Work Text:
Kaeya ignored the sound of his doorknob turning. “Why’d you put a rug in here?” Kaeya jumped at the sound of Diluc’s voice.
“I wanted to,” he said, recovering quickly. “Why? Did you want your old office back?” They stared at each other for a long minute. “I didn’t mean that,” Kaeya said suddenly.
“Of course not,” Diluc replied, stiff, awkward.
“Why are you here?”
Diluc’s eyes drifted to the bookshelf Kaeya had been staring at when he’d entered. “I…” he faltered. “I wanted to ask you something.”
Kaeya waved vaguely to the room. “Couch or the desk, whichever.” It took a long moment for Diluc to find the couch, which was buried under a small mountain of pillows and blankets. He remained standing. “What do you need?”
“Whose temple was that?”
Kaeya’s smile was wry. “Our time god,” he said. “She fell centuries ago with the rest of her kingdom. I have the story in here somewhere.” He gestured at the bookshelf. “I’ll… I guess I’ll translate it or something for you.”
Diluc swallowed the demand to tell him now. “You said...” he coughed to cover the hesitation. “You said, rather, you called it your last service to, you know.”
Kaeya paused, and for once, Diluc could see the gears turning in his head, the fiddly little mechanics clicking into place behind his clear blue eyes. “Do you know about Liyue’s exorcists?”
Diluc frowned. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Never mind. Khaenri’ah was a city of people that died a long time ago.”
“What, you think you’re some kind of exorcist?” slipped out before Diluc could stop it.
Kaeya laughed good-naturedly, the way he did over a drink at The Angel’s Share, practiced to perfection. “Not at all. I’m just what’s left of the ghosts.”
Diluc forced his “sorry” past the stubborn set of his jaw. “And Dainsleif?”
Kaeya shrugged with one shoulder. “He’ll figure something out. I doubt he’s going far.”
“Who is he?”
Kaeya’s eyes went distant as he considered that. “That’s up to him,” he said finally. “I only know who he was.”
“You’ve become awfully poetic from your stint in jail.”
Diluc didn’t expect the genuine smile that turned up Kaeya’s eyes. “You were always such a good boy,” he teased, “I wouldn’t expect you to know the first thing about jail.”
Diluc didn’t know what to say to that. “I’ll see you this evening?” he asked instead.
Kaeya shrugged, still smiling. “I’m out of solitary at sundown,” he agreed.
~
It was a strange day, the day that Diluc found Kaeya, Klee, and Albedo on the floor of Kaeya’s office surrounded by the blankets and pillows off Kaeya’s couch, and books in a foreign language lying half-read, scattered across the carpet. Klee was curled up in Albedo’s lap, wide eyes devouring the pages of the book in Kaeya’s hands. Kaeya was reading in a language Diluc didn’t understand, softly, in a voice Diluc almost didn’t recognize.
The conversation from a few days ago was still tender, sore. It felt like a bruise on Diluc’s pride. He stepped away from the door, but Kaeya called out to him. “Join us. It’s not like Klee knows what I’m reading either.”
Diluc sighed inwardly, but now that they knew he was there, he supposed there was no harm. “Nothing you wouldn’t read in our language I hope?”
Kaeya laughed. His voice was a bit dry from reading, but he didn’t seem to mind. “Of course not. These are just our old legends. Come sit with us.”
From her place in Albedo’s arms, Klee gave Diluc a baleful stare as he carefully picked his way over to the three of them. Albedo offered Diluc the faintest smile, before returning his attention to the book. “Do you want me to read the next chapter?”
“What’s the next chapter again?” Kaeya flipped a few pages. Diluc only caught a flash of something dark in Kaeya’s eyes. “Ah. Would you kindly?”
Diluc pushed the two or three blankets that remained folded on the couch aside and at beside Kaeya, who leaned to the side a little to rest his head against the side of Diluc’s knee as Albedo began to read. Diluc stiffened a little, but didn’t push him away. “Are those for me?” Kaeya asked quietly, mouth pulling up into a teasing smile, his visible eye cutting to the tall, slim, glass bottles Diluc set on the floor beside the couch.
Diluc scoffed a little. “Who else?”
“Just making sure you’re not teasing me.”
