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“Diluc, wait—!”
Kaeya’s words fall upon deaf ears, and he’s forced to dash to the side as a flaming claymore embeds itself into the ground where he was just standing.
Rain comes down in sheets and Kaeya can barely see with water sluicing down his face. His hair is plastered to his skin with rain and the rumbling thunder above drowns out the sound of his heartbeat pounding in his ears.
Kaeya, for all he’s known for his cleverness and quick wit, can’t think right now. He can devise plans that’ll clear enemy camps in half the time it usually takes, he can outsmart more than half the knights combined, but in this moment? In this moment, Kaeya can’t string together a coherent thought in his head that can get him out of this situation—the situation being his older brother trying to fucking kill him.
Kaeya throws himself out of the way of another swing from Diluc’s claymore, and he winces at the searing heat that singes his shoulder. It goes to show how strong Diluc is that, despite all of the rain, his flames still burn just as hot.
“Stop being a fucking coward and fight back!” Diluc snarls. He doesn’t give Kaeya a chance to breathe before he’s hefting his claymore again, and Kaeya is forced to summon his sword and desperately parry the blow.
The pure force that he’s hit with jars him to the point that he can feel it all the way to the marrow of his bones. Kaeya bites back a cry and stumbles, blocking another strike with a sloppy hold on his sword that makes something in his wrist twinge.
Diluc is just fucking relentless, attacking with anguished fury, and Kaeya can’t find the space nor the effort to put into fighting his brother back with the amount of fervor he’s being given.
He merely feels like a passenger in his own body as he watches himself go through the motions of blocking and dodging, giving his own half-hearted attacks if only to get Diluc off of him for just a second. The rain continues to beat down upon their shoulders, weighing them down with soaked coats and the bitterness of their grief.
Kaeya vaguely muses, in between flames and clashing blades, that the whole fight feels like an ugly mockery of all their past spars. When they formulated their combat styles to suit each other, when predicting the other’s moves came as easy as breathing.
Now, Diluc swings his claymore with the intent to kill and Kaeya barely fights back. There is no fussing over bruises and scrapes from lucky hits, not when the blade of a red-hot claymore bites into Kaeya’s skin and the smell of burning permeates the rain.
Well, Kaeya thinks. His grip on the handle of his own blade becomes more half-hearted by the minute. If this makes Diluc feel better, then so be it.
It was selfish of him to hope that Diluc would accept his confession. Kaeya is a Khaenri’ahn spy, planted in Mondstadt to bring about its downfall. He wasn’t some poor kid abandoned on the side of the road, left to the elements—he was the last hope of a godless nation that Celestia ordered razed to the ground. He was a parasite that leeched off the kindness of the family that took him in while playing the pawn in a plan that would destroy them. Who would take that well?
Kaeya’s fragile hopes are dashed to the ground and a wry smile pulls at the corners of his lips, one that lacks any form of humor or mirth. It only seems to make Diluc more incensed.
The claymore slashes into Kaeya’s shoulder with blood welling in its wake.
Kaeya shakes with exertion and the animal part of his brain that’s still afraid of dying.
Flames bite at his exposed skin that the rain simultaneously soothes and stings.
Kaeya’s struggling lungs heave in breath, and he tastes ashes on his tongue.
Again and again, Diluc strikes with a frenzy that Kaeya can barely hope to meet. He knows that between the two of them, Diluc was always the better fighter—and Kaeya can feel himself getting weaker with exhaustion, his limbs shaking with the effort of even holding his sword aloft. Looking at Diluc, he can tell that the rivulets of water running down their both faces isn’t just from the rain. He finds no comfort in it.
It’s right about when Kaeya debates just throwing down his sword and letting Diluc put him out of his misery that he finds his brother has already made the choice for him.
Diluc’s vision, which was always such a source of comfort in Kaeya’s youth with its warmth and glow, flashes blinding red light. Scarlet flames wreathe Diluc’s claymore, and the lashing fire that dances off the heated metal is like a diving phoenix—one that’s coming right towards Kaeya.
Time almost seems to slow as the blade swings in an arc of searing embers.
The red-hot metal whistles with heat.
The blade strikes true—
And Kaeya screams.
He can’t help it. However bad he thought the pain was going to be, it’s a million times worse than he could have ever predicted.
Kaeya is sliced from shoulder to hip with flames dragging heated claws along his torn flesh, making black spots dance at his vision so quickly that he thinks he’s going to pass out. The force of the claymore causes his sword to go flying out of his grip, leaving his arms and hands to take the brunt of the flames’ tail end. His skin feels like candle wax, melting and bubbling, and Kaeya hits the ground in a heap of charred flesh and relentless tears.
