Work Text:
“There’s no way in hell I’m doing that,” Diluc is saying, like he didn’t waltz into the valley with his sword drawn, demanding to help.
In fairness, he didn’t demand to help so much as reluctantly agree to accept it, but Kaeya was considering it a win that he even backed down that much. He’d come in with an attitude that had yet to disappear, complaining about everything twice as much as usual, and Kaeya wasn’t sure if it was because it was just him here to listen or because he was particularly bothered today.
“You’ll have to,” Kaeya says, “because that’s the plan, and I’m not changing it any more than I already have.” Diluc frowns, which means he’ll agree.
Really, Kaeya was generous in allowing Diluc to help, but he is regretting his choice right now. If he has to hear one more critique of his battle plan—which is honestly very good for modifying it to fit Diluc so quickly—then he might just send him away entirely, however helpful he’ll be against the cryo slime well within view that will definitely become a problem.
“There’s no evidence to suggest anything dangerous about converging ley lines,” Diluc insists.
Kaeya pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’re looking at evidence right now,” he says. “Slimes don’t act this aggressive typically, even around ley line openings. And the typical range for outcrops is dramatically increased, if the reports are to be believed. This is unusual. That’s the whole reason we’re both out here, isn’t it?”
Diluc huffs, “Yes.” Kaeya ignores the lie.
“It’s too much power in one spot,” he explains. “So adding more power—”
“I get it,” Diluc interrupts. “But to not use pyro at all…”
“I didn’t say not at all,” Kaeya returns. “I said move away from the outcrops first and be careful.” Diluc looks like he means to say that might as well mean not at all, but he doesn’t.
“It seems tedious.”
“We’re being cautious,” Kaeya corrects. “Four knights have already been sent to the cathedral trying to be heroic. I’d prefer we not join them.”
“I’m not trying to be heroic, I’m—”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Kaeya says, rolling up his map. “You’re super strong and powerful, a real god amongst mortals. Just follow the plan.”
Diluc looks uneasy at that, but he lets it slide. “It would be better with more knights.”
“If there were more knights here I wouldn’t have agreed to your help,” Kaeya says, and taps the map against Diluc’s chest.
“You came out here alone and ditched your lieutenant back in Mond,” Diluc explains, grabbing the paper and crumpling it into his pocket with a scowl. Kaeya raises an eyebrow, but he doesn’t ask how or why he knows that, not when they have a job to do that relies on their cooperation. His face has lightened up a little when he asks, “Why do you need to investigate this alone?”
“I’ll have to ask you to curb your suspicion for the time being,” Kaeya says evenly, and Diluc’s face tightens. “My lieutenant is fresh out of training, and while she’s very good on paper, I don’t want to deal with the extra weight of an inexperienced fighter.”
If Diluc notices the partial lie, he doesn’t mention it. “That’s what promoting right out of training will do,” he says unhelpfully.
“Then we agree,” Kaeya says. “This task is for experienced fighters who follow instructions.”
Diluc gives him a pointed look, but finally drops it.
As they set off for the ley line outcrop, they find it’s much worse up close, the two separate rifts pressing up against one another, turning the air thick and sulphury. Their vision is tinted blue and gold, with little flecks of stronger stuff floating slowly between the colorful fog.
It almost feels like he could reach right out and grab it—with more time to test it, he, or someone more skilled, might be able to. But not with Diluc here, and certainly not under the light of the Seven.
It’s perhaps unnecessarily cautious that Kaeya is worried about bringing their respective elements into the spaces when they’re already disturbing them, but Albedo confirmed, despite the lack of any official research on behalf of the Ordo, that too much energy in the area could end up being disastrous, and Kaeya really didn’t need that, especially since they’ve already had to close off the entire valley for travel.
Ideally, according to his and Albedo’s best guesses, once they clear everything that the ley line is affecting out, the energy will dissipate with them, the ley lines will migrate and separate, and the anomalies will cease.
Kaeya looks to Diluc to see his reaction, but aside from the hint of discomfort crossing his expression, he’s focused on Kaeya.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing,” Diluc says, and turns away.
Kaeya fights an eye roll; if Diluc wants to be suspicious of him, then he can either say it or deal with it himself.
He points between the outcrops and finds his spot by the first, Diluc following suit. They both reach their hands toward the ley lines and, at Kaeya’s signal, summon their swords into the spaces, enough to cause a disturbance.
The plan does its job and it seems like everything nearby finds itself drawn to the valley. Hilichurls and slimes and even a few whopperflowers, all of which Kaeya confirmed were the worst things nearby before all this, funnel into the area.
Diluc, thankfully, does not cause any problems for most of the fight, and he even manages to follow the plan they laid out. Like Kaeya, he mostly forgoes the use of his Vision so he doesn’t have to worry about drawing the monsters out further, except in short, concentrated bursts at cryo slimes and whopperflowers that surprise Kaeya he ever took the time to practice.
It’s not until they’ve cleared nearly everything out that Diluc misses, sending a shot of pyro straight through one of the ley line outcrops instead of a nearby whopperflower. For a moment, nothing bad happens, but then the pyro explodes back out from both outcrops, sending everything nearby flying.
It takes a second to regain his senses—for his head to stop spinning and to figure out where he flew. It takes considerably less time for his fingers to find their way to the shooting pain in his abdomen.
The explosion took out nearly everything, and what it didn’t, Diluc finishes off quickly and alone. The outcrops turn in on themselves and disappear, leaving the thick scent of dust in their absence. He’s not sure if it worked.
Kaeya examines the wound, moving his coat away from the blood, only to find his corset torn though and completely ruined. It’s bad enough to be painful, but not so bad he can’t make it to get healing.
Diluc appears beside him and crouches down to observe, his eyebrows all pinched together.
“Are you okay?” he asks with a grimace.
“It’s a flesh wound,” Kaeya returns cooly. He’s lucky it was the debris that hit him and not the fire. He shoots Diluc a glare he doesn’t seem to notice, not while he’s pulling Kaeya’s coat off his shoulders and tightly wrapping the cape around his torso. “You want to ruin my jacket as well?”
“Shut up,” Diluc says. Kaeya presses his hands behind his back to pick himself off the ground, but he’s immediately thwarted.
