Chapter Text
Rain poured from the sky as if the heavens themselves were grieving. With its tears, it drowned the earth, and with its rage its lit up the grey skies. Lightning cracked through the layered clouds, as if to remind the mortals below of its temper and fury. Do not cross the line, it warned. Everyone had their place; everyone had their roles to play. It is the fate you were all born into.
In hindsight, Kaeya realized he should’ve listened to the gods. If he’d ignored his guilty conscience and continued the lies, he wouldn’t have found himself in such a predicament. But it was too late. He’d been too numb, too ashamed to continue the charade.
Vaguely, in the distant part of his mind, he felt the cold rain fall on his body, heard the telltale crackle of ice as it froze on his skin.
A cryo vision laid in front of him. His gift from Celestia. A reminder. A mockery.
“Why didn’t you block the blow?” A soft voice now devoid of familiar warmth broke through the stupor filling Kaeya’s chest. “You could’ve blocked it. We’ve sparred before. I know how fast you are. What’s the meaning of this?”
Kaeya had no words. He’d spoken the truth, once, trusting Diluc to understand, but instead he’d gotten a slash to his face as his reward. What was the point of telling the truth if it’d only hurt them both? So he stayed silent, too tired to even lie. He knelt on the mud sodden ground, a hand cradling the right side of his face where the sharp pain now dulled to a throbbing ache. As if all life and will had been drained from him, Kaeya stared at his newly bestowed cryo vision with dead eyes.
Used to a mouth that always smiled and an eye that glittered like jewels, Diluc loathed the lifeless expression he saw. He grabbed the cryo vision and raised it accusingly to Kaeya’s face. “Look at me! Kaeya! Why do you have a cryo vision? Why now, of all things!?”
The silence was damning.
Diluc shoved Kaeya away and stood up once more. He couldn’t look at him, couldn’t bear the sight of him.
A cryo vision… A universal theme that united most cryo users was the will to live. Too blinded by anger and grief, he didn’t notice nor care why Kaeya’s movements were more sluggish than normal, why his defense a second too slow. It was only now, Diluc realized with dawning horror, Kaeya hadn’t wanted to live. If Celestia hadn’t intervened, if the vision hadn’t appeared when it did… Kaeya would’ve died by his hands.
Diluc swallowed the bitterness choking him. He looked down at his own hands, saw them tremble as he remembered the warmth of his father’s blood soaking through his gloves.
“How could you?” Diluc asked, keeping his back towards Kaeya. His voice was barely heard above the storm. “You knew what I had to do. You were there. You saw. I had to-” Diluc’s voice broke. He took a heartbeat to compose himself. “I had to put my father, our father, out of his misery. So how could you ask me to do this?” He didn’t specify what “this” was. With the cryo vision still in his hand, it was obvious to them both what it was Kaeya asked of him.
Diluc stiffened at the sound of a hollow laugh. He turned to face Kaeya, and saw the other boy smile, seemingly gathering some semblance of his old self back. But the smile and laughter never reached his eye.
Hand over his bleeding wound, Kaeya cocked his head and joked. “I expected your anger and maybe a punch or two, but a claymore to the face wasn’t in the books.”
“Then why!?” Diluc threw Kaeya’s hateful vision to the ground. It rolled in the mud until it landed back in front of the Khaenri’an boy. “Why didn’t you say anything when father was alive? Or couldn’t you have waited until after his funeral to tell me? Why today? Why now, when his body is not yet even buried? You could’ve waited and continued your lies, and I would’ve been happy in my ignorance!”
“Because you’re all I have left!” Kaeya blurted out, yelling back at Diluc as if the truth had been pulled from his very soul. His next words were spoken softer; resignation laced his voice. “With Crepus gone, you’re all I have left in Mondstadt.”
Though they were in an open field with the sky and heavens above them, the air suddenly became stagnant. The ugly intention behind Kaeya’s cruel actions made it hard for Diluc to breathe.
“…You chose today to tell me you’re a Khaenri’an spy because I’m all you have left in Mondstadt?” Diluc asked as if posing a question, but he needed no clarification. Thick as thieves and each other’s shadows, even muddled by his anger, Diluc still knew Kaeya like the back of his hands. What Kaeya left unsaid, what he was implying, Diluc clearly understood.
He was Kaeya’s last tie to Mondstadt.
And Kaeya was trying to severe it.
