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He doesn’t know where he’s going. His feet hit the floor in a disjointed rhythm as he runs, and he mistakenly matches his breathing to the sound. Every muscle tenses, every shadow becomes ten times his size- Kaeya is running for his life, again, because it had to happen at some time.
Albedo… told them. The person he trusted most had turned him in, outed him for what he truly was, and there was no time to hide before the city was ablaze. Everyone knew him, so when everyone knew, there was nowhere left to turn.
He saw Albedo standing in the stairwell just before it all went to shit. Was it… was it something that he said? Their eyes had seemed as gentle as ever, blue as the sky with the special film that reminded him so much of home. He thought… he thought they loved him too.
When he needed a reason to stay in Mondstadt, it was always Albedo that came to mind. When he couldn’t sleep at night, it was their hands that ran through his damp hair and dried his tears, their mouth that left precious, silent promises resting on his eyelids as he reminded himself how to breathe. The mark on their neck and the constellation in his own eyes made them the same. Kaeya loved them- he loved them, more than anything.
So when the streets were on fire, he never looked to his lover for the match. He would never expect something so cruel from someone who tasted like cinnamon and the sun. Maybe, just maybe, they had their reasons; but you can’t unburn what’s already laid in ash, and you can’t turn back time even if it could save your life. The archons have never been kind to him.
Kaeya clenches his fists as he runs, nails digging into his palm to keep him sane. They were both from that city, all that time ago, both products of the nation in bloom. So why would they paint him a villain for a destiny he doesn’t control? And why did no one question it, after all he’s done to prove fate wrong?
He gave up everything. He pushes down the thoughts of Khaenri’ah every fucking day, deep into the pits of his stomach to hide, where they can’t make him hurt even himself. His home, his people, his family, he leaves them behind every day, consciously, again and again, to make peace with the light. He’s not a sinner by anything but blood. He’d never rather be a traitor than dead.
And yet the streets were filled with it, the woods are filled with it, his ears are filled with it- the people he protects every day push him out of the walls and into the dark, away from his life, his loss, his love. Mondstadt was all he had. And even they can’t love him when he comes with that truth.
He pauses behind a tree to cough, and throws up bitterness and blood.
They’d gotten hands on him before he left the door, every person he’d ever helped spitting in his face with sticks and bats and fists. It wasn’t the worst kind of pain, second to the bleeding heart thumping desperately in his chest, but he can feel the cracks in his ribs now, and in the moonlight he can see the cuts in his skin. Fresh wounds call the wolves. So he stands up straight, and presses on- ignoring the ache in his legs.
His nose drips salt-sweet blood into his mouth as he runs, and he wipes it onto his shirt. Uniform regulations don’t seem like they’ll apply again. He just wishes he could’ve said goodbye.
He knows Albedo isn’t leading the pack, can’t hear their gentle voice among the crowd, but he feels like every blow was them, and them, and them again. Part of him wants to scream betrayal, take back the time he gave, take back it all. The other is just sore. Too many heartbreaks to bear for a fragile frame. He doesn’t think he’ll make the night at this rate.
That is, until he sees a green glow in the distance- it seems ironic that, in his darkest time, Barbatos would be the one to guide Khaenri’ah’s sinner prince. But he sees Venti’s (of course it’s Venti’s) form in the light, and he runs again.
The landform feels familiar under his feet, through the sweat and tears streaming in his eyes. He sees crystalflies dance like fallen stars, and at the sight of no tree above, Kaeya freezes, stumbling to the ground. He knows where he is. He remembers it from the first time, running less alone, all those years ago.
He remembers, climbing to his feet at the growing human thunder approaching, his father, pressing his hand to the statue with a frown, before kissing his forehead and that sad, sad smile- he’ll never forget. It was ink-dark, shadows and traces of elemental energy chasing them in the wind, and he thought he’d never be that scared again. Seems this spot is always meant to be afraid.
