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The domain was more like a giant ice cave with platforms, and the freezing temperature had been chilling Diluc to the core for the past 30 minutes. Though he had been using his pyro vision to keep warm, the cold seemed to always be creeping down his spine. Diluc would have turned around and left if he and Kaeya hadn’t gotten separated earlier.
The cackling of an abyss mage made Diluc groan as he summoned his claymore and prepared for another fight. He would have assumed an icy domain such as this would be filled with cryo mages, but before him for the sixth time was a pyro mage, laughing as if it knew how much Diluc was inconvenienced by its pyro shield.
Diluc chipped away at the shield, just like he had with all the others, before quickly and efficiently killing the mage. He didn’t bother to stay and catch his breath, opting to continue further along in hopes of finding Kaeya and an exit.
Entering through a tall archway, Diluc found himself in a large cavern with a giant pillar of ice in the middle. It was beautiful, but he couldn’t care less at the moment. He had enough of the domain. He walked around the pillar, searching for…anything. Diluc felt something off about the cavern, but he couldn’t tell what.
He reached out to try melting some of the pillar before an eerie familiar laugh came from near the archway he entered through. The voice made all the hairs on the back of Diluc’s neck stand up on end. He’d know that voice anywhere, even from a simple gasp, but it made no sense.
There was no way Il Dottore was here.
Yet Diluc saw the doctor slowly stride into the cavern, staring at him with the look of frightening sadism that still shook Diluc to his core.
“Dottore…what are you doing here?” Diluc hissed, summoning his claymore and immediately infusing it with pyro. The doctor stalked towards him with that ever so punchable smirk.
“It’s been a while, Master Diluc. We have so much to get caught up on.”
*****
It didn’t feel like a fight with Dottore. In fact, Dottore wasn’t really the type of person to wander into a new domain in Mondstadt just to fight Diluc. The man obsessed over his research—he wouldn’t bother doing this. Not to mention that Dottore wasn’t fighting like Dottore. Something was wrong.
Diluc whaled Dottore with the flat part of his claymore, sending the man into the ice pillar. He approached the doctor slowly with his claymore raised and ready for one final strike, but Diluc suddenly stopped in his tracks.
Looking closely at the ice pillar, Diluc saw Dottore’s reflection didn’t match his appearance. The man slowly trying to lift himself up off the ground wasn’t Dottore at all.
It was Kaeya.
Diluc looked back and forth between the man on the floor and his reflection—the latter undoubtedly being Mondstadt’s cavalry captain. The more Diluc stared, the more “Dottore '' became blurry. He rubbed his eyes in order to see better, but before he even had a chance to look, a strong force of cryo struck him. It coated his body and chilled him to the bone immediately. Gasping, he staggered back. The ice clung to his neck and face. It seemed to have sunk right into his veins.
He looked over to his attacker and felt a sense of despair as whatever illusion he had been under had worn off completely. Diluc could now perfectly see Kaeya’s murderous glare. He immediately dropped his claymore and held his hands up.
“Kaeya, wait! It’s me,” Diluc coaxed. The bluehead finally got his bearings and looked at the dropped claymore before once more scowling at the redhead. “I don’t know who you—”
“SHUT UP!” Kaeya screamed. Diluc flinched. He never heard Kaeya sound like that before, not even when they were kids. Kaeya held up his sword and approached cautiously. Diluc didn’t dare move a muscle.
“You’re dead to me,” Kaeya spat.
“Look at my reflection,” Diluc said calmly. He pointed towards the pillar that was just too far away for Kaeya to be able to get a good look, though it didn’t matter. Kaeya cursed at whoever he thought he was fighting and tossed his sword to the ground before marching right up to Diluc and punching him square in the face.
Diluc would have reacted, but the cryo made his whole body feel heavy. He hardly registered what even happened until he was already on the cold hard ground. Kaeya continued spouting off vulgar comments, slowly retrieving his sword. Diluc took his chance and sent a weak ball of fire towards Kaeya before crawling toward the pillar.
Kaeya’s earlier frostgnaw attack, which Diluc had never been on the other end of before, practically crippled the redhead. Frost clung to his exposed skin and clothes. Moving his body felt as if someone was sticking him full of needles, and his pyro vision was no longer sufficient enough in keeping him warm.
Despite all of that, he had almost reached the pillar when a powerful kick to his ribs jolted him to a stop. Diluc curled in on himself and tried to control his breathing. He shouted out a plea once more for Kaeya to look at the reflection in the mirror, but it fell on deaf ears. Instead, Kaeya roughly pushed Diluc onto his back and straddled him, wasting no time in clamping his hands around the other’s pale exposed neck.
It took Diluc by surprise. If anything, he’d half expected Kaeya to kill him with his sword. He wasn’t expecting to be strangled. Diluc knew from experience this was how it went when things got…personal. Strangling was supposed to give the killer the satisfaction of slowly watching their victim die by their own hands—watching the light leave their eyes.
Diluc never realized just how long suffocation lasted.
He choked out noises that could only be his body gasping for air. Guttural sounds that had no purpose other than to attempt to breathe despite his airway being throttled by unrelenting pressure. Diluc’s hands instinctively grasped at the threat to his life. He frantically felt around Kaeya’s hands and arms, trying to find a way to peel him off so that he could just breathe.