Scorching emotions ran through Diluc, one after the other: hate and love, loss and despair, fear and want. A part of him despised Kaeya; he hated him for lying, for smiling at their father’s death, for choosing this moment to tell the truth when he hasn’t had time to process his grief. But more than his hate and anger, Diluc feared losing him. Just as he was all Kaeya had left, the same held true for him. Kaeya was all that remained of his family.
If Kaeya disappeared too, if he chose his homeland over Mondstadt, if their bond severed here and now, Diluc would’ve lost everything he held dear in one, single day. No… No, no, no, no! He couldn’t lose him. He simply couldn’t. He won’t allow it.
Fear and desperation spurred Diluc’s canines to elongate. Instincts to possess, to irreversibly tie Kaeya to him- a tie he could never break from- clouded his judgment.
Looking up from where he knelt, Kaeya saw Diluc’s eyes flicker from their normal sunset red to a golden hue, a sign the older boy’s alpha instincts were bubbling to the surface. Kaeya had a moment to purse his lips. A stray thought crossed his mind, “It was never a good sign when an alpha lost their senses”, when Diluc caught him unaware.
The pyro user shoved him to the ground before lifting him back up by the lapels of his uniform. Seeing the intense heat lighting the other’s eyes, Kaeya squeezed his own shut tight. He tensed, waiting for Diluc’s fist connect with his face, but the punch never came. Instead, he heard too late, his shirt ripped open. Lips hot as fire lit a trail across his clammy skin, stopping right atop the scent gland at his neck. Kaeya’s breath stuttered to a stop as his blood froze in place.
With a sudden, chilling clarity, Kaeya realized Diluc wanted to claim him and become his bonded mate.
“NO! GET OFF ME!” A guttural refusal tore out of Kaeya’s throat. He dug his nails into the back of Diluc’s scalp, using what remained of his strength to pry the other away from him, but what was his strength to Diluc’s determination?
Diluc pressed his nose against the other’s neck. A sweet scent suffused his senses, reminding him of home and family. He couldn’t let Kaeya go. Not when his goal was within reach, his tongue already tasting the finish line. Teeth sank into Kaeya’s neck.
A searing sensation radiated out from Diluc’s bite to the rest of Kaeya’s body. Kaeya thought he’d melt from the rising heat scourging through every vein and vessel he had; then the burning sensation disappeared in a flash, and all that remained was a lukewarm pulse from where they connected.
The hand pulling at Diluc’s hair fell limp onto Kaeya’s side. Rain fell onto his face as he lifted his head and stared straight up at the sky. Was he looking for an answer? A benediction? Kaeya wasn’t sure what he wanted. He only found it pathetic and sad how such a simple act could be so earth-shatteringly life changing.
Warmth pool around the crook of his neck as he heard a sob ring out against his ear. Kaeya closed his eyes, unwilling to look at the mistake Diluc committed himself to, but neither did he push him away. He allowed the other boy to cling to him. Diluc’s hands fisted into the back of his ruined uniform as if desperate for the mating bite to take hold.
Hidden among the grapevines, the two of them sat together under the rain, their huddled forms defeated and soaked. Neither said a word, because nothing else needed to be said. Nothing else could be said. They took in the other’s heat and scent, each lost in their own thoughts, perhaps wishing things could’ve been different.
A long while later, long after the torrent rain turned into a drizzle and the skies cleared, Diluc unclamped his jaw from Kaeya’s neck.
Head bowed, Diluc firmly kept his eyes on his claim mark engraved on the younger boy’s skin. “You’re mine,” he said, imbuing power into his words, ones a bonded omega could never refuse. He wiped Kaeya’s blood from his lips, and avoided looking at his newly formed mate. “Just…just as I’m yours. Never leave for Khaenri’ah. Never betray Mondstadt. Stay here and wait for me.”
Kaeya shivered as Diluc’s command washed over him. He felt the weight of it on his shoulders, heavier than the burden of what his birth father ever said to him.
He lifted his hand and ran his fingers across the fresh imprints on his neck.
“…Alright,” Kaeya said, giving a small nod of his head. “I’ll stay.”
BANG!
The shutters to the room swung open, startling Kaeya awake from his dream. Dazed, he sat up in bed and lazily turned towards the source of the noise.
At some point in the middle of the night, a storm had rolled over in Mondstadt. Thunder rumbled ominously across the dark clouds. The wind picked up, howling and screaming as it tossed the rain every which way, right into Kaeya’s room. A beautiful puddle had already started to form under the windowsill.
