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Diluc does not expect a homecoming, and he does not get one. He gets: Three notes from Kaeya, two of which are crumpled in the bin, and a third that says: Ignore the other two. Which Diluc does not, even when Kaeya had predicted correctly that he would have. Except, four years is a long time, and there is no one to watch him in the study. So he bends down, fishes them out, and reads three nearly identical notes that all sound the same to him, but must’ve sounded very different to Kaeya.
He receives: A visit from Jean, short and perfectly counted to be exactly thirty minutes. This much, he likes that it hasn’t changed, their every encounter made a neatly slotted piece of her schedule. She is perfectly polite and cordial, and she offers him his old position back, but does not urge him. There’s an odd note somewhere, where neither of them say his name, but her expression is distant. It takes Diluc the afternoon to realise he was the one she’d gone far away from, not the other way around.
He receives: Dinner invitations, lunch invitations, invitations for drinks, for tea, an invitation to go falconing, an invitation for an alchemical talk, an invitation for a duel — from Eula Lawrence which he assumes is a joke, but can’t be entirely sure of. He declines them all and receives an invitation for a soiree after dinner, from someone who has caught the hint, and did not understand it.
“Being the most sought-out bachelor in Mondstadt must be terribly difficult,” Kaeya says, except he doesn’t say it to Diluc. Diluc is only behind the counter as he says it, pretending not to hear.
Diluc is not a social animal. More than four people in a room, and his skin starts to crawl. More than two people looking at him, and he’s ready to claw through it. More than one person speaking to him, and he begins to wish he could rip his own tongue out. He prefers quiet volumes, and no sudden movements, and curt exchanges, and he cannot fathom why, in a period of his life, he had entertained all but that. He flexes his fingers.
“That would be Jean,” Diluc murmurs, assuming it had been long enough without a response for Kaeya to stop waiting on one. He says so only to the spot of wood he’s polishing.
“It would be,” Kaeya says, punctual, “Except, she actually entertains her invitations.”
/
He comes back to Mondstadt and does not like the smell of wine on the wind. He comes back to Mondstadt and does not like the carelessness of the crowds. He comes back to Mondstadt and does not like the freedom of her faith. He does not like the stone walls, or the cobbled pathways, the red tiles, the way the wind whistles through the loose bricks, the way dust and dandelion seeds clump together in the window panes, the way philanemo mushrooms grow in every damp corner, the sound of asters clicking as they spin, the way the knights mill about without a care or regard, the drunkards swaying at any time of day, the bards at every street corner, the city doesn’t bustle, isn’t crowded, despite it all, isn’t loud — only ever flowing with wine and song. A gentleness about it that makes Diluc feel ill.
There are grapevines in the vineyard that grow crooked because Diluc had stomped over them without a care, years ago. The marble crowning of the foyer of the manor had been destroyed into chunks and fine powder because Diluc had been careless with his greatsword. There is a long and painful scar, the colour of rust, running down the length of Kaeya’s side, because Diluc couldn’t keep his temper in check. He is not gentle by nature.
There were things about Mondstadt he thought he would miss. Hadn’t lingered on memories in fear of homesickness. Hadn’t tried to make a list, even as he made the journey back. Arrived, and found that it would’ve been a fruitless exercise because nothing had remained familiar.
He told Jean, who said both without pity and without kindness, “Are you not the stranger?” and Diluc had known the city had been without fault.
/
Of the few people Diluc keeps appointments with, one is a librarian, one is a Sister, and one is the Grandmaster.
“Acting,” Lisa says carefully, “She’s the Acting Grand Master.”
“Is there an actual difference?” Diluc asks, both knowing the answer and knowing how distinctly unimpressed he will be with the answer.
“Just the politics,” Lisa answers, relaxing her posture as Diluc scowls. She slumps into her velveteen upholstery, shoulders loose against her seat, a lazy draw of one leg over the other, her gauzy stockings striking Diluc as a terribly inappropriate choice for an early afternoon meeting. Diluc looks at the meat of her thigh and thinks of how easily a blade would sink into the skin there; how hard he would have to grip to grab and wrench, how dark the bruise he leaves would stain. He thinks, flexing his right hand, fingers stretched to their very points, he does not want to think of Lisa this way.
She’d started working as the librarian a few months after Jean and Diluc had entered the ranks; Jean had made a point to the visit the library every week, and once in a while, if Crepus had asked after a text, or if Kaeya had seen Jean lend Diluc a copy of something she thought he’d be interested in and felt left out, then Diluc would enter, and ask at the front desk. Jean would wander through the stacks, and Diluc would wait. He would mentally revise his drills, think of what practice he had left to do, where he’d been lacking, and Lisa would return, Diluc blushing as she said something insinuating about how he was such an impatient boy.
