Chapter Text
He should have expected that things would get worse.
After a night of fitful barely-sleep-sleep, Diluc wakes up in the still-gray morning with a jolt because something is wrong and he doesn’t know what, exactly, but the part of him that still even remotely functions needs him to deal with it; and when he lifts his head from the the nest of his arms, he sees Kaeya feverish and panting, raggedly, in his sleep.
Shit.
Panic takes the form of bile in his throat. He chokes it down and sprints to go get Barbara, and when together they burst through the door she finds, to Diluc’s horror, an unforgiving beast of an infection under Kaeya’s bandages.
She sends Diluc to retrieve a bucket of cold water and a rag, and then to the Cathedral’s dispensary to get a little bottle of something with a long name on a shelf of something — forgive him if it’s hard to listen. He doesn’t give a damn that he’s being ordered around by a fourteen-year-old girl, because this fourteen-year-old girl holds dominion here.
When he gets back, she’s pulled a medical kit from her subspace — gauze, various tinctures and tools — and Diluc allows himself to look at the wounds uncensored. The bruising is darker, and the gash on his stomach is… Archons. He gags. He can’t help it. It’s fucking — it’s disgusting. The swelling around his stitches, morbidly, reminds him of fabric bunched around a seam.
Barbara, though, is stronger. Steely-faced and unrelenting, she dabs an alcohol-soaked cloth on the wound (The way Kaeya’s face contorts in his sleep further grinds Diluc’s heart into a powder), applies a pungent, herbal ointment (better than the stench of pus and infection) and summons her grimoire. It hovers, suspended, below her hand; and with the twitch of a finger here and the minute movement of her hand there she flips the pages, humming under her breath unintelligible, holy things. The air thickens with Hydro, a humidity that’s impossibly cool and that smells like waterfalls, like the ocean, like a cold glass of water on a hot day and like a loving, comforting embrace. Kaeya’s face, flushed and beaded with sweat, starts to relax.
Diluc has never understood catalyst users. Though it’s technically possible to liken the flames of his claymore to magic, he thinks Barbara’s powers are more aptly described that way. His abilities are rather limited within the scope of his own body, instead manifests in the grooves of his sword; hers course through her body and out through her fingertips like her very blood is made of water. If he is merely allowed to harness the elements, they are innate within her.
After hours or minutes, Barbara snaps her grimoire shut with the flick of her hand and sighs, spent. A bead of sweat, or perhaps just condensation, ventures down her brow. She banishes her book in a momentary flurry of golden light. “I’ve done what I can for now,” she says, rocking back and forth on her heels nervously. “His body can’t take more than a little healing at a time. I’ll come back later for more, until I'm satisfied that he’s out of the woods. In the meantime — hand me that bottle and syringe, will you?” She holds out the flat of her hand like a prompt.
Is… that really it?
“Oh. Yes,” he says. He presses them into her palm and her fingers close, a confirmation. “Is that for his fever?”
She nods. “That, and hopefully, pain management. I want to keep him under for as long as possible, to give his body some time to take over.” She screws open the bottle and draws some of the clear liquid into the syringe, and flicks the tip of the needle when a small bead of the stuff condenses at the top. She pulls down the open collar of his shirt until his shoulder is exposed and Diluc has to turn away. Needles have always made his skin crawl.
“Master Diluc, how long do you plan to stay here?”
He whips his head up like a startled deer. “What?”
“Sorry,” she says hurriedly. “I don’t intend on kicking you out. It’s just… I know you have duties to attend to, and, well, I don’t expect Kaeya to wake up today. You are a busy man, so…”
“It’s fine,” he insists. “My employees are more than capable in my absence.” Even if they weren’t, he couldn’t make himself leave if he tried.
“Well…” she says, hesitantly, “I suppose if you’re going to stay, you may as well make yourself useful. You can wet that rag, wring it out, and put it on his forehead.”
He obliges. When the cold cloth makes contact with his skin, Kaeya lets out the smallest of relieved sighs. Diluc’s heart pounds just a little less.
“And… and you’re sure there’s nothing more you can do for him?”
Diluc knows it’s a silly question before he asks it, But he feels he must; feels there might be something they’re both missing that will make everything better again.
“If there was more I could do, I’d have done it,” she says. Of course. “I want to reassure you that he isn’t in any danger — and that’s largely because of you, Master Diluc.” She rises from her chair and smoothes out the front of her skirt. She looks at him tiredly, sympathetically, and he feels a bit silly to have to be comforted by this girl he recalls coming to his ninth birthday party as a newborn baby. “He needs time, and patience, and compassion. He’ll wake up, and you’ll get your chance to talk to him. I promise.”
Doctors aren’t usually in the business of making promises, he knows; so it must mean she’s sure. He nods, quietly. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
A small smile creeps on her face. “Of course. Let me know if you need anything, alright?”
He blinks and she is gone.
He stands there for a second, not sure how to make heads or tails out of any of this. His heart is still pounding and his breath refuses to slow down. He feels… he feels lost.
He sits in that rickety old chair and crosses his arms. Kaeya doesn’t stir, save for the rise and fall of his chest.
This is the brother he once wanted to kill. Ans every day since he has been disgusted with himself. He can’t fathom how he was ever that person, as grief-stricken and betrayed as he felt then.
It’s a little lighter outside, now that he can take the time to notice it. There’s no clock in the room and he left his pocket watch at the tavern, but he guesses it’s around six. Now that he’s allowed himself to calm down a bit, he feels that same bone-deep exhaustion gnaw on him. He blinks, a momentary infinity in which time slows and reaches terminal velocity, and he thinks: perhaps I should rest my eyes.
When he opens them again, crusty with sleep, the room is washed in bright, mid-morning sunlight.
…And Kaeya’s bed is empty.
His body flushes cold with dread. He lurches upright, which aggravates his sleep-deprived-throbbing head, and looks around wildly. At the end of the room, opposite to the entryway to the infirmary, is an open door; and a spattering trail of blood that leads to it.
He follows the little trail, panic pooling in the soles of his feet, and.
Kaeya.
He leans against the wall, half-folded over, one arm bracing himself and another wrapped protectively around his torso. His back is turned to Diluc, but the rapid rise-and-fall of it indicates he’s heaving for breath. He trembles with the strain of holding himself up. He’s made it, almost, to the toilet.
Diluc blinks. He doesn’t know what sorts of emotions he should feel.
He’s relieved. He wants to say, thank the Archons you’re okay. I was so worried. And, I am so, so sorry.
