Work Text:
Blood is still dripping from Diluc’s shoulder as he ascends the spiral staircase of the tower.
Drip, drip, drip. Each droplet lands on a different step, blots of red ink leaving an almost artful trail in his wake, a sinusoidal trail as he sways side to side in his efforts to keep himself steady. But each droplet is quickly drowned out by the deluge of rain crashing down just beyond the frozen stone walls, so fierce and unrelenting it could very well uproot this tower like a mere weed.
He stops in front of a gap in the stone filled with a wrought iron grate, allowing half a view of the grey darkness outside, all details obscured by storm and shadow. He tears his gaze away before he can get lost in the bleakness and resumes the trek upwards.
His hand presses down a little more on the gaping wound, but he’s too weak to apply the pressure it really needs – all he accomplishes is staining his gloves even further. No matter. He cleared out the ground floor of this stronghold in the blink of an eye, and he’s almost at the top. He’ll take care of anyone or anything that might be waiting there in another blink, and then he’ll be able to breathe at last and tend to the injury. He’s survived worse.
A flash of lightning accompanies the echoing thunderclap of his boots hitting the final step. There’s nothing but a rotting door in front of him, a solid panel of wood with no window or even keyhole to grant him some indication of what lies in wait beyond it. He heaves a heavy breath, throws all his weight behind his good shoulder, and shoves the door open.
It’s empty.
The small, circular room is entirely bare, save for a scant few bits of straw scattered around, the remnants of some makeshift bed, most likely. Darkened moonlight spills in through a long window diametrically opposite the door, the glass rattling in the iron frame, the resulting clamour bouncing endlessly off the walls until it surrounds him. He keeps one hand on the doorknob as he steps inside, holds it close like a shield as he peeks around it, and finds nothing but more emptiness.
The air up here is stagnant. It seeps into his lungs like noxious fumes, clings to his skin like venomous blood.
The air up here is made of death.
Death means no living things out to get him.
Death means peace.
He shudders, and shuts the door behind him.
He’s still clutching his shoulder as he stumbles over to the window – it’s set in an alcove, jutting out far enough from the circle of the room to leave a wide ledge of well-worn stone in front of it. A seat with a view, on a better day. So sit he does, depositing his dangerously light bag at one end while climbing up onto the other, and as soon as his feet are off the ground he all but collapses against the shaking glass.
The storm is still raging outside, showing no signs of stopping. He can feel it in every vibration of the glass, every grating motion against his skull. Yet as soon as he shifts away, resting his head against the unshakeable stone instead, everything is so… quiet.
Perhaps that’s because because the tower is so tall that it pierces the sky and renders the world below in naught but daubs of grey, smeared even further by the endless sheets of rain. Perhaps it’s always this quiet up here, so far removed from the world, beyond the reach of whatever light reflects off the snow that blankets Snezhnaya’s lands from border to border.
Or perhaps it’s the blood loss catching up with him at last.
He bites his lip to cut off a pathetic whimper as he reaches for his bag. He can’t remember the last time he replenished his medical supplies. He’ll be on thin ice after this, both figuratively and literally. He can’t afford to keep making such careless mistakes.
The Delusion’s blood-like glow is a cold comfort as he unrolls the last of his bandages and unscrews the cap of the nearly-empty bottle of rubbing alcohol. He shrugs his coat off and unbuttons his shirt just enough to pull it down and expose the bleeding wound in its entirety. His lip starts to bleed too, both from the icy winds always leaving them chapped and his biting down on them to suppress all the noises his body insists on producing. But it’s not too long before his shoulder is all wrapped up and clean again. He’s had plenty of practice by now – it would be utterly humiliating if he were any slower given all his experience.
He lets the now-empty bottle fall to the ground below, too tired to stop it from rolling off the ledge, and slumps against the wall until he’s halfway to lying down. He draws his knees up and hugs them feebly with his good arm, preserving whatever warmth he can while the stone silently siphons away the rest.