There had been an evening, somewhere in the middle of those months, before either of them had gotten any meaningful promotions, tucked away in an upper corner of the Angel’s Share, Diluc mumbling into the table about having dreams about the library, and Jean looking at him for half-a-moment, biting her lip, honest as ever saying she had those too, about the librarian. Kaeya had looked betrayed by the both of them, a wide-eyed expression that made him look innocent, somehow, entirely unlike the embarrassed flush both Diluc and Jean shared, then he’d hissed What a promiscuous woman! Later, when Jean was not in earshot, he’d called her a whore.
Diluc does not tell Lisa this story, because he doesn’t recall responding to her defense. He tells Lisa a different story, in very clipped tones, about a member of the Fatui who would’ve been in her cohort during her time at the Akademiya.
“Oh,” She says, entirely disinterested, “Hm.”
Diluc looks at her. She tilts a bare shoulder up, says, “Well, I’m not the one that deals with the Fatui. It’s very far from my paygrade.”
Diluc tells her that Kaeya once called her a whore.
She says, “Hm,” again, but with more interest this time. She looks at him, the soft tablecloth covering the edge of a table, says: “Do you hate him?”
Diluc does not answer. Diluc has cradled a teacup very gently in his hand without taking a sip this entire meeting. He wonders if he should take a drink now. He looks out to the window, the bright day, burgeoning spring, warm wind. It is very hard to feel like he belongs in this place.
“You know, I find it very hard to like him,” She says, “He’s never liked me, but I suppose he makes more of an effort to hide it. I tried to like him, because everyone loves him, but — some people just aren’t meant to like one another. You know this.”
Actually, Diluc does not. Actually, on most days, what Diluc struggles with most is that he doesn’t know how he’s meant to dislike Kaeya. He knows that he must, somehow, in some way, but when he thinks of Kaeya, he misses the way Kaeya would whisper jokes into his ear. He misses that Kaeya would glance towards him whenever someone said something stupid and Kaeya wanted Diluc to laugh with him. He misses when Kaeya would say something unkind about someone, and then look away as if it would erase the words, and then look back because he’d meant it and wanted Diluc to agree with him. Lisa does not look like she wants Diluc to agree with him. Lisa looks like she wants Diluc to offer some original, independent thought.
“It would be easier if I did,” Diluc says, unsure of the truth to his words.
“Only for you,” Lisa says, an undertone in her voice, “What about the rest of us, Master Diluc? It’s impossible to find even an inch of the city where he isn’t adored.”
“And you were hoping?” Diluc asks.
“Only that the Angel’s Share would offer a respite.”
Years ago, Diluc would watch Lisa lean forward over the main desk of the table and ask what book he was looking for. Years ago, Diluc would have dreams where Lisa would lean forward over the desk in his study and ask what he was reading. Years later, Diluc watches as Lisa leans forward, watches her hand come up to her chin, watches as she presses her pointer finger underneath her lip, asks. “Or, perhaps somewhere more private?”
Ah, Diluc thinks, he hates this game. He glances down, the deep cut of her dress, the heavy fall of her breasts. Settles into his seat. Forces his grip gentle.
/
Diluc, during the first few months of Kaeya’s stay at the Winery, took it upon himself to convince Kaeya that Mondstadt was the best place in the world. He would bring Kaeya — not the grapes, because Kaeya had spent a week eating those hiding in the fields, but — apples from the orchards, plums, peaches, raspberries, blackberries; the blueberries, he’d told Kaeya looked like his head, and Kaeya had looked at him, scowling in a way he never would around Crepus, and then swearing in a way he never would around Crepus, saying Why the hell would I eat them then? Diluc told him he had to try, because the Winery grows the best fruit in the world and there’s no way he’d ever have anything better. Adeline stopped him once, when he’d been leaving with an armful of valberries from the kitchen, had said, very gently that Master Kaeya often had stomach aches if he ate too much between meals. Diluc hadn’t understood.
Diluc, wiping down the bar of the Angel’s Share, looking at the wood grain, overhears a conversation from the end he’s been avoiding. The same voice, an imitation of his childhood accent, a spoiled drawl, smoothing out the edges into something more gentle, spoken with suggestion rather than command; saying something about imported fruit, Have you been to Sumeru? Rosaria, if you had a pomegranate from there, it might kill you. I don’t think your cold, withered heart could handle something so delicious, which Diluc surmised to be some comment about how Rosaria seemed incapable of joy and enjoyment, and less pointedly, some horrible knowledge that Kaeya could leave Mondstadt whenever he wanted and go anywhere else in Teyvat and somehow like it more.
