Work Text:
Kaeya is ten years old when he first meets the man.
Ten years old, in an unfamiliar land.
Kaeya is sitting under a tree with his legs crossed, as the rain pours down around him, staring straight ahead as if staring hard enough will take him back home. Back home, a place of fire and burned ashes, strained family ties and broken ambitions - but a home. A language he understood, a place he knew.
A place the gods couldn't see.
Here, in this unfamiliar land, Kaeya can be seen by anyone.
He was told to keep things quiet, to never let anyone find out where he's from, but Kaeya knows better than anyone that the stench of Khaenriah isn't something you can hide.
The archon of Mondstadt is in the winds, they say. Wherever the wind reaches, the god can see.
Kaeya curls up smaller under the tree, the wind against his skin a warning, a threat, all in one. He knows Barbatos has seen him. He must know. It's impossible to hide anything from a god, his mother had said. To hide from them meant to hide from the light, the wind, the world.
But now Kaeya is here, out in the open. An easy target.
Khaenriah's last hope, his father had said, but with the wind on his face Kaeya knows he has already lost.
If he stays here for long enough, maybe his father will realize that as well, and will take him back home.
But hours pass, and no one shows up.
Until someone does.
Kaeya hears footsteps before he sees the silhouette in the dark. He ducks by instinct, trying to make himself smaller - it could be someone from the winery, the place Kaeya was meant to get inside, or it could be someone here in the name of Barbatos. Someone who was here to take him out.
The footsteps draw closer, leaves crunching under feet, and Kaeya is struck by the urge to run.
But there's no place to run home to, when he's been turned away on a mission, and nowhere else to hide. Not when the gods can see everything.
So he stays still, even as his heart beats out of his chest.
The last hope of his homeland.
The footsteps stop in front of him.
"Well," a voice drawls, low and terrible. "Who left you behind?"
Kaeya doesn't dare to look up. But the man crouches down, far too close, right in his face.
"You've been here a while," the man says, and his voice is dark, ridiculously amused. "No one coming back for you?"
It's true, but for a moment Kaeya feels indignant.
For a moment, he wants to say no. He wasn't abandoned, he was here on a mission. He was here because he was an entire country's last hope. He wasn't - left here to die. He was supposed to be something.
He was going to be something.
He looks up at the man, anger rising in his chest, but it dies out when he meets his eyes.
In the hushed stories that Kaeya had heard growing up, spoken in whispers so that the men of the revolution didn't hear - in those stories, the children of the archons were ethereal. They were loved, and kind, and had everything they could dream of. They lived a life of ignorance, unknowing of the blood that had been swept under their feet, of the lives they stole to live their own.
In those stories, of the children of the archons - they were beautiful, and it was said with the undertone of that's what we could have been.
But the man in front of Kaeya is none of those things.
He's every bit of a demon as the men who raised Kaeya.
The anger dies out, and the fear, and it's replaced with confusion.
The man seems to notice the change. He tilts his head in question, a smirk on his face. He's dressed in absurdly extravagant clothes, his hat larger than his frame, the fabric hanging from it wet and dripping in the rain.
"Not afraid anymore?" he asks, voice a little lighter than before.
"Are you - " Kaeya hesitates. "Are you from home?"
The man's face goes blank. Something passes across his eyes, a mixture of emotions that Kaeya can't identify. The same emotions that pass across Kaeya's father's face when he asks him if their curse would be lifted if they could find a god to love them.
"I'm not," the man says at last. He looks like he wants to say more, but holds himself back. "No one's coming back for you," he says again, but this time it's less of a taunt and more a statement of fact. "You can come with me."
Kaeya's eyes widen.
The man holds a hand out for him to take, not breaking eye contact. His eyes are wild and intense, dark and cruel. Filled with the sort of contained rage that Kaeya was born to.
There's no way he could be a child of an archon.
"Fatui!" someone screams from somewhere. There's the sound of rushed, panicked footsteps, as the shouts grow closer. "The fatui are here!"
The hand that was stretched towards Kaeya clenches into a fist.
"Shit," the man says, expression souring. He straightens up abruptly, brushing himself off.
