much until he went days without seeing him at the tavern, even for Kaeya it was a little too much, he thought, he couldn’t have quit drinking just like that.
When a fresh breeze burst through the windows of Dawn Winery on a sunday morning, he decided to take matters into his own hands, marching to Mondstadt right to the Favonius Quarters, knocking on Jean’s doorway.
“Jean, we need to talk, in private if possible.” the redhead firmly asked.
No response, Diluc grunted and made his way to Kaeya’s office personally, given that he must’ve been on shift during the day.
The door seemed locked, though he seemed to remember the brother always forgot his office keys somewhere, so he sighed and after a few violent hits the door came loose.
“Thank goodness these doors are old.” Diluc sighed with closed eyes, coughing slightly and opening them only to see the brutal sight of a cadaver on the verge of decomposing:
several flies were in the room, and the stench was starting to feel unbearable, so much that Diluc felt he could have thrown up his breakfast on the spot.
Not only the smell stirred something within him, but also the fact that his adoptive brother was lying lifeless on his desk, eye half devoured by insects and pests, skin almost blue behind the pale cheeks and around the rashes that covered Kaeya’s lips.
He had to hold himself up with a door, panting and trying to understand what on earth could have possibly happened for Kaeya to die so suddenly.
As he found a way to keep his knees up, he held a tissue up to his own nose and mouth, trying to cover the smell and going to check out said body.
A letter soon caught his eye, removing it from the knight’s stiffened fingers and quickly walking to the window behind him, only to throw up at the smell of decaying flesh filling the air like a miasma.
Quickly enough, he recovered, cleaning up and rushing out of the room to read the paper he held tightly in his hand: After all he had been through, his mind barely processed what Diluc saw seconds before.
Kaeya couldn’t be dead, not in the slightest, that’s why he decided to read the letter, only to prove to himself he was just the victim of some stupid prank, a very realistic one.
So, with dilated pupils and trembling hands, he broke the wax seal closing the invoice, sighing as he pulled out two long sheets of paper.
His eyes ran on the cursive letters almost as if they were trying to shovel out a clue, a single word that could prove his brother was just being his cryptic self.
Without luck, Diluc crumbled the letter and threw it inside his pocket, storming outside of the building and soon running towards the, still closed, tavern.
He still felt his body shake, the hurried way in which his heart was beating: in no way could he have predicted something so.. weak, from Kaeya.
No way in Celestia could his brother, who spent a life being a disgusting double agent for a dead nation crumble so easily and wither so fast.
There was just no way, no possibility.
Still, there was also no way the cadaver that made him vomit his guts was fake, or any chance the rotting eyeball staring into his soul back then could have been fake, nor the neatly written letter signed in expensive blue ink.
When he finally was able to open the door to his tavern, his knees just gave out, leaving him to breathe heavily and shaking on the floor, the redhead soon felt big droplets of water pour from his eyes, almost trying to wipe them off in a fit of rage; he just couldn’t understand how could he feel so bad for a person that lied to him all his life.
His fists tightened, and as he still continued to whine and cry, he got close to the bar table and grabbed a bottle.
It could have been a bad choice, but Diluc felt it was his best shot at relieving the throbbing pain inside his lungs and heart.
Just as predicted, as he drank and the crimson stained his lips, his crying stopped and his movements as well, he just hugged the bottle tightly, close to his chest, feeling a drunken haze stop him from having to deal with those nasty emotions regarding his very last piece of family.
The first bottle multiplied subsequently, leaving Diluc in a state where he barely could hold himself up and Charles had to call a carriage to bring him back to the Winery.
He felt awful, disgusted at how down he stooped for what seemed to be a normal death, not that he didn’t see many before, he was well too acquainted with cadavers and corpses.
So he just sighed, untying his ponytail and stuffing his head inside a pillow, thankful that the alcohol had at the very least stopped his thoughts from suffocating his brain.
The following morning, again, Diluc threw up before even putting something in his stomach.