Diluc, then, after Kaeya’s ankle had healed, and the bandages had come off, and he could walk without hobbling and could, finally, finally leave the manor, dragged Kaeya everywhere. Down Drunkard’s Gorge and past all the carts and merchants, until they hit the lake so Diluc could show him the spot where all the crystaflies gathered, and the part of the beach where the slimes were, and the crag in the middle of the lake, and then, he could catch a crystafly for Kaeya, and show him how to throw rocks at the cyro slimes so they’d bounce off and skid across the water leaving a trail of ice, and then he’d brag about how he’d swam across the lake last summer and made it onto the island and carved his initials onto the tree, and this summer he’d take Kaeya along so he could do it too. Up to Wolvendom, the highest part of the cliff, where the wind howled the same way the wolves did, and it was cold all year long, he told Kaeya to peek over the edge, because he’d be able to see Andrius and the gravestone sword and Kaeya had told him he was crazy, nervous enough that he was stumbling over the words because he’d slipped back into his old accent. Fine, Diluc said, Be a coward, but let him hold onto his wrist, his elbow, at an odd spot, his ankle, on the climb down. That hadn’t worked, but Diluc took him down the winding path of the forest, until it got warmer and warmer, and they hit the shore of Cider Lake, and he let Kaeya pick at shells on the beachside while he went back to gather wolfhook and lampgrass to show Kaeya, and Kaeya still didn’t care, frowning at the taste, the way it stained his fingers violet, how it snagged onto his shirt. He hadn’t been impressed by the lampgrass either, but Diluc didn’t care, he took it home and placed it in a jar, and then when Kaeya woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare, he’d crept into Diluc’s room, and Diluc watched, his vision blurry with sleep, the way Kaeya knelt in front of the glow and finally, finally seemed impressed.
Jean, when she enters the bar, much like everyplace else she enters, causes the room to go quieter; a hum, an acknowledgement. All her service to the city, all its gratitude in return. Diluc watches Sister Rosaria, who watches Kaeya with a pre-emptive interest, watches her turn forward as Jean places a light touch on Kaeya’s back, just below his shoulder, how very quietly she says hello, how is it, how Rosaria catches the turn of his face as she says, Never thought I’d find you here. A joke, Diluc wonders. Jean lifts her head, and says hello to Rosaria, then turns to Diluc, a very different smile than the one she’d shared with Kaeya, warmer, more inviting, as though Diluc was the one who needed gentle handling. She asks for a drink, and as he slides it down the bar, he catches an unwanted glimpse of Kaeya, looking somewhere by Jean, past her, a habit Diluc recognises with muscle memory. How Kaeya would look away from all the things he liked the most, waiting for the trick. When it would go away.
Crepus was the one who spoiled them; years and years later, Diluc would go through the bank records and realise his father went through mora like wine, would thumb at a purchase of Liyuen cloud silk at an astronomical amount and astronomical price made when he was twelve, and remember his father complaining about dust caught in bedsheets. He’d only noticed his own bedsheets change, had only asked Adeline about his old ones, telling her they were fine. How she’d only hummed in reply. Diluc never asked for things, not really, he remembers telling his father things — his interest in Arundolyn’s battles, the greatsword, the longsword, that he liked sunsietta jam at breakfast, there was a rip in one of his shirts, Jean had been given an engraved breastplate for her birthday, he needed new boots. Diluc would say these things, unaware of himself, unthinkingly, and they would appear. A new set of books, an edition that was illustrated in gold foil by some breakout Sumerian artist. Carved model sword figurines, thick wooden practice swords, a proper steel sword, of a higher make than the standard Favonius issue. The jam appearing at the table, ever present afterwards. He’d walked into his room to find Adeline sorting through his wardrobe, a small mountain of old clothes in her basket. Neat piles of nicer, brighter clothes settled in the dresser. Tuning out Crepus over dinner as he droned about Sumerian linens, wool from Natlan, some waterproofing innovation from Fontainian fashion. A grand showing, weeks before Diluc’s birthday, a breastplate, shoulder guards, gauntlets, all Inazuman metalwork. A shoemaker who’d been called to the house; three pairs of boots arriving within the month; for formal events, for casual wear, for training. Hence. Diluc did not grow up wanting things, he already had them.
Kaeya, despite having the same father and half of the same upbringing, had grown up very differently. During his second winter at the house, he’d picked at the fish on his plate and when Crepus asked, Kaeya had said It’s fine, I don’t mind, and Crepus said You ate it last year, It’s a very fancy coldwater fish, they’re only found in Dragonspine and they can only be harvested during the snowmelt, and Kaeya said nothing. Diluc hadn’t realised until the fifth night, but they spent the entire week having Snowstrider at dinner, prepared in every way every cook Crepus could find knew. To see how Kaeya liked it. It was after this, Diluc knows, that Kaeya began to ask for things. He remembers the conversation they had, just before Crepus had entered the hall for breakfast, Kaeya saying, You’ll back me up, won’t you? It started then. A book. A shirt. A necklace. A different shirt. Pants. A fountain pen. A lamp in the shape of a cecelia. A paper lantern. Another shirt. A belt. A watch. No, a small watch. No, no, not a pocketwatch, a wristwatch. One with a different belt. One with a different clasp. One with a different face, the other one was too plain. A pocket watch, they broke less easily. Heeled boots. A painting. A different painting. A third painting. A statuette. A Juyeun chili plant. Candied Juyeun fruit. Candied Amakumo fruit. An Amakumo plant. Sea shells from Inazuma. A pirate sigil from Inazuma. A biography about the Legendary Pirate Rinzou. An eyepatch.