“What are you doing,” Kaeya squawks as Diluc scoops him up. He grabs Diluc’s shoulders to steady himself before pushing him away as best as he can without falling. There is a rough lurch of pain that does not deter his efforts. “Put me down.”
“You’re injured,” Diluc explains, ignoring the struggling brother in his arms, “and I’m taking you to get medical help.”
“Not like this you aren’t,” Kaeya says. “Put me down, I’m perfectly able to walk myself.”
Diluc rolls his eyes and begins walking anyway. Kaeya struggles against his grip and pushes on his chest with his whole shoulder unsuccessfully.
“Diluc,” Kaeya hisses. Diluc has walked all of three steps before he stops in his tracks. “I’m not kidding.”
“Neither am I,” he says seriously, ignoring Kaeya pressing a palm into his cheek in resistance. “You took a big hit and I'm worried about your organs. I’d rather not risk the trip with you walking if we don’t have to.”
Kaeya blinks. He stops all his struggling when he says, pointed and even, “You’re worried?”
Diluc furrows his eyebrows. “Yes, obviously,” he answers, a little dumbfounded.
It’s like something shifts in Kaeya then, whatever annoyance at being carried and hurt that he held presses up too close to something much more deeply buried, a something he pushes back down as far as it will go right now. It leaves a little anger in its wake.
“I certainly hope you’re joking,” he says evenly. “Because it’s your fault I got hurt in the first place.” Before Diluc can respond he continues, “I told you to be careful with pyro around the openings. But you just had to show off, and now I’m bleeding all over everything.”
“I know,” Diluc says. He sounds a bit pained when he continues, “I should’ve listened to you. I’m sorry.”
The words are genuine, but they’re so directly honest Kaeya thinks that one of them, or maybe both, took a nasty hit to the head when he wasn’t looking.
He narrows his eye. “You always do this,” he says as Diluc continues the journey.
“Do what?”
“Insert yourself into my business and mess things up.”
“No I don’t,” Diluc says, wrinkling his nose.
“Diluc, I haven’t had a single mission in six months you haven’t shoved your way into,” he huffs, pinching the bridge of his nose. It’s maybe an exaggeration. “Every time, it’s a major headache to redirect my subordinates and fix the paperwork to keep your stupid secret identity a secret.”
“I’m helping,” Diluc answers, a bit pathetically. “You agreed to let me assist you.”
“Because if I didn’t, you’d run in and mess everything up anyway. I’m being proactive about your destruction.”
Diluc furrows his brow. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about how you’d set the entire countryside on fire if you spent more time outside the city,” he says. “It’s a wonder you leave anything to clean up and not piles of ash.”
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
“I’m the one who has to clean it up,” Kaeya says. It’s not exactly a lie, because he does do it, but it’s not an official requirement for his job. Not that Diluc needs to know that.
“I thought your job involved getting drunk at taverns and coaxing meaningless secrets out of treasure hoarders,” Diluc says.
“That’s only half of it and they’re your clientele,” Kaeya says. “And it’s better than some stupid ‘intelligence network’ I have to pay people to help with. I get by on my natural charisma.”
“How do you know about that?”
Kaeya’s face pinches. “Like you’re the only person with connections,” he returns. “At least I'm subtle.”
“Perhaps everyone just thinks you’re a gossip,” Diluc reasons. “That was my assumption.”
“Oh, yes, Diluc,” he says, rolling his eye. “Let’s compare my sociability with your homicidal impulses.”
Diluc gives him a very stern look and exhales a long breath out of his nose. He says, “Regardless, your plan was safer for two.”
“It was manageable with just me.”
“I said ‘safe,’ not ‘manageable.’ You shouldn’t run into danger alone, Kaeya. That’s ridiculous,” Diluc says, like whatever ancient, dormant protective urge that is taking him over is also clouding all reason, leaving nothing to remind him that Kaeya is not, and has never been, reckless. If he valued Diluc’s opinion at all anymore, if he thought Diluc ever really knew him, he might be offended that he can’t seem to grasp that very basic fact about him.
And if he didn’t know Diluc as well as he does, he would even believe that he doesn’t already know it.
“I’m not running into danger; I’m taking calculated risks,” Kaeya explains. “You’d know about those if you thought for three seconds about anything you do.”
Diluc doesn’t rise to the insult, which makes Kaeya huff, but he does say, “You looked like you needed help.”
Kaeya briefly considers taking Diluc’s words for what they mean—some poorly-timed, poorly-worded attempt at an olive branch—but if Diluc didn’t want his words twisted so easily, he should make it harder.
“I can handle myself, if that’s what you’re implying,” Kaeya says.
“Kaeya,” Diluc says uneasily. Because it’s not what he meant, but that’s not to say he doesn’t believe it. This fight is an old one, back from when they were kids and things were a lot more competitive. “You’re not…” Whatever he planned to say dies on his tongue. Kaeya’s face twists.
“I’m not what?” he prods.
“I can help you with things like this,” he answers, and Kaeya raises an eyebrow.
“With fighting?”
The lines in Diluc’s forehead become slightly more prominent. “Yes,” he says, through gritted teeth.
The issue is not exactly that Diluc is wrong. He is stronger than Kaeya, and better with a sword, and he always has been. If it came down to a no-holds-barred fight, Visions or no—and it has—Diluc would overpower Kaeya easily. But Kaeya doesn’t go down without a fight, and he knows there’s more to combat than strength.
It’s why Kaeya didn’t lose their worst fight. He came out victorious, or at least something like it, even if he had been blown to hell, and not because Diluc was honorable or sympathetic.
And he’s done everything in the last few years to ensure that he could hold his own against Diluc if it ever came down to it again.
“I’m perfectly aware of my own abilities,” Kaeya says, even though it’s more of a concession than he believes is true. “If I needed backup, I would’ve called for backup.”
“But you didn’t,” Diluc says, almost like it’s a question. “Because you needed to be out there alone.”
It sounds like he already has his answer, and it’s correct enough, so Kaeya says, “Yes.” It’s bitter, but only because Diluc noticed the lie and didn’t mention it until now.
“But I was allowed to be there with you?”
“Yes,” he repeats, with a bit more understanding this time.
“Am I allowed to know why?”
Kaeya crosses his arms. “No,” he says.
“Why not?”
