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Diluc was hard to please if you were the Fatui scum who happened to be dating his estranged brother. Impossible, even. You’d have a better chance proving that the sky was fake than you would getting him to smile in your presence. Whenever Childe showed up in Angel’s Share to Kaeya’s joy and Diluc’s instant misery, the bartender was always half a second from leaping over the side of the bar to start a brawl with him.
Diluc was famous in Snezhnaya for being a murderous legend, and one might think that the feelings of contempt were mutual, but no. Childe knew his story, and couldn’t fault Diluc for his feelings. Family was very personal, very personal to him as well. Revenge, in that sense, was merited, but he just wished Diluc could see the individual rather than the entity, which Diluc would argue was hard to do when Childe was still a part of it.
To Diluc’s utter dismay, Childe and Kaeya were getting serious. Childe had been stationed in Mondstadt at his own request, either because the Fatui wanted to get rid of him for a while or because the Fatui in Mondstadt were so poorly managed that they needed oversight. They were rarely apart from each other, holding hands and being disgustingly affectionate in a way Diluc knew had to be an act, because when had his brother ever been serious about anyone? Childe was just a mark, someone he was using for information, at least, that was what Diluc believed until he saw them in a tight embrace— not a kiss, merely an embrace— outside of his tavern at around two in the morning. At first, Diluc thought Childe was only steadying his brother after a long night drinking, but he could hear tears and Childe’s quiet reassurance.
Nobody saw Kaeya cry, and that was how Diluc knew things were getting intense.
Unfortunately, that meant Diluc either had to accept him or become his enemy, and the latter was so much easier than the former. If only Childe would leave it alone.
—
The man was too damn personable, too kind, too cheery.
Klee loved him, and even Jean was telling him the other day that things with the Fatui had become easier to manage with Childe’s presence cooling down both sides of the argument, and that was something Diluc took extreme umbrage with. When Jean was being accepting of Childe and Diluc wasn’t, that was a sign something awful was happening: Mondstadt was becoming welcoming of Childe and his romance with the Cavalry Captain, everyone except Diluc.
Diluc wanted to believe Childe was just using Kaeya, too. That he was just too useful, and to that end, Diluc had stalked Childe in the night, checked with his informants, tried to follow every lead that would tell him the truth, but the simplest solution was often the most correct, and the fact was that Childe simply loved his brother. With Occam’s razor at his throat, the pressure was on for him to accept Childe too.
He’d rather get hit by a meteor.
One day, Childe entered his tavern before they were open and completely uninvited. Diluc looked his way with a cocked eyebrow, asking him what brought him here. It took every ounce of his strength to remain civil enough for one conversation.
“I was wondering if you’d like to go on a trip with me?”
“I’d rather not.” Diluc shot him down instantly.
“Ouch, you didn’t even let me finish…”
“Why would you want to be alone with me, knowing how badly I’d like to kill you?”
“Double ouch, you really don’t mince words! What I was going to suggest was a fishing trip. I want some time for us to bond.”
Diluc stared at him like he’d grown a third eye. “Bond? You want me to bond with you?”
“Diluc, you don’t want Kaeya out of your life forever, do you?”
“… don’t wield him against me—”
“I’m trying to do the opposite! You know, if Kaeya and I are going to be together, I want him to be happy, and to be honest, he’s miserable whenever he thinks about you,” Childe invited himself to sit at the bar, Diluc glaring at him from behind it. “He really misses you. He thinks he ruined everything, but to be honest, you’ve done your fair share of ruining too—”
“…” Damn him for being right, but it wasn’t as if Diluc would admit it.
“— so I want to be the bridge that mends. But I can’t do that if I don’t know you, Diluc, and I can hardly know you through the way your brother talks about you. It would be easy to take everything at face value, but I grew up with a lot of siblings. I know how things get distorted.”
Damn him for being so reasonable! If this had been literally anyone else, Diluc would take them up on their offer in an instant. Literally anyone else in Mondstadt aside from a select few Diluc would have no trouble with Kaeya dating, but the one who had captured his heart was also trying his best to make him happy and starting at the source of his pain. Diluc could respect that, and it made him angry that he respected that. Because Diluc was partially the source of pain to begin with.
“Please don’t make me get out the big guns,” Childe pleaded with him.
“… what big guns? You don’t have any big guns.”