He's unarmed now and doesn’t have the strength to fight back or even get up. He watches Diluc approach with the measured movements of a predator and feels his heart rise into his throat.
Kaeya’s mouth opens like it wants to beg—for Diluc to please stop or to just kill him already, he’s not sure, but he never gets to find out.
Blue light flashes in between them before Diluc can land the final blow, and Kaeya’s brother is knocked back with the force of a gale as a crystalline pendant materializes from thin air. It hovers for a moment, its cyan glow glinting off its metal embellishments, before dropping into Kaeya’s trembling, raw hands.
Surrounded by frost and icicles jutting from the ground like stalagmites, Kaeya grips his new cryo vision with the strength of a newborn and lets out a hysterical laugh. Though, looking back, he realizes it had sounded more like a sob.
Kaeya is discharged from the infirmary after long days of fading in and out of consciousness, the smell of poultices and sterility clinging to him in a fog. He doesn’t even know how he got there in the first place, how he even managed to drag himself from the scorch-marked earth Diluc beat him into, but, well. Here he is. Kaeya supposes he has Jean to thank for how he’s still alive and breathing.
She was there from the second he woke up in the infirmary and all throughout his agonizing battle with infection. Though she hasn’t had her vision long either, she didn’t hesitate to put it to use, soothing his wounds with the power of anemo while murmuring prayers to Barbatos at his bedside. She helped change his dressings and respectfully looked away when he cried from the pain—of his burns or from losing his father and brother, one after the other, he doesn’t know anymore.
She’s still here, now, helping him up the stairs when his legs feel about as steady as a newborn lamb’s.
Jean links her arm with his and keeps her touch gentle when she knows his burned skin is still tender.
“Careful,” she says softly when Kaeya nearly tips over and has to grab the railing for balance. He winces when that puts pressure on his burns, no longer fresh and raw thanks to vision healing, but still painful. Kaeya can feel the other knights staring at him with pity as he struggles, and he hates it.
He can imagine what they’re thinking—the poor little Ragnvindr boy, losing both his father and brother in the same night and getting ambushed by Abyss mages to boot. That’s the story he’s going with anyway.
Jean knows it’s bullshit. He knows that she knows it’s bullshit. Yet neither of them is willing to say anything about it, not wanting to acknowledge the painful truth that the way his burns are, only a pyro vision could have made them.
They finally reach the top of the stairs and stop to take a breather. Well, Kaeya does.
Every time he moves, his burned skin pulls tight over his muscles and it especially hurts over his joints. He breathes in shakily, however his next exhale comes out easy when Jean pours a little healing into him with a hand at his shoulder.
“…Don’t waste your energy,” Kaeya rasps, even when he’s already slumping with relief at the temporary reprieve from pain.
“Nonsense,” Jean says firmly. Her healing feels like a cool breeze over his feverish skin and he briefly allows himself to indulge in her touch, leaning his weight against her palm.
Eventually, Jean patiently helps Kaeya over to his new quarters, opening the door for him, and he takes in the empty room with an equally empty gaze.
It’s just a plain bed in the corner, a desk, and a wardrobe. A far cry from his room back in the manor which had his touch in every corner. Books and trinkets and souvenirs—all accumulated from over the years as he grew up in the Ragnvindr family.
There’s no chance of getting that back now, though. Not when Diluc struck his name from the family records and made it abundantly clear that he’s no longer welcome at the winery or the manor. Right before leaving Mondstadt altogether. Now Kaeya really has nothing remaining of his old life.
He gingerly makes his way over to the bed and settles heavily onto the mattress; it’s stiff and nowhere near as soft as the one he used to have. He thinks of giggly sleepovers beneath the covers and Crepus reading novels in the warm timbre of his voice; it only serves to make Kaeya feel terribly homesick.
Jean has been silent while watching him take in his new living space, but she eventually steps forward, hesitant.
“Kaeya,” she says softly. “About Diluc…”
“I don’t know where he is,” Kaeya says on reflex.
Ever since he woke up, and found out Diluc had resigned and promptly vanished, people have been hounding him with questions about his whereabouts. They still think the two of them are inseparable as ever with little to no secrets between them and that, surely, Diluc must’ve told him where he went. Kaeya’s answer is always the same: “I don’t know.”
“No—No, not that,” Jean shakes her head. She reaches her hand into her coat, visibly hesitates, then steels herself and withdraws a familiar red vision.
Kaeya’s breath catches in his throat.