He considers Diluc for a long minute. “Why don’t you just ask what you want to ask so badly,” he suggests with a scowl.
Diluc purses his lips. For a moment, he thinks he won’t do it, he won’t even answer at all. But then he asks again, “Why were you there?”
And it’s not quite as direct as Kaeya would like it to be, doesn’t reach to the root of the issue like he needs it to, but Kaeya gives him a nasty grin anyway. “Typical,” he says.
If Diluc notices it, he doesn’t respond to the bait, but he does ask, “Why can’t you tell me, Kaeya?” He sounds genuinely desperate, and maybe a bit worried, and Kaeya nearly frowns.
“I don’t trust you,” he says, and although it’s pretty uninspired as far as explanations go, it’s enough to put a little pout on Diluc’s face.
“You don’t trust me?” He has to stop walking for a moment to let the words digest, and Kaeya drums his fingers on his upper arm in the meantime. “I’m perfectly trustworthy,” he says as he starts again.
“You say that like it’s not entirely reasonable,” Kaeya returns easily. “You’re asking me if I trust you when you tried to kill me.”
There is a brief, anxious beat of silence between them.
“I didn’t try to kill you,” Diluc insists, breaking it off. “I misjudged the distance. It was an accident.”
“I don’t care that it was an accident, I care that you didn’t listen to a word I said.”
“I already apologized for that,” he says as evenly as he can, and the effort is obvious.
Kaeya turns his head to gauge his reaction. His face is all twisted in some bothered, puppy-dog expression, like he’s honestly hurt by the accusations. He sighs. “Archons,” he says, “I can’t believe there was ever a time I trusted you.”
Diluc pulls his eyebrows down low. “Why would you say something like that?”
“Are you disagreeing?” Kaeya asks. “What have you done to inspire my trust?”
It’s possible that’s an unfair question. Diluc has done exactly as much to make Kaeya trust him as he has to convince him not to. The tipping point really has nothing to do with him, specifically.
Kaeya opens his mouth to revoke the question, but sometime in the last few seconds, Diluc has gotten surprisingly close to being bothered.
“You speak a lot about trust for—” he begins, before cutting himself off. He looks shocked at his own mouth and immediately redirects all of his attention to walking. Kaeya jumps at this opportunity.
“What’s that?” he asks. “And do speak up, now.”
“It’s nothing,” Diluc says, pressing his lips together and keeping his gaze on the road.
“Oh, really? It sure sounded like you had something to say.”
“I don’t,” he responds.
“Come now, Diluc,” Kaeya says, tapping his cheek with the back of his hand. Diluc maneuvers his head to shake him off and then wipes his cheek on his shoulder. It jostles Kaeya enough that he has to grip onto Diluc’s neck to stay upright. Pain lances through his abdomen again. “Why don’t you tell me all about how you distrust me so badly that you followed me all the way out to Dadaupa to make sure I wasn’t, what, conspiring against Mondstadt with ley lines? What were you even so worried I would do, hm?”
“Kaeya, that’s not—” he starts, but stops and bites his lip. “Just keep your voice down.”
Kaeya doesn’t mention how his voice hasn’t risen at all. Instead, he says, “No one’s around to hear us. The area’s been cleared out for days.”
Diluc looks very serious. “Good,” he says. “That was… responsible.” Kaeya waits patiently for his response. Diluc clears his throat and peers down at him. “I didn’t follow you.”
“You knew I’d be out there,” Kaeya reminds him.
“I wasn’t out there to follow you,” he says. He regards Kaeya very solemnly, so Kaeya does the same.
He says, “Oh, good, then I suppose it’s just my luck that you came out at the same time I was there to hurt me all over again.”
“I wouldn’t,” Diluc insists, quickly. Kaeya rolls his eye and turns his gaze to the path. “Kaeya, I wouldn’t do that again.”
Kaeya inspects the back of his blood-coated glove and wipes it on his breast; none of the blood rubs off. “You couldn’t.”
“You’re right,” he says. “Nothing you could do or say would make me do that again.”
“No, Diluc,” Kaeya says with his eye narrowed and turning to focus right on him. “You couldn’t.”
And it’s not precisely a threat, but he knows it does the job, even if Diluc doesn’t believe it all the way. Because although Diluc has always thought of him as someone in need of protection, he’s never had a need for it. He’s watched his own back and blind spot since he came here, and no stupid brother would ever get his guard down again.
They walk for a while in silence; Kaeya resists most of the barbs that float their way into his head and as payment, Diluc doesn’t drop him. They follow a familiar road that becomes too familiar the farther they go down it.
“You missed the turn,” Kaeya says, leaning back to look at it. Diluc has to shift his arms so he doesn’t drop him.
Raising an eyebrow, he leans back further, ignoring the pain, until Diluc hisses, “Kaeya, quit it, or I will drop you.” It’s more of a warning than a threat, so Kaeya stops.
“You missed the turn,” he repeats.
“You mentioned,” Diluc returns, but he doesn’t stop walking.
“So turn around,” Kaeya says.
“I’m not taking you to the city,” Diluc answers. Kaeya’s eyebrows draw downward. “We’re going to the winery. I’ll treat you there.”
“Will you now?” he asks, and his voice is light but his expression is not.
“Yes.”
“With all your healing powers?”
“With completely normal medicine.”
“You’re an idiot,” Kaeya says. “Do you even know anything about injuries? The cathedral would be a much better option. Or Jean.”
Diluc pales. “I don’t think Jean would be happy if I brought you back injured.”
Kaeya hums back with a fond smile. “She’d never let you hear the end of it,” he says, although she probably wouldn’t let him hear the end of it, either. He won’t give Diluc the satisfaction of mentioning that. “And she certainly won’t if I don’t appear back in Mond by dawn.”
“I’ll send a letter explaining the situation,” he says, then grimaces. “I will avoid mentioning your injury.”
“Right, because she’ll believe you willingly took me to the winery and I willingly came with.”
Diluc frowns. “Why wouldn’t she?”
“She’ll probably think you killed me and you’re trying to cover it up,” he answers mildly.
“No she wouldn’t.”
“Sure she would,” Kaeya says.
“Jean knows I wouldn’t do that,” he returns.
“Yeah, and they’d never find my body,” Kaeya continues, gesturing dramatically with his arms. “You’ll bury me out back in the family plot and no one will even think to look there anyway.”
