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The most irritating thing about the Abyss Order was that they just kept coming. If it weren’t entirely impossible, he would have said that they just randomly spawned, all around Mondstadt, to cause problems for him specifically. As it was, though, the night before he was due to bartend at the Angel’s Share to try and beat Kaeya to any information spilled in there, Diluc donned his coat and mask, picked up his claymore, and headed out to hunt down some monsters.
A couple managed to land some hits, which was very inconvenient. A couple of times, Diluc even noticed them drawing a bit of blood, so it was just a scratch, so it was fine. Besides, this was far from the first time Diluc had been stabbed multiple times, and it would not be the last. Everything would be fine.
But the day vanished in a flash, as he finished clearing out Abyss Mages, and by the time he returned to the Dawn Winery it was almost time to leave for Mondstadt, so Diluc simply threw down his coat and removed the mask, and peeled off his shirt, which seemed to have gotten soaked through with sweat. That was odd--he didn’t think he’d exerted himself too much, but he was also dead tired now, so he supposed he could have sweated more than usual, too. Instead of thinking about it, he pulled on a new shirt and then his coat and gloves, and headed out with the cart to town.
For whatever reason, Diluc was so tired by the time he arrived at the Angel’s Share that he could barely walk straight. This was very strange: he’d only gotten slightly scratched up from his fights, and he was fairly certain he’d slept for at least four hours last night, so there was no reason for him to be this tired, really. But he stumbled anyway, as his eyelids felt like weights had been affixed to them, and the earth spun around him.
Gloved hands steadied him on his feet.
“Why, Master Diluc!” said the grating voice of the Knights of Favonius’s Cavalry Captain. “You really don’t look well...have you been sleeping properly? I do hope you haven’t overexerted yourself, I was so looking forward to having a nice glass of Death After Noon.”
“Sir Kaeya,” Diluc gritted out. “I would be pleased if you’d let go of me. I have to go in to work.”
“You look like you’re about to pass out,” Kaeya told him. “I really think you should go home and have a nap, Master Diluc...hang on, is that blood?! Are you bleeding?!”
“No,” said Diluc, and then: “Maybe. I got a bit scratched up on my...walk earlier.”
“A walk of the sort you usually go on with the Traveler?” Kaeya asked.
“...Usually, I go alone, but the Traveler has been accompanying me of late, yes,” Diluc gritted out. “What’s it to you?”
“Master Diluc, that’s dangerous, isn’t it…? Especially since you’ve quit the Knights,” Kaeya said.
“Useless, ineffective…”
“Agree to disagree. You’re definitely bleeding, Master Diluc...that absolutely isn’t just a scratch!” Kaeya manhandled Diluc so that his arm was over his shoulder, and started pulling him in the direction of the Cathedral. “We’ll say you were ambushed and the Darknight Hero valiantly saved you...I can’t believe you’d get injured like this. Aren’t you supposed to be the responsible one?”
Diluc tried to tell Kaeya to fuck off, but the words got all mashed up in his mouth, and he considered that he might actually be about to pass out from blood loss. That would be incredibly embarrassing, so he allowed the younger man to help him through the streets towards the Cathedral.
“...You really worry me when you do dangerous stuff like this, you know,” Kaeya said softly, several minutes later as they took a break on the steps. “You ought to be more considerate of your little brother’s feelings! You’re going to end up giving me a heart attack from stress that even Death After Noon can’t take away…”
Diluc raised his head slightly, sure that he was hearing things. There was no way, after everything, that Kaeya would say that. He must have passed out, must be already dreaming of a life far happier than his own.
“Right. Let’s keep moving, Master Diluc,” Kaeya said. “We don’t want you dying here, after all! That would be really inconvenient for me.”
Diluc was helped up again, and staggered against his brother the knight for the rest of the way into the Cathedral, where Kaeya’s words blurred as he quickly explained his contrived cover story--Diluc would have to remember that, which was irritating. This was why he didn’t like going to the Cathedral when he was injured--they always asked too many questions that he didn’t like answering.
He did, however, hear the tail end of Kaeya’s conversation with Barbara as he was laid down on the cot and his injuries began to be treated.
“...just like Jean, isn’t he? He works and works, and never lets anyone help him.”
“I sometimes think that Jean’s better than he is, honestly,” Kaeya sighed. “I mean, at least she doesn’t turn up injured on us.”
“Is it our fault?”
“What do you mean?”
“That they work themselves to the bone like that. Do you think it’s our faults for not supporting them more as their younger siblings?” Barbara asked.
Diluc wanted to protest, say that he had no younger siblings and so Kaeya didn’t need to bother. But his mouth couldn’t shape the words.
“I think we do our best with what they let us help with,” Kaeya said finally. “Jean worries a lot, so she wants to take care of us and not let us see her suffer, so we need to go behind her back a lot to help her out. But Diluc...I don’t think he refuses help because he doesn’t want to burden us. I think he doesn’t trust us, and it’s a lot harder to help him out because of that. Which is why we need to do the best we can at our jobs, so there’s less stuff to give him a reason to mistrust us!”
“Yeah!” Barbara said.
“Well, speaking of our jobs, I’ll leave you to it,” Kaeya said. “Take care of him for me, will you?”
“Of course!” Barbara said, and then she started humming as the door closed behind Kaeya and the strange dream faded.