“Diluc left this behind before he…” Jean doesn’t finish her sentence, instead chewing the inside of her cheek. She turns the vision in her hands and red light glows soft between her palms. “Well. You know. And…if anyone were to take care of this in his absence, I think it should be you.”
She holds out Diluc’s vision for him to take and Kaeya barely has the mind, nor the dexterity, to do so.
Bandages wrap around his hands up to his elbows, with bandages around his torso as well. They smell of poultices and burn creams that barely cover up the stench of his own wounds. Once, he peeked under the bandages while getting them changed and nearly retched at what he saw; brown skin with leathery burns and ragged skin tissue, rough and warped and peeling with his body’s attempts to knit itself back together. Stark pink in some places, and darker in the others. He was told that healing and moving would be a rough recovery—trying to wrap his fingers around the pyro vision, now, he can see why.
It's a painstakingly slow process that has Kaeya wincing at the taut pull of burnt skin over his knuckles. Despite how much effort he puts in, all that he can manage is a clumsy hold around the pendant like a child grasping crayons in cumbersome hands.
Kaeya has an “I don’t deserve to have this,” ready at the tip of his tongue, but it dies the second his fingertips touch warm glass. He bites his cheek. Gods, he’s selfish. He’ll always be so selfish.
Diluc may not want anything to do with him anymore, but Kaeya will always worry about him—that’s a little brother’s job, after all. And if a pyro vision is all he’s got then, fuck, he’ll take it.
His hands tremble something fierce when he tries to curl his fingers over the vision.
“It just needs some time,” Jean says kindly and squeezes his shoulder. Kaeya doesn’t know how to tell her that, even with healing blessed by the Archons, his burns are still aching and tender, and that he’s afraid he’s never going to heal.
Jean then begins to rattle off that he’s been given leave, obviously, to recover and to attend Crepus’ funeral, but the words mostly flow over Kaeya.
He just stares at the vision in his hands and slowly strokes a thumb over the crystalline red with halting movements. Its glow remains steady, its core pulsing like a heartbeat. Kaeya grieves what he has lost and what he has gained and thinks that none of it feels worth it.
(His burns ache the most when it rains.
Rain had been such a novelty when Kaeya first arrived at Mondstadt, considering Khaenri’ah had none in the underground caverns of their home. He’d even stopped to watch the droplets fall from the sky, and it was only his father’s hand tugging Kaeya along that stopped him from becoming lost to the rolling clouds and petrichor.
But now? Kaeya hates the rain. With all the bad memories he’s come to associate with it, all the grief and the loss, he’ll never see it as anything other than a cruel reminder of the worst days of his life.
After Crepus’ funeral, Kaeya had dragged himself back to the dorms and all but fell into bed, still in his mourning garb, curling up atop the sheets. He is weighed down by grief and emptiness, and he can’t find it within himself to pretend otherwise.
The light drizzle of rain outside the window slowly begins to pick up until it’s pouring heavily from the dark gray clouds that’d been threatening to weep all day, pattering against the glass. It picks up, as does the persistent ache in Kaeya’s limbs that have been dogging him since the day started.
He muffles a pained groan within the covers and curls up further into himself, digging his fingers into the warped flesh of his arms.
The pressure hurts. It hurts and it doesn’t make him feel better.
Kaeya thinks that nothing will ever make him feel better. Not with this.
This, being the loss of his family, his home; the sober reminder that he will always be an outsider, a wolf in sheep’s clothing; the weight of a nation on his shoulders and a token of acknowledgement from the gods, clipped to his belt and ever-watching.
He’s just tired of it all. He’s just so tired.
Alone in the confines of his lifeless room, Kaeya allows himself to shake apart under the din of rainfall, where the growling thunder drowns out his cries. His burns ache, and ache, and ache.)
Time goes on, the days and years trickling by. People come and go.
Mondstadt remains the city of freedom with its absentee archon and Kaeya keeps living.
It’s not like Mondstadt makes it very hard to with its carefree and unrestrained nature. Without an older brother to shadow and hide him from the spotlight, Kaeya is forced onto the stage and he adapts as he always does, given the room to figure himself out.
He slips on a mask carefully tailored to let him control his every perceived aspect and lets his charm and honeyed words do the heavy lifting.
He endears himself to Mondstadt’s citizens and they, in turn, endear themselves to him, making a home besides his sheltered heart.
A year after Crepus’ death, Kaeya gets promoted to Cavalry Captain and it’s not long after that Varka goes off and takes the very cavalry he’s supposed to captain.