From there, Diluc remembers, Kaeya had asked for things in lists. Trying harder to find the limits of Crepus’ endless affection, his endless pockets. It started with food. Candy. Imported fruit. Juice, soda, sauces. But Kaeya had never had much of an appetite, and had spent more time digging through the boxes to throw tidbits at Diluc, to see how he rated them. The figurines. Kaeya had asked for model ships, sea maps, scaled down swords to see what the pirates fought with. This had taken more time, Kaeya’s requests combined with Crepus’ grandiose had resulted in one of the parlours being remodeled; an war room styled after the Shogungate’s own, a table that was a map of all of Teyvat’s seas and islands, someone’s faithful recreation of every known trade route. Enough model ships and mini-pirates to make a game of War out of. It was the room that baffled the buyers when Diluc had sold the manor. No one had any idea what to make of it, what to do with it. Diluc had sold all the figures to Marjorie, and had torn down the walls himself. Had repainted them a soulless cream with Adeline. It was clothes, after. It was usually clothes, or jewelry, or some kind of art. Flowers, but only as afterthoughts. Diluc didn’t understand, had never quite understood, but on visits to other houses — Crepus’ business partners, the general aristocracy, the biyearly invitations from the seat of Gunnhildr, Kaeya would point at certain paintings, or make a comment about someone’s dress, or lean forward to take a closer look at an earring, and Diluc had thought: Ah.
Diluc thinks: Ah, with a note of sourness when Jean leans forward and shows him a sketch. Rosaria had gone out for her second smoke break, and Kaeya had accompanied her for a reason Diluc did not understand. He’d looked out and saw her blow smoke into his face, and had looked back in. Jean had taken the moment to call Diluc to her, and he polished the crack next to her seat as she told him about the original sword it was based on.
“It won’t be a replica,” She says, ever-careful consideration in her words, as measured as the exact dimensions written on the page. What length to match Kaeya’s hold. What lightness. The exact width of the pommel to the span of his fingers. If the knights had kept such extensive records of Diluc’s abilities, he would’ve burned them on his way out. “But, lighter — he prefers displays of swordwork to actual combat,” Diluc did not find this surprising, “It’ll have to be tempered carefully, to withstand the cold. He likes to use his vision.”
This, Diluc doesn’t know if he should find surprising. Kaeya had received his vision the moment Diluc had thought he needed to abandon his. He’d never given any thought to what would happen after. Jean said nothing to his silence, and she watched the window as he watched the wood. Flexed his hand against the towel he’d been using. His grip needlessly tight.
In the end, the manor had been left in debt. Diluc had spoken with the bankers, a number of accountants, the proprietor, and it was agreed to be the fault of irresponsible fiscal decisions, bad spending habits, greedy over-consumption, an accountant looking at a receipt, saying What boy needs twelve dinner jackets?, Crepus an overzealous madman with no sense of business, his youngest son thoughtless and thoughtlessly spoiled. Diluc, economical and genius in his keen foresight to close all the accounts before he left. Perhaps cruel, but entirely in the right to ban Kaeya from accessing any of the books, I can’t imagine the ruin you would have found yourself in, coming back, one banker told him, It was necessary, very necessary.
When Diluc had gone through the books, with Elzer, with Adeline, with an accountant hired by the Winery, a Liyuen expat who liked her bonuses in wine and vacation days; he found that Crepus had managed his accounts like an overzealous madman. But he had managed them. If anything, he had been a masterful gambler. All his spending some invisible investment to lure in partners, all his money always incoming, all his debt always outgoing. He’d always had enough mora because he’d always been moving it.
In the year before Diluc left, the winery records had been beautiful. Diluc had asked, and Elzer had told him faintly, offhandedly, that Master Kaeya had been a natural at balancing the books. Diluc had been irritated by the comment. One, that he’d never known. Otherwise, because Kaeya had never been a natural at anything. Kaeya had looked up from a book once to read a line out to Diluc, ‘Either you were born lucky or lucky to be born,’ had pointed at Diluc, Born lucky, had pointed at himself, Lucky to be born. He’d snorted at Diluc’s scowl, but they’d both known there was nothing Diluc could say to prove otherwise. Kaeya had a terrible accent until he hadn’t. Kaeya had terrible penmanship until he hadn’t. Kaeya had terrible balance, and terrible stamina, and terrible arm strength until he hadn’t. Kaeya hadn’t known how to hold a sword until he had. Kaeya had been bad at sums and worse at history and prickly with people until he simply hadn’t been.