Kaeya blinked, and blinked some more. Fragments of the dream and hazy memories clung to his lashes, stubborn to let him free. He glanced between the puddle and out at the sky beyond the window. Guessing by the light, or lack thereof, he had a few more hours left before roll call. Maybe he could ignore the waterworks and catch a few more hours of sleep.
Lightning sparked through the sky, causing Kaeya to sigh in defeat. Of course a storm wasn’t complete without lightning. There was no point in going back to sleep anymore. He’d only dream of the past again if he did. Might as well get up and start the day. But first, he really should close the window before the puddle got any bigger.
With a tired groan, Kaeya stretched his arms above his head and rolled out of bed, completely nude. A careless lilt to his steps, he sauntered over to the window, and froze the puddle with a light tap of his foot. Assuming no sane person would be standing under the Calvary Captain’s quarters in a storm, Kaeya haphazardly chucked the frozen block of ice out the window. He dusted his hands as if proud of himself, and closed the shutters. There! First job of the day done.
Out of habit, the first piece of clothing he went to put on his body was his eye patch. He reached for it by the dresser when Diluc’s vision next to it caught his eye.
“Hello there, Master Diluc. What trouble are you getting yourself into today?” Red and bright, glowing with a warmth like the pyro user himself, the vision emitted a soft light. Kaeya smiled, poking at the round orb with his pointer finger.
After their fight, Diluc left on his quest for revenge the very next day. While the clues were still fresh, he wanted to chase after his father’s killers and bring them to justice. He didn’t stay to arrange the funeral, trusting Kaeya and Adelinde to handle the matters for him. It’s been three years since Kaeya last saw the redhead.
In the beginning, they exchanged letters. Kaeya kept him up to date on the happening of Eroch and what became of the Knights, but their relationship never quite recovered from that night. Despite Diluc’s best effort to tie him to him, they lacked the trust and ease they used to share. The letters petered out as the weeks went by. Once the funeral concluded, Kaeya left Dawn Winery as well, no longer comfortable staying at the estate with no Ragnvindr present.
Kaeya rolled the vision around on his dresser, unconsciously humming a lullaby Adelinde used to sing to them as children; perhaps to bring himself some comfort from his melancholy thoughts. He’d stolen the vision from Varka’s desk when the Grandmaster wasn’t looking. Though, he suspected Varka left it out for him to take, trusting him to keep it safe until Diluc’s return.
Every morning when he woke and every night before he slept, he’d check the pyro vision for its continuous glow. After the letters stopped, this was the only way for him to know if Diluc was still alive out there somewhere in Teyvat… Kaeya’s smile faltered as he caught himself telling an obvious lie. Monitoring the pyro vision wasn’t the only way, but it was his preferred method. His eyes slid over to the omega choker laying beside the eye patch. Self-consciously, he rubbed at the mating mark on his neck. So long as Diluc lived, the mating bond won’t disappear, but Kaeya tried to not think about being mated to him at all.
Funny enough, he didn’t resent Diluc for biting him. He never blamed him for the scar on his face nor the one on his neck. He understood why Diluc reacted the way he did; expected it even. In a way, he was glad for Diluc’s actions. Kaeya had always been afraid of having to choose between Khaenri’ah and his adoptive home. Diluc made it easy by deciding for him.
Because Diluc was right. The reason he went to him with the truth, despite the awful timing, was to cut his last tie to Mondstadt. It was a test for himself. If Diluc couldn’t accept his past, if he cut off their brotherly bond, then he’d have nothing left here. Saying goodbye would be that much easier when the time came. But contrary to his expectations, Diluc tied him even more firmly to Mondstadt, to the Ragnvindrs.
Logically, Kaeya knew he should resent Diluc for taking away his freedom, but that would be the pot calling the kettle black. After all, it was he that presented Diluc with the impossible choice: kill him or let him go. It was Diluc who was clever enough to find a third option:
Become his mate.
Claimed, there would be no other alphas for Kaeya to obey but Diluc. His dreams of family, love, and children- it all depended on the pyro user’s whims. Could Diluc stand the sight of him long enough to bed him? Kaeya doubted it. No matter what others’ thought or insinuated about their relationship, they’d never seen each other as potential lovers growing up. They were soulmates, that much Kaeya acknowledged, but it wasn’t in the romantic sense. Diluc was simply the other half of his soul. They completed one another to make a whole. They were a set, never straying far from each other’s shadows.