Diluc blinks at him. “You want to be buried in the family plot?”
Kaeya’s easy smile turns into a scowl and he pulls his hands to his chest. “I don’t care what you choose to do with me if I’m dead.”
“What I choose?” he asks. “Why am I choosing?”
“Who else would do it?” Kaeya asks, attempting to disguise the sourness that’s snuck its way into his voice.
“Shouldn’t someone have informed me of this?” His lips press into a deep frown. “Don’t you have a will?”
Kaeya barks out a laugh that answers none of his questions. “Do you?” He knows for a fact that Diluc does, because all knights have to make one when they join.
“Of course,” he answers, but then gives Kaeya a very uneasy expression. Kaeya raises an eyebrow. “Let’s not talk about this. It’s distasteful.”
. . .
When they approach the winery, the sun is setting and it’s completely empty. All the lights are off and the field is lit up with crystalflies, without anyone to shoo them away. Diluc takes him inside and rests him on a couch in a study upstairs.
“Here, let me see it,” Diluc says, unwrapping the cape around his torso.
Kaeya winces. “Be careful,” he hisses when Diluc gets a little too close. “And stop touching it.”
Diluc steps back and rubs his chin for a moment. “I’ll be right back.”
Kaeya narrows his eye. “Where are you going?”
“Just down the road,” he answers blandly. “I’m getting my doctor.”
“Your doctor?”
“Yes, she’s on call for nights when I go out.”
“As the Darknight Hero?” Kaeya asks, smirking.
Diluc says, “Yes, that.”
“And you have a whole doctor just for you?”
“And the staff,” he says, a bit defensive.
“You’re infuriating,” Kaeya says with a smile and a lot of venom. “I hate you.”
“Don’t be rude in front of her,” Diluc says. “And don’t embarrass me.”
Kaeya does not mention that getting injured while running around town in a bird mask seems pretty embarrassing, but only because Diluc is out the door before the words can reach his lips.
He has a moment to himself, a moment he begins by briefly considering leaving and just as quickly deciding that’s a horrible idea, because even thinking of standing sends another shooting pain through him. He tries not to turn his attention to the room—to figure out if this is Diluc’s study or one of many unused rooms, to guess what he does in here that he decides is so important—but it’s a futile effort.
The brief warmth of being back home is not subtle in his bones. It reveals a weariness he’s spent a long time ignoring, pretending he didn’t realize exists. And, in here, in this room that’s not specifically important to his memories but is filled with things that remind him of home, that is an impossible task.
It’s a painful warmth, fiery and red-hot, reminding him that this is all temporary. All of this—Diluc’s kindness and worry, even his proximity, being in his childhood home—they are not luxuries that Kaeya has anymore.
Diluc returns with a doctor before Kaeya has the time to consider leaving again. She checks him out, fixes him up, and all the while Diluc hovers nearby. He grabs pillows and water and blankets, he listens intently to the doctor’s instructions for replacing the bandages, and if Kaeya didn’t want this so horribly badly again, he might send him away.
When the doctor goes home for the night, Diluc is still anxiously flitting about, straightening up things in the office when he can’t directly dote on Kaeya. He’s surrounded by soup and tea and a spare set of nightclothes and blankets that smell exactly how they do in his memories. It all reminds him of something that would be easier to forget.
Kaeya stands, and Diluc is quick to his side. He reaches out hesitantly to steady him by the elbow.
“What’s wrong?” Diluc asks. “Where are you going?” Even now, when he wants this with everything he has, it’s still a little annoying.
“I’m leaving,” Kaeya says.
A brief look of panic crosses Diluc’s face that he quickly replaces with stoic indifference. “You can’t,” he says. “The doctor said to rest.”
“And I will rest much better in my own bed.” Kaeya tries to muscle past him, but Diluc stops him. It does not seem to take him a lot of effort.
“There are plenty of rooms here and I sent word to Jean,” Diluc says. Kaeya debates if it’s worth it to try to muscle past him again. “It’s two nights,” he adds. “You’ll live.”
He studies Diluc for a long time. He should really say no, because he knows how bad this will hurt him when he has to leave again. But then he sees the worry below Diluc’s nagging and it’s enough to convince him.
He bites the inside of his cheek. Gods, it’s pathetic how easily he gives into Diluc’s whims.
He rolls his eye.“The sofa’s fine,” he says.
Diluc looks wounded, somehow, but he nods in agreement.
. . .
The day has already settled comfortably into the afternoon by the time Kaeya makes his way into the winery’s kitchen. He’s dressed in Diluc’s spare nightclothes still, dyed black, with the pants tied at the waist and nearly an inch too short for his legs.
Two young maids greet him in the kitchen with smiles, quickly hiding whatever they were snacking on in a nearby cupboard.
“Don’t mind me, ladies, I’m just making myself coffee.”
“You’re Master Diluc’s guest,” the one with shorter hair says. “He said you’d probably be asleep until the afternoon.”
“We’ll make your coffee,” the longer-haired one says, walking to a Fontanian press on the countertop. “Moco, can you get the coffee grounds?”
Moco flutters around briefly, looking for the coffee grounds in all the wrong places, and Kaeya cooly walks to the correct cupboard and grabs the bag for her, because Adelinde’s organizational system hasn’t changed since the day he left.
“Oh, thanks,” she says distantly. She hands the other maid the bag. “Hey, aren’t you a knight? Hillie was washing your clothes and said she saw the insignia.”
“I did,” Hillie agrees. “But I thought Master Diluc hated the knights.” She turns from her coffee-making to raise a curious eyebrow at him.
“You’re right about that,” Kaeya says. “I’m afraid we talked him into helping with a mission.” The maids both make little humming sounds, so he explains, “You’d be surprised how often his merchant connections come in handy.”
“So why were your clothes covered in blood then?” Hillie asks.
“Hillie!”
“Sorry,” she says. “I mean, I was just curious.” She lowers her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Should we be worried about anything?”
“We ran into some hilichurls on the way here,” Kaeya explains. “Nothing to worry about.”
She seems relieved, or maybe disappointed, and then her expression darkens. Kaeya finds a cup in a cupboard and hands it to her, and she smiles. “Oh, thank you, but I think I made too much, could you pass me another?” Kaeya smiles and acquiesces.