Diluc had blazed through swordsmanship as he blazed through academics, the way he blazed through archery and winemaking, the way he blazed through the ranks of the knights, the way he blazed through calvary training, the way he blazed through monsters and beasts and Ursa the Drake. His father’s carriage. His father’s corpse. There was nothing Diluc didn’t excel at, and there was nothing he was incapable of as long as he had the will that powered his vision.
Diluc, like he’d burned down his father’s house, his father’s fortunes, his father’s dreams; had burned through his father’s child. One night he didn’t have a vision, the next morning he did.
/
Diluc had very little interest in Sister Rosaria and had assumed she felt about the same for him.
He’s aware of her, in that she frequents the bar far more than she frequents the church; that she smokes more than she drinks; that she slides her gaze over him more than she acknowledges him. That, she looks at him now, with a sharp interest that runs contrary to his assumptions. It was early enough in the day that he’d been surprised when she walked in, but he hadn’t thought it had been with any particular intention in mind.
“Hm,” She says when Diluc offers her a drink, glancing down at the glass in front of her, “You really are a gentleman.”
Diluc says nothing to this, because there is nothing to say.
“I saw you, up in the windwheel,” Rosaria says, careful to keep eye contact with him, “The mask was interesting, but the hair gave you away.”
A few nights ago, by the Grand Goth Hotel. He’d seen a figure by the steps, a smudge of shadow. Hadn’t thought much of it. But here was Sister Rosaria, who had watched him as he watched the windows.
“Right,” Diluc says, hand stilling over the counter. He stretches his fingers.
It’s not like he makes any more than the subdued effort. He wants a fight, really. He’s waiting for any of them, Fatui, Abyss Order, Treasure Hoarder, to come knocking. It’s not a secret where he lives. Not a secret what he does.
Kaeya used to say things, the last year in the Ordo. Everyone else would think it, Diluc was aware of that much, but Kaeya would say, Diluc, you oaf, he would say, You absolute brute!, he would say, Diluc, you goddamn child, has anyone ever told you to think before you act? Diluc had looked him in the eye, had said very sincerely, You. It was the kind of thing he’d never think about, not until they were at the dinner table and Crepus was unusually subdued and Kaeya was kicking at legs, hissing about this and that, and Look at what you've done, Master Diluc, his voice twisted with sarcasm on the title. Mostly, Diluc thought it was funny.
“We have quite a few things in common,” She says, a crook to her mouth as she watches him react to that. A knife hidden in her sleeve, appearing in her hand. Swaying the tip of the blade from Diluc towards her, her and back again. “Orphans.”
“Kaeya’s an orphan,” Diluc says.
“No,” Rosaria says. “He’s abandoned.”
If Diluc had any reaction, she let it go unnoticed, as though she was uninterested in anything but letting the silence stray. Her eyes glance up at Diluc again, holding his gaze. “I killed my father too.”
Crepus’ blood had been warm. Diluc remembers very little of the day. The flames, mostly. Rain. Ice. He could barely remember what Kaeya had said. He’d been furious, he thinks, except it wasn’t so much anger, just pressure, a boiling pot and the lid that wouldn’t stop clanging. The whistle of the teapot. The day, one long note of rage.
Rosaria says. “I don’t believe in forgiveness either,” She watches his face now, “Or regret.”
Kaeya’s blood had been boiling. His skin had melted off the bone. Cracked and popped and slid off like silk where Diluc had twisted his hand. Half liquid, half glue. What hit his eye hadn’t even been flame, but a shard of Diluc’s sword. The hilt shattering from the strength of his swing, the heat.
Diluc, after a few moments of trying and being unable to breach the silence, tries to say, “How is —” and finds himself blanching, thinks, that isn’t the question he wants to ask. A raise of a brow from Rosaria. She’s not an expressive person, he’s finding, has a very limited set of movement. Imperfect practice of the motions. He knows the feeling.
“How do you stand to be around him,” He says, settling, because Rosaria, like Jean, was uncannily honest.
“I like him,” She says, her words as simple as the turn of her mouth, “He’s pretty. He’s fun to watch. He can hold a drink.”
She says, in the quiet, “He goes to every recital.”
“Pardon?” His voice low, unwilling to be heard.
“Oh,” Unimpressed maybe, by his attempt, “You know, the church thing. The singing. I’d skip them if the brat didn’t drag me. But he goes to them. Sits next to all the old ladies. Brings flowers for the deaconess. Her own sister doesn’t even make it half the time.”
Diluc says nothing to that.
“He wants you to think it’s for show, but it’s not. Not really,” Rosaria says, picking out the words the way one would flick ash from a cigarette. “He finds me after. Bums a smoke. He doesn’t like the taste, or smell. He hates the smell. But it’s a social thing. He does it for everyone.”
“So he’s keeping up appearances,” Diluc says.
“Is he the one doing that?” Rosaria says. She looks at him, past him, the bottles lining the racks. Waits a long moment. “You don’t seem to like wine, Master Diluc.”
Another, longer silence. Rosaria seems to like the quiet, willing to let it stretch, settle, patient with it in a way most people are impatient with Diluc.