Instead, his breath hitches and Kaeya whips around to look at him, like a startled deer who just heard a twig snap.
“D-diluc?” He stammers. His eyes are blown wide, blue and gold and fearful. His cheeks are flushed red like an expensive wine. “Archons. You’re awake.”
It hurts, oh how it hurts, that Kaeya looks so scared of him.
“You’re awake,” he counters. “You shouldn’t be out of bed.” Hell, he shouldn’t be conscious this soon. Whatever Barbara had given him only hours ago clearly isn’t working anymore.
“Needed to use the bathroom,” Kaeya mutters. He’s tipped into the wall again. “Haven’t… haven’t quite gotten there yet, ‘s you can see.”
How he got even this far is a mystery. Diluc notices the blood that drips from his hand, and from the crook of his arm. “You ripped out your IV catheters.”
“What was I s’posed to do?” Kaeya’s voice is quiet, unsteady, and slurring a little, almost drunkenly. Maybe they’re not keeping him under anymore, but those painkillers clearly still want to do their job. Feverish delirium certainly must add to the cocktail of misery. “Needed to go.”
“The pole has wheels on it,” Diluc points out. “Barbara will need to put the needles in again.”
Kaeya groans. “Please no.”
“It’s for your own good,” Diluc insists. He offers a hand, and Kaeya looks at it warily for a second, but takes it.
“Still need to… need to piss, ‘Luc.”
Such vulgarity. Diluc rolls his eyes. “Fine. Do you need help?”
Kaeya shudders. “Gods, I hope not.”
“I’ll be outside if you do,” Diluc says. He helps him up from against the wall and leads him the couple steps to the toilet, sitting him down on the lid. Kaeya winces, and with the amount of times Diluc’s felt his heart break in the last couple days, it must be ground to sand by now.
There’s a pregnant pause, and Kaeya says, “So… you gonna go now?”
“Right. Sorry.” He forces his legs to carry him outside, and his hand to shut the door.
Okay, so.
Kaeya is…
Well,
Diluc doesn’t know what he expected. For Kaeya to wake up screaming, to not recognize him, to try and run away on his sprained ankle and fever-delirium. So he doesn’t know how to contend with this — not wonderful, obviously, but. Considering the circumstances, not bad. Coherent, even irritated at the circumstances rather than hysterical.
Still, he won’t forget the look in Kaeya’s eyes when he saw him; the way his face contorted when he sat down on the lid of the toilet. The flush in his cheeks, the tremble of his arms against the wall and his legs, unsteady like a newborn calf’s.
What should he say? What can he say? “I’m sorry you were kidnapped and violated like an object”? It sounds trite, insincere. Pitying.
He needs to find Barbara. She can put him back to sleep, take away his pain. Even for just a second, it’s worth it to Diluc.
He hears the toilet flush and the sink run. Kaeya opens the door. “Huh,” he says. “Y’weren’t joking.”
“Of course not.” Diluc, again, offers his hand and Kaeya, again, takes it hesitantly; like he’s struggling with whether he should let someone touch him. Diluc allows him to lean most of his body weight flush against Diluc’s side as they make their way back to the bed. He’s way, way too warm. “Why would I do that?”
Kaeya hesitates, then shrugs. “Dunno.”
Kaeya’s limping. Sprained ankle. He makes a mental note to ask Barbara for a crutch also. He asks, “Are you in pain?”
Kaeya stops, and gives him this look like he can’t believe Diluc would say something so stupid — signature sass, check. Maybe he shouldn’t be so worried. “Are you serious?”
“Sorry,” he says. They arrive back at the bed, and Diluc helps Kaeya lower himself onto it with a breathy sigh of relief. “I mean, where are you in pain? How bad is it?”
Kaeya huffs. “Everywhere. Bad.”
Okay. “Can you be more specific?”
“My ankle. My ribs. My back. My wrist. My head.” He looks down at his lap. “And… y’know.”
He knows. He knows, and he wish he didn’t. “I’ll get Barbara and see if she can put you on more painkillers,” he offers, because he was going to anyways.
“No!” Kaeya yelps. It’s so sudden that Diluc has to suppress a flinch. “No, not that. Please.”
“What? Why?”
Kaeya looks off to the side. He’s silent for a moment, like he’s conflicted about whatever he wants to say. Then he mutters, almost too quiet to hear,, “They… they drugged me, the Treasure Hoarders. They drugged me, ‘nd then that’s when they…” He trails off with a shudder. “I’ll take the pain. I just don’t want to… to feel like that again.”
Holy fuck, Diluc thinks for the umteenth time; but he must continue to compartmentalize. He puts his hands up in surrender. “That’s fine. I’ll tell her not to give you anything that will make you disoriented.”
What hell, to have to choose between two evils: excruciating pain, or to feel deprived of one’s agency?
But Kaeya visibly relaxes. “Thank you,” he mumbles.
He looks so… Diluc doesn’t know. Hollow isn’t the right word. Disturbed is understating it. He looks… sad, like a spark Diluc never noticed was there is gone and left a gaping cavity in its place. He’s lethargic, but maybe that’s just the meds. Off his game.
Diluc couldn’t have expected anything else. He expected worse, of course. And Kaeya is…
Kaeya is ashamed. Deeply and utterly so. It’s written in the blush on his cheeks and the way he averts his eyes when they brush too close to the subject of his assault. Diluc thinks they should talk about it, but.
Later.
Diluc notices, then, that Kaeya’s eyes are at half-mast; his exhausted body overtaken by the residual effects of his medication. He starts to lean backwards into his pillows, but seems slightly resistant to it, like a young child fighting to stay awake.
“You should get some sleep,” Diluc says. His hand wanders toward Kaeya’s forehead, almost unconsciously, and it’s warmer than it should be. “I’ll go see Barbara about the—“
“Wait,” Kaeya says. “Stay here. Please.” More than with his words, he pleads with his eyes. “Don’t wanna… be alone.”
“Kaeya, She needs to know you’re awake. She’s gonna give you more fluids.”
Kaeya seems to mull it over. In his lap, he runs a finger repeatedly over a bandage on his hand.
“Fine,” he decides. “But when she leaves can you… stay with me ‘till I fall asleep?”
Diluc smiles thinly, both for his brother’s sake and because he can’t help it. It’s endearing, he thinks reluctantly, how clingy Kaeya can be when he’s not quite himself.
Another part of Diluc says, he was beaten and violated within an inch of his life. Of course he needs you now, because you weren’t there for him then.