It might be cold up here, but it’s no worse than anywhere else in this damned country. It’s as good a place as any to wait out the storm. All he needs now is something to do while he waits, lest he succumb to the urge to throw himself out the window right there and then.
He rests a gloved hand against the still-rattling glass. The gem of the Delusion casts a ghostly red tint over his reflection. It makes him look more alive than he really is.
The only time he feels alive these days is when his hands are drenched in blood. Others’, or his own – it’s all the same in the end.
How much longer can he really expect to carry on living this way?
It’s only a matter of time before– he might as well just– here, on his own terms, it’d be so easy to–
He pulls his hand back like he’s been burnt. He’s almost certain he has been – black fire sparks around the Delusion for just a moment, disappearing with a hiss. Maybe those were merely the black spots that dance across his vision whenever his condition turns critical. His hand is too numb to prove otherwise.
Peace is a flavour he can’t tolerate anymore, not without something sharper to wash it down. Something for his mind to do battle with.
Something. Anything. There has to be–
Ah.
In his restlessness he manages to kick the bag off the ledge as well, and out flutter the neatly-folded papers he’s kept carefully tucked away at the bottom, out of sight and out of mind.
Kaeya’s letters.
He looks back out the window. Lightning flashes once more, followed by a dull clap of thunder.
Well. Now is as good a time as any, isn’t it?
His hands are shaking as he picks up the letters, digs through his bag for a pen, and flips open the notebook he uses to record all his intel. The paper is creased to hell and back, wrinkled by rain and burnt around the edges by all manner of fires, but it’ll have to do.
He sits up straighter, leather squealing against stone as he drags himself up, and draws his legs closer so he can prop the notebook up against his thighs.
The pen is heavier than his damn claymore.
There are words hovering in anticipation upon the sharpened nib, ready to surge forth like blood from a fresh wound. The shape of them is familiar yet impossibly alien, the taste sweet yet deathly bitter, the sound soothing yet torturously strident. They coil over his fingers and around his neck like a pack of vipers, suffocating, strangling, waiting to strike, but no matter how hard he presses the pen into the paper, they just won’t–
Oh. He’s stabbed right through the page.
There’s nothing that isn’t a weapon to him these days, not even his own words.
He doesn’t want to hurt Kaeya any more than he has already.
He wants to – gods, there’s so much he wants to say, needs to say – so much he hadn’t been able to say, so much he’d buried in favour of getting the hell out of Mondstadt before his fear could paralyse him–
But what does Kaeya want to hear from him?
…Perhaps Kaeya doesn’t want to hear from him at all. He’d said as much in his first letter, hadn’t he? You don’t have to reply. A tactful dismissal like that is as close to a violent outburst as his brother could ever get. Kaeya’s always been hesitant to say what he truly feels; Diluc’s known him long enough to read between those blurred lines.
He starts to shut the notebook. There’s nothing he can say that will make any of this better in any sense of the word. He was foolish to even think of–
His hands refuse to follow through, and the notebook stays splayed open in front of him.
He’s so selfish. How can he continue to want to write, when he knows damn well it won’t do anything for the person who’ll have to read it? Hasn’t he imposed his will on his brother for long enough? Wasn’t leaving him behind supposed to make things easier for both of them?
But – perhaps it’s not selfish to give his brother the choice, for a change. If he really doesn’t want to hear from Diluc, he can tear up the letter on the spot without even opening it. Perhaps granting Kaeya the power to refuse him is the kindest thing Diluc can do.
Yes, that’s how he’ll justify it to himself. He’ll curse himself out for the cowardice and hypocrisy later. For now he just needs to write, before the words wrapping around him tighter than his Delusion’s chains can crush him to a pulpy mess of viscera and regret.
He spins the pen around his fingers once, its cold weight bouncing over his calloused joints, and jots down the first, most difficult words.
Dear Kaeya–
He stabs through the page again.
That’s not right. That’s not how Kaeya had started his letters, right? To D, that’s what he’d written. An attempt at secrecy, an erasure of all affection. Diluc should shut up and follow his lead.
