Work Text:
It’s cold when he wakes.
Diluc pulls the warm fabric of his blanket over his head, then tucks his head under his pillow for good measure. Though muffled, his ears can still catch the gentle tinkling of snow on glass. He almost goes to fall asleep again, but he knows better by now.
Knows better than to expect to be able to get more sleep, not while his brother’s around.
As usual, he’s proven right when his bedroom door slams open, the volume only second to Kaeya’s excited yelling. It easily drowns out the snow, though it would just as easily drown out a screeching hilichurl.
“Brother! How on earth are you still sleeping on a day like this?” His footsteps echo through the otherwise empty room, then insistent hands are tugging him out of his self-made cocoon. “It’s snowing!”
“Yeah,” Diluc says, mouth twitching into a smile despite his mood. “And?”
Kaeya playfully huffs, wrapping his ice-cold hands around his wrists and moving to drag him out of the bed.
He’s caught off-guard by the freezing grip that early in the morning. It hits him like a punch in the face, and it’s enough to make him lose balance, falling headfirst into the soft carpet lining his floor. His brother’s maniacal laughter only adds to his shame.
Diluc shoots out an arm to tug Kaeya down, but he just barely misses catching a pyjama-lined ankle as he dodges swiftly.
Whatever. He’ll get revenge on his brother soon enough. They have the whole day.
“Where’s father?” he asks, not bothering to get up from where he’s laid out on the floor.
“Got to his meeting before the snow started.” The answer comes with a light kick against his side. “Brother. Get up, you’re wasting time!”
“Alright, fine.” He gets to his feet, taking the hand that’s offered to him without looking up. Unable to resist, Diluc mutters under his breath, “Drama queen.”
The hand is immediately rescinded, and he barely catches himself before he falls. Again.
He’s greeted by Kaeya’s joking scowl when he looks up, and he can’t help but grin in return. Slowly, his expression shifts to match his.
“Race you to the dining room?” he offers.
Kaeya is out the door before he even finishes, and he sprints after his brother with calls of “Cheater!”
The maids are glad to see them awake early, he thinks, because they prepare a hearty breakfast for them that quickly scarf down before rushing out. Snow days aren’t particularly rare, but ones without their father there to keep them from making bad decisions are.
Before they leave, the head butler bundles Diluc up in layers and layers of winter clothing, while Kaeya gets away with just a coat and scarf.
“This is favoritism,” he eventually manages to squeak out.
He can barely move; he’ll be a sitting duck for their games later. Kaeya will absolutely not hesitate to make use of any advantage he has available to him, and Diluc is not looking forward to being pelted with snowballs.
“Now, Young Master,” the butler chides, though there’s an undercurrent of amusement to his voice, “you know that your brother manages the cold much better than you. If you were to get sick—”
“I would infect Kaeya too,” Diluc says.
Kaeya hits him with the end of his scarf. He tries to dodge, but the clunkiness brought on by the butler’s fussing foils his plan.
This doesn’t bode well for the rest of the day.
“Can I at least not wear the boots?” he asks, shifting uncomfortably in place.
“I like the boots,” Kaeya inputs.
“That’s because they let you hit me easier.”
His brother grins. “Exactly.”
Diluc looks at Kaeya, then back down at his boots. He kicks him in the shin, and since he doesn’t have the same level of cushioning from far too much fur, his brother is quickly sent tumbling to the floor.
He’s been undiscovered, so far, but he’s sure it won’t take long. The deep imprints those Barbatos-forsaken boots leave in the snow are impossible to ignore, even if Kaeya were the stupidest person in Tevyat.
Not that he isn’t, but still.
Sneaking up to his enemy is almost impossible too, not when the rustling of his clothes provides ample warning from several miles away. Diluc sighs, clutching his ammo close to his chest. He can hardly feel the cold, can hardly feel anything thanks to the thick winter attire.
Even with his head tucked near his chest, he can still hear the seconds before he’s ambushed. It sounds like pain. More specifically, how much of a pain his brother can be.
“Gotcha,” Kaeya yells, then there’s a barrage of snowballs hitting his defenceless back.
He lets out a string of curses, then hurls an armful of snow at his brother. Only some of it hits the mark, but Kaeya falls to the ground anyways, laughing too hard to stand.
“You should have seen yourself,” he chokes out, “you looked like– like that turtle father got you a few years back.”
“Haha,” Diluc deadpans, pushing himself onto his feet and nudging even more snow onto Kaeya. He’s almost buried in the stuff now, only his head peeking out from a sea of white.
He reaches a hand out to help pull him out of the snow. Both their faces are flushed from the cold, and he’s beginning to feel the iciness seep into his bones, even through the several layers of clothing. Kaeya, however, looks completely fine.
Not for the first time, Diluc wonders how his little brother can bear the cold so well and internally wishes he could too. Maybe then, he can finally, just once, beat Kaeya in a snowball fight.
Before either of them can attack the other with more snow, the butler is pushing his way through the foliage and bringing them back to the warmth of their home.
“If you had stayed out there any longer, I have no doubt that one of you would have caught a cold,” he says, pointedly staring at Diluc.
He shrugs, remorseless. Kaeya takes the opportunity to pipe in.
“The only thing he’ll be catching,” he starts, then pulls out handfuls of snow from his pockets, cackling gleefully. Diluc’s eyes widen. “Is snow in his face!”
“You’re the worst,” he snaps, but then his mouth is filled with snow and he’s laughing through the cold.
(It’s cold when he wakes.
Diluc trudges down the streets of Mondstadt, eager to get to the bar where there’s proper heating and no environmental hazards. Not so much looking forward to serving wine to a crowd of alcoholics, but he can’t have it all, he supposes.
Halfway down the road, he locks eyes with Kaeya, likely also on his way to the bar.
He turns around. Being late to work won’t kill him; he owns the place, after all.
“Master Diluc,” Kaeya calls out from behind him. “Out for a stroll?”
There’s nothing good that can come from acknowledging him, so Diluc ignores him. After a long week of working shifts at Angel’s Share and spending nights protecting Mondstadt, he doesn’t have the patience to deal with Kaeya.
Of course, Kaeya doesn’t care about that.
A ball of icy wetness hits the back of his head, and he turns, bracing himself for combat on instinct, only to be faced with his piece of shit brother.
“What,” he snarls out. He runs a hand through his hair, the leather of his glove shielding his hands from the cold of the snow. “What do you want?”
Kaeya shrugs. “Angel’s Share can’t open without you there, can it? Think of it as me looking out for your customers’ interests.” A sharp grin. “And mine as well, of course.”
For a second, Diluc considers retaliating. They’re older now, stronger. He thinks that if he went back to those carefree winter days when they still called each other ‘brother’, he could win.
The second passes, and he rolls his eyes, brushing past Kaeya to unlock the door to the bar.
“This isn’t a favor to you,” he says.
“Just business, I know,” Kaeya replies. He tries not to read into the implications of that.
And it really isn’t for Kaeya.
Diluc thinks quietly that he doesn’t want to go back to the Winery, not where there are too many good and bad memories, that it’s easier to stay in Angel’s Share, where all he knows of his brother is alcoholism and bad jokes. He tries to shelve the thought away where he can never think it again.
The cold will always feel like the mischievous grin on his brother's face as he hurls a snowball at him, the biting chill of his brother’s hand in his; comforting even in its bitterness.
He tries to keep warm, these days.)