Chapter Text
Kaeya had always liked the cathedral — how it reached into the sky like a tree, firmly set in the ground amidst boundless infinity. The cemetery, in particular, had an atmosphere unlike any other. Back when Kaeya was still playing pirates, it was his favourite place on the isle; the bow of a giant ship made of grass and stone.
Of course, he’s grown up since then. Or, at the very least, he’s gotten old enough to bring a bottle of wine along for the journey — to see that Cider Lake is no uncharted waters, and to name every cliff along its shore. To know that the song Albert plays, hunched over his daughter’s grave nearby, is not a happy one at all.
Still, that old, childish awe remains. When Kaeya’s here, even the sun seems to set slowly.
It must be different for Diluc.
Diluc bows his head alone before a gravestone, whispering something into the falling night. There isn’t a single bench in sight, so the merchant prince of Mondstadt sits sprawled on the ground, leaning against the wrought-iron fence. Kaeya smirks at this undignified position, some snide remark already forming on his lips. Because this is how it works now, doesn’t it? If he isn’t telling lies, he’s throwing barbs — and Diluc, gods willing, maybe grinds out a decent retort here and there.
Not tonight, though. Which is fine, but what the fuck is Kaeya supposed to do instead?
For now, he plops down at Diluc’s side and sighs, just to make noise. The man barely spares him a glance; only scoffs at the bottle in Kaeya’s hands.
“I can’t sleep,” proclaims Kaeya. “And you wouldn’t even believe the day I had, so that’s great.”
“And you think wine will help?”
“Well— You should see Angel’s Share tonight. If every week were as hectic as this, the Knights could probably keep it in business all on our own.”
His response is met with another scoff, but this one, at least, resembles a laugh. “And in turn, Mondstadt would fall.”
A heavy silence settles between them. Diluc feels like a weight at Kaeya’s side, pulling them both into some unnamed depths while Kaeya itches to float away. Gods, it really is miserable being anywhere near Diluc sometimes. He’s like a dark spot in the room — a constant reminder of every ugly, unspoken thing hanging over Kaeya’s head. Although not for a complete lack of trying, his jokes don’t land, and most conversations fall apart as soon as there’s no business to take care of.
“I’m manning the bar tomorrow evening,” he offers.
Ah.
“Well, then,” says Kaeya. “I might just stop by for a drink or two.”
He offers some of his wine just to be unfunny, but promptly regrets it when… Diluc accepts.
“Holy shit,” he mutters. “Really?”
Diluc frowns, familiar in his irritation. “Why would you offer if you don’t want to share?”
“Uh– No, please. Forgive my surprise at the collapse of your values.”
Diluc only rolls his eyes before taking a swig. Alarms start going off in Kaeya’s head. He hasn’t seen Diluc drink a drop in years, much less directly from the bottle like this. Realistically, he knows it can’t be the first time, especially on this night, but his blood runs cold nonetheless.
Which is honestly rich of him — Kaeya himself is not above drowning his sorrows, enough for Diluc to frequently cut him off at the tavern (which tends to result in more drinking, just elsewhere).
He chuckles because, at this point, it’s the only thing he knows how to do. “Archons above, you see this and don’t raise thunder. How is it?”
“Foul.” Diluc grimaces, eyeing the bottle’s old, yellowed label. Whether he recognises it, he doesn’t say. Instead, he takes another, smaller sip before passing it back to Kaeya.
“Ah, if our very own wine master says so.”
As usual, Diluc’s detailed retort consists of, well, something between a grunt and a sigh.
“No?” says Kaeya. Spilling a sip’s worth between them, he prattles on without a second thought. “What do you think, then, Master Crepus? Hm?”
The wind that picks up sends Kaeya’s hair into his eyes; he brushes it away with feigned ease. The night promises to be cool, unusual so late in the spring. The sun had long passed from sight, and with it, the blood-red halo that glistened around the pale headstone.