To K, he forces himself to write. But his pen doesn’t lift from the tail of the last stroke, instead allowing more ink to flow out from the nib until there’s an all-consuming blot instead of neatly-drawn punctuation. Venom dripping from a viper’s fangs, scalding, searing. His fingers, a falcon’s talons, too slow to snap up the snake before it can sink its teeth into him.
Well, whatever. This can be a first draft. He’s got paper to spare.
To K: I’m sorry.
That kind of apology will hardly suffice. Sorry for what, even? Too many things to be conveyed in a single letter, that’s for sure.
To K: I’m sorry. I miss you.
Kaeya’s voice rings in his head, sonorous and bright as midday church bells: “If you miss me that much, you can always just come home, you know,” followed by a brighter laugh and a twinkle of mischief in a starry eye.
No, he’d killed that Kaeya. Burned him to ashes and left him in an icy grave. He’ll never hear that laugh again. He gave up the right to say he misses it.
The snake, weaving between lines of hissing ink, of tall grass grown on a bed of lies. Two eyes on opposite sides, one gold, one blue, both all-knowing. Neither seeing the predator in front of them, until it was too late.
To K: I’m sorry. I miss you. What do you want me to say? What can I do to make things right? I’ll do anything you ask. Whatever makes you happy. Are you happy, Kaeya? That’s the only thing I–
He stabs through the page again, tears it out, crumples it in an aching fist, and launches it towards the other side of the room. It lands in the shadows. He turns his face away.
His head falls against the glass, still shaking with the tremors of the storm. But when his breath comes out in arrhythmic puffs that turn to mist before him, it soon becomes clear that he’s shaking all on his own.
Damn it.
He reaches for Kaeya’s letters, for something to ground him. Something to cast off the chilling coil of dread moulting its icy scales and draping itself over his heart.
These brief missives are all he has left of his brother. These, and the memories long frozen over that he’ll never be able to look back at ever again. No amount of fire could ever reforge them as they once were.
He opens up the first letter. Not like he needs to – the words in all these letters had burned themselves into his mind upon the first reading – but it helps. The familiar loops and curves of Kaeya’s handwriting wrap around him not like chains, or snakes, but more like wreaths of flowers and friendship bracelets beaded with seashells, the kinds of things they’d gifted each other in childhood and held onto well past the point of acceptability. He sinks into that familiarity, grip tightening on the page until it creases, and traces over the ink with one finger like he’s drawing patterns upon a sunlit seashore.
Familiarity aside, it’s a useless letter. He doesn’t give a damn about Eroch or the Knights – he wants to know about Kaeya.
He lifts his pen and starts on a new line.
To K: Why are you still with the Knights? How can you stand to serve them still, knowing what they’ve done to Father? It doesn’t matter if things are changing now, the damage is already done. You’ve always been cleverer than me – surely you must see the rot and corruption for what it is. You must have seen it a long time ago – is that not the kind of thing an agent of Khaenri’ah would pay attention to–
He yanks the pen straight to the edge of the page, filling the rest of the line with a deep, angry streak of ink so that his stupid words have nowhere to go.
He will not blame Kaeya for this. For any of this. No matter how much he wants to. He’d tried to blame him, all those months ago on a night even stormier than this one, when it had seemed like the easy thing to do, the right thing – but the second their blades had connected, the second they’d clashed and the thunder had roared above them, he’d known he was wrong. That soul-numbing realisation hadn’t stopped the fire from leaping toward his brother’s finally-uncovered eye, but it had stopped whatever he’d been thinking of doing next.
He would’ve stopped. Even if Celestia hadn’t spoken at that self-same moment, he would’ve stopped. He’s sure of that. He has to be.
He drags the pen back and forth over the offending paragraph until it’s nothing but a mess of black, and drifts down to yet another new line.
To K: Your eye must have still been healing when you wrote this. Is that really all you had to say? Will you not be honest with me in writing, if not in person? Was your honesty reserved for one night only?
Look at the price he paid for honesty. What sane individual would risk it again?
Forget it. This letter isn’t worth mentioning. Kaeya said he didn’t have to reply, so Diluc will take him up on that with grace.
