Chapter Text
When Diluc wakes, cool dawn illuminates the dust motes in his bedroom, and he watches them drift somberly in the pale columns of light. Kaeya is warm at his side, the sweet lull of his even breathing married with the sunny chirrup of songbirds outside his window, but he cannot pry his eyes away from the sunbeams. He briefly imagines himself drifting down the water in similar slow motion, until settling in the lakebed in stasis, to become nothing more than fertilizer, silt to be rocked by the current.
Ten, twenty, thirty minutes pass, staring almost unblinking into the sun. His eyes water—from the brightness, he’s sure, or the length of time he’s exposed his eyes to dry air. They aren’t tears, he thinks. Crying always leaves his mind sluggish, his face swollen and heavy. It must be the dust biting at his eyes, testing his devotion.
He makes it a game to keep his eyes open for as long as possible before they desiccate and crumble out of their sockets. He stares until the sting becomes too much to bear, and instinct forces his eyes closed. Open, closed, open, closed, savouring the freshness of pain, the calm of relief.
Kaeya stirs behind him, stretching out his legs with a contented sigh, and when Diluc next shuts his eyes, a pearl of emotion rolls down his cheek and onto the pillow.
Pain is the bounty of life—and how fortunate is he to bleed?
Diluc navigates his new life much like a dust mote. With every second, every step, he gathers memories and momentum like static. He pictures himself rolling through the world until he has accumulated enough mass to once again be considered a man. A man composed of dust and detritus, fragile and decayed. A lich reborn of compassion, a second chance he does not deserve.
The world around him is surreal, his surroundings exactly the same as they were before his revival, yet wholly unfamiliar. He gazes upon the conservatory and sees not a comforting refuge to rest his head, but a sepulchral prison alight with spectres of loved ones he can no longer touch. The sun, the trees, the clouds in the sky—all are unsettlingly halcyon, effervescent and cloying. An idyllic landscape that belongs suspended above the mantle, not bellowing outside of his window.
His nose is also troublesomely sensitive; scents he used to derive comfort from now smell so distinct, so overwhelming, and at one point he finds himself crouched in front of the bookshelf in the parlor, head in his lap, biting back tears as the scent of parchment and leather transports him back into a memory that feels more like a dream.
The gentle swell of a string quartet drifting from a phonograph, accompanied by his mother’s harmonious voice, rising above the music; hands twice the size of his own holding open a picture book, the sharp scent of aftershave nipping at his nose; the tickle of a beard at his ear, the rumble of a soothing baritone reading him a story about a lost hilichurl.
A happy moment with his father? Such a thing never existed, did it? In another life, maybe. Not in this one. Those memories were too heavy, and sank to the bottom of the lake. Diluc hopes to shed the shell of this dream, too. Such fancies are best left to children.
Kaeya also exists in that nebulous plane between new and old. Where he had been so careful to put distance between them before, he now refuses to grant him privacy. He even insists upon following him into the bath.
“I won’t drown myself,” Diluc had insisted the first time, indignant. Kaeya merely stared at him, eyebrows cocked, jaw set, and took a seat on the settee in the corner. He crossed his legs elegantly, cracked open a book, and gestured for him to get on with it.
When Kaeya cannot be with him personally, he ensures the maids are in the manor to look after him instead, like an invalid, or a child. He knows all he told them was that he had an accident at the lake, swallowed quite a bit of water, and needs some time for his lungs to recover before he returns to work. Diluc uses that excuse not to speak a word to them, and avoids their eyes to the best of his ability. They are quite keen, all of them, and in this fledgling state, Diluc cannot trust his ability to conceal his shame.
Four days pass in this bizarre purgatory before he has the courage to ask the question that has been weighing on his conscience since the day he took his life into his hands. He and Kaeya sit together at the dining table, and Diluc picks at the breakfast of hot porridge, cinnamon, and berries that he dotingly prepared for him. While Diluc eats, Kaeya reads a book; this has become their routine. He clears his throat, resting his spoon on his napkin.
“Kaeya, about Eric…”
“He’s alive, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Kaeya intones without even looking up from his book, sitting rather indecently with one foot planted on his seat cushion, and the other curled beneath his bottom.
“But do you think he’s going to tell someone who it was that put him in that condition?”
Kaeya flips a page. “He shouldn’t be able to.”
Diluc fidgets with a corner of the napkin. “What do you mean?”
“The magic that I used to save him. It should have also altered his memory of the event. He will know, obviously, that someone beat him within an inch of his life, but he shouldn’t remember who.” Kaeya finally looks up, and mimics an exploding star with his hand. “Gone.”
Magic. Diluc’s memories of that day are thready—a gift to him from his tempestuous mind—but he vaguely recalls verdant smoke between talons, and a miraculous rebirth. He shouldn’t be surprised that Kaeya can use magic, yet the prospect is still unfathomable to him. He would like to see it again.
“Are you sure? What if…what if it doesn’t work?”