It’s a more sobering thought.
“Alright,” he says instead. “I’ll be here.”
Things move slowly.
Kaeya sleeps. He wakes up, allows Barbara to fuss over him and feed him various medicines, then falls asleep again. This is the pattern of the following two days after Kaeya regains consciousness.
When he is awake, for a few consecutive minutes at most and sometimes less than that, Diluc murmurs more nothings and strokes a soothing hand through his hair until he’s lulled back to sleep. His fever ticks down, slowly but steadily, and after the first day, Barabra declares him out of any danger.
Through thick and thin; through silence and speech; Diluc stays glued to that chair. He doesn’t realize it at first, all the hours he spends completely sedentary. He gets up to use the bathroom a couple times a day, drinks water straight from the faucet when he thinks he ought to, and returns to his place. At night, he sits and thinks about absolutely nothing until he realizes the room has begun to brighten again. He holds vigil over Kaeya, always.
A few times, he thinks about going home. He does not really consider this an option, though, because of what happened last time he let his guard down. No, he will not let that happen again.
But after so long, even Diluc begins to break down. His head pounds. His vision refuses to focus. He feels hot and cold and tired and shot with adrenaline and yet no matter what, he will not leave.
Barbara doesn’t notice how badly he’s doing. Does not confront him, at least — until one moment, when he finds fingers snapping in his face, and realizes he’d been in the middle of a conversation he doesn’t remember starting.
“Master Diluc?” she calls, centimeters and light-years away all at once. He feels his brain turn over inside his skull like a pair of cold, wet socks in a laundry barrel.
“Sorry, um. What?”
A sigh, exasperated and drawn out like that of someone much older than herself. “Look,” she says gently, “I think you need to go home. You’re not— you’re not doing yourself any favors by staying cooped up in this room. Or him.” She gestures to Kaeya, asleep in his bed. “When was the last time you ate or drank anything?”
Not recently, but she doesn’t need to know that. “I did,” he mumbles, a pathetic non-answer but the only thing he can scrounge up. “At some point.”
He thinks her eye twitches, though he might’ve imagined it. “I am going to call for your staff to retrieve you. I’ll have you wait downstairs until they arrive.”
Wait, what?
Diluc opens his mouth to complain, half-formed and nebulous, but Barbara just tuts. She pats him on the shoulder and he resists the red-hot impulse to flinch like an abused animal. “Up you get, now.”
He doesn't have the capacity to process what happens next.
He thinks he tries to stand. He thinks maybe he trips, maybe Barbara tries to grab him; but his vision blacks out and his ears fill up with cotton, and for a brief moment he feels nothing at all.
When his brain is somewhat intact again, He finds himself flat on his back in an infirmary bed, Barbara sitting by his side. He doesn’t know how he got there.
The evening light has begun to paint the room orange. The itch of a needle in his hand wakes him up a tiny bit more.
“Hi, again,” she whispers. On her face is an almost-smile as she leans forward and presses two fingers to his carotid, feeling for an unsteady pulse. “How do you feel?”
A bit like he was shot out the barrel of a cannon, but he doesn’t say it. “How… long was I out?” he croaks. His throat tells him he swallowed sandpaper, or something approximate to that.
“Only about three hours,” she reassures him, though it’s anything but; and he tries to hide the surprise on his face. It felt like only a second. “I got you on some fluids. I did not believe you, by the way, when you said you’d been taking care of yourself.” She removes her fingertips from his neck, sits back, and crosses her arms. She doesn’t look very intimidating, if that’s what she’s going for.
“I never said that,” he mutters — which is sort of true, if only because he’d more-or-less forgotten how to speak. She makes a little noise akin to a scoff.
“Regardless, I’ll have you know you’ve gotten your wish, because I’m keeping you here until the morning,” she says. “If you have improved, I’ll send you on your way. In the meantime, I’m going to bring you something to eat, and then you are going right back to sleep. Sound reasonable?”
It… does, which surprises him. He doesn’t remember the last time he had — well, anything, much less a meal, and the prospect is downright appealing. He nods, minutely, and she grins before hurrying off.
When she shuts the door behind her and the click of her heels fade beyond it, Diluc struggles upright, his head residually whirling. When he glances around he finds that, sure enough, Kaeya’s still fast asleep; sure enough, they’re still all alone. He looks down at his… bare chest? Barbara must have removed his shirt — and grimaces as his gaze wanders toward the needle in his hand.
In another reality, he is beyond mortified to have collapsed at his own injured brother’s bedside just because he neglected to take care of himself; and is now in a similarly incapacitated position. That reality is not this one, because in this reality, he feels so far away from his emotions that it’s as if they were surgically removed from his body.
So instead of feeling, he takes stock of himself: his head hurts less, he supposes, but even after hours of sleep, fatigue still hangs onto him like a lead weight. He thinks about how easy it would be to turn over and fall back asleep, but he jolts out of his musings when Barbara opens the door again. It must have been at least a few minutes that she was gone, but it felt like seconds.
“I hope you like chicken noodle,” she says, and shuts the door with her foot. She carries the tray to his bed and sets it down on the nightstand, then says “Oh!” as if she’s forgotten something. She hurries over to an unoccupied bed and comes back, armed with a pillow to put behind his back.
“Thank you,” he mumbles appreciatively.
She presses the bowl and spoon into his hands. It’s steaming hot and smells like home, smells like how Adelinde used to make it when he was ill as a child. His stomach growls in anticipation.
“This looks… very good,” he says. He takes a tentative spoonful — rich and salty. “How did you prepare this so quickly?” He asks, as he savors a morsel of chicken in his mouth.
She giggles. “Oh, I didn’t make it — one of the sisters, Catherine, has had a pot going since this morning. I just poured you a bowl.”
Ah. “If that’s the case, then please give her my compliments.” He dips his spoon back into the bowl and watches a carrot bob in the broth.
Barbara says, “When you’re done with your soup, you can just set your bowl on the nightstand. I have a few other things to attend to, so I’ll come back for it later — and make sure to eat all of it, alright?” She gives him another stern, not-intimidating-in-the-slightest look, and he tries his best to take it seriously.
“Of course,” he says gravely, and he earns another smile.
Diluc takes his time with the food, despite how hungry he is. The chicken is flaky and soft; the broth is thin but flavorful; the noodles are chewy. He really, really wants to meet this woman who has made such a delectable thing.
As he eats, a voice beside him pipes up, “What are you doing here?”
