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The Winery owner sat on the end of the couch, holding a small book in his lap. In the background he could hear footsteps stomping down the stairs. He turned the page and continued to read. The footsteps stopped near the couch as Kaeya flopped down, burying his face in Crepus’s leg. The man chuckled and ran a hand through his son’s hair.
A muffled “I hate staying in bed,” drifted up towards his ears. Crepus smiled softly and adjusted his book so he could flip the pages with one hand.
“Are you feeling any better?”
“I’m up, aren’t I?”
Crepus hummed. He looked up at the chandelier for a moment, which cast a warm glow over the entire room. “Are you sure it’s not too bright in here?”
The teen groaned. “I’m fine now. Stop worrying.”
“Not worrying.” Kaeya flipped over to deliver the most deadpan glare he could muster but winced and covered his eyes. Crepus set aside his book and looked down at him. “You look like you’re feeling much better.”
Kaeya frowned at the sarcastic remark. “I’m not going back to bed. It’s gross just laying down and doing nothing.”
“And this is?”
“Doesn’t count. I’m somewhere different.”
Crepus sighed but continued to card his hand through the blue locks. Kaeya hummed contentedly, turning onto his side to shield his face with the couch. Crepus looked at him as he picked his book back up. He did look better. He seemed less pale, less disorientated. Adelinde had probably convinced him to eat at least.
It wouldn’t hurt to have him out here a bit longer. Crepus didn’t feel like disturbing the silence that had fallen over the room now. He flipped the page again, letting himself get lost in the story once more.
The only noise in the room was Kaeya’s soft breathing and the occasional turn of a page. That was, until the door opened and Diluc came home. The redhead strode into the room and paused at the sight of Kaeya. He raised an eyebrow at his father, who just responded with a fond sigh.
Diluc chuckled and walked over to them. “Stubborn idiot.” He poked Kaeya, who stirred and groaned.
“You’re so mean, ‘Luc.”
“You should be in bed.”
“Nope.”
Diluc raised an eyebrow. “Really? Why not?”
“‘Cause I’m not sick.”
“You seemed pretty sick this morning.”
“And now I’m not.”
“Really? Can you look up at me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“The light gives me a headache.”
Both the redheads shared a small chuckle as Kaeya huffed. Crepus moved his hand out of his hair. “It sounds like you still need rest.”
“I’ve laid around all day!”
“And your body is telling you it needs more still.”
Kaeya groaned. “This happens way too often to just be a rest thing.”
Diluc cut in. “C’mon Kaeya. Time to go back to bed.” He ignored how Kaeya swatted his hand away as he picked him up. Kaeya grumbled but complied, wrapping his legs around his waist and burying his face in his shoulder. “You’re arguing a lot for someone who’s half asleep.”
Neither of the redheads could make out whatever curses he grumbled. Diluc just chuckled and walked up the stairs toward his room.
He kicked the door open and walked into the dark room, praying he wouldn’t manage to trip over anything. Unfortunately he did almost slip on a paper that had fallen off the desk onto the floor. He caught himself and stared at the ceiling, sending a silent thank you to Barbatos that he hadn’t come crashing down and injured both of them.
Kaeya refused to detach from him when he finally made it over to the bed. Diluc silently retracted that thanks from Barbatos for giving him such a brother. “Kae, you’ll feel much better in the morning. Just let yourself sleep.”
“How do
you
know that?”
“Because you’ve spent the whole day napping and have gone from unable to open your eyes to unable to open your eyes in a lit room. Also because we’ve done this hundreds of times before.” He pulled back the covers to the bed.
“Now. Off.”
He managed to drop him (gently) onto the bed and pull the covers back over him. Kaeya blinked his eyes open and locked his gaze with Diluc’s. His hand drifted up, and Diluc grabbed it and squeezed.
“This fucking sucks.”
Diluc chuckled. “Yeah. It does.” It did suck for them, unable to know what caused Kaeya’s bad days, when his head pounded and the room felt like it was swirling. It was just… unexplainable. Crepus had tried to find anything on the topic, but nothing seemed to spring up. So they just had to be patient, convince Kaeya to rest, sometimes come in to entertain him when he couldn’t sleep.
