Chapter Text
The sun would no doubt be setting on the horizon by now, Diluc noted, as only a few tendrils of it's diminishing light slipped through the tavern's high windows. Numerous lanterns were already lit and prevented the room from dimming, their flames casting a steady, welcoming glow.
He set the glass down before reaching for another, polishing it with practiced, rehearsed movements. In his periphery, a certain captain sat at a table with four Treasure Hoarders, beers in hand while Kaeya himself held a half-empty glass of watered-down dandelion wine. From the looks of it, the man hadn't found anything incriminating yet, his posture loose against the back of the chair and smile not quite as sharp as Diluc has grown accustomed to.
Other patrons were scattered around the tavern. Five, not counting those upstairs. None were black out drunk yet, though a few swayed unsteadily in their seats, teetering on the edge.
The low hum of conversation filled the room, and the lull in activity allowed his thoughts to wander.
A week ago, the phrase Pale Relay had been spoken by a passing Fatui near the Grand Goth Hotel while Diluc lurked in the shadows. Casual was not the word to describe how it was said. The tone had been cautious, the voice dropped to a low hush. The Fatui's eyes flickered restlessly, scanning the area, never once landing on the red-and-black figure concealed in the corner's darkness.
No other relevant information was exchanged between the two Fatui; they seemed to realise quickly that this was not something to talk about openly. And so Diluc slipped away, like smoke thinning into the night.
The fatui were certainly scheming, and since the knights were too insufficient to handle such matters, Diluc had taken the investigation upon himself — skirting as close as possible to those within the walls in order to listen in, and raiding camps beyond them when the opportunity arose.
One such target had been a courier base. The Fatui relied on code, but Diluc had long since learnt it and had no need to carry a cipher. The guard was incapacitated swiftly and the small stack of files and letters were rifled through. One message stood out: delivered recently. When Diluc skimmed it, the designation PR-4 was mentioned. He had immediately linked it to the alias Pale Relay he overheard days earlier.
Diluc slipped the letter in the inner pocket of his coat and continued searching, thoroughly rifling through everything in his vicinity.
Strangely, there were messages that were dated back five years ago stuffed at the bottom of a wooden box underneath many miscellaneous items, the pages warped and waterlogged. When he tried to read them, most of the ink had been smudged beyond legibility. Still, a few lines remained readable.
NB-7 decommissioned per directive. Route—viable—transfer—PR-4 to assume relay functions—conformation—Original asset.
And at the bottom, only slightly blurred, were the words:
NB-7 asset, status: displaced
NB-7 meant nothing to him, but what held his attention was the fact that Pale Relay was not a recent development. More damning still, was the words 'transfer PR-4'.
This piece of correspondence was slipped into his coat too.
Before Diluc's thoughts could dig any deeper, one of the Treasure Hoarders from Kaeya's table approached the bar, placing the appropriate amount of Mora down for the entire group.
"Some good alcohol you got there," he slurred, grinning crookedly. His top left canine was missing. "I've got the table. That captain is quite convincing, you see."
And Kaeya sure was, Diluc thought as he watched the men from the table file out of the tavern, one of them drunk enough to trip over his feet every few steps. Kaeya was someone who could convince a calla lily to grow in a desert with nothing but his words. The man in question sat at the table, legs crossed, a wide grin on his face as he waved at the departing Treasure Hoarders. When they were gone, Kaeya set his sights on Diluc.
Diluc still had to clear the table of its mugs and glasses, and Kaeya was clearly waiting for it, elbows propped up on the table, face resting in his palms. It was a rare reversal, Diluc being the one to approach Kaeya. He scowled as he set the glass aside, certain it would crack if he continued polishing it any harder, before reluctantly making his way over.
"You seem thoughtful today, Master Diluc," Kaeya intoned playfully while Diluc gathered the glasses onto a tray, adding the still-unfinished watered wine after Kaeya pushed it towards him with a finger.
