Chapter Text
It was not a pleasant sensation that Kaeya awoke to.
He couldn’t exactly pinpoint what was wrong- or even what wasn’t wrong, but some unpleasant feeling was being supplied to his brain and he was frankly not enjoying it. Distantly he could hear a sound. Repeated. Two syllables, clearer, as if it was veiled by a body of water he was submerged in. He was getting closer to the surface now, and the word gained definition-
“ya-“
“ Kaeya ”
Oh right, his name.
“Kaeya come on now, wake up-“
Something about it was off. Sounded weird. That dissonance became apparent as he opened his eyes to see a cold, cold, grey, like the lakes of Mondstadt in midwinter. They were fraught with concern, they were eyes, and they were Varka’s eyes.
“Yep, that’s it, good job Kae, keep awake, look at me.”
Inexplicably, Varka was here (wherever here actually was), and Kaeya appeared to be close to him. On his lap. Varka’s bushy eyebrows softened, and a smile grew in his eyes, crinkling his skin at the corners of his face, and from his thick beard, streaked with silver and varying shades of grey, his mouth pulled upwards.
“There you are. Don’t go back to sleep now alright?”
Kaeya blinked repeatedly, as the situation hit him much like how a stagecoach might. Where on Teyvat was he? Why was Varka here? How was Varka here, perhaps, would be a more apt question. Was this a dream? But the foggy, unpleasant, corporeal sensation remained. Hallucinating maybe?
He saw Varka’s smile falter as his consciousness waned, which really wasn’t helpful because he wanted to figure out what the hell what was even happening.
Varka’s mouth moved once, and Kaeya’s brain lagged behind for a few seconds.
Jean
He startled slightly as a pair of gentle hands came from behind, holding his head despite it already being supported by Varka’s legs. A voice sounded apologetic.
Then the world came into clarity
He could recognise the feeling of anemo anywhere, and it sept into his brain like a cold pool on an unbearably sunny day. Or maybe a sudden splash of water from a basin in the morning.
He jolted upwards, sitting upright, the foggy disconnection from his body finally gone. Instead he found himself on the dusty ground of a Knights of Favonius training arena, with two familiar faces peering at him from either side of his body. Knelt next to him, Jean’s eyebrows were furrowed in concern, watching him with the attentiveness of a hawk circling a mouse. On the other side, Varka patiently sat cross-legged and very much real. Which was an issue, because he was supposed to be on the other side of Teyvat right now.
“Just take it easy Kaeya, that was a nasty fall” his deep voice said softly, holding Kaeya’s forearm with a gentleness he hadn’t felt in years. Okay, this was really weird.
Kaeya blinked, looking around himself, trying in vain to figure out the situation based off of context clues. Varka was back- somehow- even though he was supposed to be on the expedition in Natlan or somewhere by now. Kaeya was sat on the floor of a training ground- a training ground he hadn’t used since he was a teenager. None of this made any damn sense.
Then he caught something ahead of him. A figure bow-headed, cradling their hands anxiously, fidgeting with their fingers. Red hair. Bright red. As the figure looked up, he saw red eyes.
Diluc.
“Kaeya? Are you alright? I’m really sorry..” It was almost unsettling seeing Diluc like this, not scowling, not clicking his tongue in irritation. His eyes seemed wide like a foal, and his stance seemed equally nervous, stepping forward tentatively. He was wearing the Knights of Favonius uniform.
Kaeya gaped, looking up at the man walking over. He wasn’t even a man. Diluc was still tall, still broad as he had always been, but that was about where the similarities ended. The Diluc that Kaeya knew had arms like tree trunks, littered in jagged scars, a scowling, frowning face that was worn from years of fighting. Diluc’s arms were bare, sleeveless. There were no scars. Not even one. His face looked down on Kaeya with blatant concern and guilt, with watery red eyes.
“Kaeya, please, what’s wrong? You haven’t said a word this whole time!” Diluc practically begged.
“Diluc. Just let him catch up, he hit his head pretty hard” a gruff voice said from behind him.