“Everything aches.”
“That does usually happen.” He let go of his hand and moved to brush the hair out of his little brother’s face. “Can you go to sleep, or do you need some company?”
Kaeya hummed indecisively. They both just paused for a moment, unsure of what to do. “Can you stay?” He sounded so quiet, so fragile.
Diluc was tired. It had been a long day at work. But he didn’t even hesitate before pulling a chair up and sitting down. “Of course. Anything else you need?”
“Hm… can you read to me?”
“Anything in particular?”
“Dad’s book.”
Diluc broke out in a wide grin. “I think we both know that’s not happening.”
Kaeya chuckled weakly. “We’ll uncover his secrets one day.” He yawned and turned onto his side, closing his eyes. “For now just… stay here.”
“Already told you I would, dork.” And he did stay there, watching over his brother as he fell asleep.
Contrary to popular belief, Kaeya was in fact aware of what his body was telling him. And right now, he knew that the pounding headache was not in fact due to a hangover. It was a sign. A sign that he was going to have a very bad day, and needed to call in sick.
Except he couldn’t.
Because for once, the knights had managed to coordinate it so Jean would have a vacation for once. She was out of Mondstadt for a week with Barbara, exploring the sights of Liyue. It was a minor miracle.
Unfortunately, this miracle came with a cost. A lot of work left for the rest of the knights. They couldn’t just have one of the captains not show up now, when the Acting Grandmaster was out… Even if his head was starting to feel like it was going to split open.
He pulled on his jacket and made mental preparations for the day ahead. Luckily as he grew older, the pain was less… debilitating. As a kid it had been extremely worrying with how sickly and stressed he was, but now? Now it was less concerning than a stab wound, not more.
Improvement.
So he would probably be fine just this once. As long as he ate. And stayed hydrated. And didn’t talk to anyone.
The moment he stepped out of his house he winced. When did the sun get so bright ? It was slightly hard to focus, but he just put one foot in front of the other. He didn’t bother waving nicely to the residents as he passed, but they seemed to shrug it off. Most people were probably going to assume he was hungover today.
He stumbled into his office and collapsed on the chair, dropping his head in his hands. Just a few hours of this. Just a few hours. If he kept repeating it, maybe his vision would focus just a bit more. Maybe it wouldn’t seem so agonizing.
The door creaked open. He looked up to see the Chief Alchemist step in, holding a glass of water in one hand and something else in the other. He set the glass down on the table and held his other hand out, showing a small package
of painkillers.
“I presume you have a headache, from the way you’re acting.”
Headache wasn’t the most accurate description. He felt faint and exhausted, achy and just utterly gross. But yes, part of it was a headache. He managed a faint smile and a thank you. Albedo left.
They had this exchange many times before. When Kaeya came into the office from a long night of drinking, Albedo would always stop by with medicine to help cure the most concerning effects of his hangover. Unfortunately, they didn’t work on Kaeya’s ‘bad days’. He had tried before, to no avail.
He had just ended up throwing up the pills an hour later.
So he took the glass of water and tucked the small bag away to be used later. On a day Albedo wasn’t in Mondstadt when Kaeya came into work. The Cavalry Captain leaned back and took a sip of water. It didn’t help clear his head at all.
He set the glass to the side and picked up the first piece of paper. He had a long day ahead, after all.
The day had been utterly miserable. He couldn’t focus on the paperwork in front of him, the words swimming in his vision. At lunch he hadn’t mustered the strength to get up and wander towards Good Hunter, instead just leaning forward and burying his face in his arms to take a much needed nap. The nap had gone on much longer than he intended to, and one of the knights had come in to see him asleep at his post. So the building was now gossiping how Sir Kaeya was ‘slacking off’ again, just like they did every time he took too many days off too close together.
Kaeya was usually able to bounce back. But everything felt so far away and his mind was too clouded and his eyes pricked with tears. He grumbled to himself as he wandered home, determined to just turn the lights off and crash on his bed.
Instead he found himself making a turn away from his house and heading towards Angel’s Share. Why? Habit, maybe. Kaeya could have just turned around and gone to his house, to his bed. But for some reason he just chose to accept his fate. Maybe a drink would help.