“Do you take it with cream or sugar?” Moco asks, and Kaeya shakes his head, graciously accepting the cup they offer him.
The maids watch him anxiously as he takes his first sip.
“How does it taste?” Hillie asks, her voice tight.
“It’s great,” he says, although that’s perhaps generous.
“Oh, good,” Hillie says with a sigh.
“Adelinde never lets us make coffee,” Moco adds. “She says we’re incompetent at it.”
“I’d hardly say incompetent,” Kaeya says. “This is excellent.” The smile on Hillie’s face is enough to wash away the lingering taste of burnt coffee beans. “Have you two worked here long?”
“Almost a year now,” Moco answers.
“Do you enjoy it?”
Hillie shrugs. “The winery is haunted, you know.” Kaeya isn’t sure if that is meant to be a point for or against it.
“Is it now?”
“Oh, yes,” Hillie says. “It’s Master Diluc’s family’s home, so people have lived here for generations.”
“And probably died, too,” Moco interrupts. “There’s a whole wing that’s closed off because it’s more haunted than the rest of the house.”
“That’s impressive,” Kaeya says, raising an eyebrow.
“Adelinde doesn’t believe us, but we’ve nearly seen apparitions,” Hillie says, and Moco nods in agreement.
“What does Master Diluc say?”
The ladies exchange furrowed brows. Moco says, “Well, he says it’s not, but he keeps strange hours and he’s usually out or asleep when the ghosts come by.” Her eyebrows sit high on her head, like she’s trying desperately to communicate something to Kaeya psychically.
“Don’t call him strange, Moco,” Hillie hisses. They both look at Kaeya warily.
He holds his hands up. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
“Have you ever seen a ghost?” Moco asks.
Kaeya is coming up with a response when a familiar voice shouts the maids’ names and stomps into the room.
“Ladies,” Adelinde sighs. “If you’re waxing the floors, you can’t leave the furniture out to— Master Kaeya!” The maids exchange a meaningful look. “Oh my, Diluc said he had a guest, but he didn’t mention…” She wraps him in a hug and pulls out a chair for him to sit at the table. “I’m so glad to see you, dear.”
“Me, too, Adelinde, but just Kaeya’s fine, or Diluc might have your head.”
One of the maids gasps loudly, but Kaeya can’t tell which since both have their hands covering their mouths. Adelinde closes her eyes, plasters on a wide, fake grin, and says, “Why don’t you two go sweep the porch? I think I saw some leaves outside.”
Moco sighs, but Hillie takes the extra cup of coffee and offers it to Adelinde. The pair leaves the kitchen with interlocked arms.
“Those two,” she says, joining Kaeya at the table with her cup, “are such gossips. I hope you weren’t being a bad influence.”
“Of course I was,” Kaeya says, then finishes off his coffee. “I’m surprised Diluc keeps them around, though.”
“You as much as me,” she returns. “They’ve convinced themselves he’s a cannibal or a vampire or something, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say it’s because he thinks it’s funny.”
Kaeya smiles and says, “Well, it’s good to hear he still has a sense of humor at least.” Adeline gives him a worried look but quickly replaces it with a soft smile.
“Here, let me make you something to eat,” she offers, standing with a hand on his shoulder. He turns to look at her.
“No need, the ladies just made me coffee.”
Adelinde grimaces and eyes her own untouched glass warily. “My apologies, then.”
“Oh, you’re too harsh on them,” he says, waving his hand dismissively. “It was entirely fine.”
“And besides, coffee is no substitute for a hearty lunch.”
“Breakfast,” Kaeya corrects, then points at her cup. “Can I have this?”
Adeline makes a little, pained noise as she begins to pull out the ingredients for pancakes, and he happily steals her coffee. “You look like you’ve gotten hurt. What happened?”
Kaeya frowns. “Just a few hilichurls and such, nothing to worry about.” He raises his eyebrows at her. “Diluc’s doctor helped out.”
She scoops a cup of flour into a bowl and says, “That’s good, I suppose. Was this about the ley line thing? He’s been obsessing over it for almost a week now.” She adds an egg and some butter to the bowl. “I’ve been cleaning up books on the Abyss and those waypoint monuments for days. I really thought he was over all that. Do you want chocolate chips or blueberries?”
“Blueberries, please,” Kaeya says, and stands to take the bowl from her. “Let me stir.” She wordlessly passes him the bowl and grabs a few more ingredients from the mist flower box. “I think we finished everything with it, so perhaps he’ll move onto something else now.”
Adelinde raises her eyebrows. “You worked together?” Kaeya nods, and breaks from his stirring to steal a blueberry. She idly shoos his hand away. “That’s good.”
He shrugs and she begins pouring the batter onto a skillet. He helps where he can, tidying up the ingredients and cleaning the bowl she’s already used.
“We’ve all missed you so much around here,” she says when they’re done, directing him from the sink with a gentle hand on his back toward the table and setting a plate of pancakes in front of him. She holds his utensils hostage, though.
“Yes,” he says, clearing his throat. “I’ve missed you as well.”
“You never reached out,” she says.
“I’ve been busy,” he answers noncommittally.
“I know, dear.” Adelinde gives him a fork and pinches his cheek. “We all heard about your promotion. I’m so proud of you.”
He feels his cheeks grow warm and ducks his head. “Thanks,” he says, and cuts into his pancakes.
“I would’ve come to visit you when I heard,” she says. “But Master Diluc forbade it during working hours, and it’s a bit more of an effort to get all the way out to Mond on my days off than I’d like to admit.”
Kaeya’s fork hovers in the air and his chest tightens. He doesn’t know how much she knows—how much she saw or figured out or how much Diluc told her. “I’m sorry, Addie,” he says. He feels his voice get a little lighter. “I just couldn’t come back.” She presses a hand on his back and her cheek to the top of his head. He takes his first bite of the pancake and it’s as good as he remembers.
“I know, dear,” she says. “I just want you to know you’re loved here.”
He leans into the touch, but it’s quickly broken off when Moco and Hillie run back, shouting about something they need help with. Adeline pulls away, assures them she’ll be there in a moment, and turns to say goodbye to Kaeya.
“Are you staying here long?”
“I’ll be out of your way by tomorrow morning,” Kaeya answers, standing to hug her.