His legs thrashed about, but they couldn’t reach Kaeya. The bluehead loomed over him, a savage look in his eye, as he leaned with all his pressure on Diluc's neck.
“You come back now!!? After all this time!? I hate you! I hate you!” Kaeya prattled on, but Diluc couldn’t even focus on what was being said. His throat was being crushed and all he could mutter were small, desperate gasps (if you could even call them that).
He felt pressure in his head building up, and his lungs were burning. Saliva escaped from his mouth and ran down his cheek. His bleary eyes struggled to focus, but Diluc stared at Kaeya, vainly wishing that he’d suddenly realize who he was choking.
“How does it feel!? Huh!? I hope you enjoy it!”
Diluc’s strength faded fast, and he saw darkness creeping in from the edges of his vision. This was it. This was how he was going to die. By the hands of his once younger brother. He supposed it was fitting.
In one last futile attempt, Diluc put one of his hands right in front of Kaeya’s face and pointed toward the pillar nearby. He tried to exaggerate the pointing motion, but he honestly wasn’t sure what it looked like. His body no longer felt a part of him.
He was floating.
He sank somewhere that felt heavy.
His eyes closed.
Then he started coughing.
Not raspy coughs as if he were sick, nor rapid and deep from his lungs, but ones his body thought might open up his throat. Diluc gulped for air, finally realizing the pressure on his neck disappeared. When he opened his eyes, he found Kaeya standing nearby, but Diluc couldn’t be bothered to care what he was doing. He tenderly turned to the side and continued to focus on just getting the oxygen he so desperately needed, not even noticing Kaeya had at some point fallen to his knees near him profusely apologizing.
“Diluc! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry…I didn’t know it was you,” Kaeya repeated over and over. The redhead just ignored him and tried to perform some breathing techniques.
“Let me help you sit up,” Kaeya said eagerly. Diluc didn’t have the energy to argue as Kaeya helped him. Wordlessly, the cavalry captain unhooked his cape and went to hang it over Diluc’s shoulders, but as soon as the soft material touched the back of the redhead’s neck, Diluc flinched away. Kaeya cursed and apologized before opting to rest his cape on the man’s lap.
Kaeya sat nearby and waited as Diluc slowly started to breathe normally. After what had been a few awkward minutes of Kaeya listening to Diluc’s cracked breathing, the winemaster slowly stood up, minding his side and wiping his face. The blood that came off onto his glove surprised him. He didn’t even realize he had a bloody nose. It probably came from the punch to his face that somehow felt like a lifetime ago.
“Here.” Diluc winced from Kaeya’s sudden appearance beside him, but took the offered handkerchief and cleaned his face.
“Listen, Diluc…I—”
“Stop.” Diluc knew he wouldn’t be able to talk normally, but even he was surprised at how scratchy and hoarse the word came out. Despite having a lot to say, pain started to radiate from his neck, and he began to remember the cold that still gave him goosebumps. He reactivated his pyro vision to warm himself before once more doing what he was going to do before this all started—melt the giant pillar.
“Diluc, can I—?” Diluc glared at Kaeya before raising his hands and melting the ice. Kaeya stood nearby, fidgeting with his gloves. They both watched in relief as the pillar melted away to reveal a smaller version of the tree of Irminsul—their way out of the domain.
*****
They barely got out of the domain before Kaeya ran a few paces ahead of Diluc.
“I’m going to fetch a healer. Stay at the winery and—” Once more, Kaeya was cut off, this time by a small version of a firework. Diluc used to do that a lot when he got his vision, but it had been many years since Kaeya had seen it.
“Don’t,” Diluc croaked. His neck ached. Even speaking one word felt like pulling a dagger out of his throat, but he needed to get his point across. Kaeya stared at him, confusion written all over his face, but as his blue eyes fell to Diluc’s neck, shame and embarrassment filled his features.
“You can’t just let that go untreated! It’s already starting to bruise and it looks…awful.” Diluc walked the distance between them and stopped right in front of Kaeya—uncomfortably close. He brought his hand up to Kaeya’s hidden eye and gently touched above it where he knew the scar poked out from the eye patch.
“Even.” Kaeya stared at him incredulously before quickly drawing away.
“You—even? Diluc, there has never and never will be a need to get even between us, do you understand!?” Said redhead ignored Kaeya completely and started to walk past him. Kaeya grabbed Diluc’s sleeve. “Don’t just ignore me! I’m serious.” Diluc only stared at Kaeya, no longer having anything to say. Kaeya bit his lip and let go of the sleeve. “Fine, do what you want.”
Surprisingly, Kaeya only watched as Diluc walked off in the direction of the winery.
Not surprisingly, Kaeya showed up with Barbara two hours later at his doorstep, arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed. Diluc couldn’t have protested even if he wanted to. Mondstadt’s cavalry captain stood guard as the healer took care of Diluc’s wounds. She couldn’t make the pain completely go away, but he did feel a lot better. Diluc was soon coerced into lying down.
Kaeya thanked Barbara but didn’t leave with her. Instead, he made his way back to Diluc’s room and knocked before opening the door.
“We're having a long talk when you wake up,” Kaeya stated. Diluc frowned and opened his mouth to speak before Kaeya held up his hand to stop him. “Barbara said no talking, so actually, I’m going to have a long talk to you when you wake up. Now go to sleep.” Kaeya promptly shut the door and left.
Diluc laid in bed and wheezed out a sigh.
It had been a long day.