He doesn’t think- he just runs. Kaeya knows that if he stops he will die, and despite everything he’s done to himself, he can’t let everything he’s done go to waste. He can’t be snuffed out like this, burying his bones with no name on a weathered grave. He doesn’t know anything much, but he knows he can’t die. He can’t watch a stranger with his lover’s face put Khaenri’ah’s last flame out.
As he jumps off the cliff face, he sees everything important happen at once- he feels Albedo’s lips, his father’s hands, Jean’s presence, his own first blade. It all crushes his brain before he hits the ground, so when he does, he forgets he isn’t dead. He’s sat with broken bones in a vineyard, drinking in candlelight, while people cry for his head in the dark. The feeling in his chest is almost hilarity- heady just above the shattered ribs.
He peels himself from the floor once more, biting back tears as every inch of his body screams in pain. He’s made it this far. And if this is where it ends, at least he’ll know it’s good and proper. If there’s a torch at the door, he’ll happily pour the gasoline.
Seconds are agony as he drags his limbs over the stone wall, stumbling once, twice, and more again, on the cobblestones that he remembers holding the sun’s warmth. It’s been too long to remember where to put his feet. He just prays, one way or another, that someone’s home.
There’s complete silence at the winery. The guitarist has fallen asleep, he presumes, and there’s no company but the rasp of his own breath. He holds it as he taps, once, twice. He lets silence decide his fate.
And the door opens.
“Kaeya?”
In fireside light, there is a villain or a victim. Diluc’s eyes are wide with concern, and he seems frozen to the spot, his fingers twitching like they used to back then. His easiest tell.
And he doesn’t know what to do, so he smiles.
“Hey, Diluc,” he croaks, throat bruised from boots and ropes. “I… didn’t know where else to go.”
The other man steps back, horror clear on his face. Kaeya sighs. He supposes this is it. He apologises mentally to whoever might have watched over him all this time, and closes his eyes tight.
But the impact never comes.
“Kaeya,” Diluc breathes, and it comes out choked, like a sob. “What did they do to you?”
Strong arms lift him, gently, from where he’s about to collapse onto the floor, and pull him into a hug that almost burns from the chill of outside cold. He feels Diluc’s chest heave, and knows, just like then, that he’s doing everything he can to not cry.
He rests his head in the crook of Diluc’s neck, where he used to lay when they were kids. “They know,” Kaeya whispers, and he feels Diluc start to shake. “They all know.”
Still holding him with one hand, like he might break if Diluc lets go, the door is closed and bolted behind him, and he’s moved to near the fire, placed oh-so-gently on the rug that they picked out age 5. It’s not as soft now. He still sees the stains on the side.
“I’m sorry.” Diluc mutters it into his back like he’s been waiting years to let the words out, like they mean everything and nothing all at once. “I’m so sorry, Kae.”
His eyes well up at the old nickname, and he tries to laugh, but it comes out like a sob. “It was only a matter of time, Luc. It was bound to happen.” He chokes up. “I just… wasn’t ready yet.”
The arms around his bruised body tighten, as though they’re trying to keep the rest of the world out, like all they want is to keep him safe. Diluc hasn’t spoken to him like a person since he was 18, and yet now, at 24, his brother is the softest he’s ever been.
Brother. He hasn’t thought that word in years- he pushed it down with everything else, because he knew he didn’t deserve it- and yet now, with scarred hands rubbing his back and avoiding the burns he put there six years ago, it’s the only one that feels right.
The silence stretches, and he only breaks it to cry, sobs slipping out of his mouth before he can stop them. Diluc doesn’t say a word, Diluc doesn’t move- he just sits there, on the floor of their old home, and holds him tight. It’s awful, and somehow the best thing that he’s had in years. He’s mourning two lives while another reopens, and it’s too much, too much.
“I never hated you,” Diluc whispers, and Kaeya just listens. “I was just scared. You didn’t deserve it. You.. fuck, you don’t deserve this. I'm so sorry, Kaeya.”