“Well, then I’ll make your lunch to-go,” she offers. Kaeya nods his thanks. “And, Kaeya, you should come around more often.”
“Adelinde,” he says with a sigh. “I can’t.”
“I know he might not seem like it, but he misses you.” She takes his hand and squeezes it in her own. “You know that.”
“It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t want me here,” Kaeya says, pulling her hand up and tapping the top. She looks pained. “But I will find a way to visit.”
Adelinde nods with too much understanding behind her eyes. “How about I talk to him, then?”
“Only since I know you won’t give it up,” Kaeya says lightly, and she pats his cheek. “But I’m not hopeful. I’ll send a cart and we’ll meet in Springvale, maybe.”
“Just this once,” she says. “Pretend, for me.”
. . .
Kaeya plans to seek out his old room when he unlocks the door to the family wing with a set of keys he hasn’t used in many years, but he can’t even make it all the way down the hall. He doesn’t venture to see the room he slept in for so many nights in his childhood, doesn’t trace his fingers along the nick in the door from when they were scolded for bringing swords into the house, doesn’t find his room as messy as when he’d left it that morning, now covered in a thick layer of dust.
Instead, he finds Crepus’ office. It was unused much of the time, because Crepus did most of his work in one of the offices downstairs or the cellar or even among the vines sometimes, so it sits as pristine as it did on the day he died.
Shelves line the walls to hold books and curios from when he spent time abroad, a little trinket for every business trip. Many of them are reminiscent of gifts for him and Diluc, because their father liked to spoil them, ones he could find in his room if he could just walk over and open the door, but he can’t.
Once, he probably could’ve recited every trip Crepus took, the dates and who he met with and how successful he was. It was a joint effort of his fathers, one to develop his memory and the other to teach him the wine trade. These days, he only really gets use out of one of their lessons. These days, it’s less that he doesn’t remember the trips and more that he’s not sure how many of those reports about his successes were actually about wine and not about something else.
Kaeya hears Diluc enter, when he hits a floorboard that creaks now, with so many years of neglect. When he turns to see him, his brother is staring at the ground, like he’s filing away the reminder to get it fixed.
He turns his head up to Kaeya. “Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” Kaeya returns.
They regard each other for a silent, awkward moment.
“The maids said they heard someone up here,” Diluc explains. “They insisted I ensure there were no ghosts or burglars.”
“Of course,” Kaeya says. He presses his fingers flat onto the desk. “It’s your house. You don’t have to explain where you go.”
Diluc’s eyebrows draw down, probably because it is not just his house. “All right,” he says. He thinks for a bit. “Is there something else you want me to explain?”
Kaeya muses, for a brief moment, that sometimes it is nice that his brother still understands him. It’s rare and it’s usually either frighteningly direct or frustratingly vague, but it makes him hopeful, somewhere distant.
There are many things he wants explained, and more that he already knows, that he just wants confirmed in words, but that is not something he will ask Diluc to do for him.
He says, “You send the staff home early on nights you bartend.”
“Bartend?” Diluc echoes. Perhaps he thinks it is a kindness; Kaeya tilts his head.
“Well, ‘traipse around in a bird mask’ sounds ridiculous,” he returns. “And I cannot in good conscience acknowledge your actions aloud and keep my job.”
Maybe it is a kindness, then.
Diluc’s brows furrow. “I thought you didn’t tell anyone so I’d keep your secret.”
Kaeya barely stops his face from twisting. He’s looking at the wall when he says, “I hadn’t realized that was the only reason you were keeping quiet.”
“It’s not,” Diluc says. “I didn’t mean to imply that—”
“It’s fine,” Kaeya says. “You didn’t.”
Diluc’s cheeks turn red and he averts his eyes. He stares at the broken handle on one of the desk drawers; it’s something that’s always puzzled Kaeya. It was like that since before he arrived, but Crepus never had it fixed.
“You were asking about the staff,” he supplies.
“Yes, I was,” Kaeya says. “Why do you do that?”
“It’s important work,” Diluc answers.
Kaeya shakes his head and clarifies, “You can ask for help.”
“I can handle it on my own.”
Kaeya raises his eyebrows. “Adelinde already knows.” Diluc keeps his gaze on the handle. “I’d feel better if you had help.” He gives Kaeya a difficult look. “What?”
“I don’t understand why you’re allowed to say that sort of thing but I’m not,” Diluc says.
Kaeya’s eyebrows knit together. He doesn’t know if there’s an answer that will satisfy Diluc, that will explain why his kindness hurts him too much to bear, but how he cannot stop his own feelings towards his brother, how he needs Diluc to know that he never stopped loving him.
He doesn’t answer the question.
Diluc looks around at the papers and books Kaeya has scattered out of place in his survey of the office. He does not ask what Kaeya is doing up here and for that, Kaeya doesn’t ask why he locked it up. They both already know the answer anyway.
He says, “I already looked through everything in here. Back then. It was the first thing I did.”
Kaeya peers over at him; this would be a stupid first place to look. Crepus hardly ever spent time in here and when he did, it was never doing anything that could be confused with work. But it makes sense that Diluc would look here, although Kaeya thinks it says more about him than it does Crepus. He was not blessed with an affinity for ferreting out information.
Diluc looks at the shelves and the desk. The drapes make it a lot darker in here than it ever was when Crepus claimed it. It’s not really his office anymore, not when all the life and light has been taken from it like this. He says, “He was… good at keeping secrets.”
There’s a lot all packed in his words, all loneliness and hurt and anger. Kaeya has considered many times that his brother has been and felt all of those things, but he sees it in a new way today, so many years later.
He always knew he was more like Crepus than Diluc ever was, even when he tried to be, maybe not in his idealism, but in that cunning, calculating character of a businessperson. But that didn’t mean much because that’s who Crepus was, but not who he was trying to be, for Diluc—and later for Kaeya, who saw their father with a clear, insightful gaze when his brother did not. In those days, maybe only in those days, that was more important.
Maybe they were even more alike than he’d realized, what with all their secrets and lies. He sees them so clearly now, and he wonders if Crepus did as well. He knows better than to hope like that.
