Chapter Text
Contains spoilers for the last few locked story portions in Kaeya’s profile
1
There’s a part of Diluc that knows he’s dreaming, even as the dream, or rather, the nightmare, unfolds. Mainly because what’s happening has already happened, years ago, but damn if it doesn’t sting like it’s happening all over again.
He’s crossing swords with Kaeya, which is nothing new. Growing up together, they were each other’s de facto sparring partner. This is, however, the first time he’s drawn a blade against Kaeya with the intent to actually hurt him. No. Diluc’s not going to stop at hurting him. He’s going to kill his adoptive brother, because all this time . . . all this time . . .
Kaeya’s confession to being a spy, a Khaenri’ahn plant left in Mondstadt as a child, to grow up there and eventually betray Mondstadt, could not have come on a worse day. Just earlier that day, their father, Crepus Ragnvindr died, and Diluc hadn’t thought he could feel any more lost and hurt than he’d already been until Kaeya opened his stupid, lying mouth. His brother, his best friend, the one person he thought he would always be able to count on, has been lying to him since the day they met, and Diluc’s grief and anger have pushed him over the edge. He’s going to hurt Kaeya now. He’s going to make him feel all the pain that he himself is feeling, and then he’s going to cut the Khaenri’ahn bastard out of his life in the most gory way possible.
Then, maybe after that, he’ll just kill himself, because really, what is there going to be to live for if his whole family is dead anyway?
Their blades clash with such force that they’ll be honing knicks out of the edges when this is over. Kaeya gives ground. He’s not really trying, Diluc realizes, behind the wall of his rage. Stupid of him, when he’s matched against Diluc. Diluc’s always been the better swordsman, between the two of them. He’s stronger. Kaeya’s faster, and definitely dangerous, but Diluc has always had an edge over him, even without his Vision. He calls on his pyro powers now, edging his blade with flames, to force Kaeya to take this more seriously. It feels good to hear Kaeya hiss in pain as he blocks another of Diluc’s strikes, and his own metal blade channels the heat straight into his hands, and the rain that’s falling around them vaporizes into steam that stings his flesh.
He expects Kaeya to go on the attack, realizing that his life is truly at risk now, but Kaeya doesn’t. He continues to only defend himself . . . and not even that well. Diluc takes advantage of the openings, scoring a slash across Kaeya’s chest. Another across his stomach. Both times Kaeya dances back just fast enough to avoid them being anything but flesh wounds. Some part of Diluc knows that this is wrong, that this is Kaeya, and no matter how many lies he’s told, he hasn’t actually done anything, so it’s not unforgivable . . . that if he’d confessed any other day, Diluc would have embraced his brother . . . then punched him for carrying this burden for so long on his own. But today their father died, and Diluc can’t feel anything but rage and grief.
He summons the power of pyro onto his blade again, tempering it with so much heat that his sword blade actually turns white. When it clashes against Kaeya’s smaller blade again, the effect is instantaneous. The metal conducts the heat straight into Kaeya’s hands so fast that Diluc hears his flesh sizzle, right before Kaeya screams in pain. He tries to let go of his sword, but the metal is fused to his skin. Kaeya cries and curses, jumping back, buying time, then braces himself and rips one hand away from his sword hilt, tearing his ruined skin to do so, screaming in agony. He’ll carry those scars on his hands for the rest of his life.
The fight is over now. Kaeya can’t defend himself anymore, with the flesh on both his palms cooked like nothing more than meat. He knows it too. He stares at his bleeding left palm, the one he freed from his sword hilt, looking down at it like he’s never seen his own blood before. Then he looks at Diluc, and it’s almost like he’s never seen Diluc before either. He then waits for his verdict, as Diluc closes the distance between them, grimly. He waits to see if Diluc is going to follow through with his original intentions when he started this fight. He waits to see if his brother is really going to kill him.
Then something happens that no one could have predicted. The air around them suddenly snaps cold. The rain flash freezes into tiny strands of ice. Their breathe hangs like wispy clouds in the air, and Kaeya’s ruined hands are glowing with pale blue light. Then the elements burst.
Frigid wind swirls around both brothers, and just like that, Diluc knows that their duel is done. He can’t kill Kaeya right after the Anemo Archon gifted him with a Vision. To do so would be sacrilege. Diluc isn’t the most devout of Barbatos’s believers, but even he knows that’s a line he shouldn’t cross . . . and the cold winds are cutting through the inferno of rage and grief that had been blocking Diluc’s good senses. This is Kaeya he’s fighting. It’s Kaeya. He can’t . . . he would never . . . Kaeya hasn’t done anything unforgivable. Not like Diluc just has. What he’s done to Kaeya’s hands . . .