Diluc didn’t look down at him. “Between the two of us, who does more teasing?”
“Of course,” Kaeya said, eyes sliding shut.
They sat in mostly-comfortable silence while Albedo continued to read. Softly, slowly, Diluc lifted a hand and placed it on Kaeya’s head. Kaeya stiffed with a flash of blue, but allowed it.
Klee’s eyes felt like fireplace tongs fresh from turning logs, burning straight into the side of Diluc’s head.
Albedo’s reading faltered, breaking off into a sentence that ended in Klee. “Is something the matter, Klee?” he tried again after an awkward cough. “Is the Young Master bothering you?”
“No,” Klee replied, still glaring at Diluc.
Albedo’s eyes crinkled, turning up ever so slightly as he smiled. “Good. Because if he was-” his sentence broke off back into the foreign language. Diluc couldn’t understand the words, but he knew a threat when he heard one, and while no one would believe him, Albedo was much scarier than he let on.
~
Diluc couldn’t help but feel like an intruder on Kaeya’s life anymore.
Today, it seemed that Kaeya and Albedo had both shirked their duties to spend the day with Klee. Kaeya had an arm around Albedo’s shoulders, and Klee dangled between the two of them, laughing brightly. She had windwheel asters tucked into her hair, poking out from under her hat, drifting to the ground behind her.
Kaeya and Albedo were talking over her head, but Diluc couldn’t hear the words from this distance. Kaeya tilted his head, but Diluc didn’t need to see his face to know that was a signal that he’d been detected. With a sigh, Diluc approached them. “How do you always know?” he asked.
Kaeya only smiled.
Albedo took Klee, tucked her into his side, not bothering the hide their accusatory stares. “What do you want?” he asked.
Kaeya patted his shoulder. “There’s no need to be hostile.” For a moment, Diluc could only see the playful, coy smile Kaeya wore over a drink in the company of enemies. Albedo backed off, muttering under his breath. “Though I am curious,” Kaeya said. “You’re not in town often. Especially at this time of day. It’s a bit too early for the bar.”
Diluc scoffed a little. “The only reason you’re not in there yourself is because you’re taking care of a child.” The jab came out a bit more aggressive than he’d intended, but Kaeya didn’t seem to mind.
“What can I say? It’d be terribly irresponsible of me to be drinking in the company of children.”
Albedo beat Diluc to the response. “Do you really want to start an argument about irresponsible, Kaeya?”
Kaeya laughed, unrestrained, unconcerned. Naturally. “So mean,” he said. “As if I would do anything but help our precious Klee. I’d almost be hurt if I didn’t like the two of you getting along.”
“You’re not calling him ‘your Highness,’” Diluc observed, perhaps a bit late.
Albedo gave Diluc a threatening smile. “His kingdom is no longer, and he is no prince here.”
“Be nice,” Kaeya scolded, affectionate. “Really, both of you need to lighten up.”
“You need to be more reliable,” slipped out before Diluc could bite it back. Klee scowled.
Kaeya only made a face. “Why, you wound me. I’m much more reliable than I look.”
Albedo snorted. “Sure, when it suits your agenda.”
Kaeya only laughed again. “I’ll see you around, Diluc. Keep an eye out for a package.”
“I thought we were keeping that a secret.”
Kaeya smiled at Albedo. “Well, yes, but I made him a promise.”
~
A brown paper-wrapped package appeared on Diluc’s desk one morning. Heavy and square. Upon opening it, it was a book, exotic and foreign-looking, bound in dark leather and gold. Tales from a Long-Forgotten Time: Memories from the Corrupted Kingdom read the title in a looping script that seemed distantly familiar. Translated by Remnant, illustrated by Khemia.
Diluc flipped open the cover, where a translator’s note was printed.
“To our readers,
We had fallen long before we had died. Our goddess was corrupted long before our savior’s birth. Our Kingdom had died long before our last Prince destroyed it. Feel for us no pity, for our home has been among the stars for far longer than we have been there, our time on earth long past. All that remains, all that we would leave behind are our legends. Who we were matters not. All that’s left of us are stories.
-The Remnants”
Scrawled on the inside of the front cover, another handwritten note.
“My heart of the Abyss was always here.”