She says, “If you don’t hate him, you should stop acting like it.”
“I let him into the bar,” Diluc says after a moment.
“You won’t look at him, or you’ll pretend he’s not there,” She says, “It upsets him, but you would know that.”
Diluc doesn’t. Diluc doesn’t, and this is hard to explain, to Rosaria, to Jean, to Adeline, Elzer, Tuner, Varka. It had been one of those things, from that endless list; if Kaeya was upset, Kaeya would tell him, if he didn’t like something, Kaeya would tell him, if he had a secret, Kaeya would tell him. Or he wouldn’t. Or he would, and Diluc wouldn’t speak to him for the next four years. Kaeya would never say it, despite all the shit he’d call Diluc without flinching. On the occasion that someone else said it, Kaeya would take offense, distressed, maybe, more because it was truer than not.
Crepus, on the occasions it would come up — if Kaeya was home later than Diluc, if he’d slipped away somewhere and Diluc hadn’t been with him, a time sheet with a skipped shift, things like that — used to look at Diluc, an equal measure of fondness and contrition, would say Diluc was very single-minded. That, perhaps, it wasn't always for the best.
Mostly, Diluc thought it didn’t matter. Kaeya, like everything else in his life, was an absolute.
“He’s sensitive,” Rosaria says, a different manner to her voice. Choosing her words like notes plucked on a harp. “I thought it was funny. It is funny, when he throws a snit. You’d think he was on trial against the country. But I think it’s charming too, it makes him charming. The smooth, savvy Captain of the Knights, with a lovely, soft heart. I don’t think I’d be able to stand him otherwise.”
“He’s vain as shit, but I like that about him,” Rosaria says. Diluc listens. “With beautiful people, they always know that about themselves. Like you, a handsome man like you doesn’t blink when someone tells him so. He’s good at pretending to have that. But, he cares too much about how he looks. For real, not just so other people think he's beautiful. Sometimes he won’t frown a certain way because he doesn’t want to look unbecoming. Even when I’m the only person there,” She pauses, “It’s an interesting crack.”
“I drank him under the table a few times,” Rosaria says, “He used to be more careful about it, and then, I suppose something must’ve changed. The last time, I thought I was going to get something interesting. Mostly, he talks about the knights, not like he has much of a life otherwise. Frankly, I wanted to know about the Acting Grand Master, there’s — something,” A wave of her hand, “Whatever. She’s a capable woman, surely he’s got some dirt or some crush or some gossip. But no such luck, he talked about the kid the whole time — Klee. Said she was,” Here, her voice does a pitch, an uncanny impression of a drunk aristocrat, “Soooooooo cute, just sooooooooooo cute, really, I promise, cutest kid in the world,” Her normal voice, “I mean, I’ve seen her, I don’t disagree. He went on for a bit, about how much he liked her. He kept saying ‘like’, he wouldn’t say love. A lot of idealistic talk about how kids should grow up, and how he was afraid sometimes, that whatever he did wouldn’t be enough. There was something there too, but,” She looks at Diluc, to make sure he’s listening still, he is, “He was worried you wouldn’t like her enough. He kept trying to say you — you should know the way he says things, you were a kid-eating monster, a grouch, things like that. He kept trying to convince himself that she was cute enough. She could defeat your locked up, shriveled heart.”
“I just thought it was worth mentioning,” She says, looking away. A hand over her mouth. Ah, Diluc thinks. “That he cared so much about what you thought.”
“You don’t know, do you?” Rosaria says finally. “You go gentle when I talk about him.”
/
Diluc doesn’t drink because he’s not fond of wine. Similarly, Diluc doesn’t drink because he’s a terrible drunk. All impulse, all body, every action taken without a forethought.
Jean doesn’t drink very often, but three glasses in, and she rolls her shoulders, loosens them, and with a fondness that is always so guarded, she looks around the room and at all her knights and citizens and guests alike. She’s careful with her limits, the way she’s careful with her manner, her preferences. She’s never picky, but Diluc was raised by a winemaker, despite Crepus’ best attempts to disguise himself as a noble. She likes her beers, even as her subordinates order rounds of cocktails with her.
Eula Lawrence, like Jean, prefers her drinks heavy. Diluc is not entirely sure, but it seems to be for the effect of slamming down the pitcher as she challenges someone to a duel. Or, an oath towards self-betterment? He finds her to be a very confusing woman, an unexpected transformation of the young girl he’d seen throughout childhood. She’s loud and brash, haughty and arrogant; having flung off that polite, subdued veneer she’d been raised with. She’s a complete lightweight. Half-way through her first glass, her face is flushed a flattering pink.