He looks at Kaeya’s ruined hands now. The right one is still stuck to his sword, blood flowing from it freely. His left hand now holds a cryo Vision, round like all Mondstadtian Visions are, and proof that the Anemo Archon just claimed him as one of their own, despite his heritage and his original intentions for coming here.
Kaeya stares at it, pain and disbelief warring across his face. Then he looks up at Diluc –
- and Diluc takes his dagger and stabs it straight into Kaeya’ heart.
Diluc wakes from the nightmare with a gasp and nearly sets his bed on fire in that hazy moment of panic. It only takes him a second to remember that what he just dreamed didn’t happen. At least not the last part. No knife magically appeared in his hand, and he didn’t stab Kaeya right after realizing that Barbatos was pretty much ordering him not to kill his brother. He probably wouldn’t have killed Kaeya even without divine intervention.
At least he hopes he wouldn’t have.
Diluc rubs his hand across his eyes, and those are not tears he’s wiping away. He’s just tired. Another night with not enough sleep.
This is actually the eighth night in a row that his sleep has been tormented by nightmares. Over half of them have been about Kaeya dying. It makes no sense. Kaeya’s fine. He’s healthy, and hasn’t even had any brushes with death or close calls in the past two months or so (at least not that Diluc knows of), and Kaeya and Diluc are getting along better than they’ve been since that horrible night years ago. That night when they were both grieving over their father’s death, and Kaeya confessed that he’d been left in Mondstadt as a spy, and they dueled, and Kaeya received his Vision, after Diluc permanently disfigured his brother’s hands. After which, Kaeya walked away alive. Not dead. Not by Diluc’s hand, or anyone else’s. There’s no reason for these dreams.
Diluc gets out of bed with a groan. He knows better than to think he’ll get any more sleep now. It’s earlier than he usually rises, but he can’t bring himself to care at the moment. He lights a candle so he can see, then dresses for the day and goes downstairs. It’s too early for most of his staff to be awake. Only the kitchen staff probably are, and even they won’t have been awake long enough to have gotten much done. He could throw together something for himself, but after last night’s dream, Diluc finds he doesn’t have much of an appetite. He thinks about getting some work done, but after only glancing over the latest correspondence from Madam Vander, who is rabidly trying to dispute a property border between one of Dawn Winery’s satellite properties and her own property, Diluc realizes that he doesn’t have the patience to deal with such annoying affairs this early. So, instead he makes his way to the stables, saddles his favorite horse, and goes for a ride. It’s nearly dawn when he reaches Mondstadt . . . and realizes that he was probably subconsciously headed here all along.
It’s stupid and he knows it. It’s too early to call upon someone anyway, even if he wanted to. So, Diluc goes to Angel’s Share. Even though it’s not inventory day, at least it’s something to do. Just not something he can do right, he realizes when he glances down at the stock notes he’s been taking and realizes that there’s no way those figures are accurate. He has no idea how he managed to get the numbers off by so much, or what he was thinking when he wrote them down. In disgust, he throws them away and locks up the tavern. By then it’s late enough that at least Kaeya won’t worry someone is dying when Diluc knocks on his door.
It is still a little early. Early enough that it’s probably a little rude, and Diluc might have turned back and gone to loiter somewhere else for a while if he was thinking clearly.
It isn’t Kaeya who answers the door after Diluc knocks, Diluc is surprised to find. When the door opens, he’s confused for a second, because it looks like no one’s there and it opened by itself. Then, he looks down, his attention drawn by a flash of red, and Klee the Spark Knight is beaming up at him.
“Good morning, Master Diluc, sir! Do you remember me? I’m Klee. I helped Amber and Razor hunt boars at your winery, and we stayed away from your vines, and you gave us grape juice!”
Diluc remembers. That had been an . . . interesting encounter. He manages a smile for the tiny terror. “Yes, I remember. Good morning, Klee.”
“Klee, don’t open the door if you don’t know who –” Kaeya hurries into the entry room, a tense look on his face until he sees his brother standing there. “Diluc? Is everything okay?”
“Yes. Nothing’s wrong,” Diluc reassures him. “I was in the area . . .”
It’s a pathetic excuse, and even after half a dozen drinks, Kaeya still wouldn’t buy it. They’ve been getting along better lately. Much better. They’re nowhere near as close as they used to be, but they are making progress, fighting less, and Diluc thinks that it’s not technically too big of a stretch to say that they’re friends again, or at least they’re almost there . . . but they’re not the kind of friends who randomly drop in on each other.