Diluc almost chokes on a carrot. He jumps, a little splash of soup leaping out of his bowl and onto his blanket. “Kaeya,” he sputters. “I thought you were asleep.”
“I was asleep,” Kaeya says. He sounds a bit less… drugged up than before, which is either good or bad and Diluc’s not sure. He props himself up on one elbow to look Diluc up and down, and his eyes land in particular on the IV in his hand. “You didn’t answer my question. Why are you…” he gestures, vaguely, to Diluc. “You know.”
“I just needed a nap,” Diluc says, because it’s not not true. Kaeya rolls his eyes.
“You did something stupid, didn’t you?”
Always right on the money. Diluc doesn’t answer.
“Are you hurt?” Kaeya asks then. Diluc shakes his head, which makes his vision swim a little.
“No, I… I fainted,” he corrects. “I’m fine.”
Kaeya snickers. “I would’ve liked to see that.”
“Well, forgive me for not waking you up. Considering it happened right here, though, I’m surprised you didn’t anyways.”
“Wait, really?” he asks. He sits up a bit more, and the cogs in his brain seem to turn. “How long have you been here, Diluc?”
Good fucking question. “Don’t worry about it,” Diluc mutters. He feels a prickle on the back of his neck as he’s scrutinized in a way he really, really does not appreciate.
“No, I’m going to worry about it.” Kaeya shifts and, to Diluc’s dismay, slides his legs out of the bed.
“What the hell are you doing?” He asks incredulously. “Stop it. Stop doing that.”
“Relax. I’m not going keel over,” Kaeya scoffs. He grabs his IV pole in one hand and makes his way to Diluc’s bed; stiffly, with that ever-present limp and an expression he tries hard to keep neutral. He sits on the edge and Diluc shifts his legs under the covers to accommodate him. They say nothing for a second, as Kaeya clenches and unclenches his hands, idly, in his lap.
“You look terrible, you know.” He says it like it’s small talk.
Diluc rolls his eyes. “I’d say the same about you.”
Another moment of quiet. Diluc can hear the distant click of a nun’s footsteps down the hallway. He thinks he can hear his own heartbeat if he focuses hard enough.
“You’ve been here for… how long, again?” Kaeya ventures. His voice is small.
“I don’t know,” Diluc murmurs, truthfully.
“Days?”
Damn, it’s weird to hear someone else say it. “Probably.”
“Because… you were worried.”
Diluc huffs. “Yes, Kaeya. I was worried about you. I’m still worried about you.”
“But why? Why would you waste your time on me?” He laughs, humorlessly, and it feels like a punch. “Why did you even save me?”
“What?” Genuinely bewildered, Diluc cocks his head. “What does that mean? Why wouldn’t I save you?” It almost angers him, how little sense Kaeya’s making. He’s pumped full of painkillers and recently traumatized, sure, but this?
“I thought you hated me,” Kaeya murmurs. He picks at the tape keeping his IV in place on his hand. For the first time in years, he wears an expression which Diluc finds totally unreadable — sad, amused; as if he has been let in on some sort of dramatic irony which Diluc remains ignorant of. “I thought we hated each other.”
“Do you hate me?” Diluc asks. He sets the dregs of his soup, now tepid, on the nightstand.
“...No,” Kaeya decides after a second of careful deliberation. He’s successfully peeled one corner of the tape and Diluc has half a mind to swat at his hand.
“Okay. So I don’t hate you,” Diluc asserts.
Kaeya looks up at him, his heterochromatic eyes filled with something vulnerable and eerie, something that Diluc still cannot place. Hiding oneself is a learned skill; for Kaeya, it seems innate.
“You should,” he murmurs. “I hurt you.”
He had, but over half a decade’s hindsight tells Diluc it couldn’t have been avoided. What Diluc had done, on the other hand, was unforgivable. Diluc shakes his head.
“I have no right to hate you, Kaeya. I couldn’t.”
Kaeya exhales — not a sigh, not a huff; just breath. Diluc wonders what it means. “Did you ever?”
“No.” Though in truth, he’s not sure. But he won’t say that. It doesn’t matter anymore.
“Okay,” Kaeya says. And that is that, at least for now.
It’s been years, Diluc thinks, since he and Kaeya have been in the same room together for this long. Granted, it’s not exactly the same when Kaeya’s unconscious most of the time. It feels… weird, nonetheless. Things have felt weird for days, and Diluc imagines they always will. Weird is an inevitable byproduct of situations like this; once the adrenaline wears off and a future feels possible again.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?” Diluc asks. A shot in the dark, maybe, but.
Kaeya pauses, and the room’s heart skips a beat. “I’m not sure,” he says.
“That’s okay.”
“I’ll try.”
“You don’t have to.”
Kaeya just hums. He stares at his feet, bare and planted on the floor like he might need to run at a moment’s notice. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so terrified in my entire life,” he begins. “Not even— not even that night.”
That night. “I understand,” Diluc says. He doesn’t, and that’s what kills him.
“I’ve been… I’ve been beat up before. I’ve broken a bone or two. I’ve…” He shudders and wraps an arm around his middle, a feeble self-comfort. “What they did, I, I know it happens to women sometimes. I’ve worked on cases like that, where some poor girl was taken advantage of. And it was terrible, but I felt like I could remove myself because that couldn’t, couldn’t happen to me.” He looks up again, and the expression on his face is haunting. “But it did, Diluc. It happened to me.”
Diluc says nothing. He couldn’t if he tried. He just clenches his jaw.
“It hurt. It hurt a lot but, but what was worse was that I felt… I don’t know. They asked me why I wasn’t fighting back but… they knew,” he whispers. A single, solitary tear traces the shape of his cheek and beads at his chin. “They knew I couldn’t, because they’d drugged me. A-and I was really scared, so I think even if they hadn’t I’d be too petrified to move. S, so they finished, and they beat me up some more after that, b-because that’s what they’d done before. And they left and, and for a while I thought they were going to leave me alone but—“
“Kaeya,” Diluc begs. He can’t stand this. “Please, you don’t have to say anymore.” He grabs Kaeya’s hand and he flinches, of course he fucking flinches but Diluc feels so, so selfish right now; like he is the one who needs comfort.
“I just wanted someone to save me,” Kaeya quavers.
…And Diluc’s heart is completely, irreparably smashed to pieces.
“I’m sorry.” It comes out as a choked sob. “I’m sorry I didn’t come for you sooner.”