Lisa, who sits at the counter and leans forward and says hello to Diluc as though they were old lovers, though Diluc is entirely unsure where he drew the comparison from — likes cocktails. This, he finds entirely unsurprising, on account of her being a woman, on account of how she mixes her tea, on account of the way he’d watched her drop six cubes of sugar into her cup. He watches her do the same trick to Jean, who keeps her gaze remarkably straight; to Eula who says her conduct is highly improper; to Huffman, who stammers and blushes and makes the reactions that Lisa seems to be looking for, offering to buy her another drink. Which is an idiotic gesture, because this is a pub night that is hosted and paid for by the Ordo. By her fourth drink, she seems less suggestive, and simply more tactile, an arm slung around Jean’s waist. Her chin tucked into Amber’s shoulder.
Amber, Albedo, Sucrose, Noelle, Barbara — Barbara! he thought with a shock, all seem entirely too young to be here. They all look impossibly young, and Diluc tries his best not to think of when he was newly recruited, ignores the sense of deja vu, the knowing, as they order different drinks every round, and don’t take to any of them, new to drinking and unsure of their tolerances, matched rosy cheeks and red ears.
Rosaria, entirely unsurprisingly, liked spirits. Red drinks too, if only for the colour. Diluc doesn’t count her drinks, because it would be a waste of time. He finds her gaze on him every time he speaks with Jean, with Lisa, with Eula, an astrologer who’d tagged along with someone here, expecting bar snacks, finding none and predicting he’d be out of business because of it. “She’s right,” Rosaria says, and does not speak to him again.
Kaeya, out of nostalgia, or habit, or tribute, likes everything Crepus liked. Rich, aged bottles. All the full-bodied flavours of Mondstadt. Anything with apple, or dandelion, or valberry. He’s been a better drinker on every other day Diluc has seen him, but cradled between Jean and Rosaria, he either feels safe, or unseen, or something else, Diluc doesn’t know, Diluc is trying not to look, but Kaeya does the same thing drunk he does when he used to get scared. He sits between a woman who protects Mondstadt in daylight, and a woman who does so at night, and folds himself in, a narrow slip of a man, his chin tucked in, fingers interlocked. He would flinch if touched, Diluc knows this, Diluc does not pour him another drink. Diluc pours a glass of water, and places it on Jean’s left. He does not watch to see what she does with it.
Diluc, as the room gets louder and louder, grips the glasses tighter and tighter. Places them on the table with too much force. Stops looking at the faces of whoever he’s serving. Can hear the way his tone runs sharp whenever he catches a glimpse of the double sworded emblem. Diluc, is asked to take the night off, is waved out of the bar as Charles takes over. Leaves out the back, turns the left, finds Jean, saying, Oh, I was just about to come find you, how fortunate, follows as she leads him to an indiscriminate portion of street, Rosaria smoking against the wall, Kaeya crouched on the ground next to her, looking up.
“I think we should bring him home,” Jean says. She does not say: I’ll have trouble carrying him myself, because she would not, and she is not a liar. In the place of an excuse, she leaves the air empty, the suggestion bared for what it is. Diluc hasn’t done this since he was seventeen. Kaeya looks up at him without saying anything, so Diluc doesn’t say anything, just waits for him to take the hand that Jean offers. His own hand hanging useless at his side, clenched, unclenched, a starfish of movement.
Rosaria waves them off with a wisp of smoke, saying, “I won’t intrude,” and Diluc very nearly asks her, On what? biting down the words with very real teeth, and very real blood. This is neither a matter of knights, nor of family, perhaps friends, if she were to take his place, but she has not.
Jean leads them down the path Diluc thought she would, into a block of apartments Diluc sometimes passes by when he does his patrols. She doesn’t ask Kaeya for his keys when they reach the door, which somehow proves, even further, that she could’ve done this on her own, and has done this on her own, just reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket, and opens the door without ceremony.
Diluc steps into Kaeya’s apartment and finds it to be a mess of paper, ink and fabric. And wine, clothes of every colour and style and cut. Bottles, of every colour and style and cut. Not enough furniture, and entirely too much floorspace, not enough wallspace, and entirely too much art, frames and canvases on the floor, presumably moved to make room for the maps, the string, the pins, a madman’s insane conspiracy of every involved figure in Mondstadt. Diluc blinks once, and sees the war room. Diluc blinks twice, and sees his own bedroom.
Diluc, older and nothing else, still, older, says, “Is this what he blows his paycheck on? Vintages and expensive clothes?”
“What else is there,” Kaeya slurs, the same soft voice he’d used all the way back. Saying things to Jean as she asked, making sure he was cognizant, still awake, reminding him she was there. Diluc would trudge home in silence with Kaeya sleeping on his back. The departure was so foreign that it felt jarring to compare the memory.
Nice perfume and expensive jewelry, linen bed sheets and an endless mess of paperwork and pencils and weighted fountain pens, the kind Crepus used to keep in his study. Silk curtains, and a two day-old bouquet of Mondstadt’s classics, a beautiful soup plate with no matching company, misappropriated for stale water and bloated birdseed, set by an unopened window. A handsome knight who set him down gently on the bed, and let him keep his arms curled around her neck, and waited for him to let her go. A terribly kind woman who would stay kneeling by his bedside if he would not.