There was not a bone in his body that hated Diluc. He was just disappointed at the outcome.
How could Diluc choose him as his mate? As the owner to the illustrious Dawn Winery, Diluc could’ve had his pick of omegas. Ones that weren’t broken liars or spies sent to destroy his home. What worth did he hold? What could Diluc get out of him staying? Kaeya didn’t understand Diluc’s decision to keep him.
Regardless of Diluc’s questionable choices, life went on as normal. Diluc told no one of his true heritage, and Kaeya in turn never spoke to anyone about the mating bond.
If anyone noticed him suddenly wearing an omega collar when he previously went bare neck before, they didn’t say a thing. Those that did notice were other omegas, asking him where he got his collar because it completely masked his pheromones. Kaeya awkwardly smiled at their question, before mentioning it was gifted to him by someone. He didn’t know where it was made. He couldn’t tell them he lacked a scent because he was a mated omega. Only his alpha could smell the pheromones he produced.
Kaeya ran his hands over the smooth leather collar. There was no real point in him wearing it. He was claimed. No other alpha could bite him and leave their mark, nor could their pheromones induce his heat. Vice versa, his pheromones were useless against other alphas. They either couldn’t smell him, or they unwittingly found his presence disgusting.
What scent his body produced now, it was for Diluc’s pleasure only. The mating bond made sure of that.
Not that it mattered. Diluc’s been gone for years. There was no one here for him to attract with his scent.
Kaeya sighed and put on the collar anyway. At least with the collar, he could cover up the mark and the fact he had a mate. As it stood, most people assumed he was a beta. Those who looked more closely, guessed he was an unclaimed omega with no discernible scent. Only a close few knew he had a mate, but Kaeya would take the secret of “who” to the grave.
When Kaeya finished dressing, a pink hue peeked over the horizon; a splash of color in the otherwise grey and dreary day. Best to head over to his office at the Knight’s Headquarters then. There was a stack of paperwork waiting for him. He’d only finish a quarter of it before Jean kicked him out and told him to head home for a well deserved rest.
As he passed by Jean’s office, he noticed light flicking through the cracks of her door. He clicked his tongue in disapproval.
“Jean, Jean, Jean.” Kaeya shook his head. “I think someone else needs a well deserved rest more than I do.” Without so much as a courtesy knock, Kaeya burst through the door. “Good morning, Acting Grandmaster! Calvary Captain Kaeya Alberich reporting for duty.”
“Kaeya!” Subtle ghosts of exhaustion were showing themselves under Jean’s eyes, but not even a lack of sleep could mar Jean’s natural beauty. She glanced at the window and then back at her Calvary Captain. “Is it morning already? Has it been that long?”
“Yes,” Kaeya answered succinctly, snatching the stack of papers from Jean’s hands. “Since I’m here now, I’ll take care of the rest. You should get a few hours of sleep yourself. Wouldn’t want our Acting Grandmaster to collapse, now would we? The whole of Mondstadt would fall into ruin without our capable Dandelion Knight at the helm.”
“Oh, stop it, Kaeya. Don’t be ridiculous. Mondstadt will be fine with or without me.”
Kaeya rolled the very important stack of documents, and lightly tapped them on Jean’s head. “Exactly. So go rest. I’m banning you from the headquarters for the next 8 hours. And what I say goes.”
Jean’s shoulders slumped. As the tension that kept her wired all night left her body, she felt the exhaustion hit her at last. “I suppose you’re right. I could use a few hours to myself. But Kaeya, there’s something you should know before I go.”
“Is it about the Fatui diplomats?”
Jean shook her head. “I haven’t heard anything from the informants on that matter. It’s something else. It’s not exactly important, but I thought you’d want to know.”
“Well, color me curious, Jean, what is it?”
The anemo user fiddled with the pen on her desk, and Kaeya had a sinking feeling he wasn’t going to like what he was going to hear.
“Late last night, scouts patrolling the area around Dawn Winery reported seeing someone with flaming red hair enter the estate,” Jean said, her steely eyes meeting Kaeya’s.
Kaeya opened his mouth to say it could’ve been anyone, but Jean raised her hand to stop him. She rummaged through the letters on her desk, before finding the one she wanted. She handed it over to Kaeya. If he had any doubts about who entered Dawn Winery, the familiar messy calligraphy smashed it to pieces. “It’s Diluc. He’s returned.”
Kaeya should've known when he woke up to a storm over Mondstadt. Nothing good ever happened to him when it stormed.