He hates himself. He hates himself utterly. He is a terrible, terrible brother.
He wishes it’d been him instead.
Kaeya hiccups, and slowly, gingerly, wraps himself around Diluc’s torso. Suddenly, they are the children they had killed within themselves years ago.
Don’t cry, he tells himself. You need to be strong for Kaeya.
He cries anyway.
“It… it wasn’t your fault,” Kaeya whimpers, as if reading Diluc’s mind. His fingers press tighter into Diluc’s skin, and Diluc knows he deserves the crescent-moon-rents in his back that Kaeya does not intend to leave.
Whose was it, then? Diluc thinks, bitterly, as he buries his face in Kaeya’s hair. Jean’s, and the whole damn Knights, and maybe even the Archons themselves. At this point, though, he thinks much of it was his own.
In the morning, Barbara finally sends Diluc away.
“You can come back in a few days, once you’ve gotten proper rest and eaten a few warm meals,” Barbara says with a stern look on her face and her arms crossed. “He’ll be just fine in the meantime.”
Didn’t you tell me he’d need me? Diluc wonders.
Not in this sorry state, another part of his brain immediately reprimands him. You’re no use to him the way you are now.
Adelinde is nearly beside herself when he comes through the threshold of the Winery later that afternoon, in that special way only Adelinde ever is. He braces himself for calamity.
“Where in Teyvat were you, Master Diluc? You’ve been gone for days,” she hisses, discarding her broom against the wall and hurrying in his direction in a flurry of skirts and something very maternal. “I would have at least appreciated a note, you know.” She looks him up and down with both of her hands clasped on his shoulders, no doubt scrutinizing his disheveled appearance.
So she does not know, he thinks dully. He struggles to find words to explain himself that are not jarring and fails.
“Kaeya is… injured. I have been with him at the Cathedral,” he says, which is about as fine-toothed an explanation he can manage.
“Master Kaeya was hurt?” She gasps, slapping a hand over her mouth. “How? What happened? Is he alright?”
Diluc cringes at the barrage of questions, like one would in a gust of wind. “He’s okay… now,” he amends. “He was kidnapped. Barbara is tending to him.”
“What?”
He really does not want to do this, to be here, but of course Adelinde deserves to know. He just has a hard time stomaching it. “I don’t know how much I can tell you. He had an… unfortunate run-in with some Treasure Hoarders.” He feels absolutely sick to his stomach. “He’s fairing as well as can be expected, but seems to be in good spirits.”
“Really? That’s a relief,” Adelinde sighs, her shoulders visibly relaxing. “It’s good to hear he’s okay. You gave me quite a scare, you know.”
“I think he would not mind a visit from you, though, if you would like,” Diluc ventures. Adelinde doesn’t leave the property often — says she doesn’t need or want to, as often as Diluc suggests she does. But this seems like something she might deem important.
“Well, that goes without saying,” she huffs, like he figured she might. “Honestly, the trouble you boys get into — I thought you’d eventually grow out of it.”
“It appears not,” Diluc says, with a bit of a humorous smirk that teases a smile out of her.
Adelinde looks at her feet, and says, “I’m glad to know you’re looking after him. He needs you. And you need him too.”
The room is silent for a moment, save for the crackle of the fireplace and the distant creak of floorboards above them. It is a moment of grief, he thinks; for the life the four of them once had together.
You need him too. Diluc files those words away for later consideration, along with his paperwork. He doesn’t want to consider the implications now.
“Well,” Adelinde says, and it’s like the switch of a flip before she perks up. “I suppose I’ll have to bring him something to raise his spirits, no? Do you think he still likes lebkuchen?” She offers Diluc a smile, warm enough to melt a Snezhnayan winter deep-freeze. It makes him feel like a child again; good like a child again.
“I’m positive he’ll like anything you make him,” he assures her, because he knows it’s true, because it’s Adelinde. She beams.
“Then I better get baking,” she says. She… pauses, and looks at him, really looks at him and then she bears an expression of having forgotten something important. “Are you…” she starts. “How are you doing, Master Diluc?”
Ah. He should’ve expected this, yet he still feels the deep, uncomfortable prickle of being observed. He’s suddenly aware of how he must look, days of fatigue weighty on his face.
“I’m okay, Adelinde,” he says. He’s not sure if it’s true, if it’ll ever be true again, but he won’t say that. “Thank you for your concern.”
She hums, but she only sounds half-satisfied. “Very well,” she decides. “Oh, shall I draw you a bath?” Her eyebrows furrow again as she seems to survey him, and he feels an embarrassed flush creep across his cheeks. “I think you need it.”
“N-no thank you,” he stammers. “I’ll do it myself later.”
Being rich, he thinks, sometimes has its downsides — he’ll be babied for the rest of his life. Being an adult, however, means he gets to say no.
“Then I must return to the kitchen,” she says, and she doesn’t sound very sure of herself. “Let me know if you need anything, alright?”
“Thank you, Adelinde.” He does mean it; he just wishes she didn’t always insist on being his mother. That may have been the role she took when he was a boy, but that changed when Father died.
A lot changed when Father died.
Adelinde leaves, murmuring quietly to herself something he can’t hear but is no doubt about him. All alone in the foyer, as he listens to the muted crackle of the fire, he considers the backlog of paperwork he had missed.
Days pass. Diluc tries to settle into a routine.
He’s received no word from Barbara yet of Kaeya’s condition, and while he assumes that’s a good thing, he still aches for it desperately. Adelinde had left the morning after Diluc’s return, with her promised lebkuchen and one of their nicer (non-alcoholic) ciders, and came back later that afternoon with a nonspecific report about how “he seemed sad.”
Diluc considers making another trip out to see him, but decides against it. If his only reason for traveling hours to the city is to visit Kaeya, he will be inclined to stay. Diluc does not want a repeat of last time.
Yet it hurts.
Against what Barbara had advised of him, Diluc has spent the last several days buried in work: invoices, letters from prospective partners, et cetera, kill him, et cetera. It’s a habit he falls into easily; good for a businessman and bad for the human being he also, unfortunately, is. Work means he does not think about blood, fever, the terrified look in Kaeya’s eyes when Diluc tried to grab his hand.
He does, however, allow Adelinde to bring him sandwiches and tea at regular intervals, and tries to sleep even when he’d rather not. Burnout is an ever-present, looming threat he’d rather not deal with down the line because he has never, ever won.