For many years, Kaeya struggled to make himself comfortable in their little dynamic, despite the similarities and the acceptance, because the simple fact was that he was never meant to be with them, not in a just or honest world, or even this one, but he wanted it so badly he’d do anything, even break himself down into little pieces and rebuild them into someone new. And maybe that was what Crepus saw in him, someone he was akin to in those desperate, longing attempts to be someone else. But he’d failed at that, somewhere along the way. That wasn’t the goal anymore.
He considers that the horrible feeling of distance between him and his family was something Diluc felt, too, especially when he was thrown in a single day into a world where he didn’t know the truth about either of them, a world where they’d both lied to him for years and he was too oblivious to notice it.
A nasty feeling of guilt pools in his stomach. It’s not new, but it’s the first time in a while Kaeya truly remembers that a long time ago, he and Diluc shared more than a surname.
Kaeya says, “Yeah, he was.” He clears his throat. “What were you hoping to find?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “I wanted answers.” He wipes a line of dust off a bookshelf with his hand. “I think it would’ve been hard, but I wish he’d told us before. There are still so many things I want to ask him.”
Kaeya nods as he speaks, but takes a moment to answer. Diluc isn’t subtle—gods know how many times he’s brought this up since they met in the valley yesterday—and Kaeya knows what he wants to ask, and he knows he can’t answer it.
It’s not fair to Diluc, to just keep him in the dark like he does, but it makes things so much easier—to pretend he didn’t break a million promises just by telling him, to forget that he owes them something impossible for doing that.
“Questions like that don’t have pretty answers,” Kaeya says.
For some reason, it makes Diluc mad. He drums his fingers on the desk, crosses them into his arms with clenched fists, and after a moment, he begins to pace.
Kaeya frowns at his outburst. “What’s wrong with you?”
Diluc directs a very pointed expression at him. “Obviously I know that. I still want to know the answers,” he says. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“They’d probably be difficult to hear,” Kaeya says.
“Okay.”
“You’d wish you didn’t know them afterward.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“How would you know?”
“Isn’t it mine to regret at that point? Isn’t it my choice to share the burden?” he asks. “I’m asking, Kaeya.”
He doesn’t know when they started talking about him and not their father. He’s known it the whole time. He says, “You’re an idiot.”
“Maybe.”
He turns his head away from Diluc; it’s something of an invitation. Diluc exhales, long and through his nose. It’s possibly the most explicitly Kaeya has ever agreed to answer one of his questions. He says, “I don’t understand why you want this.”
Diluc says, “Half the time, when I was gone, when I wasn’t focused on the Fatui and Father, I was looking for— for you.” Kaeya squishes his lips together, and Diluc continues, “I wanted anything that could tell me something about you. I’m still looking, I just… I thought the ley lines could be something.”
“Oh,” Kaeya says, a long time after he’s trailed off. There’s not much else to say. “They’re not really anything important,” he decides.
“Obviously they are,” Diluc says. “You actually did your job for once.”
Kaeya laughs, and it’s enough to get Diluc to crack a smile back. “I guess I did.” After a minute, the laughter subsides and his voice turns dangerous in its absence. “What are you asking me for, Diluc?”
“Anything you’ll give me.”
“Anything?”
Diluc looks over at him from the corner of his eyes. He says, “I asked you so many times as a kid for something . I thought if I could find out from somewhere else… I don’t know what I thought.” He sighs. “I don’t want you to shut me out. I don’t want you to be alone.”
Kaeya frowns, but he just purses his lips and doesn’t think about it. He says, “I have no idea where to begin.”
Diluc considers this. He asks, “What do you remember?”
Kaeya clicks his tongue, and blinks over to Diluc, and sees the horribly desperate longing pulled over his features, and then he closes his eye so he doesn’t have to anymore.
It should be easy to answer this question. He knows everything that Kaeya has kept secret, everything that no one else knows. But still, there’s so much he’s in the dark about. There are so many things that Kaeya does not keep secret, but that he cannot share, because that is the only way to keep them close and protected.
“Not much,” he says. “There’s not much to share.” It’s more of a lie than not, because there are a million things to say and he just can’t share them with Diluc. He pretends to not know why.
“I’ll listen to whatever you have to say,” he reminds him.
It takes him a moment to decide how he can explain it to Diluc.
“It’s dead there,” he answers after a long pause, echoing a sentiment that was repeated to him over and over as a child. He turns his gaze up to the ceiling when he says it, so he doesn’t have to look at Diluc when he speaks about it.
It didn’t seem dead, in the moment, but then he saw everything else, he saw the rest of the world, and he realized that it was.
He says, “Nothing can grow.”
“What about—”
“Whatever you’ve heard is a fairytale,” Kaeya interrupts, and it’s more bitter than he plans. It’s also maybe less true than he wants to believe. Diluc purses his lips. “That’s not what it’s like anymore.”
Diluc looks unsure, but Kaeya doesn’t know how to explain to him that the ruins he grew up in are different from the ruins in Teyvat. These ruins are lush foundations and memories for new life and new buildings. His ruins are dead, empty things. His ruins are hateful and cold.
But then, they’re not—not really. He just pushes all the life he remembers away, into dark corners where he doesn’t have to think about it, where he can pretend his debts and duties don’t exist, so he doesn’t have to feel guilty.
“You can’t lie to me,” Diluc says. Kaeya blinks up at him. He doesn’t know if it’s a declaration or a command.
“I’m not lying,” he insists.
“You came with a language and favorite foods and ideals and sometimes hope. Don’t tell me that.”
“I was a child, Diluc,” he says. “Of course I came with hope.”
“Exactly,” Diluc answers emphatically, like it should explain something. It doesn’t. Or maybe Kaeya is just being difficult. He sounds exasperated when he says, “Why do you hate it so much?”
“I don’t,” he says, and it’s true. He doesn’t hate it, just like he doesn’t hate the winery or maybe even his brother, but it’s a lot easier to let him think that than admit he misses it, when it’s not somewhere he can go back to and when there’s no one to miss it with him. “Why do you have to know?”
“I told you, Kaeya,” Diluc says. “Because it’s yours. Because I love you and I want to understand you.”
There’s a horrible piercing pain in his chest, one that’s always there when Diluc says things like this, when he reminds Kaeya that he loves him, and it’s worse when those are the words he chooses.
When Kaeya doesn’t respond, he says, “I was going to ask about the trees.”