“Then I have a feeling he would be reluctant to speak regardless.” Kaeya conspicuously does not deny that this is a possibility. “How many people do you think would believe him? No matter how erratically you’ve been behaving these days, whose word are they going to take: the son of one of the most well-respected men in Mondstadt, heir to the Dawn Winery empire, or a common drunkard?” Kaeya smiles at him fondly. “Besides, you will have someone to cover for you. He will know it’s either keep his mouth shut, or have everyone know that he tried to force himself on me. Don’t you worry, my dear.”
Eric did not try to force himself on Kaeya that day, this much he knows. He supposes Kaeya has always been quite adept at lying.
“I’m—”
Kaeya shuts his book with a long-suffering sigh. “If you’re about to apologize to me again, don’t waste your breath. It’s done, and I’ve forgiven you. Now you’re just being annoying.”
There’s no malice behind his words, but they have the desired effect of quietening Diluc. He sits there, picking at his porridge, occupying his mind with the gentle tick of the clock until Kaeya takes pity upon him once more.
“If it will make you feel better, we can go into town, and you can take a look for yourself,” he says. “You must be going stir crazy, anyway, cooped up in this house.”
He isn’t, not really; he would be content to languish within this dream, allow himself to knit himself back into existence without contamination from the outside world. But this estate is far from clean, and it’s only a matter of time before he opens the wrong cabinet and unleashes blight upon his sanctum. Perhaps it’s not external contagions he should feel the most threatened by.
“A little,” he mutters. Kaeya interprets his ambivalence as approval, and rounds the table, pressing a lingering kiss to the top of his head.
“Finish your breakfast,” he says. “We’ll leave around noon.”
Diluc is not sure if he’ll ever be ready to face the consequences of his actions, but Kaeya is here now to help him fend off the demons. With a lantern at his side, the darkness is a little less overwhelming.
The city is quiet today, its streets lonely and cold; while Kaeya attributes this to the changing of the seasons, each time Diluc turns his head, he swears he sees the fleeting shimmer of phantasms slithering back into the shadows. Kaeya notices his unease, and reaches out to squeeze his hand.
“Nothing here is going to hurt you,” he says to him as they embark up the stairs to the cathedral plaza.
“I know,” Diluc grumbles, shoulders tensing as he’s spooked by a cat darting into an alley.
“Then stop looking around every corner like a bogey is about to jump out and eat you.”
Diluc scoffs and drops Kaeya’s hand, jabbing him in the ribs with his elbow. Kaeya swats at him, lips pulled into a knavish smile.
“If Eric gets aggressive, we will just leave,” he assures him. “I won’t force you to confront him. Everything will be just fine.”
He cannot remember the last time he could honestly claim that his life was ‘fine,’ but he doesn’t have any option but to believe Kaeya as they walk through the cathedral’s heavy doors. He does not so much as glance at the statue of Barbatos; he cannot tolerate further condemnation.
With it being an odd hour, there are only a few worshippers present, and Sister Victoria is busying herself tending to a box of flowers near the entrance. She perks up when she sees them, an enthusiasm Diluc does not reciprocate.
“Oh, hello, boys,” she chirps. “How lovely to see you. Have you come to pray?”
“Not today, Sister Victoria,” says Kaeya, all smiles and deceit. “We’re here to visit someone in the infirmary.”
Diluc lifts his gaze just in time to see Sister Victoria’s face fall—whether out of concern for the injured party or disappointment that they were neglecting their faith, he isn’t certain.
“Eric again?”
“Yes, Sister. Has he come around yet?”
“Just today. He’s quite lucky you brought him in when you did.” Sister Victoria brushes off her habit. “Has no clue what happened to him, or so he says. If you ask me, I think he’s covering up the truth.” Heat prickles at the nape of Diluc’s neck. “No one is beaten half to death by happenstance.”
Kaeya steps to the side, blocking Diluc from view—from Sister Victoria, from the worshippers, from the eyes of god. “Ah, but Sister Victoria, surely you know the impact head trauma can have on the mind,” he says, so charming even in his disagreement. “I think we can offer him a little bit of grace, can’t we?”
His words are so compelling that even Sister Victoria looks abashed, like she had just been scolded by a priest. “You’re quite right, Kaeya, quite right. That wasn’t very charitable of me. Poor boy hasn’t had it easy, I tell you…”
Diluc can tell that she intends to prattle on, but Kaeya flashes her a smile and gestures for Diluc to continue into the infirmary.
“Thank you,” he says, placing a hand over his heart. “I’ll be sure to come by later for worship, Sister. Have a beautiful day.”
To Diluc, this sort of wordplay is akin to sorcery. “Thanks,” he murmurs, once they are out of ear shot.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Kaeya whispers. “Remember what we’re here for.”
How could he forget? The infirmary is small, and the smell of antiseptic is cloying. It seeps into all his orifices and bites at the wounds that fester within them. Diluc has never liked it here, having only visited it a handful of times as a youth when he scrapped with other boys and lost, and he likes it even less now, knowing that just beyond the curtains lays a brutal reminder of his violence.