He looks at Kaeya again, conflict clear on his face. But then his expression hardens, and he pulls his hat lower, turns on his heel and disappears into the rain.
By the time the other men reach them, checking Kaeya over to see if he's hurt - like he's person, like he isn't a spy sent to destroy their homeland -
By then, the strange man is long gone.
/
Kaeya doesn't see the man again until years later.
Years later, after he's learned what the Fatui are, and that what could have happened to him that night was something terrible that he didn't dare to imagine.
"The Fatui are scum," Diluc had said wisely, with all the bravado of someone who had no clue what the word meant. He had lowered his voice a little, leaning in towards Kaeya like he was sharing a secret. "I heard that they kidnap children for their strange experiments. The children never come back."
Kaeya's eyes widen. "For real?"
"Yeah."
"But they're in Mondstadt. I've seen them go into the tavern."
Diluc nods gravely. "Father says they can't do anything to get rid of them, or it'll - be a political issue. So just don't go near them and don't get kidnapped."
That seemed like an absurd idea for safety to Kaeya, but he was pretty used to Mondstadt and it's absurdities at this point, so he didn't complain.
But he could never shake the man's face out of his memory.
He didn't look like the other Fatui that Kaeya runs into. These men are always in uniform, masks on, voices low. They speak like they have no identity except for the one bestowed upon them by their god. They speak like they have no purpose, save for whatever the Tsaritsa wants of them.
They're devoted men, if a little insane - and that wasn't the person that Kaeya saw that night.
The person that Kaeya saw was a godless monster.
Like himself.
It doesn't seem right, to think of him as Fatui.
But that's what he'd been called.
"They're harbingers," Crepus tells him at last, after months of forcibly casual questions and digging through books in the dark. "The most dangerous of men, but also the most powerful. They don't abide by the same rules as the rest of the Fatui, they're far too high up in the hierarchy." He gives Kaeya a look that's far too intense. "If you ever meet one of them, Kaeya, I need you to run. Alright? Never listen to a word they say. Promise me this."
The look in his eyes is too knowing, like he knows the doubts that keep Kaeya awake at night.
Like he knows, that Kaeya is wondering how many people are hidden in the cracks of this land, as alone and abandoned as he is.
If they're really the monsters they're made out to be - or if they're just like him.
"I promise," Kaeya says easily, because his life is just a long thread of broken promises.
Crepus pats him on the shoulder, unknowing.
/
When Kaeya meets the man again - he's on the floor, curled up in pain, a cryo vision freezing into the clenched palm of his hand.
There's blood pouring from his eye, across his face, dripping into the soil. He can't see anything in the rain, in the cold, his eyes shut tightly. Everything hurts.
Everything hurts.
Kaeya thinks he's going to die.
It would be funny if he died right now, after being left to live. After being blessed by an archon.
For a moment Kaeya feels burning anger, the sort that makes him want to die out of spite. He didn't ask to be here. He didn't ask to be born, to live, to be left for dead, to be saved. Kaeya has never had a say in his life, never been anything but a fucked up tool, and all he does is pay for it.
But the anger dies out, and all that's left is pain.
Blood and rain spilling into the soil, and all he can think of is that it wasn't Barbatos who thought to save him.
His whole life, Kaeya was told that he was a part of Mondstadt, that this was his home, that it didn't matter who he was and where he came from - this was where he belonged.
But his brother had tried to kill him, and his god had left him to die.
Kaeya grips his vision tighter, the chill of the ice sinking into his bones. He doesn't think he'll find the strength to stand up. Diluc won't come back looking for him. He's probably going to lie here in the mud until someone passes by and pities him.
The way he's lived most of his life.
He starts laughing then, puffs of air through the pain, hysterical with tears. For the second time in his life, Kaeya is truly alone. But this time there's no illusion of a purpose.
He doesn't hear the footsteps approaching, nor does he see the man in the dark, until he feels a foot press against his chest.
It isn't heavy but Kaeya coughs, the shock of the pressure taking him out. Is it Diluc? Has he come to finish him off? Is it Barbatos himself, here to undo the mistake the Tsaritsa had made and take him out of this world at last?