Diluc responded with a sound that fell somewhere between a scoff and a sigh, perfected after years of enduring Kaeya's commentary. It conveyed equal parts annoyance and exasperation which Kaeya was either willfully ignoring or simply found entertaining.
"I can only imagine what a busy man like you must be thinking of," Kaeya smirked. "What, with all those dissapearances of yours."
"Are you finished for tonight, Sir Kaeya?" Diluc straightened up from where he had been bent over, every cup on his tray secured with practiced ease. "Because if so, the door is on your right."
He turned away, heading towards the bar, hearing a rustle of clothes, and the slight screech of a chair.
"Why of course not Master Diluc," Kaeya replied smoothly. "I haven't even begun."
Kaeya followed him, dropping down into a chair as Diluc walked behind the counter. "All I've had is that watery wine," he sighed, slumping with exaggerated dispair. "Be a good man and save me from sobriety, would you?"
On the other side of the bar, Diluc turned his face towards Kaeya as he set the last of the dirty cups aside. There was no cape or fur mantle draped over Kaeya's shoulders tonight; the gold shoulder guards were gone too. It made him look smaller, Diluc observed. Not pathetic, just more approachable, stripped of the flair he usually wore like an armour when he strutted about like an overzealous peacock.
Intimidation bred caution, not honesty. No thief, bandit or criminal would readily share their misdemeanors to an intimidating authority figure, no matter how loose their tongues became with wine. Kaeya knew exactly how to make people forget they were speaking to a captain.
Kaeya smiled at him, cheek resting against his fist. The relaxed sprawl of his posture, along with the lack of eye-catching adnornments drew Diluc's gaze, unintentionally, to the brace running from Kaeya's left wrist and dissapearing up underneath his sleeve.
Diluc turned away, busying his hands with the preparation of a Death Afternoon. His arms felt heavier than they had any right to.
"Rather quiet today. Are you losing business, Master Diluc?" Kaeya began conversationally. "I heard that Diona is attracting more and more customers to the Cat's Tail each day."
Diluc finished pouring the drink with deliberate care. "It isn't that the tavern is losing business," he said evenly. "The knights are taking a short break from their usual incompetence. They're not getting themselves wasted today." He placed the drink in front of Kaeya, and annoyance bled into his tone. "Although it seems their captain can't stay away."
The Death Afternoon sat untouched for a moment, condensation forming on the glass, before Kaeya lifted it and took a slow sip.
"Ah, you wound me. Am I not allowed a vice or two?"
Kaeya looked anything but wounded, and Diluc scoffed and turned his back to him. "I would prefer if you didn't."
"Hm," The weight of an ice-blue eye lingered on his back as Kaeya spoke. "I would ask you what's gotten you so offended, Master Diluc, but I suspect I already know."
Diluc was not dwelling on offence so much as a simmering vexation, one that tugged the corners of his mouth downwards. Yet Kaeya's tone held no easy amusement and beneath the familiar lightness lay a calculated intent. With his back still turned, Diluc subtly urged him on.
"Beyond yourself?"
"While I do enjoy watching your grump act, I'm here wondering about the results of your most recent... excursions."
Of course, Diluc's actions had not gone unnoticed. More annoyed and resigned than surprised, he resisted the urge to roll his eyes, despite being turned away. He had expected as much, since Kaeya always seemed to know more than he should, but that didn't make the realization any less frustrating.
"Have you fallen so far as to need a civilian to give you information?" Diluc asked, noting just how curious Kaeya must be to come ask him directly. "And I don't know what you mean by excursions."
"I would be a fool to speak on matters I haven't seen for myself" Kaeya replied. When Diluc turned back around at that, he found the words accompanied with a faint smirk, dismissing Diluc's last statement flippantly with a wave of his hand.
Diluc crossed his arms, gripping his bicep. Kaeya's words hung in the air in the same way one would dangle a treat for a hungry dog, just out of reach.
Alright, he'll bite.
"And what have you seen?"
"Ah-ah, I asked first," Kaeya wagged his finger teasingly.
Ever obnoxious. Diluc sighed, shaking his head, just slightly.