Even so, Kaeya pretends he buys it. “Come in,” he invites his brother. “You’re just in time for breakfast. This is Klee, by the way. Klee –”
“Klee knows Master Diluc,” Klee says happily, running in a circle around Diluc after he steps inside and closes the door. “We met on the mission that you sent Amber and I on to get the bad boars and save the vines, and we had a picnic.”
Kaeya smiles then hurries back to the kitchen. It turns out that he was in the process of flipping pancakes when Diluc knocked on the door. Bunny and kitty shaped pancakes to be precise. Kaeya flips one of the bunnies onto a plate for Klee, the other onto a plate for Diluc, and the kitty onto a third plate that he gets out of the cupboard for himself, while Klee runs to another room and comes back dragging a third chair to put at the kitchen table, so they can all sit together, or at least they’ll be able to after Kaeya’s finished cooking the pancakes.
“Eat them while they’re hot,” he tells Diluc. “Help yourself to the cream and berries.”
Then, he begins pouring more batter into his frying pan to make more pancakes. These ones in shapes too. A puppy, a birdie, and a fish. Klee, who disappeared from Diluc’s sight after getting the extra chair, reappears with another drinking glass and pours Diluc a glass of milk from the jug on the table, filling it to the brim.
“This is for you, Master Diluc, sir!”
“Thank you, Klee.”
This is . . . unexpected. Diluc actually doesn’t know what he was expecting when he showed up unannounced at Kaeya’s house so early in the morning. Other than awkwardness. This is nice, though. In fact, it might be exactly what Diluc needs.
“Klee stayed over last night,” Kaeya says, perhaps feeling like he needs to explain why he has this strange child in his house so early in the morning. “We got back from a mission only a little before midnight, so we just came here.”
“Kaeya makes the best breakfasts,” says Klee. Then she picks up her bunny pancake with her bare hands and bites an ear off.
Diluc has never been one for small talk or chit chat, but he’s hardly going to be aloof to a child who’s being friendly to him, and he’s actually feeling better by the second, so he manages a small smile for Klee and tells her, “I think so too.”
“His guestroom bed is so comfy, and the blankets are so soft and fluffy, and when I wake up, there’s always great things to eat, so I love staying the night at Kaeya’s,” says Klee after swallowing her mouthful of pancake. “Sometimes he makes fry bread, and it’s great, and he lets me take the leftovers with me, and they go so good with grilled fish. Which I don’t get by blowing the fish up in the water, because that’s bad and Klee knows better than to do that.”
Diluc looks from Klee to Kaeya, whose back is to them as he flips the new batch of pancakes, then back to Klee. “Of course you do.”
“Klee,” says Kaeya in a disapproving voice, “What have I told you about lying?”
Klee visibly droops. “Not to bring up a topic I have to lie about if I don’t need to or don’t have anything to gain.”
“Did you need to bring up fish blasting?”
“No.”
“Did you have anything to gain from bringing it up?”
“No. I’m sorry, Kaeya. I’ll do better,” promises Klee.
“Chin up, Klee. You’re not in trouble. Not with me. Just remember what I’ve taught you, so you can stay out of trouble with other people, and out of solitary confinement.”
“Yes! I will!” Klee says, giving Kaeya a look of pure adoration.
“’Atta girl.”
Diluc tries to hide a smile as he picks up his knife and fork, places his napkin on his lap, and begins cutting a bite off his pancake.
Breakfast is very enjoyable. Kaeya keeps the pancakes coming until they’ve all eaten their fill, and Klee chatters every moment that her mouth isn’t full, so there’s no room for awkward silences. Diluc feels a little bad because Kaeya eats all his pancakes standing up, while cooking more. If he hadn’t shown up, Kaeya would have accumulated enough for both him and Klee fast enough that he could have sat down to eat with his guest who he actually invited here . . . but Kaeya doesn’t give any indication that he minds. If Diluc can still read him, he’d say that Kaeya is actually pleased to have Diluc here. A little worried, because he knows Diluc didn’t just stop by out of the blue for nothing, but he seems to have decided that nothing must be too wrong since he can probably read Diluc well enough to know that after only half an hour here, he’s feeling worlds better.
Once he’s finished with the pancake cooking, Kaeya finally sits down to join them. Klee’s finished eating, and finished with her milk, and is clearly just loitering now. She’s not the only one, but Diluc thinks he hides it a little better. He serves himself some more berries and eats them slowly.
“Do you want some cream for your berries, Master Diluc?” asks Klee, sliding the pot of cream toward him across the table top. “Kaeya steeps sweet flowers in it to make it sweet cream, then he uses cryo to freeze it, and it’s so good.”