Kaeya leads the way. He draws back the curtain quietly, casting a surreptitious glance at Diluc over his shoulder before taking a seat gingerly on the edge of his cot.
“Eric?” he calls with bitter tenderness.
Diluc manages one fleeting glance at Eric’s supine body before the heavy hand of guilt forces his gaze away. Even just that brief glimpse sears itself into his memory. His young, roguish face is nigh unrecognizable; behind the dark curtains of his eyelids, Diluc is assaulted by the mirage of his brutalized face, swollen and mottled, suspended on a hook at the butcher’s.
Eric stirs, moaning in disorientation and, Diluc can only imagine, pain. He sits up slowly, pushing himself up on his elbows with an audible wince, and Diluc fights with the impulse to flee. He slurs something unintelligible, and Kaeya’s controlled expression softens in sympathy. That, more than anything else, makes Diluc feel sick—with guilt, with envy, and guilt again.
“Easy now. It’s Kaeya. You remember me, don’t you?”
His lilting voice is so soothing, like he’s reading a child a bedtime story, and not comforting a man he had poisoned with magic to alter his memory of a traumatic event. Diluc may never grow accustomed to the eerie ease with which Kaeya can put on a performance.
“Kaeya?” Eric’s voice has the same dreamlike cadence as a disciple in prayer.
“Yes. I was the one who found you outside of Springvale and took you to the infirmary. You took quite the beating. I was frightened you might not recover.”
Eric groans and lets his head loll against the perfectly starched pillow. “You’re my angel,” he drawls.
Diluc moves to lean against the partition, but fails to realize that it is mobile, and trips over his feet when it slides across the floor. He catches himself, but the noise alerts Eric to his presence. His head swivels to locate the source of the clatter, and Diluc freezes, wide-eyed and vapid like a boar staring down the barrel of a crossbow.
“Is someone else there?”
Diluc’s eyes leap to Kaeya’s—wide, frantic, pleading—but though he meets his gaze with understanding, he offers no benediction.
“Diluc is here with me.”
He would have rather Kaeya let him drown.
“Master Diluc? Really?”
“He heard about what happened, and since it occurred close to the winery, he wanted to check up with you.”
Diluc fights against the urge not only to flee the infirmary, but slam Kaeya’s face onto the cabinet before he does so. What on Teyvat is he doing? Does he think this is a game? Was he truly such a fool as to take him at his word?
“I guess I had two guardian angels, huh?”
Relief plumes from Diluc’s lips, heavy and caustic in his lungs. Kaeya exchanges a quiet, knowing glance with him, and takes Eric’s hand without severing his gaze.
“You seem to be doing better,” he says. Eric sighs, extending one tremulous hand to place atop of Kaeya’s. An unsightly bruise spatters across his knuckles, a grim souvenir of his attempt at self-defence.
“The pain is a little better today.”
Kaeya and Eric exchange pleasantries for a while; Diluc elects not to listen, requiring his entire focus to subdue his puerile jealousy. There is something more important to consider, anyway: Kaeya’s magic worked—on the surface, at least. Eric doesn’t seem intelligent enough to fake such sincerity, but Diluc has learned by now to never believe in the impossible.
“It’s been a few days, now. Has anything jogged your memory?”
These words vault Diluc back into the present, sweat blooming in the palms of his hands. He wonders if Kaeya is testing the health of his heart rather than Eric’s memory. Perhaps he rescued him from the lake just for the opportunity to kill him himself.
Thankfully, Eric shakes his head. “It’s real weird,” he croaks, “I can’t remember anything after lunch. I had a meal at Good Hunter, and a beer at Angel’s Share, and then…”
Kaeya squeezes Eric’s arm. “It’s all right,” he says, making brief, but pointed eye contact with Diluc. “It’s very common, you know, to lose your memory after enduring such a beating. It might return to you with time.”
“I don’t know,” Eric mutters. “Might not want to. If I pissed off someone bad enough for them to try and kill me, might be best I don’t remember what I did.”
“No matter what you may or may not have done, I don’t believe this kind of violence was warranted,” Kaeya says. “Do be kind to yourself, Eric.”
Perhaps it is Diluc’s punishment that he is the one who remembers. Any relief he might feel for Kaeya’s magic to have worked in erasing Eric’s memory is drowned out by shame.
Kaeya is quick to take mercy on him, however. He rises to his feet, giving Eric’s shoulder one final squeeze. “I can’t stay any longer today, I’m afraid,” he says. “Diluc and I have business to attend to in town.” Eric’s face is not too swollen for Diluc to miss how his happiness fades. “Rest well. Make sure to take your medicine, hm? Sister Victoria doesn’t take well to difficult patients.”
“I will, Kaeya, I will. Thanks for coming to visit. I’ll treat you once I get out of here, I swear—real nice. I owe you my life.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” he says. “I only did as I should.” He joins Diluc at his side, and commands him with his eyes to say goodbye as well. Diluc clears his throat, and prays a confession won’t flit out of his mouth like a startled crystalfly.