He folds it up and reaches for the second letter as he strikes through the paragraph.
Oh, this one – the one advising him to leave at night. Kaeya’s handwriting has devolved to more of a scrawl here, elegant letter forms replaced by barely-legible imitations of those forms, lines wavering drunkenly across the page as if he was scribbling them while on horseback. Diluc had left before it could get to him, inadvertently following his brother’s advice anyway. At the time he hadn’t been able to conceive of any other way of doing things. Vanishing in the night with only the briefest of goodbyes to Adelinde, the only person who’d been awake, who’d been silently keeping an eye out for him, whose sad smile had told him she’d been expecting this since the moment the bad news broke – that alone had been too much to handle. His brother, as always, was right.
At least he avoided talking to Varka. Having to look into the eyes of a man he once revered, knowing full well that the organisation he led was a sham through and through, would’ve almost certainly ended badly for everyone in their vicinity. Although – knowing the Grandmaster, he’s probably already sent a letter of his own demanding Diluc’s return, and it just hasn’t found him yet. Maybe Diluc has his falcon to thank for that. He doesn’t want to hear a thing from a man who couldn’t be bothered to weed out the corruption hiding right under his nose until Father paid the ultimate price for his incompetence.
If Diluc had hesitated and stuck around long enough to receive this letter, instead of it finding him half-dead in the wilderness months later, would he have listened? Or would he have done the exact opposite and made a public show of his departure, or even planted his feet firmly in Mondstadt out of spite? That he can’t be sure either way makes him slightly nauseous.
The third letter – maybe that’ll give him something he can talk about without throwing up.
Except it doesn’t, damn it. It’s about Eroch again. Even though it’s dated months after the very first letter. (He’s going to kill the Inspector when he gets back if he isn’t dead already. All this time and energy wasted on a damn traitor who should’ve never been allowed to rise to such a position in the first place.)
His brother, he realises now, has always done this – danced around the problem of his own wellbeing by drawing people’s attention to allegedly more pressing problems, as if his problems are nothing in comparison. As if he is nothing in comparison.
The snake, lying low, tracing the same path around the same people, never lifting its head above the sun-shielding shadows of the grass.
And Diluc had just let him carry on like that their whole lives, because– because it’d been so convenient to pretend that his brother was always fine, that the charming smiles were always real, that the oh, I’m just feeling tired days were always just that and never anything to think twice about–
To K: I don’t care what you do about Eroch as long as you put yourself first. I’ll deal with him myself if he’s not already gone when I return, so you don’t need to worry. Just don’t let him get to you the way he tried to get to me. Think of what Father would want.
…Father would’ve wanted Diluc to stay home and keep his youngest son out of trouble, not run off in search of answers that won’t even bring him back. It’s too late for Diluc to turn back now, but it’s not too late for Kaeya. At least one of Crepus Ragnvindr’s sons should be something other than a disappointment.
But he can’t exactly ask his brother to think of Father’s wishes when he’s set such a poor example in that regard, can he?
And who knows? Maybe Father is prouder than ever of Kaeya right now. And more disappointed than ever in Diluc.
Another paragraph to strike through. It’s stupid to assume that Kaeya hasn’t already considered Father’s wishes and is doing what he thinks is best. And it’s not like any words from Diluc will change his mind – Kaeya’s pretending that he’s left the whole affair in Jean’s hands, but there’s no way he isn’t helping her tirelessly behind the scenes, just as he always did for Diluc.
The snake, lying low, tracing the same path around the same people, growing longer and longer in the shadows until it constricts around its target at last with all its silently-gathered might–
Or consumes itself entirely.
There’s no way Kaeya would abandon her even if Diluc begged. There’s no way he’d ever admit to helping either, especially not in writing – he’s never one to take credit even where it’s due. But if that keeps Eroch off his back and shifts the target elsewhere, Diluc won’t complain. Jean can withstand a little fire.
But the only one who should be withstanding any fire is–
Diluc lets the notebook and letter slip from his hands, and hides his face against his knees.
