Chapter Text
Kaeya continued rattling off, matching the bard tune for tune. Like in everything, Kaeya had half the talent and twice the heart.
Even now when Diluc looked at him he could never shake that image of the young boy who could barely stand forcing himself out of the mansion into daylight, afraid of the way its rays leaked in through the windows. At the time, Diluc thought Kaeya would not make the month let alone live to torment half of Mondstadt’s underbelly with his frost-bitten sword.
Over the years it became apparent the boy his father took in was more than capable, beating Diluc in chess after only playing for an eighth of the time Diluc had spent learning the game. If Diluc was angry then, it became a blazing fire when he heard his father ask Kaeya why he lost on purpose the past year.
Diluc’s fury took on a mind of its own and even now he could remember flinging the door open to snap his fist to Kaeya’s jaw. Diluc remembered feeling shocked when Kaeya made no effort to dodge. Then ashamed as his father chided him and he realized it had not been a matter of effort. Kaeya could not dodge.
Somehow, Kaeya took it harder. Like he made the gravest error in losing to Diluc’s surprise attack. So he trained. Relentlessly. Until his body was as sharp as his tongue and he could match Diluc punch for punch. It had always seemed strange because Diluc was a knight-in-training of course-
He couldn’t lose to a knight of Mondstadt. Not as a traitor.
This happened every so often—a childhood memory interrupted by a clarity only afforded through hindsight. Of signs he should have seen.
Still, he couldn’t find a reason for Kaeya’s laughter during their spars. For his smiling apologies when he used his wit to anger Diluc into a misstep. Perhaps that was why he could remember the satisfaction of shutting Kaeya’s mouth even ten years later.
“Oh, something seems to have amused you. Please share, Master Diluc,” the object of Diluc’s ire drawled. He sat there on his same barstool, where he came night after night to drink and chat with everyone and no one at the same time.
People as popular as Kaeya rarely sat at the lonely bar. No, they usually crowded around the tables with cheer. Occasionally hopeless recruits or fawning fans would leave an empty seat with the hope of luring the captain to their table.
He would wave, chat, flirt—but Kaeya always started and ended his nights at the bar.
Another behavior without reason. Perhaps he just remembers most things in Angel’s Share can be heard from behind the bar.
Kaeya would not though. Because none of that mattered to him, in the end, did it? Not enough to keep his secret just a little longer for Diluc’s sanity and not enough to leave this town once he brought it crashing down around Diluc.
“None of your business,” Diluc returned dryly, his heart thudding in his chest. It always felt like Kaeya knew about that split second where Diluc wondered if this insult would finally break the relationship he clung to for all these years. That was Diluc, a paradigm of contradictions, clinging while pressing a knife in. Waiting for Kaeya to arrive then only wishing him gone.
“Come now, that’s no way to treat your patron,” Kaeya smirked. As if Diluc told him the weather instead of the fact that Kaeya had no business in his life.
Diluc felt his fingers tighten around the glass, going a bit numb at the tips. No, Kaeya never cared either way had he? Diluc needed the constant reminder—needed to remember this man was no more a brother than Venti was a simple bard.
“Patrons pay their tabs on time and don’t sneak upstairs at night,” Diluc said, letting his lips jerk in a small smirk at Kaeya’s scowl.
“That was one time.”
“I don’t know, I’ve seen rumblings,” Diluc said, sneaking an eye at the bard who suddenly seemed very interested in Rosaria—his most faithless nun.
How the two of them got along, Barbados knows. Diluc wrinkled his nose at the thought of praying to the chatting boy. Cursing to the archons was a habit and a pastime, but Venti somehow ruined that one for Diluc too.
“Oh? Two can play at that. I saw Master Darknight Hero sneaking into Daw-“
Diluc slammed a death after noon down in front of Kaeya with a tight smile. Kaeya just laughed. The way it filled Diluc’s lungs with familiarity and warmth, despite the knight’s icy nature, hurt.
Kaeya always hurt.
Diluc was about to bury it in another snide comment Kaeya could act like didn’t bother him in the slightest please let it be an act when the temperature of the tavern plummeted.
Diluc saw his gasp in the air, frigid and white. The glass in his hand froze, shattering before he could even process anything beyond the ringing in his ears. The sound filled the room, echoing within the stalagmites of ice watching them from above.
Diluc’s eyes snapped to the two cryo users as he felt his knees buckle as the temperature continued to tetter towards subzero. Venti and Rosaria both crouched down, respective elements swirling around them protectively. He couldn’t bring his eyes to the figure that had not moved.
Diluc felt his lungs construct as the temperature dropped further. The patrons were freezing. Literally.
It took longer than it should’ve for the Pyro to come to him, but he was over the counter.
“Everyone out!” He yelled and somehow the blaze of warmth surging from him and his call was enough to spur others into action.
The few patrons left in the middle of the night scurried out aside from himself, Venti, Rosaria, and Kaeya. Rosaria took one look at the two of them, then took her leave as well. Diluc nodded–someone needed to guard from the outside and check on the patrons. Despite her brash personality, the nun was always reliable.
Diluc whipped around, ready to scream at Kaeya because what the hell was on his mind when the look on his face stopped in, embers of rage so easily stoked in him dying out in an instant.