“Take care, Eric,” he says. “I’m…” He inhales courage, and offers him the only truth he can relinquish: “I’m sorry. You deserved better.”
“Thanks, Master Diluc.” Eric cranes his neck, and a genuine smile glows from beneath his swelling, blinding Diluc. “Y’know, you’re actually a pretty great guy.”
Diluc is not offended by the implication of Eric’s words, but sickened by the compliment. Shock numbs his tongue, and he only trusts himself to bow his head, and hope that he appears humble, and not ashamed.
Kaeya slinks behind him, sliding a hand up his arm, and nudges him towards the door. Diluc raises his head just enough to meet Kaeya’s gaze as he says, “He is. Isn’t he?”
Within those eyes, Diluc cannot tell if he sees judgement, or salvation.
“Why would you do that?”
Though Kaeya had masterfully brought Diluc to submission inside the infirmary, once the crisp autumn air cleans out the dizzying fumes of antiseptic from his lungs, his temper is quick to rear its ugly little head.
“Do what?” Kaeya looks and sounds infuriatingly smug as Diluc corners him at the top of the stairs.
“’Do what’—bring me into the conversation, of course,” he snaps, just barely restraining himself from grabbing Kaeya’s arm as he breezes past him, embarking down the steps from the plaza. “Put me on the spot like that, when I can barely string a thought together, after you told me you wouldn’t force me to confront him.”
Kaeya shrugs. He doesn’t respond to his question, or even so much as turn to look at him. Diluc wonders if he is doing this on purpose, provoking him, testing his restraint. He longs to brandish his rage, to push Kaeya up against the brick and tell him to choose whether he wished to play his saviour, or his vindicator— but as he dashes to catch up to him, fingers curled into a fist, Kaeya freezes him in place with a blast of chilling contempt cast over his shoulder. Though Diluc looms over him, somehow Kaeya feels towering; insurmountable.
“We had to test if the magic worked somehow,” he finally deigns to reply, effortlessly regaining his composure without suffering even a lick of frostbite. “I ask that you trust me, Diluc. I never do anything without considering it carefully.”
Nothing? Diluc wonders. What about when you split open my father’s ribs like a reliquary? When you attempted to drive a stake through your own eye? When you destroyed my only hope at understanding how my father came to despise me, torched reconciliation into cinders?
It makes Diluc angry, he realizes in this moment, that Kaeya dons composure like a costume—but he has no right to his rage. Any fury Kaeya might harbour within his boughs is virtuous; it liberated him from his shackles, conquered an evil that devoured innocence, delivered salvation to the suffering. It is so wholly unlike the wrath that bleeds Diluc of his piety that it must be a sin to even imagine himself to be his equal.
“Please warn me in advance before you attempt anything like this again,” he mutters, his ire tamed, and taps his gloved fingers along the wall as they walk.
Kaeya pauses to survey him over his shoulder, but Diluc does not feel worthy of his gaze, and keeps his eyes pinned to the ground. It isn’t until their feet touch level ground that he speaks to him again.
“If you’re angry with me, Diluc, you can tell me,” he says.
Diluc’s head snaps up as if pulled by a string. “What?”
“Pardon me for being so bold,” Kaeya begins unapologetically, “but swallowing down your anger has only brought you pain and suffering. Express your anger. Yell at me.” He never wants to yell at anyone ever again. “Don’t let it boil over.”
Diluc rolls his frustrations around on his tongue. He tastes them, feels the weight of the words, their astringent bitterness. Perhaps one day, they won’t feel too poisonous to expel.
Kaeya looks him up and down, awaiting a verbal response, and huffs a sigh when he’s offered only silence. “Let’s go to the library,” he says. “Somewhere quiet, without any distractions.” He waits until he holds Diluc’s gaze before continuing. “There’s something I’d like to tell you.”
Diluc’s erratic thoughts manage to converge into in a blaze of anticipation. Sparks of hope break off from the flames, dancing in his waking dream. With his heart filled with visions of ‘I love you,’ he straightens his back, and inclines his head towards the Knights of Favonius headquarters.
“After you,” he says, and prays that his delusions won’t once again break his own heart.
It seems the people of Mondstadt have taken to the Favonius Library as a refuge on this blustery day; the cozy interior is flush with families reading to their children, and diligent pupils catching up on their studies. Kaeya guides Diluc to a small table near the back of the library, as far away from other patrons as they can manage, and wanders off to collect a book from another section. He returns quickly, like he knew exactly where to find what he was looking for.
He places a dusty old tome in the centre of the table, the cover bare but for one silver engraving in a script Diluc cannot understand. The leather binding is worn and scarred, and its brittle pages are discoloured and undulant, evidence of prior water damage. He takes a seat across from him, cinching his waistband tighter as his blouse flutters open. Diluc keeps his eyes trained on the waterlogged book.