His brother has never been easy to read, but he knows the words are truly said down to his toes. It’s terrifying, feeling like this. He thinks Diluc knows it well.
“You’re not like... You're not, what they think you are, whatever they think it all means. I know that, now at least.” Diluc talks like the air is made of glass. Kaeya’s bones feel more fragile every day. “It’s not your fault. It’s not. I can’t… I won’t. I won’t let you feel that again.”
From his brother’s arms, he’s reminded of bitter times- he remembers Diluc’s return, and the heat in his gaze; he remembers the chill of nightfall. He remembers the silence at the bar, once even Venti had gone home, and hearing words in floor creaks that he wanted, needed to share. He isn't angry. He can't feel anything but pain, right now, and he’s grateful that Diluc accepts his silence. He sniffles weakly into the sweet smelling air.
He doesn’t know how long they sit there, holding each other like they’ll both fall apart. He feels like a little kid again, wrapped up in his brother’s bed on cold nights- he never forgot how easily Diluc made the cold feel alright. He feels like, now, maybe the cold was him.
And he almost, almost forgets how he got here, how this happened, until Diluc tries to move him and he screams. His legs are still bent at those almost impossible angles, blood dripping from the seams, and suddenly it’s all very, very real. He forgot he was going to die. He doesn't want to die- he can't, not now.
“Fuck, fuck, I’m so sorry- holy fuck, Kaeya, your leg!” Diluc looks like he might be sick, thrown out of his warm haze and back into the harshness of reality. “Archons, I don't…. How…. what did they do to you?”
Kaeya smiles weakly. “Easier to ask what they didn’t, I think.”
Diluc doesn't smile back. He carefully, so so carefully, unwraps himself from his brother, and runs towards the kitchen, returning with a first aid kit from their old play days. He’s visibly sweating, brow furrowed so much that it looks like it might just stay that way. It makes him feel sick.
Gently, he pushes up the fabric on Kaeya’s right leg, and gags. He’s met with blood, blood, and more blood, mashed in with the skin to create a monster, bruising appearing where there’s no real place for them to form, and Kaeya knows without him saying that it’s worse than anything he’s seen. He glances at his arm, slashed nearly in two so he can see the white of his bone, and down at the ongoing ache in his ribs, and he sighs. Kaeya knows- he knows how this is going to end.
He tries to shrug off his shirt to assess the damage, but can’t move his shoulder- it seems not a single part of his body was left unscathed. With Diluc’s guidance, he just about manages, but wishes he hadn’t. The air is hot on already sweaty skin, and it’s the first time he notices the burns have layered up. Fuck.
Part of his chest is sizzling, actually sizzling, like it’s still on fire, right above one of his old scars- Diluc stares at it wordlessly, moving his hand to rest on the space below it that’s unmarked. “Oh, Kaeya,” he breathes, but he’s cut off, a hand on his knee.
“Don’t. I know. I… I know.”
He watches as his brother's eyes fall helplessly to every cut and bruise, desperately ignoring the blood pooling on the floor- he sees those strong, capable hands still to inaction, and he knows there’s nothing anyone can do. Diluc has never seemed so lost, and Kaeya knows from that alone that this is it.
So Diluc holds him, and he cries, for the first time in years, and Kaeya can’t cry now because one of them has to be okay, so he threads his hand through the matted red ponytail and lets his brother bury his sobs in his chest. “I’m sorry” comes with every breath, “I love you” with the next, and it feels like his whole body is on fire. He didn’t want it to happen like this. He wants there to be something to say.
But there’s nothing- no words will fill the holes, the cuts, the burns, no sentiment will fix a pain this big. So he just moves his hand with his breaths, up and down in Diluc’s hair like a song, and when he smells steak and cheese in the air, he supposes it’s time to go.
His hand stops. Time freezes. And everyone in Mondstadt hears the scream.