“Not now,” Venti whispered, drawing closer but not close enough to disturb the light snow falling to dust Kaeya’s shoulders. Diluc narrowed his eyes, looking at the bard who knew so much but always said so, so little.
“What not now?” Diluc asked, voice harsh in the cold. Venti had no eyes for him, instead, he called a gust of air in his palm, sending it toward the cryo user only for it to part around him. That same shield of ice flickered into existance—one Diluc had not seen Kaeya call since the night he got his vision.
It was only then that Diluc noticed Kaeya’s hands fisted in his hair, so tightly that he might rip it out. He was gasping, body writing in convulsions.
Tears leaked out of Kaeya’s eyes and it struck Diluc that this was probably one of the only times he had ever seen Kaeya cry. Even afraid of something as harmless as the sun, Kaeya shook but he never cried.
The mumblings became louder, but as he listened it was clear that it was not the common tongue or any language from Mondstadt. In fact, despite all his travels, it was not a language Diluc knew.
From the words pouring out of the bard’s mouth, it was one he clearly knew.
Khanri’ahn.
His words got louder and suddenly Venti was there, hands pressing against the shield as Kaeya fully started begging now.
It was one word, over and over one word, Kaeya spoke as he begged.
Diluc did not know what their words meant, but he knew them all the same. That shield and the way Kaeya’s voice cracked, eye shinning with all the stars in the sky as the other poured blood–it was not a sight he would forget.
Kaeya is afraid. Kaeya is hurt.
For some reason, that’s all he needed to call his Claymore and reach out to the power of his vision. To give into the urge to protect that he tried to pretend did not exist after the night he betrayed it. Venti snapped around, cape billowing around his shoulders as his eyes blew wide.
The spear at his neck was nothing compared to the way Kaeya’s entire body flinched from him as that star-struck eye quivered.
He is afraid of me.
Before Diluc could do or say anything, Kaeya fell off the barstool, knees hitting the floor as he put his forehead to the floor and grasped at his chest.
Quivers shook his entire body, blood staining his cheeks as it ran like tears from underneath his eyepatch. Diluc had only caught a glimpse of it once through ice and ruin and night.
Gold and starlight he made sure to rip through. So that he could never witness the brand that marked Kaeya as different again. Diluc still remembered the soft smile Barbra gave him when he asked if scar tissue from years ago was repairable. Pity he didn't deserve.
Diluc’s heart dropped with the air, impossibly so that it could get even colder. Kaeya lurched forward and crimson stained his tan lips. Far too much of it was seeping into his wine-stained floors.
Venti was saying something, pleading in that language as Diluc glared at Rosaria. She always did appear out of nowhere.
“I’m burning through it- he’s dying,” Diluc said, his voice even somehow through the haze in his mind and the spear against his throat.
“You won’t take another step toward him with that,” Rosaria snapped, eyes narrowing. As if he was more of a threat than the blood pouring from Kaeya’s mouth.
As if that very shield of cryo’s existence wasn’t proof enough of my sins.
Before Diluc could do anything a loud crack echoed throughout the room. Venti stood with his bow, a beautiful blue thing shivering from where it had just been plucked by its master's hands.
Diluc and Rosaria could only look because this, this was what the freedom of Mondstadt was built from.
Anemo swirled the little bits of pyro escaping from Diluc. The cracks continued until Kaeya’s shield shattered, blending into the light snow falling around their figures. Venti lowered his bow, snapping it away with a move far too aggressive for his cheery personality.
Except he didn’t look like Venti now, mouth set in anger as Kaeya curled up on his side from the pain. He was breathing in sharp gasps, as if he was submerged in the trap of a hydro abyss mage.
Venti reached to put a hand on Kaeya’s back, hesitating before pulling it away and instead turning to inspect for wounds.
Rosaria was still there, spear attentive despite the show. Both of them turned, eyes widening when they realized at some point Kaeya switched to Mond.
Diluc could only deny the reality in front of him.
“ K- kill me,” Kaeya groaned, a determination and loathing so strong, Diluc felt dyed in it. The look on his face must have been enough for Rosaria to pull her spear away.
Kaeya was looking past Venti now, looking at him.
It should have been a relief but Diluc barely felt it, lost in cornflower blue that showed complete faith. An unwaivering faith Diluc had somehow carved into Kaeya. A belief that without fail, Diluc would do this for him.
Draw your sword, traitor.
“Kill me,” Kaeya breathed softly with a smile as his lashes fluttered shut. Diluc felt a buzz in his ears more than he heard it. Truthfully he couldn’t feel much of anything except for the pain blossoming in his lungs. Diluc racked his brain, trying to think of the last time Kaeya had asked him, truly asked him for something. But like his tears, in childhood Kaeya took little and requested even less. He broke out of his shell, but never those habits.
When Diluc cut him off, he asked for nothing of his inheritance nor anything from his old room that sat exactly as it had the last time Crepus set foot in it to wake Kaeya that morning. Diluc thought it was because he did not care for any of it, because it had not mattered. Why keep pieces of a fabricated childhood? Another memory painfully righted itself with the clarity only hindsight could afford.
Father, I keep making the same mistakes.
Kaeya, who always took far less than he needed. Kaeya, who never cried. Kaeya, who asked for death like he asked for a death after noon. With familiarity and ease. Like it meant nothing. As if he could not be bothered in the slightest.