“Since you don’t seem especially eager to open up to me about your feelings,” Kaeya says quite pointedly, “I figured I would take the initiative. I’ve been considering what you said the afternoon that you…”
Kaeya always seems so sure of himself, so articulate, but ten awkward seconds tick by before he composes himself. With a deep breath, he continues, “I wanted to apologize. I realize I am not always forthcoming about my whereabouts—”
“You are never forthcoming about anything.” The words leave Diluc without thought, and without regret.
A flicker of surprise washes over Kaeya’s face. He gazes down at the table, where he traces the grooves of the leather cover with his middle finger. Skipping further formalities, he says, “Eric did not touch me.”
Diluc’s lungs pull taut like a drawstring. His vision flickers.
“Nor did any other man, for that matter.”
“Never?” The word comes gusting out of his mouth on a long-held breath.
Kaeya chews his inner lip. “Not in months,” he says, telling the truth, for once. He eyes Diluc carefully, watching for his reaction, ready to squash any hint of dissidence. Beneath the table, Diluc digs into the palm of his wounded hand with two fingers. He visualizes drawing up blood. He imagines the blood is his rage. “Not since…”
The pieces of this twisted puzzle fall into place inside Diluc’s mind. There are many questions burning at the top of his throat, screaming to be answered, but despite their relative seclusion, this does not seem to be the appropriate venue to ask them. He wonders if Kaeya chose the library on purpose, to temper Diluc’s reactions. To keep him on a short leash.
“When you disappeared, where did you go?” He opts to pose his most benign question first, though it chokes him nonetheless.
“Here.” Kaeya opens the book, flipping to a page nearly dead center. He turns the book around, so Diluc can look at it. “I spent some time reading in the library. Learning more about alchemy. Trying to learn more…” He leans in closer, the warm lamplight accentuating the cracks in his dry lips. “About myself.”
Diluc glances down at the page. There in the centre fold lays an elaborate, colourful illustration, depicting a bipedal entity rising from the earth. It is curled up in the fetal position, its body composed of redwood and thorns, a bouquet of silver leaves tumbling from its crown. Roots appear to extend from its fingers and toes, anchoring it to the soil. Thick branches protrude from its brow like a stag’s antlers; slender twigs creep from its elbows and knees, winding around its arms and calves. It looks peaceful, but alien. He cannot discern if this was a stylistic choice on behalf of the illustrator, or that the being depicted was truly that uncanny.
He can’t tear his eyes away from it. Is this what Kaeya looked like, when he was ‘born’? Is this what he looks like now, beneath his human skin? The flashes of brambles and ferns have not been enough; he needs to see all of him.
Lightheaded, Diluc can only manage to sputter, “But—but Albedo said…”
“He might be a prodigy, but he does not know everything,” Kaeya says, shutting the book as quickly as he had opened it. “There is knowledge hidden in these shelves that even he would not be privy to.”
Presented with panacea, the insidious pain in Diluc’s stomach disperses; a gale clears the haze from his thoughts, delivering him from madness; the thorns coiled around his heart withdraw their fangs and slither into the void. He feels like weeping, gathering Kaeya’s hands in his own, drinking forgiveness from his lips.
“You were really here? The whole time?”
Kaeya nods, diffidence almost alien on his face, but enchanting. “I regret my actions,” he says. “I should not have abandoned you the way I did. But I was not seeking comfort in the arms of other men.” ‘Other’ men. ‘Other’ men. “I simply needed time…away.”
“From me,” Diluc murmurs.
“No. From him.”
Kaeya reaches across the table to caress Diluc’s cheek, his thumb dusting across his cheekbone. “You are not him,” he says. “I know that now. At the time, I simply needed the space to realize it.”
Without caring for prying eyes, Diluc takes Kaeya’s hand and, trembling like a leaf from head to toe, presses his lips to the heart of his palm. It can hardly be described as a kiss, a mere whisper of affection, obeisance for his benevolent god. He catches Kaeya’s gaze as he worships his skin, and he never once looks away. His eye scans Diluc’s face—his eyes, his nose, the rouge of his cheeks; a diffuse ember smoulders beneath the ice, warming Diluc’s skin.
Ten seconds pass before Kaeya presses down on his lower lip, and finally pulls his hand away. “Do you have anymore questions for me?” he asks, his gaze lingering on his own hand for a few seconds before he rests it atop the tome.
Diluc once had many questions, but they all feel like a lifetime ago now, archaic relics from an era where he did not know forgiveness. “Not right now,” he says.
“Any festering emotions you would like to confess?”
Diluc contemplates it. “I love you,” he says, for ‘love’ is the sovereign of his heart, his grail. All else is insignificant.
Kaeya returns his sentiment with a smile. “I know.” Diluc prays that one day, his response will be ‘I love you, too.’ “Now, let me show you what I’ve learned.”