“I’m sure it is, but no thank you,” Diluc tells her. Klee makes a small pout and starts to pull the cream pot back, but she’s extended too far across the table and at that moment she loses her balance. For a moment she flails then catches herself, but right before she does so, her hand hits Diluc’s still mostly full glass of milk, tipping it over. Diluc hurries to right it, as Kaeya reaches for Klee, making sure she’s not going to overbalance and fall backwards.
“I’m sorry!” Klee squeaks and flails, making Kaeya’s task harder, since he’s reaching across the table for her. Somehow, his hand ends up in the rather large puddle of milk.
“It’s okay. You’re okay,” says Kaeya, quickly. “Don’t fall now.”
Klee nods, having regained balance, and grabs her napkin to wipe up the spilled milk. Diluc uses his too, and in only a moment, the table’s as clean as if that never happened. Except Kaeya’s glove is soaked with milk, and he’s peeling it off.
“I’m sorry, Master Diluc,” Klee apologizes. “I didn’t mean to spill your milk.”
“It’s . . . fine,” says Diluc, but he’s hardly paying attention to the little girl right now because . . .
. . . he’s never actually seen the scars he left on Kaeya’s palms before, but he sees the one now. It’s as hideous and ugly as he always knew it would be, like only burn scars can be, and it doesn’t just cover his palm, but stretches partway onto the back of his hand as well.
“No harm done,” says Kaeya. He picks up his own napkin, to wipe the remaining milk off his hand, and then keeps hold of it, so his scar is mostly hidden from view. He then collects Klee’s and Diluc’s milk-soaked napkins. “I’m taking these to the laundry room. Be right back.”
Klee sits back in her seat and fidgets guiltily. Diluc tries hard not to do the same. When Kaeya returns, only half a minute later, he has on a new glove, identical to the one he just took off. He studies both his guests, and their guilty, gloomy demeanors, then immediately begins trying to dispel them. “So, I was talking with Paimon the other day, and . . .”
Klee cheers up quickly enough. She departs soon after, after wrangling a promise from Kaeya to meet up again at headquarters before dinner. Then, once she’s gone, it’s just Kaeya and Diluc, and it’s even more awkward than Diluc had thought it would be when he showed up at Kaeya’s door, unannounced and impolitely early.
“Thank you,” says Kaeya, unexpectedly.
Diluc jerks slightly. “What?”
“For not making Klee think she’d done something terrible.” In other words, for not immediately storming out, and for doing his best to hide his darkening mood after he saw the reminder of how he’d disfigured his brother.
Diluc stares at the table top for a moment, then raises his eyes to meet Kaeya’s. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re forgiven.”
Diluc jerks again. It can’t just be that easy.
“It’s nice when it’s this easy, isn’t it?”
“Stop reading my mind,” Diluc says on instinct, just like he always used to when Kaeya seemed to be responding to thoughts that Diluc had but never voiced.
Kaeya laughs.
Somehow, someway, most of the tension dispels.
Diluc tries again. “I am truly sorry, Kaeya.”
Kaeya nods and gives a gentle smile. Well, a gentle-looking smile that looks that way by design. When he opens his mouth, his scheming nature is revealed. “Want to tell me what really brings you here, then?”
Trying to change the subject like that might have actually worked if this whole mess wasn’t like a snake biting its own tale. Diluc shakes his head in frustration. Kaeya takes that for a refusal.
“I won’t press you, then. I think you know, without me saying it, but I’m going to say it anyway: if you need my help, I’ll be there.”
“I know . . . and thank you. For everything.”
For forgiving me.
Diluc doesn’t feel like he deserves Kaeya’s forgiveness so easily . . . but back in the old days, things were always so damn easy with Kaeya. His brother had always been there to back him, and support him, and Diluc knew Kaeya did a fair amount of work in the shadows to facilitate everything he could for Diluc. Because of Kaeya, his path to becoming the youngest cavalry captain ever had been far easier than it should have. All his problems and rivals always just seemed to fall away. He should have known that night when Kaeya confessed how and why he’d really ended up in Mondstadt, that Kaeya had already chosen where his loyalties lie, long before he gave Diluc the power to destroy his whole life in Mondstadt with a word, if Diluc ever so chose. He wishes now that he could have seen it back then, before he burned and tried to kill his brother.
They’ve never talked about that night. Perhaps they should, but Diluc doesn’t think they ever will. Neither of them want to, and they seem to be moving on, at long last, without dredging that up. Until the spilt milk incident, breakfast had been wonderful and happy, and Diluc hadn’t wanted it to end. He’s looking forward to more times like this, and he knows they’re not too far ahead of them. He hopes this has been enough to convince his overactive subconscious that Kaeya’s fine, that everything’s fine, and he hopes he won’t be dreaming of his brother’s death again for a long while, if ever.
Diluc should have known that hope is for fools.