“What about the trees?”
“You said nothing grows there, but you knew how to climb them before we met.”
Sometimes, it is a pain to remember that Diluc knows things, especially about him. It’s worse when he’s correct, when he can see through Kaeya because he knows him.
“Lucky guess,” he says. “Most children can climb trees.”
Diluc shakes his head. “I know it’s not much, but I know there are trees and lanterns, and that I was with you the first time you saw snow and the sunrise. I know there aren’t any birds, because they scared the shit out of you the first time you saw the aviary, but when Father and I would go feed them, you sat right outside to listen to their songs.”
Those memories are very, very far away these days. Most of the time, he pretends he doesn’t remember them at all. But here is Diluc, dragging them all back up like it’s not the most painful thing in the world. Like he’s actually fond of them.
“It was more like screeching than songs,” Kaeya says, because he never went out there for the birds. “And your birds are monsters.”
It honestly surprises him that Diluc still remembers how to laugh. He shares a smile. Diluc gestures to the curtains, pulled tight with so little sunlight sneaking through.
“Before you got here,” he says, “Father made us keep the curtains drawn up like this all the time. He said it was to preserve the furniture, because it was our duty as Ragnvindrs to keep them for the next generation.”
This doesn’t sound like anything Kaeya’s heard before, and he wonders for a moment if Diluc is being truthful.
“Then, one time, when you were sick,” he continues, “Adelinde opened the window for you to get some fresh air and you were so excited that he declared the curtains should be open for as long as it was light outside.”
It’s not familiar at all, but it does sound like something their father would do. He bites down on his lip. “Why are you talking about this?”
“Did anyone ever tell you that?” Diluc asks. Kaeya shakes his head. “I figured. I wanted you to know.”
It’s too much.
These memories hurt more than he can put into words for Diluc to hear. They’re memories of times that were painful even when he was living them, because he was being selfish in all of them—stealing a life that wasn’t his and neglecting all his promises—and despite all of that, he loved it more than anything.
He feels sick to his stomach.
“Can we talk about something else?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Diluc says, although there’s hurt on his face. Kaeya averts his gaze. “Jean reported that the ley line outcroppings separated. She said one appeared over on Starsnatch and the other was sighted near Stormbearer Point.”
“Oh,” Kaeya says. “That’s good.”
“Is it?” There’s no venom, no suspicion in Diluc’s voice when he asks it. And there’s no way he could know, except that it sounds like he does.
“That was the goal, wasn’t it?” he answers. Diluc rolls his lips.
They let the question sit, unanswered, and it’s normally the kind of thing that would start a fight. So when Diluc speaks again, it’s not what Kaeya expects.
“Listen, about yesterday,” he says. “I need you to know I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
“I know,” Kaeya says, keeping his voice light.
Diluc frowns. “Then why did you say all those things?”
Kaeya sighs. “Because you did anyway,” he says. It’s a real pain to extract, and the words sit funny in his mouth. He keeps going, though. “I don’t want you to be able to hurt me again.”
“I won’t,” Diluc says.
“Not just like that,” he says. He flicks his eye up to Diluc. “It… hurts me to be around you.”
“Oh.” Diluc turns his head to gaze at the window. His hair blocks most of his features.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean it like that.”
“It’s fine. You have nothing to be sorry about,” Diluc begins, and the next words are like pulling teeth. “I, however, should apologize. For being so overbearing. I was trying to give you space, but obviously I’ve been doing a terrible job. I will stop assisting in your missions.”
It’s all wrong, but for some reason, Kaeya can’t bring himself to correct him, to take back what he said. Instead, he says, “If that’s what you want.”
Diluc scrunches his nose. “That’s what you want.”
Kaeya frowns. “Who told you that?”
“You did,” Diluc says. “Yesterday.”
“I don’t want that,” Kaeya says. “I never wanted that.”
“But—”
“I’m a liar, Diluc, remember?” Kaeya snaps, and places a gentle hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he says, and then a second later, “It’s just difficult.”
“I know,” Diluc says.
“Your distance is— the worst thing you could do to me,” Kaeya says. “When you left, I thought I was dying. And it did nothing to fix anything, and then you came back and you were closer, but there was just as much distance as before, and I didn’t even want that in the first place.”
Diluc sighs. “I don’t understand you, Kaeya. You constantly say you want your distance.” He rubs his temples. After a moment, he adds, softly, “I’m not even allowed to tell you I love you.”
“I know,” Kaeya says, an apology nearly creeping into his voice. “It’s too painful to have you that close and not on my side.”
Kaeya expects for a brief moment that Diluc will be mad, that he’s demanding his proximity but also refusing it. But he’s not. “All right,” he says, and it sounds like he means it. “But I am.”
Kaeya doesn’t need to hear this, really, because he already knows it, and has always known it, but he’s only just now restructuring his thoughts to accommodate it.
He looks at Kaeya expectantly, but he doesn’t have the words to respond.
“Is that too much?” he asks, voice low and delicate.
“No,” Kaeya says. He thinks it might be something like the truth.
“Will you tell me when it is? Because I’d rather you tell me than hate me.”
“I don’t hate you,” Kaeya says. Diluc looks briefly annoyed.
“But will you tell me?” he asks.
“Yeah,” he answers.
After a moment, Diluc says, “Adelinde mentioned something about you coming to the winery more often.” It’s slow and quiet, like he’s still testing the waters.
It pulls Kaeya from his thoughts, long enough to blink up to him. “She asked me, too.”
“How do you feel about it?”
“I don’t know.”
Diluc looks so pained at his hesitance that Kaeya wants to shout that maybe it’s not for him, that maybe he doesn’t want to come back here, receive a forceful reminder of everything he’s lost, only to be thrown back into his lonely life without ceremony tomorrow. But so much of that is a lie.
He misses this so, so badly. He might be willing to pretend, if Diluc is, too.
“She said she wants you to visit more often, and I… I’ll never hear the end of it if I say no,” he says. “It’s your house, too,” he tacks on, after a cough, “legally.”
His face is all squished together in discomfort, cheeks red enough to match his hair. Kaeya purses his lips, doesn’t quite offer him a smile, just like Diluc doesn’t quite offer him reassurance, but it’s not nothing, not from either of them.
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll think about it.”
. . .