He’s amused, if a little annoyed, and doesn’t let himself go down the very dangerous path of wondering what his predecessor would have thought about it. Instead, he finds a role within slinking through the shadows, and doing the dirty work no one else is willing to do to keep Mondstadt safe.
He consorts with thieves and bandits, expands his sprawling network of informants to the far corners of the nation, deals in secrets and games of wit.
His sharp mind is always four steps ahead of his targets and it’s not hard for him to pull the strings to get what he wants. All this, while keeping up his nonchalant and assured facade during the day.
It all comes to him rather easily. Almost disconcertingly so. Kaeya doesn’t like to let himself falter and note how he so effortlessly falls into the role of manipulator, because considering who he is…
Well.
Anyways.
Overall, being Cavalry Captain isn’t so bad. Unfortunately, the job also comes with a frankly ridiculous amount of paperwork.
Kaeya’s just glad that he’s got experience from helping a certain someone with his own warzone of paperwork because holy hell, it’s fucking awful. Who knew there were so many tedious documents that needed to be filled out? And it certainly helps that his burns have healed up enough for him to write, otherwise he would’ve resigned not even a week in.
To put it plainly, Kaeya has scars.
There’s simply no way around it. It would’ve been a damn miracle to not have any considering the severity of his injuries and all.
Given time and care, Kaeya’s wounds had eventually toughened up and warped his flesh with burn scars, pulling his skin taut as his body knit itself back together during the healing process. He’s lost sensation in large areas of his body as well, notably his chest and hands. From nerve damage he’s been told.
And though his hands have been able to regain their range of motion with lots of patience and stretching, it’s not to the extent that they used to have. Kaeya doesn’t think it’s likely he’ll ever get that back.
His joints in particular are spots of contention where his burns make it harder to bend his fingers, the stubborn scar tissue taught.
Regardless, he can write and wield his sword and that’s more than he could’ve asked for when he thought he’d never be able to use his hands again.
Now, alone in his office, Kaeya props his chin on his fist with a sigh and stares forlornly at the mountain of paperwork he still has to get through despite the late hour. He’s been at it since morning, yet it doesn’t even look like he’s made a dent in it.
He groans in irritation and drags his fingers through his tousled hair. His hands have begun to ache and cramp up from writing, and he stretches them out with a wince.
Kaeya’s got specially tailored compression gloves to help with stiffness and swelling from his burns, but even they can’t help when it comes to his own carelessness.
Kaeya stiffly tugs a glove off and takes a moment to rub the tendons at the back of his hand to ease the strain.
Shiny scar tissue crawls across veiled metacarpals and his movements eventually slow as he stares down at it, contemplative, thumb pausing over unfeeling skin.
As morbid as it is to think, the scars are one of two things Kaeya has of Diluc’s. They are, quite literally, a permanent mark left behind to remind Kaeya of his former brother, who never fails to throw his mind into turmoil.
The other thing is Diluc’s vision which Kaeya always keeps close by as a source of comfort and reassurance.
Unconsciously, he nudges open the drawer of his desk containing his brother’s vision and stares down into its crimson depths. It glows, steady as always.
He vaguely notes that it’s been about four years now since Diluc left Mondstadt. Kaeya…tries not to look too hard into Diluc’s whereabouts.
He keeps tabs, of course, and knows that his brother has made himself quite the menace and scourge to the Fatui, but he doesn’t bother tracking his every move.
It’s probably from some misguided sense of obligation—to give Diluc his space and privacy to do…whatever it is he’s doing. Not that he’s here to appreciate it.
Kaeya absentmindedly raises a hand to rub his thumb over the smooth surface of the vision, leeching its warmth through his cold skin.
It’s not uncommon for him to take a moment to check Diluc’s vision throughout the day. It’s the only assurance he has of his brother’s condition, after all—and ever since he watched it suddenly dim and flicker once, for long excruciating hours that nearly sent him spiraling, Kaeya thinks he’s justified in checking it a lot.
He is a miasma of worry, bitterness, remorse, and grief, all brought on by one person. Despite himself, Kaeya contemplates the vision he loosely scoops into his hand, and he can’t help but wonder how Diluc is doing…
Kaeya’s door slams open.
He jolts in his seat and nearly drops the pyro vision, so caught off-guard by the intrusion, and snaps his head over to the door.
His eye widens seeing Jean of all people looking harried at the entrance—Jean, who has never so much as entered his office without at least knocking.
“Jean, wh—” he starts.
“Kaeya,” Jean interrupts, brows pinched. “It’s Diluc. He’s back.”
Kaeya drops the vision.
Okay. So Diluc is back in Mondstadt.