He looks up through blurry eyes, through blood and tears, and he starts laughing all over again.
Because standing above him is the man of his nightmares.
The Fatui harbinger.
"This happens to you a lot, doesn't it," the man sneers, pressing his foot down a little harder. Kaeya's laughs die out into coughs. "Should've come with me the first time."
"Who are you?" Kaeya manages to ask. He tries to bring a hand up to pry the foot off of his chest, manages to grip the ankle but can't do anything more.
The man seems to pity him, lifting his foot off, staring Kaeya down instead. His ridiculous hat - too large for his frame - is hanging low, the cloth wet and dripping in the rain.
"You still don't know?" the man drawls. "You can call me what you like. Scaramouche. Balladeer. Kunikuzushi. None of it will mean anything to you."
"Why are you here?"
The man laughs. "I'm here to save you," he says, and it sounds almost mocking. He crouches down, leaning in close, and his face is just as Kaeya remembers. The contained rage, the bare hints of insanity, the pain that had been buried for far far too long.
For a moment, Kaeya is ten years old again, in an unfamiliar land, far too aware that everyone wants him dead.
All these years, and nothing has changed.
"Save me from what," Kaeya forces out. He's losing what energy he has left. Everything hurts so much.
"We aren't meant to be here," the man says. "We aren't supposed to be. Not people like us."
It sounds too much like what Diluc had told him.
You never should have come here.
I wish I'd never met you.
Don't ever show your face here again.
"I know," Kaeya says, the tears falling again. "I know."
"Come with me."
Kaeya shakes his head.
He doesn't know where the man wants to take him, just that he can't stand the idea of going anywhere.
Kaeya doesn't have what it takes to try again.
To ever stand up again.
He'd rather die right here in the dirt, forgotten by his family and the god he'd hoped would think of him as his own.
The man lets out a sigh, frustrated and twisted. "Some of you never learn," he says, and it sounds almost angry.
Kaeya doesn't know what happens after that, because the exhaustion finally takes him.
/
The next time that Kaeya lets himself think of the man, that isn't in his cursed drunken spirals or his nightmares - someone else brings it up first.
Unsurprisingly, it's the traveller.
They're at Angel's Share, Kaeya sipping at his own drink as he watches Aether and Paimon talk to Diluc. Kaeya hasn't seen them in a long while, what with their adventures in Inazuma. He doesn't know the whole story of what happened there but whatever it was had burned them down truly, and now they're back here, drinking grape juice and ranting about the Fatui to Diluc while the man calmly pours them drinks.
To be fair, they chose the perfect person to rant to. No one hated the Fatui more than Diluc.
"A delusion factory," Aether is saying, clearly miserable. "So many people killed. So many injured. It was a mess."
His voice cracks, and Kaeya feels bad for him.
All he wanted to do was find his sister, and instead he's been getting torn apart piece by piece.
"Did you find whoever was behind it?" Diluc asks, his voice almost gentle. He's so kind when it comes to the traveller, and then he can turn around and look at Kaeya with unmeasurable levels of disgust.
Kaeya takes a larger sip of his wine, trying to forget that thought.
"The same guy as usual," Aether says, with a level of contempt that Kaeya has never heard from him. "Scaramouche."
Kaeya starts before he can think the better of it. "Scaramouche?"
All eyes snap to him instantly. Aether's wide eyes, Diluc's narrowed ones, Paimon's like she'd forgotten he was even there.
"You've met him?" Diluc asks, voice flat and careful.
Kaeya raises an eyebrow at him. "Haven't you?"
He's sure he must have. Diluc had spent years trying to hunt out every last member of the Fatui. It's unlikely that he never ran into Scaramouche.
Diluc doesn't answer, eyes narrowing further.
"Did he do something to you?" Paimon asks, mouth in a thin line, already offended on his behalf. Kaeya laughs. It's always funny when people worry about him.
"What, you think he could hurt me?" he says easily, trying for a smile. "You think I can't handle a harbinger?"
"You can't," Diluc says, and the finality he says it with pisses Kaeya off.