Diluc leaves, abruptly and without ceremony. Without saying a thing, unwilling to interrupt. Closing the door roughly, wanting to wreck something.
/
Jean, a very sunny day, an open bottle of cider that neither of them touch.
“What will you do about Kaeya?” Diluc asks. This has always been the worst of his anxieties, the item he can’t bring himself to leave as unfinished business.
“I suppose I always expected it to lead to a partnership,” Jean says. “My life would be quite complicated if I were to extricate him out, and so, it seems more natural to integrate him further in. Marriage, I suppose, would be the next step. But not for a few years, I don’t think. After Varka and Alice have both returned. After things have settled down. After.”
“He’ll be in your care?” Diluc says, after a while.
“As far as I’m capable.” She closes her eyes, mouths a curse. “He would hate this.”
“Really?” Diluc says, “I thought he’d enjoy being spoken about like he was a valuable possession.”
“Something to be kept,” Jean says, “Yes, I suppose. Not something to be cared for. Discussed as though he was fragile.”
“Well, he is,” Diluc says, final, blunt, clumsy.
/
Diluc miserable at night and miserable as he sleeps and miserable in the morning and miserable as he lays in bed and rubs a hand over his eyes, his brows, the stubborn grit of his lashes, his nose, miserable as he thinks of a different house and a different room, a faraway memory. A figure perched on a chair by his bed, poking his head forward, cooing, calming, placating, not doing any of those things at all, not convincingly, the noises too exaggerated, the laugh in the undertone, Kaeya giving up on the ghost, saying Diluc was a bastard and he deserved it. Crepus, downstairs and in his study, waiting to hear the thud of footsteps, Diluc racing towards the door, the dining hall, the fields. Adeline in the kitchen humming, pouring cool tea into a pitcher of ice, a sprig of mint, hoarflower extract.
He thinks of peeking through his fingers, a look at Kaeya, brilliant in the sunlight, as terrible as it was. Smile ten times brighter in the face of Diluc’s misery.
Crepus had called Diluc a handsome boy all his life because Diluc was handsome. Not in any particular or exceptional manner; just the way one would expect a knight to be. The son of a noble family would grow up to be a handsome, heroic knight, and everyone would know that, would say so, would see it and know from his colouring, his nose, the set of his brow. Kaeya —
Crepus had looked up one day, at lunch, mid-way through the meal when Kaeya had held up silver skewer and said he thought finger foods during meals were gauche; had traced his eyes over Kaeya’s face, his fingers, the haphazardly eaten plate, like a bird had gone pecking at it; the skewer held up like a question, a demand, an argument. Had looked at Kaeya’s face again, his brows, his eye, his nose, the pout of his mouth, his dear spoiled face. Had looked, the first time, as though he’d never seen his son before, as though he’d seen his son newly. Had looked, the second, to make sure it was him, his son, that he’d seen correctly.
Had said, a helpless crook to his mouth, a faint humour in his voice, “You’ll bring me trouble.” A prophetic statement. As though he could see the future line of suitors, everyone who would ever love Kaeya, who would ban finger foods at mealtimes for him, who would go to war with their kitchen staff to make sure his plate would be clean, who would be as helplessly charmed by the need to please him as his own father was. He’d known and hadn’t known, had seen all of the future but was blind to the devastation taking place right next to him. Had seen every love letter that would be sent, every drawn-out confession made, every broken heart left on the path, except for the one next to him, forcing itself into a terrible crooked shape, convinced, entirely, wholly, he would feel this way for the rest of his life.
Had smiled, fond and rueful, and said, “Alright,” even as Kaeya demanded what he’d meant, “Alright, no more finger foods,” All while Diluc had been beside him, face red, burning, burning, burning. Set aflame.
/
“Diluc,” Kaeya asks, “Are you unhappy?”
Diluc looks at him, Kaeya with his thin bones and sharp posture and perfectly crafted expressions, and the blank face of a man with no expectations. Realises Kaeya is only unhappy when he looks at Diluc.
Diluc, like he doesn’t believe in forgiveness, like he doesn’t believe in regret, does not believe in absolution.
He thinks of a different question. Thinks of a moment somewhere in memory, where he could turn to Kaeya, framed in a square of golden sunlight, and ask: Are you happy? And Kaeya would smile, terrible and soft and bashful, the very first smile he’d given Diluc, the morning after their first adventure, Crepus scolding Diluc, once, twice, thrice, a fourth time over breakfast, why would Diluc take Kaeya outside of the Winery, why to Wolvendom, dear god, and Diluc, betrayed, wide-eyed and glaring at Kaeya in the hall. Kaeya, face turned in, the small and secret twist of his mouth, he didn’t want to be found out, he wanted to keep it hidden.
“No,” Diluc says, only after a moment, still to the wood grain, “Not particularly.”