Apparently, he just showed up at the Dawn Winery in the dead of night like nothing was amiss, looking only a little worse for wear. Kaeya can only imagine how shocked the winery’s staff must have been, especially poor Adelinde who’s been running the business in Diluc’s absence.
The whole city is practically abuzz with gossip about Diluc’s return and it takes no prompting to learn that the Ragnvindr heir is rightly assuming control of his father’s business—and that he’s also going to begin taking shifts as bartender at the Angel’s Share.
Great. There goes one of Kaeya’s favorite haunts.
Just—great.
Kaeya could only bring himself to a catch a glimpse of flaming red hair surrounded by a well-meaning crowd before whisking himself away to freak out a little in a secluded alleyway.
So Diluc is back in Mondstadt.
Diluc is. Back in Mondstadt.
…
Why?
As glad as Kaeya is to see that his estranged brother is alive and in one piece, it only takes a passing glance over the spiderweb of scars on his hands to bring him back to harsh reality. To remind him what Diluc is capable of. That’s all it takes for his little bubble of relief to cave in on itself.
Kaeya paces like a caged tiger in the alleyway, arms crossed and restlessly tapping his finger against his bicep as his thoughts war inside his head.
Diluc’s mere presence is enough to shatter any semblance of stability Kaeya has in Mondstadt. The carefully crafted life he has here was built on shaky foundations, and this is enough to rattle them.
He must be here to finish the job, Kaeya reasons. To kill him, to expose him, something.
Kaeya is the last loose end from what is probably the worst day of Diluc’s life, and all it’ll take is a clean swing from his claymore or a few well-placed words to tie it off. Then he can be free of everything holding him back and he can live his life without the specter of Kaeya to haunt him.
Kaeya catches his lungs beginning to stutter and wills himself to steady his breathing, to calm the erratic beating of his heart.
It’s fine. It’s fine. He’s fine.
He doesn’t know that Diluc is here to hurt him. It’s just as likely that, maybe, Diluc only missed his home and wanted to come back. Not everything is about Kaeya. He hasn’t done anything to warrant Diluc’s attention and return. Everything is just fine.
Kaeya presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and sighs heavily. He feels like he’s seventeen again, facing his brother in the rain with only a half-hearted will to live and no plan but the acceptance that if Diluc decides to kill him, then so be it.
He’s different, now, though.
Kaeya is devoted to the city he was sent to betray. Mondstadt is his home, has been his home longer than Khaenri’ah ever was. And he’s not so willing to take death lying down now either. Not like before.
He has friends and he has people he cares about, and he won’t let anyone get in the way of that. Even if they happen to be his former brother.
Kaeya doesn’t have a plan for this. Not really. But he does have the vague idea of one in his head, and it begins and ends with staying the hell out of Diluc’s way.
For the following days, Kaeya makes sure Diluc sees neither hide nor hair of him. It isn’t hard for him to pick up on Diluc’s schedule, as punctual as ever, to work around it.
He takes long routes through Mondstadt and slips through back-end alleys, giving Diluc a wide berth within the city. He makes sure his work never coincides with Diluc’s usual routine. He stops going to the Angel’s Share completely and frequents other taverns even though the alcohol doesn’t quite sit right with him, and it’s harder to fish for information when everyone prefers Ragnvindr wine.
The days feel excruciatingly long, and Kaeya’s stomach is practically in knots with nerves. He goes about his life with bated breath while waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the anger and accusations to be thrown his way.
It never comes.
He almost thinks Diluc is being obtusely cruel at first. No doubt he knows Kaeya is still in Mondstadt by now; the Knights’ Cavalry Captain isn’t an uncommon topic of discussion among the citizens, after all. He must be prolonging the wait just to make Kaeya squirm.
But no one comes to hunt him down. No one hurls cruel words or suspicion at him and, if anything, people almost seem happy to see him, everyone’s moods bolstered by the return of the wine industry’s heir.
The days go by uneventfully and, call Kaeya foolish, but he begins to let himself relax in slow increments.
He’s never known Diluc to play the long game so since he hasn’t done anything to oust Kaeya then…maybe he really isn’t here to finish him off.
Kaeya thumbs the pyro vision in his pockets, his constant companion for the past four years, and steels himself for what he knows he must do next.
Several hundred mora later and the gaudiest vase Kaeya could find, he stands before the doors of the Dawn Winery and plasters a smile onto his face when Diluc answers the door.
“Consider this a welcome home present, Master Diluc,” Kaeya says and hands the gift over with a flourish.