"I could handle you," he bites out, pointing his glass in Diluc's direction. "And as far as I remember you were beaten to an absolute pulp by a harbinger."
Something strange passes across Diluc's face. Something like rage, like regret, like too many emotions held back all at once.
The same expression that used to pass across Kaeya's father's face, whenever he asked if all it would take for the curse to be lifted was to find a god to love them.
The same expression that the harbinger looked at him with.
Kaeya shuts his eyes, shakes his head.
"I met him a couple of times," he says, turning back to Aether, trying to keep his voice casual. As if he didn't just talk unprompted about how his once brother had tried to kill him. "He's a strange man."
"He's insane," Paimon says vehemently. "A murderer. He's evil and manipulative and he didn't even care, that someone was dead, he didn't even care, he just laughed - "
"Hm," Kaeya says.
We aren't supposed to be here, Scaramouche had said. Not people like us.
Kaeya wishes he'd asked him then, what sort of people he meant.
He remembers staring at Crepus' mangled body on the floor, the man who'd raised him, bloody and dead -
He remembers staring, and the grin it had brought to his face.
The relief.
He didn't even care, he just laughed -
Kaeya finishes the rest of his drink in one go.
/
It's late at night when Kaeya trudges back to the city.
He'd been off clearing up hilichurl camps, then he'd been distracted by the Abyss order, and one thing lead to another and he'd ended up chasing monsters all across Mondstadt.
Now it's late, or rather early in the morning, and he's dead exhausted.
He doesn't think he can catch much sleep, since he needs to report to Jean in the morning, and the thought of that just makes him more exhausted.
It's okay, Kaeya is used to this. It's not new to him.
Protecting the city comes with its toll.
(Protecting a city he doesn't belong to, from people from his own homeland - )
One foot after the other, one foot after the other.
He's almost at the city gates when he sees a figure in the dark.
He recognizes it instantly, physically freezing up, because it's the face that accompanies every moment of his nightmares.
The panic sets in before logic does, because if Scaramouche is here - it means that Kaeya is being left behind again.
He always turns up when Kaeya has lost everything.
Did Diluc tell on him at last? Did Jean figure out that he's a spy? Will Kaeya even be let back into the city, or have they been instructed to keep him out already?
Where will he go, if he's thrown out?
Where can he go, where the gods can't find him?
What about Albedo, and Klee? Will he be allowed to see Klee ever again? They can't keep her from him, she won't hate him for this, Kaeya helps raise her, it's not fair for them to keep her from him -
Scaramouche turns, finally realizing that someone else is here, and Kaeya catches the glint of the vision hanging from his clothes.
An anemo vision.
Kaeya's stomach sinks for a whole other reason.
An anemo vision.
Scaramouche is watching him with surprised eyes, no hint of the animosity he usually regards him with. His expression is schooled, tired. A little cautious.
An anemo vision.
A murderer, a destroyer of lands, of homes, a master manipulator, known only as evil evil evil -
And here he is, with the blessings of the only god Kaeya has ever hoped to belong to.
Saved by Barbatos, when the archon had left Kaeya to die.
Everything seems to collapse in that moment. His heart, his soul. There's nothing left for him in this city.
There was never anything here for him to begin with.
Kaeya tried his best to belong, to fit in, to be someone worthy of being alive, and yet he'd been thrown out and left for dead. And he kept coming back. He kept coming back, like a parasite or a madman.
Kaeya turns around, away from the city gates.
He can't do this anymore.
He's had enough, of trying to fit into places that were never built for him.
"Where are you going?" the voice calls behind him.
It's the voice he remembers, but at the same time not at all. It's lighter, more tired.
More defeated.
"What does it matter?" Kaeya asks, not turning around.
"You don't have anywhere else to go."
At that, Kaeya feels all the forgotten rage rushing back.
He's never had anywhere to go.
Kaeya has never been his own person, has never made his own decisions. He's never had control over his life, but he's forced to pay the price all the same.
A puppet, a marionette, played by too many sides, morphed into a monster that has only ever lied and doesn't even have a goal anymore.
