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It's a weird sense that Lumine gets when she's busy pulling the flowers out of her garden, where her concentration is abruptly broken by the sense of a strong but icy elemental energy that has her springing to her feet and running towards the main island of her teapot. She doesn’t get visitors very often - that’s only because she never invites anyone to come into her teapot. She likes to be solitary, likes the quiet isolation of this pocket realm.
Her eyes fall upon a familiar figure who seems barely lucid, and the next few minutes feel like a blur but hours long as he falls forward and her arms stretch out to catch him. She grunts at his weight, staggering as she tries to balance his weight on hers - and only becomes vaguely aware of a familiar sticky feeling on the front of her top.
“Hey, uh - I missed you.” His words are slurred and Lumine furrows her brows.
“Let’s get you inside,” Lumine says as she hoists his arm over her shoulders, trying to get him to move with her instead of completely collapsing onto the ground. Getting inside was no small feat, and getting him into a room was a bit easier as he very ungracefully collapsed onto the bed when she couldn’t hold him up much longer. She moves to remove his jacket and shirt to get a better look at the gash on his wound, making a mental note of all she’s going to need to make sure he doesn’t get infected and die of sepsis.
“At least take me to dinner first, Lumine.” Even though he cracks jokes, there is no humor in his voice, she sees exhaustion in every part of him and she quietly excuses herself to grab the things she needs. Not wanting to leave him by himself for very long, Lumine is quick to return - quick to cross the threshold with quiet footsteps.
“What happened, Kaeya?” She feels him flinch beneath her fingers - gentle touch is foreign territory, even if it comes with the sting of antiseptic - she notices how he flexes his knuckles, how every inch of him struggles to not pull away from her.
“Oh you know, I just woke up with a mild stomach ache.”
Lumine shakes her head. “ Kaeya .”
“What? It’s the truth.” A breath through the nose and she feels him flinch when she moves closer to wrap the bandages around his chest and torso. It’s always a dance when talking to him - a complicated waltz where they spin and spin, and sometimes, she gets dizzy and other times, she thinks she’s able to get into the lead and control it. Until he takes over, adjusts until everything around her spins and she loses rhythm. “I don’t think it’s as bad as it looks now that it’s cleaned up.”
There’s an ache in his muscles that she can feel when her fingers linger on him - he’s so naturally cold but she can’t help but feel as if she’s touching a cage of ice between them. For every time she cracks the walls, he just reinforces it - there’s a sight of him that she’s losing and she’s only breaking skin as she slams her fists against it. There is someone in him that she wants to save but he won’t let her - and she’s stuck here, watching him quietly self-destruct with a plain smile and half assed jokes to divert, annoy - push away. It’s like he’s actively trying to get people to dislike him - and to become the villain in his own story, like he’s convinced himself he already is.
“You should rest.” Lumine says, after a moment. “You looked like you were about to pass out.”
A hand touches hers when she rests her hand on his shoulder after tying up the rest of the bandages. Skin is freezing, he’s stuck between life and death - teetering on the edge, awaiting for the blizzard to finally take him fully.
“I still feel like it.” Comes the quiet confession. If he rests, all defenses are down. “Must’ve lost a bit of blood, huh?” She doesn’t respond to that, her hand falls away and his lingers for a brief moment. She’s glad she can’t see his expression. “I apologize for causing you stress and trouble.”
“I’m glad you came to me,” Lumine says as she gets up. There is no hint of a lie in her voice and she hopes she sounds sincere and reassuring enough - she just prays that he wouldn’t have chosen to bleed out somewhere instead of seeking out help if she wasn’t in Teyvat. “Really, Kaeya, I am.”
“You’re the only one I can trust.” These are the words that make her freeze at the door, blood running cold in her veins and she turns around to face him. He’s not looking at her, he’s not really looking at anything and she chews on her lower lip. How is she supposed to answer that? Words die on lips, sealed shut and she lowers her head, wishing she had the right words to that, wishing that she could easily tell him how much she trusts him in return - how honored she is that he would choose to trust her in such a vulnerable moment.
“You could have died.” Her voice is hollow, she’s struggling to contain every ounce of emotion inside of her. “You won’t even tell me what happened.” It strikes her hard that she’s not sure how she would have handled the possibility of him dying.
Kaeya retreats inside of himself, there are no jokes to be had - no hand waving off her words or her concern. The wall of ice is reinforced and she thinks it’s a prison now.
Lumine lingers at the doorway, hoping he’ll say something more - but he doesn’t. Hurt and fear dance with each other in the room.
“I’ll be in the garden if you need anything.” Lumine surrenders to this fight of silence, pride and stubbornness and fear and hurt, they multiply - create new feelings and all revert back to a singular emotion that she still can’t quite name. It becomes his shackles, holding him down - separating them from each other and she doesn’t have the key to free him.
“Lumine.” Halfway out the door, she looks back. “Can you stay?” I don’t want to be alone, is left unspoken but it’s in a way that only she can understand, privy to his tells and subtle changes in his tone.
She’s quiet when she shuts the door, quiet when she crosses the threshold - he smells of blood and cologne and sweat, but Lumine stays next to him as he finally falls asleep, watching with hope that maybe he’ll wake up, maybe he’ll talk to her - all the maybes that go inside of her mind with very little hope of any of them coming true. Lumine lets out a heavy breath and sits against the wall, knees drawn to her chest.
He’s alive, she reminds herself. He came here and he’s alive.
And that has to count for something, right? Still, Lumine reaches out and gently threads her fingers through his hair, pushing aside the strands. He’s here.