It was a sight that Kaeya almost couldn’t pull away from, so horrifyingly wrong. Diluc was a teenager. A scared teenager. Not the beast of the man that had torn through Snezchnaya and come back built like a mountain. A stranger. Instead this Diluc was familiar. So familiar it hurt.
He couldn’t keep staring, he had to look away. He suddenly noticed his own arms, and a gasp escaped him. Upon the revelation, his hands shook. His arms were devoid of burn marks. Completely. The skin on his hands were clear, and that must mean-
His hands shot up to his face, grabbing it and tracing under his eyepatch. There weren’t any burns. His skin was smooth, like dreams he had had, before waking up to uneven, fragile skin with tears in his eyes. He ran both hands over his face, trying to trace it out like a cartographer might to map foreign land. Panting in confusion and disbelief. Everything was offset, and wrong. His soul had been crammed back into a body he had grown out of half a decade ago. His hands were too small, his face still felt like a child, and his fucking skin -
“Kaeya”
Kaeya looked up, blinking. Diluc was kneeling in front of him, and holding one of his arms. Gently.
“It’s okay Kae, just breathe”
Now that he thought of it, he had neglected to breathe properly. He shakily drew a breath in as the light around his eyes prickled like the scattered light on the surface of the sea. He closed his eyes and exhaled. Repeated that for a couple of times.
Diluc’s face had gone from being worried to stoic and serious. He eased Kaeya’s hands into his. The moment felt unreal.
“I-“ Diluc’s voice caught in his throat “I really am sorry. I believe I have concussed you. But I promise everything is going to be alright, and that you are safe.”
Safe . Yes. That’s always what Diluc had used to tell him when he woke up from a haze during a nightmare or an illness. When he couldn’t figure out where he was. What Crepus used to tell him when he’d end up hyperventilating over a broken plate or a barking dog. What he used to be told when he was a child, scared and confused. How bizarre that he was back in this position again.
“Sorry..” he mumbled under his breath. “I didn’t mean to scare all of you”
At the sound of finally hearing his voice, Diluc’s face immediately lit up in relief.
“Only half to death!” A booming voice laughed from behind him. “Anyway, don’t be ridiculous, this isn’t something you should apologise for.”
Jean hummed beside him in agreement. “We ought to take you to the infirmary- I healed you a little bit back then, but I don’t have fine control over healing, and you’ve definitely sustained some kind of brain injury”
She scooted over to face him and began rattling off questions. “Has your vision been weird in any way?”
“My vi-?” Jean didn’t miss him glance down at his side, as if he had a Vision
She frowned. “Your sight, I mean”
“Oh, right, ha. It’s been a little blurred I guess”
“Dark spots?”
“Light spots, if that counts for anything.”
“Alright. Do you remember what happened before you hit your head?”
“We were… sparring?”
“Who is ‘we’?” Jean said, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“Me and Diluc… and you?”
She pinched her nose bridge in frustration. “Kaeya if you can’t remember please don’t make it up. It was just you and Diluc. Can you tell me what day it is today?”
“I… uh” Kaeya felt his skin boil under the intense gaze of the three watching him. “I’m sorry I don’t remember, haha.”
He watched them exchange concerned glances between each other, before Jean’s attention returned to him. “Right. We’ll just be going to the Knight’s sickbay, okay? I’m going to try to help you stand up Kae.”
Considering the way she was talking to him, Kaeya knew he had spectacularly failed the concussion test. Which wasn’t exactly fair, if you took into account that Kaeya was really not supposed to be in his body from at least five years ago. Still, he didn’t try arguing that as they helped him stand, and given the way his body was shaking and spots were still appearing before his eyes, he probably was actually concussed to a certain degree.
“Just try to keep one foot in front of the other” Jean’s voice said, bracing him from one side. He heard a familiar humph from his other side, tightening his grip as Kaeya stumbled slightly. “I really do think we should get a stretcher Jean…”
Kaeya could not think of many things which would be more mortifying.
“Haha, it’s okay, I think I’ve got the hang of it now” he said quickly before Jean could get a single word out. “Really, it’s alright.”
Diluc exhaled sharply through his nose, evidently not convinced in the slightest.