If he weren’t so devastatingly hollow right now, he’d be crying. But he is, so he can’t, and all he does is continue shaking in place. He hugs his legs close to quell the shaking as his hands curl into vengeful fists with no target but himself. His ponytail comes undone, unevenly chopped hair falling in front of his face, but it’s already so dark up here that it hardly makes a difference. It only gives him permission to shake even more, knowing that not even the unfeeling moon is a witness to this pitiful display.
Kae, he imagines himself writing, a pen gliding with unmatched smoothness across a pristine sheet of parchment, a snake gliding across a sunlit seashore to meet it, I wish you were here.
Imagines, because that’s just one more item in an ever-expanding list of things he can never say to his brother again.
He screws his eyes shut and tries to conjure up the image of Kaeya’s most recent letter, the one that had arrived only a couple of days ago. Then he remembers that he never actually got past the first line before some Fatui grunt interrupted him, and curses the whole world and himself under his breath as he scrabbles for the paper upon the numbing stone. He only lifts his head enough to read it and otherwise stays curled up like a tortoise trying to retreat into its shell – he’ll fall apart entirely the second he lets go.
Fucking hell, Kaeya’s going on about irrelevant shit again. Who gives a flying fuck about ‘businessmen in Mondstadt’? Does Kaeya really think he cares about this nonsense more than he cares about Kaeya?
Is that– had that one night altered his perception of Diluc forever, so that he won’t ever believe that Diluc cares about him again…?
Or–
Or did he never believe–
To K, he imagines himself writing – imagines, because fear tightens its hold on him too much to allow his hands to stray from his sides – I promise I still care about you. I always have and always will, even if I did an awful job of showing it. I promise I’ll find a way to make it up to you when I get back–
Striking through lines in his imagination doesn’t grant nearly the same satisfaction as the rasping drag of pen against paper. The words don’t disappear. There’s no ink to swallow them up. Instead they snake out of his scattered mind, up his arms and over his face, slithering into his mouth, hanging half-open in a helpless gasp, and then down his throat until he chokes on them and forgets how to breathe.
He swallows and bites back an empty sob.
Irrelevant. It’s all irrelevant, he’s just using it an excuse to be distracted. He needs to read between the lines no matter how narrow or nebulous that interstice is. It’s what he’s always done with his brother. It’s what his brother needs him to do now, even if Kaeya won’t ever admit that himself.
Now, what’s so important about these businessmen that it warrants a letter? Them frequenting the tavern is hardly noteworthy–
The tavern?
More warmth leaves him until he can’t tell where his body ends and the stone begins. It’s already spring again, but the seasons are barely distinguishable in these frozen wastelands. In the midst of that indistinct time, Kaeya’s eighteenth birthday had come and gone, and now he’s old enough to drink as well.
What had Diluc been doing on the last night of November? Had he spared a single thought for his brother?
And what had Kaeya been doing?
Diluc wouldn’t be this worried if not for the fact that the youngest Ragnvindr has always had a worrying affinity for alcohol. Father used to try to joke about it, turn it into some promise about the future of the family business–
But now there’s no one to hold Kaeya back. If even Adelinde can’t talk him out of wasting himself away at the Angel’s Share, no one can.
Why would he even mention the tavern then? Did he simply want to highlight his adulthood? Prove his independence? Or maybe it was a subconscious cry for help – maybe he knew Diluc would see right through him and his new self-destructive habit, maybe he thought– maybe he still thinks–
Kae: Please take care of yourself. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m not around to save you–
And then his eyes skip over in a panic to the most important part of the letter, the part that finally illuminates the reason for it being sent in the first place, and the imaginary pen screeches to a halt. The snake stills.
…Kaeya knows.
About the organisation, about their connection to him. About what exactly he’s been up to all this time while Kaeya’s been trapped in the city of freedom, dealing with demons of his own all by himself.
The snake, tied down. Its eyes – eye – still all-knowing.