Kaeya walks Diluc through what he has gleaned about himself from the tome, which, he discovers quickly, is very little. There is scant documentation on ‘alraunes’, or the process in which one is conceived; most relevant text has been weathered away—by time, water, or panicked human hands. Diluc, while captivated by the illustrations, is puzzled by Kaeya’s elation over divining such threadbare knowledge. His silence must tip him off to his confusion, as his smile flickers, but persists.
“I know it isn’t much,” he says. “But it’s confirmation. You might think it’s foolish, needing affirmation of my own existence—but this means that I wasn’t merely an abomination conceived by Crepus’s greed.” He smooths his hand over the illustrated alraune, his thumb sweeping over its face. He stares at it with the same nostalgic fondness of one leafing through a photo album. “Somewhere out there, there might exist someone else just like me. And that is a comfort I didn’t even know I craved until I saw myself depicted in this book.”
Diluc covers Kaeya’s hand with his own. “There is nothing foolish about wanting to belong.”
Kaeya tilts his head, fondness glimmering in his eye. “I already have somewhere I belong, Diluc,” he says. Diluc’s heart soars. “I only seek to find purpose outside the destiny your father forced upon me.”
A smile blooms on Diluc’s face, ground he once thought barren. “Funny,” he says, stroking Kaeya’s knuckles with his thumb, “so do I.”
In some ways, perhaps they are equals, after all.
In Kaeya’s reluctance to afford Diluc freedom, Diluc has found himself participating in many activities he would normally have no part in. He has learned much more about horses than he initially had any interest in, and accompanied Kaeya on various meandering treks through hidden corners of Mondstadt’s wilderness he had never thought to explore. He ate foraged fruits and learned how to identify various wild herbs, and felt, for perhaps the very first time in his adult life, connected to the frightened little boy cowering under the stairs—like he could finally crack open the cupboard and let his feet touch the soil, his skin taste the sun.
Unfortunately, not every activity Kaeya forces upon him is an enjoyable one. Today he is saddled with the task of assisting Kaeya as he tends the garden where they buried Crepus, which has remained untouched since the final speck of soil laid to rest atop his grave.
Due to their neglect, it’s overgrown, and far too late in the season to plant any crops; while Diluc would be content to allow nature to reclaim it, to never consider it again, Kaeya still insists upon overwintering it properly, so it can be used in the spring. “For flowers,” he said. “Let something beautiful become of his death.”
He slackens Diluc’s leash long enough to send him on an errand for a barrow of mulch and a tarp to protect the ground cover. If there is one way in which Kaeya has remained consistent all these years, it’s that he is always keen to leave Diluc to do the heavy lifting.
When Diluc joins him in the garden, huffing and puffing as he pushes the wheelbarrow up the hill, he finds Kaeya peering at the patch of earth where they buried his father, crouched over the ground like a small child observing an ant hill.
“Come look, Diluc,” he says, without looking up from the ground. “They’re growing.”
Diluc drops the handles of the wheelbarrow, and it crashes to the ground with a heavy thud. He dabs at the perspiration rolling down his brow with the hem of his shirt, and hesitates in approaching him. Something in the air here makes him sick. He does not want to take one more step into the garden.
But Kaeya summons him with an expectant glance over his shoulder, and Diluc still does not know how to disobey him. Against his better judgment, he walks behind Kaeya and stares down at the small tuft of green, wrinkled leaves sprouting from the earth. Nausea flares in his throat; he doesn’t remember planting anything here.
“What is that?” He tries and fails to keep the disgust out of his voice. Kaeya is so enamoured with the mysterious, eerie plant that he doesn’t even look at him.
“Mandragora officinarum,” he says. “My brethren.”
Diluc swallows thickly, his jaw drawing tight, and takes a step backward. “Did you plant them here?” he asks, just barely managing not to turn tail and run back to the manse.
“No.” Kaeya runs his fingers over the nascent leaves. “The seeds must have been here long before we buried Crepus. It seems his blood has awakened them after a very long slumber.”
It happens quickly and without warning: Diluc’s mouth fills with saliva, and he has only enough time to turn his head before he expels his breakfast onto the ground with a violent retch. He doesn’t hear Kaeya stand up as he empties his stomach, but he feels his cold hand caress the back of his neck.
“I’m sorry,” Kaeya says to him once the nausea finally passes. “I didn’t consider that this might be difficult for you.”
Diluc laughs. He spits onto the ground not only the dregs of bile sticking to his teeth, but all the sulfurous words that sizzle on his tongue.
“The plants,” he rasps, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “will they become…”
“No,” Kaeya says. “They are missing one very specific ingredient required to sustain life.” He wraps his arms around Diluc’s waist from behind, resting his head on his back. “The one thing he will never be able to provide them in his death. That ‘gift’ was only for me.”
Diluc retches again.
Kaeya holds him as he sobs in the garden and sings him a familiar lullaby, rocking him slowly back and forth, back and forth.