His skin was pale, sickly and tired, not to mention he was finally sober and his thoughts began to hunt his consciousness once again.
He apologized to the maids and soon began eating, trying not to feel nauseous and get back to organize some sort of funeral.
He wished for Kaeya to have a simple, small funeral, so that he could mourn in peace for once and follow his last wishes, but he knew Jean and the knights would never agree to something like that.
Just as he sat at his large desk, Diluc sighed, trying to decipher the letter Kaeya left.
So much was on his mind that Diluc was barely able to focus.
He decided to contact Jean first, even though with the decaying stench, it would have been impossible not noticing a body inside the building, then he would organize the funeral, and then find out just what on earth Kaeya insinuated with his riddles and lies.
“Master Diluc, Sir, sorry to interrupt, but since you are leaving for Snezhnaya, would it be a problem if I prepared luggage with winter clothes? I’m afraid it will be terribly cold around this time of the year.”
“Yes, please do. Thank you.” Diluc politely dismissed the maid, sighing and massaging his temples, trying to untie the knots inside his head.
He felt overwhelmed, crushed by the weight of recent events and still uncertain of just what kind of reality he was living into.
“Archons.. I’m only twenty-two?” hands dug into his scalp, suddenly trying to kick away the dark mess inside his head.
Just as everyone was aware of the situation, soon a small group prayer was arranged at the cathedral, given that Diluc had refused entertaining Jean’s ideas of big parties and wine.
He knew he’d been a little too harsh lately, but the redhead felt it was better than crumbling right in front of all the knights.
Tenths, thousands, of people passed by to express their condolences, but Diluc only ignored them until he was able to teleport to Snezhnaya.
There, a paid troupe marched through the snow carrying Kaeya’s coffin to a nearby cemetery.
Finally he was all alone, able to unleash his feelings with the cold and unforgiving wind as his only spectator.
It felt lonely, sure, but better than half of Mond looking and keeping you up to old standards you no longer fit; but just as he was about to relax, he saw a face and a name way too familiar to be ignored just beside Kaeya’s headstone, Diluc blinked to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating, then kneeling to clean the tomb of any snow.
“the eleventh Harbinger?”
His lips soon fell into a deep, angry expression, shooting up and trying not to make his own lip bleed.
“You had to get even lower, huh? Seriously? The Fatui?”
At that point Diluc exploded, the snow near him melting in a matter of seconds after he grabbed his sword, walking to a nearby tree and taking out his anger on it.
He screamed, cried, punched and cut, until the tree fell down on his own, leaving Diluc a panting mess, unable to get a hold of his feelings.
Soon, he just got back to the grave, sitting and leaning onto it, feeling the cold snow melt onto his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, I really am. Though it’s meaningless to apologize now that your ears don’t work, I’m genuinely sorry.” he burst back again into tears, trying to wipe them and stop at once, but he couldn’t.
“I was never there for you, yet you always seemed to know what I was doing and where I was. I really miss the days where we’d hang around in the forest, playing hide and seek like any brothers do, and when we’d bake to see whose dish dad would’ve liked the most. But age complicates everything, right? With age, comes responsibility, consequences, secrets, lies, and everything that could ruin you in a millisecond. You know it best than I do, after all. Dear Barbatos, I'm twenty-two and talking to a grave, you must be laughing your ass off from wherever you are."
He soon pushed his index and thumb onto the bridge of his nose, trying to push away the throbbing spinning sensation that those strong emotions left him with, the realization of just how life is ephemeral for all kinds of people, not even vision holders are exempted from an unjust and terrible death, if destiny calls for it.
He rested his head onto the cold stone, sighing and staring into the void.
"I hope you're happy, burying yourself near him. Even though the Fatui killed father, I hope you had more than enough reason for desperately wanting to be buried together. I.. I hope he understood you better than I did."
He finally said, getting up and cleaning his body of the melted snow, slowly walking to the teleportation device with almost frozen legs.