Only now does Kaeya notice that it’s been cleaned. Something about that wipes the smirk off his face. “Sorry,” he mutters at Diluc’s still form at his side. “It’s not funny.”
He waits to feel something.
Just like he had waited as the Deacon threw dandelion seeds to the wind above this grave — for some words, some tears, to come. Anything would’ve been welcome. Anything but the lies and promises swirling inside his head where grief should lie. He stood there, and instead of the Deacon’s prayer, he only heard the half-forgotten shreds of a stranger’s Khaenri’ahn:
This is your chance. You are our last hope.
There was his father’s empty grave. Not the man who had left him behind in the rain, but the one who found and held him — the one who kissed his bruised knees and, in just a few words, could explain infinity. And now he was gone, and Kaeya would never explain a single thing to him, nor kiss away the wounds that killed him. Surely, nothing was more deserving of Kaeya’s tears.
But he couldn’t. He had been hiding for so long, and yet, upon ripping off the mask, he was left lonelier than he had ever been. He hadn’t only given Diluc the truth; it was the truth that had caught up to Kaeya himself, first. He realised he had been buying into his own lies, escaping the shadow of Khaenri’ah for years — falling in love with a life that wasn’t his. Not really. That was the worst thing. And as for Diluc… well. Diluc taught Kaeya that, sometimes, the truth is better off left alone.
So, he never cried at all.
So he waits to feel something, but all he does is stare at a piece of stone.
“What is he doing?” whispers Diluc.
“What?”
He tilts his head towards Alfred, whose trembling frame still hasn’t left his self-appointed post. The bard’s song has long turned whisper–thin, but after a heartbeat or two, Kaeya hears the gentle strum of lyre on the wind. “It’s his daughter,” he says. “Little girl.”
This seems to pull Diluc out of his own thoughts. “Do you know what happened?”
Kaeya shakes his head with a hum. They share another drink, and another, barely speaking, until they nearly empty the bottle and Alfred’s lullabies come to an end. Then, they watch him walk away — or, rather, Kaeya does, eager to look away from Crepus’ grave and son.
As Alfred passes by, he nods them goodbye as if wishing them a peaceful vigil. Kaeya has the strangest urge to tell him: we’re not here together.
The thought is ridiculous, of course, because he’s only here tonight to see Diluc.
Speaking of, the ground might actually swallow the man, judging by how far he had slid down the fence. And so, Kaeya feels another odd impulse — to pull him up, straighten his collar, and get his hair out of his face so that he could see it. To throw that frown of his a challenge — to stir him, somehow. Enough of this despair.
“My, my,” he teases. “I never would’ve guessed that I’d be the one to lead the esteemed Master Diluc astray.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Oh, but I’m not. It would be more accurate to say that I am disturbed. I fully expect you to disappear for three days after this.”
He veils his concern thinly behind the layer of wit he puts between the world and himself. But Diluc’s unmoved. Staring.
When he speaks next, it’s like an orchestra in Kaeya’s mind suddenly stumbling to a shrill stop: “You’re everything he ever wanted in a son.”
“Wh– Huh?”
“Knight. Captain.”
Kaeya runs a hand across his face. “We’re not doing this,” he mutters.
“Vision.”
“Stop it.”
The chuckle that erupts is all sorts of wrong; “An appreciation for wine, even.”
“For fuck’s sake, Diluc!” Kaeya yells, almost scrambling away. “What are you trying to do? If you want to be left alone, just say so; you don’t have to make everyone around you miserable!”
And Diluc has the audacity to blink up at him in confusion. Suddenly, so suddenly that he himself is taken aback, it makes Kaeya want to tear his fucking hair out. “Listen,” he says. “I was rooted to the damn ground the day he died. Barely had the decency to even look at him one last time. Is that what you want to hear?”
A sweeping gesture to the gravestone gets Diluc’s eyes off him, and Kaeya feels another sting loosen his tongue more than the wine ever could. “I wish I could say it hurt that he’d never get to know the real me, because, yeah, I’ve felt like an unwanted guest in my own life the moment I stepped foot in your home, but you know what my very first thought was when he died? I felt liberated.”