Diluc holds the vase in his hands, peers through the top of it, and his flat expression gives way to one of pleasant surprise.
Nobody gets hurt and the next day, Kaeya is secretly pleased to see the pyro vision once again hanging from the belt of its rightful owner.
After that, the two of them fall into a…neutral relationship, of sorts.
The closeness that they’d had as children is gone, and likely never coming back, but the relationship isn’t entirely antagonistic either.
If anything, it just feels kind of awkward.
Kaeya cautiously resumes his usual routes that he knows cross paths with Diluc, and when nothing bad happens, goes about his work with little to no fanfare.
At most, Diluc will give him a curt nod from across the square which Kaeya will return with a casual wave. At worst, Diluc will completely ignore his existence or make pointed barbs about how useless and inefficient the Knights are.
Kaeya tries (and fails) to not let himself feel disappointed by such a lackluster reception.
What did he expect? He’s always considered himself more of a realist, and the hope that he and his estranged brother could, perhaps, rekindle their relationship is a bit too naïve for his own tastes.
What they have now is good enough considering Diluc had disowned him and nearly killed him before. His scars can attest to that. Kaeya should be grateful.
Being able to talk with Diluc, to good-naturedly get on his nerves, and to see that he’s alright is all that he can hope for.
That’s not to say that he doesn’t extend the occasional and excruciating olive branch—but it’s easier to keep them to himself when they’re always shot down.
One night, when Kaeya is feeling a little too worn down and he can tell that his cheery mask is tearing at the seams, Rosaria snags his arm before he can head towards Cat’s Tail.
“We’re going to Angel’s Share,” she says bluntly.
“What,” Kaeya says, and can only helplessly stumble after Rosaria when she begins dragging him down the street. She only relents her hold when she’s sure Kaeya is going to follow, and he reluctantly falls into step with her, rubbing his arm where her iron claws dug in with a frown.
“Is there any particular reason you’ve decided to switch up our usual hangout?” Kaeya asks, maybe a little sardonically. “Because last I checked, the drinks at Cat’s Tail are still just as good.”
Rosaria scoffs with an exhale of smoke. The familiar scent of tobacco clings to her and she takes another drag of her cigarette.
“I should be the one asking you that,” she retorts. “Since Angel’s Share was our spot until a certain red-haired wine tycoon came back to Mondstadt.”
Kaeya feels his expression strain, and he chuckles humorlessly. “Can’t get anything past you, hm?”
“Not like you made it hard,” Rosaria rolls her eyes. Just around the corner, the sound of merriment within Angel’s Share comes into earshot, followed by the smell of wine.
They slow to a stop only paces away from the tavern entrance, veiled by the shadow of night.
Rosaria wordlessly passes Kaeya her cigarette and he silently takes a drag, the lit end brightening and dimming with his breath. Smoke fills his lungs, and he exhales it in a fog while Rosaria plucks the cigarette from his fingers and puts it out beneath her heel.
“I was sick of seeing you moping,” Rosaria continues. “I figured we could just go once and get it out of your system.”
“You say that like I’m addicted or something,” Kaeya laughs.
“Not saying you are,” she shrugs. “Just that you need to get over whatever hang-ups you have about it.”
Kaeya shakes his head with a smile that lacks any amusement. “Easier said than done,” he mutters.
“It always is,” Rosaria sighs. She turns to face him and though she’s a little shorter than him, there’s something about her that always makes him feel small.
“But you can’t let that control you. I’ve never known Kaeya Alberich to be a quitter, so don’t start being one now. Plus—” Rosaria pokes a claw-tipped finger to his scarred chest. “I take care of threats against the citizens of Mondstadt, and that includes you. So quit worrying.”
Kaeya feels his smile melt into one more genuine at the unspoken promise that if Diluc tried anything, Rosaria would protect him. She was sharp like that, and she always knew what to say—all without using overly mushy words that would make them both squirm at the sincerity.
“Oh, fine,” Kaeya acquiesces with an overly dramatic sigh. “I suppose since the lady insists. I’ve been craving Death After Noon, anyways.” He adds, mostly to himself.
“I know,” Rosaria says, just a tad smug, and they enter Angel’s Share together.
Inside, Kaeya can’t help but tense up when he sees Diluc at the bar.
Diluc is currently in the middle of mixing a drink and he looks up as they enter, brows raising a fraction of an inch when he sees Kaeya. But he doesn’t do anything about it, only giving a clipped nod, and just goes back to his task.
Kaeya releases the breath he didn’t know he was holding and feels his shoulders slump.
