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As Kaeya regains consciousness, it feels as if the world itself is pulling him down, spinning around him as soon as he opens his good eye. "Diluc...?" He weakly calls for his brother, and almost flinches at the sound of his own rough voice. He drives a hand up to inspect his throat– except he can't move his hand. "What-?"
"Captain Kaeya!"
That voice...
It sounds so familiar yet so foreign...
"It's a great honor to have you here," a face appears beside him–
"Enoch?" Kaeya gasps, with his eye going wide. Not only he's tied down to what seems to an operating table but he's right in front of the man he and Jean exiled from Mond three years ago– he doesn't look very angry at him, though, Kaeya notices, but it doesn't make him feel any less terrified of his current predicament.
"Oh, no, no, I'm not Enoch, I'm Number Three," the man says with a grin, "I haven't been given a proper name yet," he explains with a shake of his head, as if he were talking about the weather, "I have yet to succeed to earn one."
Kaeya swallows, hard, without ever taking his good eye off the enemy, as charismatic as he is. "If you're not Enoch... who– what are you?"
Maybe Kaeya's simply died at some point and this is the alternative to Celestia, where he's always been told his people belonged. He isn't very sure where that is, but being stuck in an operating table at the hands of an old enemy doesn't sound very promising.
"Why, one of the Doctor's segment, of course," if anything, this... segment's smile widens.
Kaeya frowns, and his already unsteady breathing only worsens. Oh, how he's wishing this were just a nightmare, but, unfortunately, it all feels very real. "Like... a copy of him?"
"You could say as much, yes," the segment shrugs his shoulders, before he walks away and out of Kaeya's vision field– it makes his heart drop into the pit of his stomach and raw fear crawl up his legs.
"What are you going to do to me?!" Kaeya demands, desperate, as he struggles against his restraints– they're both around his wrists and ankles, and seem to be made of leather, which makes the friction start burning against his skin.
"Well, I can't kill you, of course," the thing says from somewhere behind him, like it's an obvious thing– despite the message, Kaeya doesn't feel assured at all. "But I can take some samples while I've got you here."
Samples?
All of a sudden, Kaeya's feeling sick. What exactly is he about to endure? Suddenly, he isn't very confident on making his way out of this any time soon, which makes him start to sweat. Literally and figuratively.
Kaeya closes his good eye and forces himself to think. How did he get here? What was he doing? Where was he?
"Wait," Kaeya says, as soon as memories start coming back to him. "Where's my brother?"
That's right... they were working together, because they're on speaking terms again! And there was work to do... maybe assigned by Jean? Or was it some intel they wanted to get on their own?
No matter the reason behind them working together, Kaeya needs to know his whereabouts. Right now. "If you've done anything to him, I swear–"
"There's no need for such aggression!" The segment returns to his field vision, and he's looking at Kaeya with a gentle look— of course, it means nothing to Kaeya, and it does nothing to ease his growing panic. "I assure you, captain, if you work with me, you'll be out of here in no time."
Diluc wakes up with a start, practically sitting up as he does. It takes him less than a second to notice the chains around his wrists. "Shit," he clicks his tongue, scanning his surroundings. The second thing he notices is the lack of his pyro vision– its welcoming fire is simply missing.
Okay, he's bound to the ground by chains he can't free himself of, his vision is nowhere to be seen and he's clearly been kidnapped, if the closed room he finds himself in is anything to get by.
Shit, Diluc thinks, before he forces himself to swallow down his fear. If he learnt one thing during his years away trying to avenge his father is to keep his mind calm to act accordingly to things. Still, even if he isn't scared shitless, it's quite the situation he's gotten himself into.
Speaking of which, how did he get here? His memories are fuzzy, but he remembers being accompanied–
"Kaeya," Diluc says under his breath in horror as he realizes who's missing beside him.
Kaeya feels his strength draining away from him, and loses any faith left on ever leaving this cursed place. The archons are just this petty, I guess. Not even Barbatos – Venti, one of his closest friends – is coming to save him, unfortunately, since his gnosis was stolen a few weeks ago, leaving the archon weak.
"It'll all be over within a second, captain, please hold on!" The segment says, clearly excited. "You see, there aren't many people left from the infamous K'haenriah, and Pierro would have me tortured to death before letting any of my needles touch him."
Pierro? Kaeya frowns at the name, as he struggles to keep his good eye open. It's been long since he's stopped trying to free himself from the restraints keeping him down.
At some point, Kaeya also grew aware of another thing missing apart from his brother and his own freedom: his vision. That weakens him too, he figures, and is enough to make him give up completely. Unarmed, without his cryo element, bound to a table like a pig and with his blood being drained? He better start praying to the damned archons above before it's too late.
Please... take care of my brother... Kaeya prays to the archons in silence, closing his eye both to focus and to... rest it for a short bit.
Before he knows it, the darkness swallows him whole.
By the time someone opens the door of the room where Diluc's being kept prisoner, he has his secret blade – that he always keeps in his left boot – ready to strike.
However, at the mere sight of who's at the other side of the door, Diluc's quick to hide the blade behind him before he can drop it on the ground: there're two men holding Kaeya upright by the arms and Kaeya– Kaeya, Diluc thinks with his heart in his throat, staring at his brother's limp form, without the strength to even hold his own head up, letting his hair cover most of his face and neck.
"Kaeya!" Diluc, calls for his brother, and can't help but grow even more worried when he, logically, receives no answer. "What have you done?!" He growls, wrapping his arms around Kaeya protectively as soon as the two men lay him on the ground.
"Okay, I may have taken a little too much blood," Dottore of all people shows up when the other two men leave the room, and Diluc really regrets not having found him and killed him when he could. This time around, he'll make sure to wipe him off the map. "But he'll recover, K'haenriahns always get back on their feet," he says, acting all innocent with his hands on his pockets like a child, like that will make Diluc want to murder him any less.
"You-!" Diluc starts, but Dottore interrupts him yet again.
"I'll leave you two to it, bye!" Dottore waves his hand at them and quickly makes his way out, slamming the door shut once again.
As soon as the main threat's left them alone, Diluc's quick to lay Kaeya down so he can properly give him a once-over. "Kaeya, hey," Diluc gently cups one side of his face and uses his other hand to check his pulse. It's weak, but it's there, so Diluc allows himself to feel some relief. Now he just needs him aware and awake so they can figure out how to get out of this mess.
"Open your eyes, come on," Diluc whispers, as he lets his eyes inspect all the damage Kaeya has taken– that's the other tricky thing: Diluc doesn't know for how long Kaeya's been at the hands of the enemy, since he can't know for sure how long he was unconscious for. It's unnerving.
There are bandages around Kaeya's elbows and torso– he's still wearing his usual white dress shirt, but now it's fully open, showing these bloodied bandages that go from above his chest to his belly button. Diluc can't help but dread the answer to the obvious question: what exactly have they done to his brother?
Apart from that, the other remarkable thing is that his eyepatch's missing, and that will certainly make Kaeya uncomfortable once he wakes up – and of course he'll wake up and will be aware enough to be uneasy about such a harmless thing.
But for now, Diluc can only place Kaeya sitting against the wall beside him, on the side that positions Diluc between him and the door. Next time it opens, Dottore's a dead man.
To be continued.