So here he stays: locked away in his study, buried under a mountain of work that needed to be done anyhow. It’s better than pacing like an agitated dog, though at this point it’s tempting. He sneaks in rest, food, and water; and decides after a while that he is, indeed, not going to drop.
Three days after his return from the city, Diluc receives an envelope stamped Knights of Favonius in the wax seal, containing a curt summons to headquarters and absolutely nothing more. He nearly has a heart attack.
A quick gait brings him to Jean’s office in less than three hours. The sun is high and the merchants’ street is even more lively than usual, but Diluc just feels nauseous and overwhelmed. Knights he does not recognize greet him on his way up the steps, because they do, and he doesn’t respond. He couldn’t make himself if he wanted to.
Diluc turns two things over in his mind like smooth, tumbling stones: one, something might’ve happened to Kaeya. Two, he does not know if he’ll be able to control his anger when he comes face-to-face with Jean.
That damned, incompetent fool. Forget forgiveness, when Kaeya has been broken in such a way.
He approaches the door. He knocks. He hears from the other side, “Come in.”
He turns the handle.
“Thank you for coming,” Jean says, and…
She looks exhausted.
More than usual, of course. Her hair is uncharacteristically unkempt, as if she hasn’t taken it out of its ponytail in days, and heavy dark circles sit below her eyes. Her posture is slumped, fighting years of diligent training, and she fidgets with her hands on her desk. She nods to the chair already pulled up on his side of the room. Whether it’s guilt about Kaeya, or his case has simply become a bureaucratic nightmare and he was unaware; Diluc doesn’t feel particularly sympathetic.
“What did you want from me?” Diluc asks, almost a growl. He doesn’t sit.
“Right to the point as always,” she says with a tired chuckle. Diluc does not find it funny.
“Spit it out.”
“I wanted to apologize.” She folds her hands and does not make eye contact with him. “I know you are very angry that I did not bring Kaeya’s situation to your attention when I should have. I am well aware of your capabilities, and yet I didn’t utilize them. Because of that, Kaeya is hurt. I am very…” She takes a shaky breath. “Very sorry.”
Oh, come the fuck on.
“I don’t want your apology,” Diluc seethes. “That should be for Kaeya.”
“We both know he’d never accept it,” She replies, her voice soft.
He does, but that’s not the point. “It’s a matter of principle. Have you – have you visited him yet? Do you know what he went through?”
“Yes.”
“He was–”
“I know, Diluc,” and it cracks a little. “I know.”
“That,” he spits, “is on you.”
“I know.” It is almost a whisper.
Diluc stares her down. She shrinks under his gaze. He has never, ever seen that before.
He’s mad. Furious. Enraged, apoplectic. Yet he almost feels a bit guilty.
No, he thinks, she is a grown woman. She can handle my anger.
“I expect him to receive financial compensation for your negligence,” he starts, reading from the laundry list he wrote in his head days ago when he first found Kaeya. “A raise. Paid leave. Both.”
“Of course,” she says. She doesn’t indicate surprise.
“I’d also hope you don’t intend on sending him home to be by himself when he is discharged, do you? At the very least, he will need physical assistance,” Diluc continues. “And you know as well as I do what else might happen should we leave him alone.”
Jean nods, with a look like she’d chewed on a bitter memory. “I’ll ask around. Albedo or Amber might be interested in boarding him, seeing how much they’ve insisted on helping out in the investigation.”
Investigation? What is there to investigate? He killed them all, and she knows this. “Fine,” he says, instead of bringing that up. “As incompetent as the Knights are, I trust you to at least help him be comfortable.”
Diluc does not feel like he can forgive her. He cannot imagine a future in which he can. At the same time, he does not know how much good it’s doing him.
“I’ll make sure of it.”
One day at a time, he thinks.
After his meeting with Jean, Diluc heads to the Cathedral.
Three days. The world can change in less, so he doesn’t know what to expect.
To his relief, Kaeya at least doesn’t look any worse than he did. Better is stretching it, but it’s been a little while; and incremental progress seems to have been made. To top it off, the room is… decorated.
“I see you’ve received other visitors,” Diluc notes as he scans the several gift baskets, flower vases, and get well soon cards populated on every conceivable surface in the otherwise empty infirmary. He pulls up that same abused wooden chair and sits by Kaeya’s bed. Resuming his post.
Kaeya smiles a thin line, tired-looking but pleased. Diluc notices Kaeya’s eye is once again covered, though the new eyepatch is more medical and less campy. “I was surprised myself. Let’s see — Noelle baked me cookies; Bennett and Razor picked apples, and…” He reaches over to the nightstand, brushing his hand past a vase of cecelias (his Chief-Alchemist- fling Albedo’s gift, no doubt) and snags a construction-paper-card with various doodles on the front, including some cats and what he recognizes as Klee’s little rabbit Dodocco. “The girls pitched in, too.”
Diluc can’t help but smile, just a little. “You’re quite popular.”
“But I see someone’s come empty-handed.” Kaeya tosses away the card and sinks back into his pillows, crossing his arms.
Diluc hmphs. “Apologies, but this was a last-minute idea on my part. I just came from Jean’s office.”
Kaeya looks surprised. “Really? And what was it that she had to say to you?”
He thinks back to their conversation less than an hour before, and decides less details are better — though he will tell the truth. “It was about the investigation into your kidnapping,” he says, and immediately the air shifts to something more somber.
“Ah,” Kaeya murmurs, “I should’ve guessed.” He reaches for a lock of his long, loose hair and twirls it around a finger idly. It’s greasy, Diluc realizes; he can’t imagine how long it’s been since Kaeya’s been able to wash it.
“Yes,” Diluc says, “I’ve seen to it that you will spend the remainder of your medical leave after your discharge with one of your colleagues, until you get back on your feet.”
“W-what?” Kaeya stammers. “Come now, Diluc, that’s unnecessary. I am fine to take care of myself.” The strand of hair catches around his finger and he tugs. His eye is blown wide, probably letting on more than he intends to.
“You certainly are not. I know how you get when you’re sad and left to your own devices. I’m not taking that risk” He shudders internally, as unsavory memories of Kaeya’s trashed apartment and blood-lacquered bathroom tile bubble to the surface of his mind.
“Things are different now,” Kaeya protests. “It’s been years since my last… well. Point is, I’m an adult. I’m not a basket case.”
“I never said you were.” Diluc leans forward, his forearms on his knees as he searches Kaeya’s face for eye contact he won’t make. “Nevermind your mental state — and to be clear, I would not expect anyone to be alright after an event like this — but you may need help with tasks you might otherwise not. There are people who can help you, Kaeya. You need it.”