“I don’t? I’unno, Darknight Hero, tell me more about the big guns I don’t have.”
So it was blackmail.
Childe was blackmailing him in order to bond with him. Typical Fatui nonsense.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at the docks?” Childe asked with a bright smile.
“What time?”
“Five AM sharp! So either get to bed early or don’t sleep at all!”
Knowing which he’d rather do, Diluc told him to get out of his bar and sighed, wondering if he still had the fishing gear his father left him, or if he’d sold it with many of his old possessions.
—
“… you’re wearing that?”
Childe looked Diluc up and down, as the other was wearing his usual outfit he wore around Mondstadt, the dark brown jacket with gold accents. Childe was dressed far more appropriately, in casual clothing that looked far better for getting into a small boat and going out on the lake for hours on end. In his hands were a cooler and a bucket of bait, under his arm, two fishing poles. Diluc rolled his eyes, having “forgotten” to bring his own.
“What’s wrong with my outfit?”
“You’re going to hate wearing it out on a boat.”
“…” Diluc slung the jacket off, folding it under his arm as Childe got into the boat he’d rented for them. It could only be described as fitting two people at best, and would sink under the weight of a third. At least, that’s how old and small it looked to Diluc, who was used to finer boats when he had to be on one at all.
“Alright, we’re going to row out to the middle of the lake. You do know how to row, don’t you?”
“Of course, do I look like an idiot?”
(Diluc did not know how to properly row a boat, but Childe was kind enough to give him pointers without drawing attention to that fact.)
—
The first hour, Childe did most of the talking.
The icebreaker was his own family; his siblings and his parents. Though he notably avoided talking about his father, he was glad to talk about his mother and older siblings and younger siblings. Diluc found himself envious of such a big family, mostly because he was without one now, but more than that, he was envious of how cheerful Childe seemed to be talking about them. He had always assumed Harbingers had no ties to their former lives, and were just monsters of their own design. Childe was… different. He was too normal.
Diluc knew better than to believe that, though. He’d seen the reports on Childe. He knew the kind of monster he had to be to have done all the things he’d previously accomplished, but listening to this was eye opening. Diluc’s very black and white thinking turned a little grayer with each story.
“Did you ever go fishing with your family, growing up?”
“Once or twice, to have the experience,” Diluc had yet to catch a single fish, but he held his pole rigidly as if waiting for the first bite. “Not as often as you would’ve.”
“Well, it was a fishing family in a fishing village, of course I’ve done this more times than I can count,” Childe said cheerfully, reeling in yet another big fish. “But Kaeya never seems to want to go…”
“Can’t imagine why.”
“I think he doesn’t like the smell of fish. Or maybe he doesn’t like holding them…”
“You think.”
“You know, Diluc—” Childe cast out his line again, “It wouldn’t kill you to talk.”
“… I don’t know what you want to hear.”
“Tell me about how you and Kaeya used to get along.”
Are you my therapist? Diluc thought to himself. “I used to be a lot more outgoing. Not completely like Kaeya, but more genuinely. We’d compete a lot.”
“Mhm, and?”
“… I don’t think I can ever go back to being that way, but I do miss those times.”
“See? You do want to reconcile with him.”
“It’s more complicated than you think.”
“Well, yeah, obviously. It’s not an overnight project, but I don’t want it to be, either. Kaeya will have to work at it too.”
“… why go through all the trouble?”
“Because I want Kaeya to be happy.”
“There’s more than one wa—”
“No, Diluc. Getting through to you is the only way.”
Childe sounded oddly serious, and it pissed him off.
“I like how you assume this is all my fault.”
“Does your brother hide his eye because of you?”
“… I—”
“Then it’s partially your fault, at least.”
Diluc wanted to walk out of there, but it was impossible to do so on a little boat. Childe had trapped him in his worst nightmare; stranding him in a place where he’d have to talk about his feelings, and Diluc had no other choice. Getting more irate by the second, Diluc sighed, remembering to breathe.
“… then what do you think I should say to him? Let bygones be bygones?” Diluc snapped. “After everything we’ve said to each other since then?”
“Yup.”
“Then you’re a moron.”
“I’m not the moron here. I’m not the one isolating myself because I refuse to talk to my brother when I let things get too bitter between us. I’m not the one who thinks forgiveness is for lowly people.”
“I don’t think that!”
“Then why don’t you practice what you preach?”