He snorted to himself. No, it probably wouldn’t. But today was not about good decision making at this point.
A small voice in the back of his head wanted someone to bully him into resting, drag him home and make him sit down and rest. The voice sounded disturbingly like a younger Kaeya. He tried to ignore it.
He stumbled into the tavern and sat down at the nearest stool, staring down at the counter. The barkeeper walked up to him, familiar black gloves came into view. Shit. Kaeya forced a grin as he raised his hand and said, “One Death After Noon.”
The knight could feel Diluc’s stare on him. “You look drunk already.”
“I have mora, Master Diluc. Or did you forget the point of your business?”
“Your words are slurring already.”
Were they? They didn’t sound like it to him. Just- stuttery. Every word was an effort to get out. “If you’re not going to serve me, I might as well just go home.” He closed his eyes, trying to get a brief reprieve from the bright lights of the bar.
“It’s far too early in the afternoon to be drunk.”
“I’m off shift, Master Diluc. Please, just get me my drink.” He leaned his head on his hand.
He heard footsteps, almost as if Diluc was walking away to actually comply, but just as quickly as they started, they stopped. They came back towards him, but there was no sound of a mug being set down. Instead, he heard a tug of
fabric and a hand brush by part of his forehead. “You’re warm.”
“It’s summer.”
“You’re pale.”
He grinned. “Have you ever considered it’s just the lighting?”
“Can you look me in the eyes?” Kaeya tried, he really did. He picked his head up and forced his eyes open, but closed them the next instant. It was just too much. Diluc sighed, and Kaeya winced.
The door was only a few steps away. He could just get up and leave. It seemed like far too much effort.
“Let’s get you upstairs.”
He blinked in surprise. “What?”
“The top floor. It has a bed. Charles sometimes stays overnight.”
“Why?”
“You can’t just stay here like this. I can walk you home later, but for now the closest option is the top floor.”
“I can get home myself.” He tried to stand up but stumbled. Maybe he should have opened his eyes…
Diluc walked up behind him and settled an arm on his shoulder. “Don’t bother.”
“Fine. But I’m leaving the moment it gets dark.” He’d be fine then. The streetlights wouldn’t bother him that much. Diluc sighed but didn’t protest.
The bartender moved the knight’s arm over his shoulder and wrapped an arm around his waist to give him more support. He led the two of them to the stairs. Kaeya bit his lip and ignored the way his stomach churned and his legs ached. They stopped in front of the stairs. At least, he assumed they did, considering he didn’t even open his eyes.
“This isn’t working.” Kaeya opened his eyes at the words and squeaked as Diluc picked him up. Kaeya wrapped his legs around his waist in an old instinct, moving his arms around his neck just to keep himself upright.
He huffed. “People will see.”
“There’s almost no one here, Kaeya. And you look like you’re going to collapse. I don’t trust you up two flights of stairs.”
His stomach did a flip at the thought. He groaned and buried his face in the shoulder to hide from the bright lights yet again. He dropped his legs though in defiance. Diluc held him with ease anyways, carrying him up the steps. It was rhythmic, quiet. Kaeya felt himself strangely almost drifting off at the motion.
Finally, Diluc stopped stepping upwards. Kaeya opened his eyes to the dim lights of the upper floor. By dim lights, he meant there were no sources of light, only a warm glow peaking out from the stairway. Diluc didn’t move to turn on a candle as he carried Kaeya over to the bed tucked in a corner.
“When’s the last time you ate?”
“I hardly see how that’s relevant.”
“Kaeya-” He sighed. “You’re not drunk, you’re sick. And eating helps.”
He groaned. “This morning.”
“I’ll bring something up in a bit.” He finally set him down on the bed, pulling the thin blanket up over him. “Just rest. And don’t make too much noise. People already think the Winery is haunted, I don’t want that reputation carrying over to the Share.”
Kaeya nodded and let his eyes close again. He clutched the sheets under him tightly, biting his lip. Everything ached. A warm hand carded through his hair and undid the tie in it. It did relieve a bit of the pressure, only a bit.
Kaeya could almost swear he heard the soft words of I wish I could help more . But it was only a desperate dream.