Diluc crumples the letter without meaning to, then forces himself to breathe and smooth it out with another unsteady exhale. There’s no reason to be surprised. When has he ever been able to keep a secret from his brother? Of course Kaeya was going to catch on eventually. It’s not like he’s doing anything wrong. It’s not like he really needs to hide this from Kaeya of all people. It’s not like there’s anyone else a secret of this sort could be safer with. Right?
But then – what is that cold, clammy feeling in his gut, if not guilt?
Kae: My first and foremost allegiance is to you, I swear–
Kae: My first and foremost allegiance is to you, I swear I’m doing this all for you, for our family’s sake. When I get back, you’ll understand, you’ll know–
Kae: My first and foremost allegiance is to you, I swear I’m doing this all for you, for our family’s sake. When I get back, you’ll understand, you’ll Know that I love you. Please wait for me.
Again and again, he returns to those precious few words he’ll never be able to say, not without the guilt in his gut, the snake and its moulting, freezing skin, eating him alive from the inside out.
He can’t chase that guilt away when it took root long ago and is permanently embedded in the very fabric of his being by now. So he wrangles it into something productive – frustration, fury, all those fiery feelings that have kept him alive against all odds. The heat of a much-needed reprimand is unparalleled and impossible to reproduce in any other way. The imaginary ink sizzles as it pours onto a white-hot page. The snake hisses back.
To K: Be careful what you put in writing. Anyone could intercept these and use them against either of us. Vagueness won’t shield you against our enemies forever.
He still isn’t sure whether to be more annoyed at his brother for somehow succeeding in prying into his affairs all the way from the other end of the world, or at his colleagues for lowering their guard enough to allow it. He probably should have warned them that there was a certain eyepatch-wearing man in Mondstadt worth keeping an eye out for. If he hadn’t spent so much of the past year trying to pretend Kaeya doesn’t even exist, maybe he would have.
Diluc opens his eyes, finishes the letter and lets it drop from his hands at last. It lands without a sound on the stone, but the silence is deafening enough.
Speaking of Kaeya, pretending, and eyes…
Only one thought rises above the rest, like a corpse to the surface of a lake, a snake’s head lifting at last over the marsh:
There is no way in hell that Kaeya would mention his eye just like that if he’d actually been blinded.
The realisation strikes him like thunder, and he startles out of his self-pitying self-embrace with a jolt, nearly smacking his head against the stone behind him.
Of course he hadn’t been blinded – it couldn’t have been more obvious, and Diluc must be the world’s greatest fool for ever thinking otherwise. The precision with which Kaeya had lifted his blade that night, the golden iris shimmering with unfiltered hurt that still haunts Diluc to this day, the way he’d seen right through Diluc, through his false chivalry and righteousness–
No, Kaeya hadn’t been blinded at all. Perhaps he’d become more clear-sighted than ever.
The snake, poised above him, a forked silver tongue darting between icicle fangs, the hiss of frost meeting flame. Shadow meeting light.
“Idiot,” he hisses, reaching for his pen for the last goddamn time. “I was going to write back eventually. No need to provoke me into it.”
Yes, it’s partially his fault for taking so long – but he won’t admit to that, not yet. Maybe when he gets back, when he gets to explain everything and set it all right again, to demonstrate that his departure was what was best for all of them – then he’ll apologise properly.
For now, he just needs to say something and trust it’ll be enough. He trusts his brother still, even if that trust is a shattered, skewed, sallow imitation of what used to be – it’s the most precious thing he has left.
He knows what he has to write. The snake lunges–
And then the door slams open.
“Ragnvindr,” the intruder snarls. A Fatui Pyro agent, breathing heavily, snow clinging to his blackened, burnt uniform. “Did you think you could hide up here forever?”
“I’m in the middle of something.” The snake in his hands, talons sharpened at last. The Delusion, flickering to life, metal links twisting into place, rattling and rumbling somewhere deep in his chest. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to knock?”
Red-hot blades tipped with Pyro spin around the agent, fire pulsing with every breath. “I’ll teach you a lesson you won’t forget–”
“Let me teach you something first, Fatui scum.”