Wordlessly, Rosaria tugs Kaeya over to their usual table in the corner and pushes him to sit in a chair that keeps the exit in his line of sight.
“I’ll go get our drinks,” she offers.
Kaeya shakes himself out of his reverie and grins. “Oh? How generous of you,” he teases.
“Don’t get used to it,” Rosaria retorts before striding off to the bar.
Kaeya leans back against his seat while he waits and he finds himself relaxing, slowly. Loathe as he is to admit it, he missed Angel’s Share, and he soaks in the merry atmosphere.
For work reasons, it’s because the tavern is popular and it’s easier to get the information he needs here.
For personal reasons, it’s because he has fond memories of playing in the bar while Crepus worked, and of jovial nights with his friends spent in a sweet haze.
He props his chin on his hand and watches Rosaria collect their order at the bar. Diluc spares him a glance and doesn’t do anything. It’s probably pathetic, but Kaeya finds it a little reassuring.
Rosaria soon returns with their drinks in hand and places a full glass of Death After Noon before him, dropping into her seat with her own glass of stronger spirits.
“Cheers,” she says flatly, and the alcohol flows smooth down Kaeya’s throat.
Rain pelts Kaeya’s shoulders and he runs through the deluge with a curse, boots sloshing through wet earth with a hand shielding his eye from the downpour.
Go take care of this Ruin Guard out by Wolvendom, Jean says.
It’ll be easy for a Knight of your skill, Jean says.
Apparently, no one accounted for the damn Abyss mages that would join the fight and make it ten times harder than it needed to be.
Fortunately, they were Hydro mages and Kaeya managed to take care of them with precise blade work and bursts of Cryo.
Unfortunately, the added opponents made his mission take much longer than anticipated, and the rain clouds threatening to pour all day decided that now would be a good time to do so. Just his luck.
At the very least, Kaeya knows the area of Wolvendom pretty well and he knows there’s a cave somewhere he can take shelter in.
It’s hard to see with the rain in his eyes and how dark everything is with water and shady clouds, but Kaeya can make out the familiar trees and rock formations of the cave entrance in the distance.
With a noise of triumph, Kaeya dashes towards it and all but throws himself inside to escape from the rain, heaving a relieved exhale.
Apparently, he wasn’t the only one with the same idea.
“Ah,” Kaeya says when his gaze connects with a very familiar pair of red eyes.
Diluc, who’s just as soaked as he is, stares at him silently while wringing out his lion’s mane of red hair. There’s already a small fire flickering in the middle of the cave with Diluc’s coat and vest laid out before it.
“Well. Fancy seeing you here, Master Diluc,” Kaeya says with a grin.
"What are you doing here?" Diluc asks bluntly. Typical.
"Ruin Guard and Abyss mages," Kaeya answers plainly. "You?"
"...Treasure Hoarder camps," Diluc says. At that, he looks away and resumes his task.
Kaeya just shrugs and sheds his sodden jacket and fur cape, the garments landing on the ground in a wet heap.
He’s used to Diluc ignoring him and if the man wants to keep to himself, it’s no skin off Kaeya’s back; with the extended mission and sudden rain, he doesn’t think he’s in the mood to try and make small talk anyways.
The silence in the cave isn’t exactly comfortable as the two of them go about taking care of their soggy state, but it’s not uncomfortable either.
Such is the dilemma when you’re sheltering in a cave with your estranged brother, Kaeya supposes.
Taking a page from Diluc’s book, he wrings out rainwater from his hair and feels curled strands sticking to his face. He absentmindedly pushes them back before getting to work on untying his corset which is beginning to feel stiff and discomforting around his waist.
Nowadays, Kaeya’s burns don’t give him too much issue with a combination of painkillers and thorough stretches. However, there are still days when they give him trouble, especially during bad weather, and now just so happens to be one of those days.
A painful ache pulses throughout Kaeya’s hands, cramping and little stabbing pains that make tremors run along his muscles.
His fingers keep fumbling with the laces and after the nth time of failing to steady them enough to untie his corset, Kaeya makes a frustrated noise and yanks his gloves off with his teeth.
They weren’t much use to him wet anyways, only serving to stick uncomfortably to the backs of his hands and make his burns itch.
Kaeya’s hands are now free and out in the open, and with the warmth of the fire, the pain eases somewhat.
There’s a strangled intake of breath across from him and Kaeya’s gaze snaps up to Diluc who’s as still as a statue, wide eyes fixated on Kaeya’s scarred hands.
He instinctively curls them to his middle, the self-conscious part of him rearing its ugly head.
“What?” he snaps.