“I wasn’t trying to—”
“Liberated! I stood there, and all I could think about was how that’s one less person to choose between when push comes to shove. At least I’d never have to face him as he realised the truth, right? I had no idea what I was supposed to be feeling. I stood and smiled, Diluc, and then I realised how disgusting it was—I knew it then, I know it now! Alright?” He falters, arms hanging limp. “And you looked at me in the middle of the living room like I was any part of this, of, of your grief, and I couldn’t do it anymore. No matter what it did to you.”
【 “Sometimes I wonder—” His voice wavers, but now that these words finally tumble out, there is no going back. “If I just shut the fuck up for a little longer and held you, then maybe you wouldn’t— Or if I just offed myself instead of—”
Suddenly, Diluc’s head drops. He buries his hands in his hair — fingers sticking out like claws, trembling. “Shut up,” he grits out, “stop!”
Kaeya’s reaction is almost instant — he goes to grab his brother's hands, blood rushing in his ears, terrified at his own confession. A voice in his mind whispers: you’re doing it again.
“Diluc—”
“Don’t. Don’t!” There’s a stir of something in Diluc’s face, some horrified part of him that’s slowly unveiling like a bruise. “Don’t say that— don’t ever—!"
“I’m sorry,” Kaeya breathes. His fingers are still locked, looped around Diluc’s wrists, but he barely notices, mortified. He only watches his brother choke on his breath, then slowly, awfully, regain some sort of tense equilibrium.
Kaeya has never seen this before. This terror.
Would he have seen it, back then, if he had only looked?
“I’m sorry. I wouldn’t do that. I’m sorry,” he repeats like a mantra. He decides not to share that sometimes, he feels like he could. No, not right now — not with Diluc.
Add it to his ever-growing list of secrets. 】
Finally, as Diluc breaks out of whatever had seized him, he drags his head up to look Kaeya in the eye. “No. That’s— Kaeya.” He’s shaking. It’s no less than Kaeya does, though. “You must know. I haven’t forgotten that you’ve knelt at this grave for me. While I was gone.” He says it slowly, deliberately, as if throwing Kaeya a lifeline. As if it were Kaeya falling apart here, not him.
“I didn’t mean to insinuate that you took something from me,” he says. “I… I wish he’d lived long enough to know the truth, if only for you to see that you would still be his son.”
If Kaeya saying something real for once was mortifying, Diluc doing the same is... stunning. Kaeya doesn’t know what to even say. How are his words so kind, yet the distance between them still so tense and tangible?
“I wish it had been him rather than me because he would do better. Forgive me,” Diluc adds. “It isn’t my intention to make you... miserable.”
“You don’t,” Kaeya hurries — as if he hadn’t said exactly that, mere moments ago.
“You hate me, Kaeya,” says Diluc, his voice barely a whisper. “Can’t you see how you hate me?”
“Only sometimes... When you cut me off at the bar, for example.”
The joke flies right over Diluc’s head. As if on second thought, Kaeya finally releases his wrists and, for a moment, they both stare at them, awkwardly. At last, Kaeya heaves a sigh and leans back again. He looks up at the stars, escaping the strange moment passing between them on pure instinct.
By now, this sort of thing is second nature. The escaping. He’s been dealt the worst cards possible and had to hide for most of his life until the truth found its way out of him like a pearl, formed by an oyster through years and years of struggle. He had expected Diluc’s anger — craved it, in fact, as he had gotten it into his head that if any punishment was coming, it should be Diluc’s privilege and his alone. Kaeya knew that from him, he had earned any burn, any blow — any mark. He was almost eager to receive it.
What was worse? That Diluc had burned him, or that Kaeya used him to?
He hadn’t thought for a minute about that. Or he had, but on the worst night possible, Kaeya finally decided to put himself first. He couldn’t live otherwise. Wouldn’t survive.