‘Sleep now, little one, hush, be still,
Never you mind what lies up the hill,
Sleep now, little one, hush, don’t cry,
Your father had to say goodbye,
To carry mother, brother, sister too,
Far and away,
To the creaky old yew’
Once Diluc’s sickness wanes, Kaeya takes mercy upon him and does not force him to assist with the garden maintenance. He instructs him to take a seat on an overturned bucket near the gate, while he pulls up weeds with impressive speed and accuracy. He assumes the crown of a despot, so ruthless that the weeds seem to wilt in anticipation of death.
But when it comes time to water the Mandragoras, Kaeya fawns over each plant like a doting mother, a vessel of the divine. He coos to them, caresses their leaves, inspects each seedling for pestilence. Diluc can only look on in despair, his head in his hands. Were it up to him, he would pull all these abominations up by the roots and incinerate them, but he could not do such a thing to Kaeya, not after he confessed his longing for kinship.
“You know,” Kaeya says after a stretch of silence, “though Crepus created me, the truth is that my monstrousness often disturbed him.”
Diluc snaps back to reality, lifting his head to catch Kaeya settling cross-legged in the middle of the garden. He digs his fingers into the soil around a sickly plant, and rips it up by the roots, at last becoming a callous and sacrificial god. He turns it upside down, plucking off a loose root or two and tossing them back into the dirt.
“Once I reached a certain age, and had perfected a human glamour, he preferred me to stay in this form. When he would hold me—”
Diluc presses his fingers deep into his abdomen, suffocating the nausea before it billows out through his mouth, drowning the garden in floes of putrescence. He doesn’t want to hear this. He doesn’t want to hear this. He doesn’t want to—
“—he would become repulsed by me if I reminded him that I wasn’t flesh and blood. Eventually I became so accustomed to it, so convinced of my own loathsomeness, that I locked myself away from the world. Even when I was alone, I refused to suffer my own monstrosity.” Kaeya brushes a lock of his hair behind his ear, imparting a smudge of dirt on his cheek. “You…the first time anyone had seen me as I am in years was when you stumbled upon me in the living room that night.”
Through tunneled vision, Diluc’s eyes settle on Kaeya, who looks for once rather reticent, almost demure, proffering Diluc a dewdrop of vulnerability in his limpid gaze. He can count on one hand the number of times he has seen such delicacy on Kaeya’s face, and all of them have been in regards to his father.
“I was frightened. I thought you would kill me.”
A new seed of guilt sprouts in Diluc’s stomach. He had been so petrified in that moment, so desperate to ensure his own survival, that he never once considered that Kaeya might have also been afraid of him. “I would never, Kaeya, I—”
“How could I have known that, Diluc?” A smile crosses Kaeya’s lips, out of reflex, or perhaps obligation. “I had just disembowelled your father. Humans are not kind to those that they deem ‘monsters.’”
Diluc lowers his gaze. “But I didn’t,” he says, juvenile and sullen. I could have, he begrudgingly accepts, but I didn’t. Perhaps there are some parts of him as yet unsullied by rage.
Kaeya huffs a small laugh. “No. You didn’t. Yet it has been so long since I’ve seen myself—really seen myself—that I don’t quite know what to do.” He stares down at his hands. “I don’t want to…disgust you.”
Diluc scrambles to his feet and, propelled by passion, dashes over to Kaeya and collapses to his knees before him. “You could never,” he says breathlessly. “I—I meant it, Kaeya, when I asked to see all of you. It does not matter to me what you look like, or where you came from. I love you”—he holds both his hands over his own heart—“not the shape of you.”
“Yet all you have seen of me is wrath,” Kaeya murmurs.
“All I know is wrath,” Diluc argues. “Your rage is a comfort. It—it’s magnificent.” His eyes drift to the centre of Kaeya’s chest, wherein lies the only heart from which he has ever craved love. “It’s righteous.”
Kaeya plucks a leaf out of the rootless plant, twisting it like a child might his own sleeve, soothing himself. He dismantles it into its barest parts before discarding it to nourish its siblings.
“I wish to show you beauty,” he says. “Mercy. Kindness. You have known enough rage, darling.”
“Show me your rage,” Diluc pleads. “Show me that I’m not alone.”
“I do want to let you in. I do.” Kaeya pats the ground at his hip, a gentle summons to his side. “I just need a little bit more time.”
Diluc settles beside Kaeya in the soil, and places his head on his shoulder, seeking comfort. He feels Kaeya’s muscles draw tight for just a moment, before he exhales a deep, quivering sigh, and rests his cheek atop his head.
“You’re never alone,” he whispers. “We’re connected, you and I.” He takes Diluc’s hand, and interlaces their fingers, holding them up to the sun. “Our roots are entangled. I will always be with you, unless physically ripped out of your grasp.”
Diluc squeezes his hand, and brings it to his chest, just above his heart. “Do you promise?”
Kaeya nuzzles into his hair, and presses a kiss to the top of his head. Warmth spreads from his crown; it caresses his jaw, massages his neck, and settles deep into his chest, where faith takes root and blossoms.
“I promise, Diluc. I promise.”