Kaeya leaned forwards imperceptibly. "Tell me, what truths have you been chasing after in the dark, hero?"
Usually, the deliberate provocation would do nothing but push Diluc closer to kicking the man out of the tavern. Today, however, he saw the opening for what it is. Kaeya's smile widened knowingly.
Diluc scanned the tavern, confirming that there was no one in earshot before speaking, voice dropping. "Seems an old operation has been retaken and renamed." He eyed Kaeya. "That's all."
"Oh?" Kaeya tilted his slightly. "That's all is it?"
"It is right now."
Kaeya sat straight up in chair. "My, Master Diluc. You're really forcing my hand here. Well, if you insist..." He spoke, though with an entirely willing smile that showed no reluctance.
Nonetheless, Kaeya dropped his smile when he continued to speak. "There's been some infighting from the knights."
For all of Diluc's gripes about the knights, infighting was not one high on the list. His eyebrows furrowed and he unconsciously leaned closer. "Between whom?"
"Hm. The youngsters, mostly. Patrols missing or swapped, false orders, and a few who are more inconveniently distracted when something goes awry."
"Distracted how?" Diluc asked, already sensing that this was no ordinary lapse in discipline.
"Oh, you know," Kaeya's tone and posture was deceptively light. "In a way that leaves a city vulnerable while someone clever moves unseen."
Diluc's eyes narrowed slightly. Kaeya was threading along the edges of the point, and Diluc felt it necessary to confirm.
"I take it PR-4 is connected to this mess the knights are dealing with?"
"My, you really have been doing your research." Kaeya's smile returned for only a fleeting second. "Whatever this Pale Relay Fatui business is, they have their eyes set on Mondstadt's leadership. Starting off with the pick of the litter, our younger promising knights. Rather bold of them, really."
Kaeya's left hand laid on his glass, his index lazily circling the rim. "Makes me wonder whether this PR is an alias or an operation."
One questioning eye stayed fixed on Diluc who, throughout Kaeya's explanation, felt a festering burning sensation — the same one that haunted him day after day during his missions in Snezhnya — crawl through him.
Fatui were relentless the same way a cockroach was, hard to squish and abundant in numbers. His hands itched for his greatsword.
"I had believed Pale Relay was an alias," he voiced carefully, giving nothing away.
"And now? After all, I haven't forgotten what you said. 'An old operation has been retaken and renamed' if I recall correctly."
Since Diluc was a fair man, he uncrossed his arms and reached into the inner pocket of his coat. Kaeya's eyes tracked the movement with open curiousity, his brow lifting as the message was set down between them.
In its current state, folded over and wrinkled by water damage, it scarcely resembled Fatui correspondence at all.
Diluc watched as Kaeya picked it up with a quiet, inquisitive sound and unfolded the fragile paper with careful fingers.
Kaeya's eye skimmed the page once. Then again, slower this time.
The reaction was brief but unmistakable. His jaw set, the corner of his mouth pulling tight before he schooled it back into place. When the letter was lowered and folded once more, the easy indifference had returned, though it sat wrong and wayward.
"Where did you get this?"
It was not the reaction Diluc was anticipating. A nagging sensation crawled at the back of his mind, one that caused a concerned 'what is it?' to push against his tongue instead of the usual 'cat got your tongue?'
Diluc swallowed the words down.
"It was hidden in a camp. Most likely forgotten." Diluc picked up the paper and scanned it once more, wondering what it was that had Kaeya crack, if only briefly, in his composure.
Unsurprisingly, the warped page yielded nothing new. The ink was just as muddled, the meaning of the words no clearer than before. Diluc could not tell what had struck a nerve. Kaeya knew Fatui code as fluently as he did, therefore a failure of translation was unlikely.
"You're quite right. Pale Relay is merely NB-7, rewritten." Kaeya said evenly. "Makes you wonder what NB-7 was."