Before the agent can vanish into smoke, the Delusion’s chains fly forward and seize his fool of an opponent by the neck. The illusory pen in his mind flies over a burning page, ink whipped into a frenzy as it rushes out like the agent’s soon-to-be-dying breaths. Diluc curls his talons into a fist and pulls, and the snake is on his side. It follows his every command, and winds tighter and tighter and tighter around the bruising, broken neck in front of him. Two eyes flash amidst the black fire, all-knowing.
All-seeing.
The agent chokes and lightning flashes, one last time.
It’s so quiet up here.
Diluc smiles as the venom in his blood boils over.
“No one gets between me and my brother without paying a price.”
Of course the one night Kaeya succumbs to his weakness and returns to the winery is the night he receives possibly the most important letter of his life.
The falcon had flown in through the open window with a sharp screech, and now sits on his shoulder, talons digging like little knives into his skin through the silk shirt, a cold and slightly damp beak pressed against the side of his head. He scratches her lightly under the beak for a moment, and she somehow keeps completely still while he tears off the string and unfurls the gift she’s delivered as fast as his trembling fingers can manage. He almost regrets sneaking into the cellar to grab a bottle of wine after Adelinde had retired for the night, because he needs all the clarity of mind he can muster right now – then again, he’s not quite sure he’ll be able to live with whatever’s written on that page when he’s sober.
His vision blurs and the ink before him swims. He blinks and wipes at his eye with a sharp inhale, clutching to the letter with his other hand like his life depends on it. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that it does.
This can’t really be happening, can it? The one thing that’s had him praying to gods he shouldn’t revere, the only thing a sinner like him would ever dare to ask for?
But the bloodstain in the corner is too real to be ignored. An ominous red-brown blot, half-smeared yet leaving no fingerprints, shining like a torch and breaking through his drunken daze – the only thing that anchors him enough to focus.
Another breath, and the words start to unravel at last, the snake unwinding from its protective coil.
To K: Message received. Thank you. Also, I suggest that you stop mentioning eyes in your letters. Don't think that I don't know that your right eye wasn't blinded.
Concise, clear, cold – just like the edge of his blade that night, the last time they spoke to each other.
It’s more than he could’ve hoped for.
Sure, he doesn’t know which message Diluc is talking about, or if he’s lumping them all together, and sure, the blunt remark about his eyes was totally uncalled for and absolutely reeks of pure irritation at best, but the fact that his brother got his letters and actually wrote back when Kaeya would’ve expected him to set those words alight the second he laid eyes on them–
He can’t feel anything but gratitude right now.
The smear of blood still calls to him, calls to his own blood and sets it off racing, pounding like a cavalry stampede through his ears. He fishes out Diluc’s Vision from under his shirt, where it’s been hanging from a chain around his neck for nearly a year now, and breathes.
It’s still glowing, bright and unstoppable as the man it belongs to. Diluc may be bleeding, but he’s alive. And as long as he’s alive, he’ll come back. That’s the only truth Kaeya holds on to amidst a sea of lies, the only thing that keeps him from drifting out with the ever-growing tide and drowning in his own despair.
He should probably show this to Adelinde, the Vision and the letter both. She’d be awash with relief, and goodness knows she deserves as much of that as he can give her. But then the falcon lifts from his shoulder, spreads its wings wide and takes off into the night leaving nothing but a cold gale in its wake, and Kaeya suddenly can’t stomach the idea of letting go of anything else.
Just a little while longer. He’ll hold on to this moment a little while longer, sit in the illusory closeness of it all until it smothers him – and then he’ll pull himself together, and do what needs to be done.
He looks at the page again. So few words, yet look at how they’ve overwhelmed him. Has he always been this sensitive?
He chokes out a laugh, and if it ends in a choked sob and an overflow of tears, that’s no one’s business but his own.
You just had to take your sweet time, didn’t you?
He clutches the Vision tighter until the gentle heat emanating from it burns his palm.
I promise I’ll wait as long as it takes – but hurry it up, you idiot. You’ve kept us waiting long enough.