As Diluc’s health stabilizes, and he has cobbled together a frangible bridge of trust between them, Kaeya gradually allows him more independence. He elects to take more time off work of his own accord, finding it easier to focus on his recovery without the unforgiving spectre of failure looming over him. With every passing day, the memory of his life before the lake sinks deeper into the ichorous sea of time. He cannot decide if it’s a mercy.
He has been finding solace in nature, a seedling of hope nurtured by fresh air and sunlight. After accompanying Kaeya on his forays, he has taken an interest in foraging; early autumn is prime time to forage hazelnuts and philanemo mushrooms, and the woods behind the estate are often rife with them. On the first day he is left to his own devices in the manor, he decides to lean into his new hobby, dreaming about the various delicacies he could make with his yield.
Armed with a pocket knife and a basket, he ventures into the woods with purpose in his step. His mind is clear as he weaves between the trees, brushing burrs off his trousers when he emerges onto a small trail he had worn down with Kaeya as children. It winds into a small clearing, where he remembers picking hazelnuts in abundance. But as he treks down the hill, his attention is quickly caught not by hazelnuts or fungus, but a distant melody rising on the wind, a gentle, nostalgic humming.
Diluc freezes. These woods are technically apart of the Ragnvindr Estate. No one else should be here; most know better than to trespass. His mind summons fanciful images of fey creatures from his favourite storybooks as he ponders what might be lurking within the trees, though he knows it’s irrational. More likely, he will be burdened with confrontation, and having barely interacted with anyone beyond Kaeya and his maids for the past two weeks, he is dreading the prospect.
Steeling himself, Diluc’s hand tightens around the handle of his birch basket as he pushes into the clearing, but what he is confronted with is not an intruder, but a sight so fantastical that it would be out of place even in the fairytales he remembers so fondly.
Sitting in the middle of the clearing is Kaeya, but not Kaeya as Diluc knows him. His back is turned to Diluc, and he is nude, his body a canvas of rich rosewood, each curve and valley carved with veneration. From his crown spills not the inky swath of silky hair that Diluc longs to run his fingers through, but a canopy of delicate ferns, iridescent like midnight, and from each joint sprouts slender branches, spiraling delicately up his wrists and around his biceps—some budding with leaves, others barren and wan.
Diluc is mesmerized by the whorls and grooves of his wood-flesh, the delicate veins sprawling through the grain in sanguine rivulets, the faint shimmer of luminescent pollen in the shallow cracks between his joints. He wants—he yearns—he needs to see Kaeya’s face, but he is frozen in place, ensnared by his haunting beauty. He is unworthy of beholding such resplendence, a mere peon before a deity.
Before him is small chicken-wire cage, in which a squirrel natters wildly, running around in circles as it desperately roots for a means of escape. Kaeya coos at it, not loudly enough to understand, and tosses something onto the ground with a damp thud.
He pushes one clawed finger through the small gaps in the cage. The squirrel lashes out, nipping him fiercely. Kaeya gasps, but doesn’t seem angry. Instead, he opens the latch and takes the poor thing out, holding it in his hands. It thrashes about, struggling for deliverance as Kaeya whispers to it, running his fingers through its bushy tail.
Diluc wonders for a moment if perhaps, being a child of nature, he has some sort of kinship with animals, if he’s speaking to the poor, frightened creature, reassuring it of its safety in his hands.
But then, with a ghastly squall that Diluc is sure will haunt his dreams alongside his most barbaric demons, the squirrel is rent apart into a cloud of gore, as Kaeya ruthlessly pierces all ten of his talons deep into its tiny body. He hears the splatter of blood and entrails hit the grass, and the wet crunch of flesh being ripped from bone as Kaeya tears it apart.
Diluc drops his basket. Roots slither up from the grass, sapping his legs of all energy as they coil around him. Colour drains from his face as he grapples with disbelief of the gruesome scene he just witnessed unfold.
Kaeya does not seem to notice him. Wielding his talons like a hunter’s blade, he peels the squirrel’s hide away from its flesh, and tosses each portion of the crudely skinned pelt onto the ground beside him. Diluc’s eyes follow in horror, and it is upon discovering the second mangled squirrel carcass hidden within the grass that he is finally vaulted from his stupor.
“Kaeya”—his name just barely burbles up his throat and passes his lips—“what are you doing?”
Kaeya stills. For a second, he resembles a tree, tall and stoic, unflinching in the breeze. Then, right before Diluc’s eyes, the curtain of ferns spilling from his crown shrivels back into fine tendrils of human hair; the thin branches emerging proudly from his joints slip back into his body, replaced once more by the guise of soft, unblemished human skin.
He glances over his shoulder, blood smeared across his mouth, wearing the same guilty mien as a dog caught rifling through the trash. Diluc watches in awe as the crystalline haze in his inborn eye melts like hoarfrost, revealing one slitted pupil staring at him from beneath the ice. Memories of Diluc’s lighthearted conversation with Kaeya in the kitchen, joking about photosynthesis, rise from the abyss, and push the words out from his lungs:
“Are you—are you eating them?”