“I don’t need it,” he mumbles, like a petulant child — Kaeya may be grown, but such a temperament never seemed to go away. “I am fine on my own.”
Diluc eyes the crutches propped against the wall by his bed. “You can’t even walk by yourself.”
“Damn you.” Kaeya sinks further back into the pillows.
“I don’t say it to belittle you,” Diluc says softly. He settles a hand on Kaeya’s knee, and thanks the Archons he doesn’t flinch. Progress. “It’s Just a fact right now. You’ll be back in shape in no time.”
He’s not actually sure about that, but Kaeya doesn’t need to know. He probably senses it’s not true either.
“Has anyone volunteered to deal with me yet?” Kaeya asks, picking at one of his cuticles. He still refuses to meet Diluc’s eyes.
“No one will be dealing with you, Kaeya,” he corrects sternly. What a mess he is. “And no. But I’m sure lots of people would be happy to. Who knows — perhaps the Chief Alchemist is interested.”
Kaeya’s face flushes pink. “Shut up.”
Diluc smiles. “My point is, you are cared for. So don’t self-deprecate so much.”
Kaeya hums. Whether he takes it to heart, Diluc doesn’t know. He studies his hands, still bandaged up but finally free of an IV catheter. “Say,” he begins, “did you kill all of the Treasure Hoarders at the Thousand Winds Temple?
Diluc is taken aback by the sudden change of tone. The phantom stench of seared human fat and blood permeates the room for a brief second.
“Yes, I did,” he admits. He remembers the agonized contortion of their faces. “I had to.”
He didn’t. He could just as easily have incapacitated all of them, restrained them, and called upon the Knights to clean up after him — they would've had to anyways, were they dead or alive. No, he had made a deliberate choice. He’ll see to his punishment for that choice one day.
Kaeya is silent. His eyes dart around the room at his various bounties, their beauty which does not make up for Kaeya’s suffering, nor does it quell the awful feeling in Diluc’s gut.
“Good,” Kaeya says.
Diluc had felt that way only days ago. Now, though, he just feels sad.
“Maybe.”
They’re quiet again for a long time, or maybe only a minute. Diluc notices, for the first time, the ticking of a clock high up on the wall. The more he pays attention to it, the more bothersome he finds it.
Retribution is an aesthetic, an ideal, that Diluc has chased his entire adult life. It had started with Father’s death and snowballed until he found himself slaughtering Fatui in Snezhnaya, whose only crimes had been patriotism; or perhaps accepting the promise of a better life. Retribution is justice, and justice, theoretically, means the damage goes away. But it did not bring back Father.
What had the Treasure Hoarders thought, when they’d taken Kaeya and abused him half to death? Did that give them back the artifacts they’d lost?
And when Diluc had killed them all, had he, on some level, thought it’d undo Kaeya’s suffering?
It felt good. Mostly. There was another part of him that felt just— just sick. When he thinks about it now, the more disgusted he feels.
Good. Diluc wonders about that.
“I enjoyed Adelinde’s gifts,” Kaeya says after a while. Diluc blinks.
“Oh. Uh, that’s good. I’m glad.”
“Yes,” he agrees. “I missed her.” Then, quieter: “I missed you.”
Something in Diluc has yearned to hear that for years. It doesn’t feel real; and yet it feels right.
“Me too.”
He hears of Kaeya’s discharge a week after his last visit. It is indefinite and comes packaged with paid medical leave at Amber's apartment; a pair of crutches and a bottle of painkillers; and a stern warning to take it easy. He learns this from Rosaria, up on a rooftop, when they bump into each other during their respective shifts as nighttime vigilantes. He hears it from her, because has not seen Kaeya since that afternoon.
He doesn’t mean to not visit him again — he’s been caught up in work, and running the angel’s share, and his aforementioned vigilante gig. And Kaeya has clearly gotten plenty of visitors during his stay at the Cathedral, so that he’s not worried about. Still, he feels it as an ache in his sternum, something he is missing that he, before, went years without. The withdrawal of an addict, or perhaps someone who has learned how to love again.
One afternoon, before his shift at the Angel’s share, he spots Amber chatting with someone at the conjunction of one street and another. When they part ways, Diluc approaches her.
“Oh, Master Diluc!” She smiles in that infectious way she does; this time it almost gets on his nerves, though he has no good reason for it. “ I haven’t seen you in ages! how are you?”
“Fine.” He clears his throat. Maybe that’s the answer she was looking for; most likely not. “I hear you have Kaeya.”
The atmosphere shifts almost unnoticeably. “Right,” she says. “I take it you’d like an update?”
“If you would.”
Amber nods. “Well, he seems okay. Better, at least, since he’s not bedridden anymore. But It’s… hard for him. I mean, I don’t want to speak on his behalf, but I can tell. One of us stays at the house with him at all times, in case he needs help with anything – and he does, but he never admits it. Little things, like getting stuff from the kitchen. Um, at night, I’ve been waking up to his screaming.”
The sun hides behind a cloud. The air is suddenly cold.
“I don’t know exactly what happened to him out there,” she continues, though Diluc’s only half-listening, “But I know how hard it’s been, and I… I don’t know how to help him, you know? I don’t want to think he can’t be helped, I just…” She sighs. “He’s, like, one of my best friends. I don’t want to see him hurting like that.”
Diluc agrees, or the vague part of him that paid any attention does. Kaeya excels at making himself unnecessarily miserable; he just doesn’t know how much it pains everyone else.
That he has people to watch out for him…
“Thank you,” Diluc murmurs. “You don’t know how much you’re doing means.”
Peculiar, how emotional he’s become recently. It feels good.
Amber blushes. “Really? I mean, I, I don’t know how to—“
“No,” he asserts. “It’s not about knowing how. it’s about being there.”
He remembers the little stories Kaeya used to tell him over a glass of Death After Noon, about going on patrol in the Whispering Woods or losing match after match of TCG against her; and Diluc would catch a glimpse of a rare, real smile. That, he values more than anything.
Diluc does not have friends; Kaeya needs them like water.
Amber, after a second, cracks a wry grin. “You know, Master Diluc, you’re much more of a softie than people take you for.”
Now it’s his turn to blush. Goddamnit. “Ah. I’ll have to work on that.”