But he doesn’t know how he feels about truth anymore. Diluc seems to think it’s simple. That must be the privilege of growing up in the sun, just like that, in ignorance, in bliss. That’s why Kaeya still really knows him, through and through — something that Diluc never had the slightest chance of. And he’s surprised to discover that this weighs him down. He’d rather have Diluc know everything about him; if only his truths didn’t come out the way that pearls do.
On the other hand, if he still carried that burden, maybe they’d still be brothers. Some lies are easier upheld than hauled into the light of day.
Some secrets are meant to be taken to the grave.
He looks at Crepus Ragnvindr’s tombstone and then at his son, who burned through the world and himself for the truth — and he doesn’t know anymore.
“Gods, Dad,” he whines. “Tell me what to do.”
Diluc stirs. “Are you alright?”
Kaeya thinks he is the one who should be asking this question — Diluc looks exhausted to the brink. The wine trembles in his hands as he fiddles with the bottle. He knows all this; knows what he’s done. How much had already burned to a crisp before he had stayed his hand.
“Not really,” Kaeya admits. It’s silly how easily this one truth comes, here and now. “But it is what it is.”
Perhaps he’s done well enough moving on. He found a home among the Knights and rebuilt his life, on lies as it was, while Diluc left close to nothing for himself. Just the fight, the judgment, and the grieving. There seems to be no end to the gulf he puts between himself and the people he protects every night — and it hurts him. He seems to think no one can see it, but they do. Kaeya does. He just doesn’t think about it.
Diluc finishes the wine — well, whatever’s left of it. It’s a jarring sight, but at least he flinches at the taste. That’s ridiculous and… comforting. “Where have you gotten this? We haven’t used carignan in ages.”
“Ha, so you do recognise the taste,” Kaeya chuckles. “It’s a very old bottle.”
“It’s supremely bad.”
“Well, courtesy of your thirteen-year-old self.”
He laughs in earnest as Diluc does a double-take, squinting at the label. “That explains a lot,” he mumbles.
“Hah! Don’t be so hard on yourself, Master Diluc.”
“I ought to ask the same of you.”
They fall into awkward silence, again. You’d think after so many times, it would’ve stopped being so awkward; gods, but Kaeya truly has no idea where Diluc gets this superpower from.
The sky has shifted into a soft grey, heralding the dawn. Kaeya pulls out a pocket watch — it’s almost five in the morning. He settles at Diluc’s side and closes his eyes until the first rays of the rising sun hit his skin.
He shivers; it’s shaping up to be a cold day, they’ve just spent the entire night outside, and Kaeya is, to his dismay, completely sober by now. Vaguely, he wishes he could just lean on Diluc — the bastard always ran a little warmer.
“Well,” he croaks. The orange-ish hues of the morning, reaching them even in the shadow of the Cathedral, only accentuate the horrible redness of Diluc’s eyes. There is a hard day ahead of him — Kaeya knows he’ll disappear for the better part of it, off to do whatever, but they’ll see each other at the bar in the evening. “That would be my cue. Bell’s in an hour.”
He wishes he could offer some comfort, but he can’t.
“Happy birthday,” he says instead.
He lingers for a while longer, but Diluc doesn't look at him, caught up in whatever’s going on in his stupid brain.
Finally, he casts one last look at the gravestone of the man he could never grieve.
Walking away in the direction of the Knights’ headquarters, he almost makes it to the first buttress before Diluc’s quivering voice follows;
“Kaeya?”
— ◇ —
EPILOGUE
Kaeya’s living room is bathed in soft light, filtering through half-drawn curtains. He doesn’t remember falling asleep like this, on the couch — he must’ve been more tired than he thought yesterday. As per tradition, he was at Angel’s Share clinking glasses with Rosaria as soon as it opened for the evening, and he stayed until midnight, just after the bartenders changed shifts. Which was probably a bad idea, considering the graveyard rendezvous he had just one night prior.
But, tradition is tradition.