“I said it was complicated!”
“Too complicated to say ‘I’m sorry’?” Even saying all of this, Childe maintained an even tone, never getting as heated as Diluc was.
“I’m— I’m not—”
“You’re not sorry for scarring your brother.”
“I am— it’s just—”
“Then say you’re sorry.”
Diluc snapped under the pressure of his words.
“And why can’t Kaeya say he’s sorry?!”
“How do you know he hasn’t tried to?”
Diluc fell silent.
“What do you know about what he told you, that night? Why do you think he told you that? Because honesty was all he had to offer you in your time of grief. He thought coming clean was the only way he could be of service to his father’s memory and his last remaining family.”
Diluc was starting to lose it. He was one second away from picking up the oars himself and rowing the boat back himself when Childe stopped him.
“You can get as angry as you want. I’m not here to stop you from doing that. I just want you to think about how you miss the most important person in your life and I want you to do something about it.”
“Most important?” Diluc scoffed. “He’s not the…”
“Who else,” Childe looked at him, dead in the eye, “do you have?”
That was where Diluc broke. He grabbed the closest thing to him and smacked Childe with it, straight across the face, for trying to psychoanalyze him when he didn’t even know him, for not even thinking about how these things took time, and because of course he badly missed Kaeya, and how of course he wanted things to be right between them, and how saying sorry couldn’t right every wrong he’d done to him, and—
Diluc realized two things, that moment.
The first was that the closest thing to him when he reached to smack Childe had been a fish’s tail hanging out of the bucket, and he’d just walloped him with a trout.
The second was that maybe saying sorry was the least he could do. Maybe pride wasn’t worth as much as having his brother back.
“… did you just hit me with a fish?” Childe asked, quietly.
Diluc let it go, back into the water, as if getting rid of the evidence.
“… I’ll tell him I’m sorry. But if he doesn’t accept that apology, you’ll have to accept that square one might be right where we end up.”
“Did you just hit me with a fish, Diluc?”
“… I, yes. Sorry.”
“Hmm. Well, I know you’re a very revenge-minded person, so I hope you’ll understand when I do this.”
Childe pushed him and his fancy clothes off the boat.
—
By the time they rowed back to the docks, Diluc was soaking wet and so was Childe. There was a full bucket of fish sitting in the bottom of the boat that Childe intended to gut and preserve, and for some reason, Diluc was smiling.
The Fatui thing was hard to forgive, but the rest of Childe was alright, he supposed.
—
Kaeya fussed over Childe the moment they got back, and then looked between the two of them, wondering where Childe had taken Diluc that would get him so drenched.
“We went fishing!”
“You got him to agree to that?” Kaeya seemed impressed. Childe looked at Diluc before heaving the bucket over his shoulder, saying he had to get started on the fish, so you two talk about what you need to.
“Need to…?” Kaeya repeated as Childe walked up the steps to his apartment, disappearing behind the door.
“… Kaeya.”
“…?”
“I’m sorry.”
“… what for?”
“Everything.”
“… did he brainwash you on that fishing trip? Did he hit you with a fish and knock all the sense out of you?”
“Actually, I was the one who hit him with a— it’s not important,” Diluc reached for Kaeya, pulling him into a hug, “I know you can’t forgive me, but I think I’ll be okay if I let it go and just say it myself.”
Kaeya didn’t know what to do with all of this, arms hovering in the air, and he hesitated for the longest time.
Then, he pat Diluc’s back, before returning the hug.
“Who says what I can and can’t forgive, idiot?”
They stayed like that for the longest time, as if trying to readjust to how things had changed, but Kaeya let go first.
“Diluc, you smell like a lake.”
“I, uh, he pushed me in.”
“Childe did? I’ll have to have words with him. Nobody bullies my big brother but me.”
At that, the tears Diluc had been holding back spilled out, faster than he could catch them. There was no hitch in his breath, no sob, nothing but the tears themselves. Things weren’t usually so simple, and reconciling would still take a lot of work, just as Childe had said.
Diluc realized he was finally off of square one.
--
Childe was just happy to see the two brothers finally talking again, in a way that wasn't so antagonistic. Even so, he still wasn't sure how he felt about Diluc. Maybe whenever he felt like it was time to take another step with Kaeya, he could take Diluc on another fishing trip and ask his permission to be part of the family that Diluc and Kaeya were trying to mend.