“What? No, you don’t!” She exclaims, clapping him on the shoulder like a drunk uncle would his nephew at a family reunion — humorously unfitting for a small girl like herself. “I like it. It suits you. Plus, maybe Klee would be less nervous around you if you weren’t so… sullen.”
“Klee’s nervous around me?” He echoes. He can’t imagine that kid being scared of anything, much less him. “I thought she just prefers Kaeya.”
“She does . Because she’s nervous around you. Also, because he’s Albedo’s boyfriend.”
Well, that would make— wait, what? “You’re kidding,” he says in disbelief. “I didn’t think they were there yet.”
“Okay, maybe I’ve jumped the gun a bit — but they may as well be.” She does a little twirl, bouncing on her heels. Energy he does not have. “Archons, they need a wingman already.”
“I’ll say.” He feels like a teenager, gossiping about other people’s love lives. It’s ridiculous, and yet strangely freeing.
“Well, the duties of a Knight know no end — I think I must be going,” Amber announces, and offers a playful salute. “See you around?”
Diluc does not have friends. He does not have time for friends. Although…
“Certainly,” he says. “See you.”
When they part ways, Diluc notices how warm the afternoon has become.
Two weeks after his discharge, Kaeya comes to the Tavern.
It’s a slow night, which Diluc tends to prefer. A few blackout-drunk regulars and the gentle creak of the floorboards are its only customers, and Diluc is behind the bar, washing dishes. It’s peaceful; liminal.
Then, the bell above the door chimes.
He almost looks the way he did, before everything happened. The bruises on his face and neck have all but faded, and he doesn’t walk with crutches anymore — Diluc does notice, however, a slight limp. His clothes are a bit plain, likely because his usual attire had been soiled with blood weeks ago; but he wears it well. He has no doubt that under them, Kaeya is wrapped in bandages.
“Good evening, Diluc,” Kaeya says, with the same well-performed smile as always. Old habits die hard, Diluc supposes; and Kaeya is nothing if not stubborn. “I had hoped you were working tonight.”
“Kaeya.” He tries to say it even-toned. His heart skips a beat.
Kaeya strolls to the bar and slides into his seat. “Just a dandelion wine, please, thank you.” He rests his chin on his palm and stares, something of an amused expression on his face as his eye pierces Diluc’s. “Put it on my tab.”
Diluc eyes him. “Should you be drinking?”
Kaeya’s physical safety is not Diluc’s primary concern. Alcohol and Kaeya have a vice grip on each other on most days, and a perverse, symbiotic relationship on particularly bad ones. After an ordeal such as this, which he’d like to think is over, Diluc’s not sure Kaeya can control himself.
Kaeya raises both hands. “Just the one, I promise. Then you can boot me out.”
Diluc huffs. “It’s not that I don’t want your company,” he says, reaching under the counter for the wine. “I just won’t let you medicate yourself with booze.”
Kaeya hmms, and Diluc thinks the ghost of a sad smile creeps onto his face. “I suppose I can’t convince you that I can handle myself?”
“You can handle yourself.” Diluc pours the drink and slides it across the table. Kaeya intercepts the stem of the glass with two delicate fingers. “You just need help. And you’d find that the people who love you are more than happy to give it.”
Kaeya looks… Diluc can’t tell. Disappointed, maybe; or ashamed. He swirls the wine around in his glass and brings it to his lips.
“You know,” he starts, gazing at something invisible behind the bar, “I’m glad you saved me. Grateful. But sometimes…” He trails off. “I wish you hadn’t, because it made being alive miserable.”
The room stills. Kaeya’s expression is something awful and melancholy.
“I don’t intend to ‘take things into my own hands,’ if you will.” He laughs humorlessly. “I tried that years ago. But… Well. It’s tiring. I feel tired, Diluc. I can’t sleep, or eat, and I– God, I feel their hands on me. All the fucking time.”
Diluc stares, dumbfounded. Kaeya tips his head back and swallows the rest of his wine all in one go, like a shot. It’s so frighteningly unlike him that Diluc feels nauseous.
“I know how badly Amber wants to help,” he continues after wiping his mouth, sloppily. “But she can’t. She can’t take away the nightmares. She can’t make me want to eat. I see the way she looks at me, the look in her eyes, and…” He trails off. “I feel worthless. She doesn’t deserve to have to deal with me.”
“You’re not worthless,” Diluc almost-snaps, but it’s not angry – just upset. He reaches his hand across the counter to retrieve the wine glass, slow and steady as if to pet a skittish horse; though he doesn’t touch Kaeya. He’d said he wouldn’t do anything, but… “It’s not your fault. It’s going to take time, and a little effort, and if you can’t give that effort right now I understand. Just…”
Just what? What more can he possibly ask of his brother, who saw Hell and still thinks he’s in it? He sighs, utterly lost.
“I love you. I have always loved you. If there’s one thing I can offer you it’s that, and it’s unconditional. I hope you can say the same for me, but after everything I’ve done to you, I understand if you can’t.” He smiles, tears welling up in his eyes because damn it, there’s a part of him that needs to more than anything. “I just want you to know I do.”
Kaeya stares at the table. The floorboards still creak with their phantom footsteps, echoing the day’s busy shoes. Diluc wonders how many times Kaeya’s feet have walked a straight line to this bar, days upon weeks upon years for a glass of wine and the silent company of a brother he thought despised him.
“I feel guilty,” Kaeya says, quietly, vulnerably. A single tear falls, without sound, on the countertop. “I don’t deserve to be loved. It’s as if I’ve tricked you.”
“You haven't,” Diluc murmurs. “I’m your brother. You’re no good at tricking me.”
Kaeya sobs a half-chuckle. He sniffs, and rubs his face with the heel of his palm. “I suppose I’m not.”
Diluc smiles. He leans across the counter and takes Kaeya’s hand. Cold, but Diluc is warm. Diluc will be there for him, because he wasn’t before.
“Barbatos, you’re clingy,” Kaeya mutters, but he doesn’t draw his hand away. Diluc’s smile breaks into a grin.
Diluc has spent much of his life in cold, self-inflicted misery. He could not control the fact that it had rained when Father died, yet it was his choice to stand in the wet, soaked and covered in blood which was not his own. It was his choice to leave for Snezhnaya; to abandon everything he knew for revenge that could never, ever bring him satisfaction.
He knows what it’s like to be aimless. He also has hands to guide.
The Tavern is warm. The summer breeze is warm.
The world is nice, he thinks, when one shares it with people they love.
“Help me close this place up, will you?” Diluc asks. “I’ll walk you home.”