Diluc's eyes flickered to the word on the page, and then to Kaeya. If there was anything Kaeya could not hide from Diluc, it was nervousness. He masked most things with an ease - sadness, anger or contempt renderned indiscernible. Anxiety, however, betrayed him in the slightest shifts of posture, the way his fingers fiddled with the edge of his glass. And there it was, plain as day. Diluc couldn't help the way his gaze narrowed, sharp and suspicious.
"And do you know?" The letter was safely tucked away.
"Know what?" Kaeya tilted his head, all faux innocence if not for the nail of his thumb picking at the lip of the glass.
"What it was." Diluc's displeasure bled through his words, making them shorter and sharper than intended.
Kaeya smiled, slow and entirely unreadable. "If you must know, it was something I had thought to be handled and eradicated."
"So you are familiar with it," Diluc grit out. "And currently, you're choosing to withhold that information." Confusion and aggravation wrestled within him, neither gaining enough ground for him to give in fully to one.
"It was simply an old case the knights dealt with." Kaeya's gaze lingered on the still unfinished Death Afternoon before him. The ice had melted, and distantly, Diluc wondered why Kaeya would never re-ice his drinks with his vision, as he had once see Rosaria do.
"Clearly it was not dealt with well enough." He fought to keep the venom from his words but made no effort to hide the intensity of his stare. Diluc's trust in the knights was already tenuous, but at this, it may have just been ripped down the middle.
Kaeya met his gaze, lifting it from the glass. The smile remained on his lips, not reaching his eyes.
"Well," he said, pausing as he lifted and drained the melted drink. "this time you can make sure it's done your way, correct? Since you're around this time. Just use those eyes of yours."
Kaeya's message was clear: figure it out for yourself. Very well, Diluc acquiesced. To pull the truth from Kaeya was like pulling teeth.
"I'll keep a careful eye. I can't trust the Knights of Favonius to clean up their messes competently." Diluc stepped away from the bar, taking Kaeya's empty glass with him, bringing the tiresome conversation to an unspoken close.
Kaeya paid no mind to the silent gesture, leaning back in his chair casually as he watched Diluc wash the glass before going through the motions of drying it. "Funny," he began, his tone light. "I was just thinking how clumsy my right eye must be... all thanks to a certain impetuous brother of mine."
The abrupt non sequitor had Diluc stall mid-motion, the cloth still pressed against the glass as his brow furrowed. "What—?" he muttered, stammered and brief.
On any other day, under calmer circumstances, Diluc would have recalled how Kaeya's claims of blindness in those letters had proven to be nothing but deliberate provocation. But here, now, with the Fatui heavy on his mind, all he could do was watch in mild irritation as Kaeya's lips curved into a satisfied smirk as he stood, dropping Mora onto the bar.
"Good to know you're still easy, Master Diluc."
And then he walked out, leaving Diluc with coins, confusion, and a gnawing frustration in his gut.
Diluc stared at the door a second longer than necessary before exhaling through his nose. The tavern felt quieter in Kaeya’s absence, though nothing about the room had truly changed. Conversation resumed its low hum, lanterns flickered, glasses clinked. Life, uninterrupted.
He returned to the bar and picked up the abandoned glass, turning it once in his hands before setting it aside. His movements fell back into rhythm. Wipe, set down, reach for the next. Automatic, practiced. It was easier to focus on routine than on the echo of Kaeya’s smile, or the way his words lingered like a hook beneath the skin.
Easy.
Diluc scrubbed a little harder than necessary, jaw tightening. Kaeya had the habit of talking and talking without truly saying anything.
As the night wore on, patrons filtered out one by one. Mora was counted, chairs straightened, lanterns dimmed. Outside, Mondstadt settled into a quieter cadence for everyone was in bed, the city unaware, or uncaring, of schemes whispered beneath its rooftops.
Pale Relay. PR-4. An old operation, retaken and renamed. From NB-7. NB-7?
Diluc set the last glass aside and straightened, gaze drifting to the darkened window. The Fatui did not resurrect things without reason. And Kaeya did not deflect without purpose.
Whatever had been set back into motion, it was already closer than it should have been.
And Diluc had no intention of waiting for it to come to him.