He grips the vision at his belt - the funniest joke the archons ever played on him. Blessed by the only god that wanted all the other gods gone. The only one who challenged the heavens themselves, the only one who would probably end up wiping out her own people.
Like Kaeya's own home.
He thinks of the fire that had killed his people, and the fire that had been aimed at him years later, and fire and fire and fire -
"Who are you?" Kaeya spits. "Are you happy? You have Barbatos' blessing, are you happy now?"
Scaramouche looks at him with something like pity.
Kaeya hates the expression.
It makes him want to draw his sword and stab it through his chest, but instead he turns away again.
Away from this city.
"Why would I be happy?" the voice calls, closer than Kaeya expected it to be.
Before he knows it, Scaramouche is in front of him, standing in his way.
He doesn't look like the man Kaeya remembers from his nightmares, the one with uncontained rage and a soul torn to pieces.
He looks quieter, sadder.
More honest.
"You think this means something?" he asks, holding his vision up. His voice is amused, a little mocking - but still, there's something pitying in it. "This?"
"You - it's from Barbatos."
Scaramouche stares at him for a moment, and then he bursts out laughing.
Shoulders shaking, loud, terrible laughs.
"It's from an archon," he says. "That's it. An archon who wanted me alive because they have a part for me to play."
Kaeya shakes his head, because that's not what it means to belong to Mondstadt.
That's not what it means at all.
It means being worthy of a home. A home, among all the misfits.
"There's nothing else," Scaramouche says, insistent. "Don't expect the gods to love you. They aren't capable of something like that."
"You - "
"I was created by a god," Scaramouche says. "Abandoned by her. Taken in by another. Thrown out. Taken in by another. And then - " he holds the vision up again. "Then one of them wanted me alive. That's all this means. It doesn't mean I belong here. It means it's convenient that I stay alive."
He nods towards Kaeya's vision. "That's all it is for you. Stop waiting for them to accept you as one of them. They never will. The gods verdict isn't something you need."
He searches Kaeya's eyes for something, seems disappointed when he doesn't find it.
"They aren't worth that," he says, staring straight into Kaeya's eyes.
They.
Not you.
The phrasing takes him out.
They aren't worth that.
"People like us, we'll never belong here," Scaramouche says. "We weren't meant to. We don't know how. But when it falls apart - " he grimaces, turning away for a second. When he looks back, it's with a determination that Kaeya doesn't know what to do with. "When it falls apart, we won't fall with it. That's the good thing, about never being able to belong."
He pats Kaeya on the shoulder. It's condescending, in a way, but it's also grounding.
Someone who'll never belong, who's fought on too many sides and betrayed all of them - it's terrible, and painful, but Kaeya knows, that this is the closest he'll get to seeing himself.
"Who are you?" he asks, for the millionth time, in hopes that he'll get an answer that can help him understand anything.
Why do you keep finding me?
Why won't you leave me alone?
Scaramouche laughs again. "You ask that a lot," he says. "But it's never going to mean anything to you. I'm not anyone." He tilts his head, an ugly smile on his face. "I'm a puppet."
Kaeya stops.
Scaramouche spreads his arms open, in mock grandeur. "Created by a god, betrayed by a god. And why did I find you?" He shrugs, even though Kaeya had never voiced the question out loud. "I saw you in the dark, and I was looking at myself. I thought I'd give you the chance I wasn't given, but you never took it."
"A chance," Kaeya repeats dumbly.
"To get away," Scaramouche says. His expression is almost wistful. "To be someone."
To be someone.
Someone.
Instead of this shell of a human, Khaenriah's last hope and Mondstadt's knight, torn between sides and useful to neither.
To be someone.
Kaeya's grip on his vision tightens. His eyesight is starting to blur, and he blinks the tears back furiously. He won't cry in front of this man.
"It's never too late," Scaramouche says. "I'm none of the people I was before, now. I don't even have a name yet. I've just been calling myself a wanderer. It's never too late for you either."
He turns to leave, pausing for just a second.
"If you need another chance, come find me," he says, voice dead serious.
And then he's gone, faster than the wind itself.
/