Although, this year, it almost felt like it was Diluc keeping an eye on him from behind the bar instead of the opposite — what with his sharp gaze finding its way to his all the goddamn time. Whatever he wanted, he better spit it out soon.
The early sunlight plays on Kaeya’s ceiling, casting gentle shadows that seem to breathe some life into the room. He closes his eyes against it, and the relief it brings is indescribable. He should just call in sick today. He can’t handle any paper–pushing in this state.
He feels peaceful.
The universe, of course, adjusts accordingly. A gentle, tentative knock on the door breaks the silence before he can drift away. Jean, probably. If the sun’s this high up, he’s already late. “You don’t have to be so shy,” he says as he goes to open the door. “I’m awake— Oh. Master Diluc.”
Standing in the doorway is indeed Diluc, holding a small box, complete with an elegant bow. Frankly, it’s unfair how well–put–together this man looks after the twenty–four hours he just had. “Good morning,” he says.
For some reason, Kaeya can’t help but snort. “Good morning?”
“I went by your office, but you weren’t in—”
“Oh, yes. Yes, I think I’ll be taking a day off. You know, rest a little. If you’ve heard of such a thing.”
Diluc blinks, not biting at all. Something’s up with him. “Oh. I could pass the message along to Jean if you want.” Oh, something is definitely up with him.
“I’d… appreciate that, thank you.”
“It’s no problem,” says Diluc. “Anyway, uh… I was looking for you to give you this.”
Kaeya laughs. “Come on. You can’t give me a gift for your birthday.”
"My birthday was yesterday."
"Still."
“Then accept it as a gift to me.”
“I thought you didn’t want any.”
“I want this one.” He pushes the little box into Kaeya’s hands.
With a defeated chuckle, he accepts it out of curiosity alone. “Alright,” he says, undoing the ribbon, to which Diluc seems to stiffen.
“Ah, wait— not while I’m here.”
Kaeya frowns. “Are you alright? You can… you can tell me, you know.”
The response is as detailed as you’d expect from Diluc — he waves a hand, awkward, as if in some sort of aborted movement. “No, no— I mean, yes, I’m fine. I just thought you should have this,” he replies. “It may not be of much use, but… you’ve had a lot going on after Father died, no thanks to myself, so in case you might appreciate—” he cuts himself off with a sigh. “I’m sorry, I’m truly no good at this. Just have it, please.”
A stunned silence settles between them as Kaeya stares at the box in his hand, now looking at it through an entirely new lens. He then looks at his brother, and can only say, “Alright. Thanks, Diluc.”
After Diluc’s swift departure, Kaeya stands in the middle of the room for a good while, pondering what the mysterious gift could be. He weighs the box in his hand — it’s something small, but heavy. Might be valuable.
At last, he sits at his dining table, opens the lid, and slowly pulls out the Ragnvindr crest — belonging to the Master of Dawn Winery. Left behind by Master Crepus and passed on to his heir. Meant for his son, and only his son.
Kaeya sucks in a breath as he gently cradles the crest in his hands. It glitters in the spot of sunshine on the table, and for a minute, he allows himself to simply sink into this sight, the warmth it brings. He’s never held it much, but it fits in his hand perfectly. And… it now belongs to him.
A piece of paper sits in the box:
Father once told me that wine is about much more than a buzz or even the taste. He said a bottle of wine begs to be shared, like all the best things in life. ‘Hold on tightly to the ones you love’ – he taught me that. I wish I had listened better. & I do love you, Kaeya.
Yours,
D.
He sits there stunned for a while, and he does as Diluc asks — he holds on tight. He presses his lips to the crest, gripped in both hands.
His eyes flood with tears that were meant to be shed a long time ago.
“Father,” he whispers.
The new addition to Kaeya’s collection of letters does not join the ones stashed on the roof of the Knights' Headquarters. It rests in a drawer of his desk, along with his father’s crest — just as a reminder for the days he wants to tear his hair out (or, more often than that, Diluc’s).
Yours. It doesn’t say “your brother”.
But it’s a start.