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Kaeya chooses his words poorly.

Summary:

What if Aether snaps at Kaeya's condescending words at the end of Kaeya's troubles?

I actually went back to Monstadt to talk to Kaeya at his office, where he usually resided, and guess what? he wasn't there.
So when I finished the quest, what Kaeya said made me so mad. I thought about writing this, but it took some thought, which took months for me to act on it.
And now here it is.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

"Though the treasure didn't exist, you did want it for yourself, didn't you? otherwise, you would have informed me of your intentions, no?"

Paimon frowned as she tries to say.
"That... well... ah...hmph!"

Aether goes to facepalm to himself, he is fuming at Kaeya's words.
How dare he? Aether had searched everywhere for him! To inform him!
And Kaeya wasn't.....he wasn't....
The way Kaeya had talked about how much that damn sword was so important to him, from his grandfather...from family.
Kaeya knew how much family meant to Aether, how much his sister meant to him, and Kaeya used that against him!
"Wait, why do you sound so blithe? do you think I'm making it up?"
Paimon was so annoyed.
"Let's go! Paimon's done talking to him!" But the Traveler did not respond or look at her. Instead... Aether makes a bitter laugh.

Kaeya looks at the Traveler in confusion, and so did Paimon.
"What's so funny?!" Paimon said annoyed.

"Traveler?..." Kaeya asked in confusion.

There was an awkward silence, until...

"Are you serious?"
Aether said with some anger as his palm left his face.
Kaeya stared at the Traveler with an raised eyebrow.
"Hmm?"

Aether glared at Kaeya with fuming honey eyes.
"How could you make such an assumption?! If you were so worried about us stealing that non-existent sword! why did you make us help?! use us as bait?!"

Kaeya was taken aback by the Traveler's outburst, Paimon was also surprised by the Traveler speaking up in this fashion, but she immediately agrees with him.
"Y-yeah! I agree! why did you?"

Kaeya raised his hands up, and says with a nervous chuckle.
"Now now, that's not what I meant at all-"

"It is exactly what you meant!"
Aether says in anger as he approached Kaeya slowly.
"When we discovered where this stupid ruin was at! the first damn thing on my mind was returning to you! Paimon didn't agree with me, but I still chose to look for you!"
Aether's voice slowly gets more and more angry as he explained. Kaeya was silent.
"And...and when I went to your office....you weren't there!" Aether shouted. Raving his arms around.

Paimon nodded with agreement with Aether again.
"Yeah! you weren't!" She said with outrage of her own, glaring similarly.

"Traveler.."

"So of course I couldn't inform you of our intentions! because you never gave us the chance to!"

Paimon makes another nod, agreeing with Aether, she crossed her arms and shook her head at Kaeya.
Kaeya meanwhile was flabbergasted.
"You...now know why I wasn't there...if I was there...the plan wouldn't have worked as well...I needed to be here to arrest them.."

"And that justifies misleading us? deceiving us?! I'm not even mad about that! for I assumed before, that you were gonna reward us something regardless!"

Kaeya would immediately retort.
"Yeah, your right actually. I was planning to reward you the Harbinger of Dawn....so if your not mad about that...then why-"

Aether snaps.
"I could've 'accepted' your damn reward....but after what you just said...what you just assumed...save your stupid reward, Kaeya. I don't need it...me and Paimon don't need it."
He walks past Kaeya, turning to look back at Kaeya.
"I'll let you figure out what we really want from you, Kaeya. And I expect it to be actually genuine. Because it's gonna be hard for me to trust you in the future!"

Aether growled as he started to leave, with Paimon floating behind him, shaking with a pout of disappointment at Kaeya.
Kaeya makes a mix between a groan and a sigh. Closing his eye and frowned. This no longer felt like a victory to him. He felt bad now. He lost some trust in the Traveler.

Notes:

It's a good thing that Aether never reacted like that, eh Kaeya? I would've.