“Your—Your hands,” Diluc stammers. For once, his usual stoicism is broken with a look of shock and horror. “What happened to your hands?”
Kaeya stares at him blankly, processing, before a disbelieving laugh burst out of his mouth.
“You can’t be serious,” he says, lips twisting into a callous smile. “Are you really asking me that? I never took you to be so cruel, Master Diluc.”
“What are you talking about?” Diluc says insistently, harried. This is the first actual conversation they’ve had since Diluc’s return and Kaeya can’t believe it’s about his fucking burns. “Just answer the question—what did this to your hands?”
“You!” Kaeya snaps in a burst. His carefully cultivated mask shatters from the pure hurt that, apparently, Diluc doesn’t even remember what he did to him. “You did this! Don’t tell me you forgot.”
“I—What? No, I didn’t—” Diluc shakes his head in stubborn denial. “I—I didn’t do that. You’re lying.”
“Well, let me remind you since you apparently don’t remember,” Kaeya sneers. “It was raining, much like it is out there—” He jabs a finger to the storm outside. “—when I told you what I was, and you answered with your claymore.”
Kaeya drags a finger from his shoulder to hip, over the familiar ridges of his scar, then pushes back the hems of his sleeves to reveal the interlocking web of scar tissue on his forearms.
“You tried to kill me,” Kaeya says flatly. “And you would’ve succeeded if not for my vision appearing. Do you remember now? Or would a reenact of that day’s events jog your memory?”
Kaeya knows he’s being mean, just rubbing salt into the wound, but he can’t help it. Despite everything they’ve been through together, did Kaeya mean so little to Diluc that he doesn’t even remember trying to end his life?
Diluc, for his part, looks shattered.
His pale face somehow becomes even paler, and Kaeya looks away uncomfortably at the blatant show of emotions, sliding down the cave wall with his arms wrapped around his middle.
When he agreed to the mission Jean gave him, he didn’t sign up for awful feelings.
The minutes drag by in long silence which Kaeya spends staring into the rain outside, before Diluc speaks.
“I’m…I’m sorry, Kaeya,” he says eventually, hoarse.
Kaeya gaze snaps to him in shock.
“That day was such a haze,” Diluc continues quietly, staring into the flickering depths of the fire while fiddling with his sleeves. “I don’t remember much of it. I just remember you telling me the truth and…and then I was walking through the rain back home. Everything in between was just...blank.”
He shakes his head, hands tensing. “That doesn’t excuse what I did. I never meant to do that to you, I just—gods, I’m so sorry, Kaeya.”
Despite himself, Kaeya's spontaneous anger ebbs into resigned weariness and he uncurls a little from against the wall.
Well then.
“If we’re doing apologies, then...I’m sorry too,” he murmurs, just to get the weight off his chest. “I shouldn’t have told you then. I should’ve picked a better time. I was just being selfish, and I didn’t want to keep that to myself anymore. Your reaction was expected.”
“But it shouldn’t have been!” Diluc insists in a burst that makes Kaeya blink in astonishment. “I was—I’m your brother. You should’ve been able to tell me the truth without worrying about me trying to kill you.”
Kaeya’s attention snags on one part of Diluc’s words.
“…You’re my brother?” he asks tentatively. “Still?”
Diluc blinks. Then he seems to realize what he’d said because his face flushes a little, but he gives a jerked nod.
“Well…yes,” he mumbles. “I know I don’t have the right to call you that, considering what I did, but I always regretted the way I reacted, and…”
He trails off, looking unsure.
This Diluc is infinitely more familiar to Kaeya, the one that was a passionate and emphatic boy rather than the aloof and hard-to-read adult he became. It’s like stepping onto steadier ground, and Kaeya offers an olive branch that might actually be reciprocated this time.
“I missed you,” he admits.
It’s Diluc’s turn to look astonished.
“I tried to be mad at you when you left, to move on from our past, but it never worked,” Kaeya continues quietly. “I just…I missed you while you were gone, and I worried about you a lot.”
He raises his head. “I know that we can’t go back to before, not after everything that happened, but…can we try again?”
“Yes,” Diluc says immediately like he spoke before his brain could catch up with his mouth. He flushes again and clears his throat. “I mean—yes, of course. I wanted to—but I didn’t know if that was what you wanted—"
“Okay,” Kaeya says, before Diluc can keep stumbling over his own words. Feeling light for the first time in years, Kaeya leans back against the wall and smiles, the pain in his scars becoming a footnote in his elation. “Okay. So we’re good?”
“…Yeah,” Diluc says. His face splits into a small smile of his own. “Yeah, we’re good.”