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The knock at his door comes late, so late that Kaeya has half a mind to ignore it and go back to sleep. He was out late, enjoying some drinks at the tavern and actually managing to rope his brother into a decent conversation for once. It would be too much to ask for a good night’s sleep on top of that, wouldn’t it?
The knocking is insistent, slightly erratic, the kind that makes it clear that whoever is at his door won’t go away anytime soon. Maybe it’s Jean? Maybe there’s some sort of emergency that needs his attention?
Kaeya pads towards the door, stretching his arms above his head and wincing as his bones crack. The knocking continues, but it’s a little slower now, a little less insistent.
He opens the door. His vision is filled with a large mass of blue and black, but before he can really process what’s happening, said mass is falling face-first into his arms, collapsing with a low cry of pain.
Kaeya freezes for a moment, and then his expression hardens, all business as his training kicks in. He didn’t even realize Dainsleif was back in Mondstadt, but there’s no time to dwell on all of that now. On… everything they are to each other, everything they could be, everything they grow closer and closer to every night they spend in each other’s bed…
No. Not when there’s something uncomfortably warm seeping through Dainsleif’s cloak. Blood. Too much of it to be a small wound.
Kaeya manages to stand him upright, walking them brusquely towards the bedroom after kicking his door shut. Dainsleif groans again, coughing wetly as his hand searches blindly, fumbling for… something. Kaeya doesn’t know what; he’s busy trying to shut his mind off, trying to keep the panic from overwhelming him as Dainsleif’s movements become more sluggish. Dammit. Damn him, Damn him, Archons, what did he—
Dainsleif’s hand finds his own, gripping tightly and squeezing.
Kaeya loses the battle against his raging emotions, letting out a shaky breath as he blinks tears from the corner of his vision. “What the hell happened ?” he chokes out, heart in his throat and threatening to burst out. “Archons, what are you doing here? Who the hell did this to you?”
Underneath the fear, anger simmers, residual darkness perhaps leftover from his abyssal forebears. The desire for revenge that was so often his brother’s forte, but always seems to come easy to him, when it comes to Dain.
Dainsleif squeezes his hand as Kaeya helps him lay down on the bed, meeting his eyes. His face is screwed up in pain, but those eyes are as brilliant and beautiful as they always are.
“I… I’m sorry,” Dainsleif says, refusing to let go even as Kaeya tries to pull away. He has to go and find supplies, he has to get a fire going, he has to…
But Dainsleif stops him, pulling him forward and gently pressing Kaeya’s hand against his chest. Against his heart , beating fast but beating nonetheless. “I’m sorry. I just… didn’t know where else to go.”
Kaeya’s face twists. Archons damn him . He can’t look at him, not while he’s feeling so much, so fast, all of it threatening to spill over.
He takes a deep breath. Then two, pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand to try and tame his raging feelings.
Ever since this… thing between them began, he’s never seen Dainsleif get hurt. Hell, he barely even breaks a sweat when they spar, and Kaeya’s always half in awe and half terrified of him because of it. He’s supposed to be immortal, isn’t he?
What could have made him so injured that his blood is beginning to seep into Kaeya’s sheets?
“...Prince?”
Kaeya winces. He’s still disentangling that part of his name, of his legacy, and that title falling from Dainsleif’s lips always makes him feel like he’s morphing into someone he doesn’t want to be.
Or… maybe he does. He doesn’t know, sometimes. If it will get Dainsleif to stay—and now, to not get hurt, then… maybe he does.
“I told you—”
“Kaeya.”
Dainsleif’s voice sounds pained, and when Kaeya meets his eyes, there’s regret there.
Kaeya takes a shaky breath, shaky hands stripping Dainsleif of his heavy cloak. He can’t quite look him in the eye. “Tell me what happened.”
Dainsleif doesn’t speak until his chest is bare, and Kaeya can see thick, heavy bandages wrapping around his torso. They look several days old, but the wrapping is well-done. The blood stains his upper abdomen red, seeping through one of the bandages and spreading quickly. He must have pulled one of his stitches, and tried to power through it without treatment, because that’s exactly the kind of stupid shit that an abyss-damned immortal would do.
Dainsleif sighs, reaching up to remove his mask. Kaeya had been shocked, the first time Dainsleif had taken it off in his presence. It seemed like a show of trust that he hadn’t earned, but now, no one outside of this room knows how badly he craves to see Dain’s face without it.
“I confronted the Abyss Prince,” he says, looking away.
“ Alone? Are you insane?” Kaeya stops unwrapping the bandages on his torso for long enough to stare at him incredulously. Dainsleif has the decency to look ashamed.
“I had the Traveler with me. But… when it became clear that I would need to duel the Prince… I couldn’t risk her getting in the middle of it.”
Kaeya slowly counts to five inside his head. It was a technique his adoptive father taught him back in childhood to calm down when Diluc was driving him crazy. Now, he tries to bite back the urge to smack Dainsleif upside the head.
He’s already injured. It probably wouldn’t do much good.
“You’re a damn good fighter when you want to be,” Kaeya says instead, letting out a shaky exhale. “You can’t expect me to believe the Prince bested you in a fair fight.”
Dainsleif grimaced. “No.”
“You held back. You let him hurt you on purpose.”
“Yes.”
Kaeya sighs, as the last of the bandages falls away. The wound is deep, oozing blood from the spot where the stitches tore, but it doesn’t look infected, which is a good sign. Kaeya stands up on slightly shaky legs, intending to fetch the medical supplies that he keeps around the house for situations like these. It isn’t the first time he’s been called upon to help someone in the dead of night.
Diluc used to be a pain in the ass about it, when he was doing his vigilante thing.
But before he can move, Dainsleif reaches for his hand again. “Kaeya.”
“What ,” he says, going for angry but landing on shaky instead. He’s more rattled than he realized, it seems, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.
Lying on the bed, looking smaller than Kaeya has ever seen him, Dainsleif is wearing a sheepish expression. “I’m sorry I made you worry,” he says softly, making Kaeya feel like the worst bastard in the universe in an instant. He’s the one that’s injured, and here Kaeya is making everything about himself. “It wasn’t my intention to scare you like this. I treated the worst of my wounds before returning to Mondstadt, but I ran into some rather persistent monsters on my way here.”
Kaeya sighs again, letting Dainsleif pull him towards the bed. He goes willingly, leaning forward until their foreheads are resting against each other. Dainsleif is still bleeding, staining Kaeya’s sheets, but it soothes something inside him to have him close like this. His heartbeat grows slower as Dainsleif exhales, as he rests his own hand against his chest and feels the steady rise and fall of his chest.
“I’m sorry,” Dainsleif says again, lips brushing Kaeya’s with their faces so close like this. “It was a calculated risk. Contrary to what you might believe, I do know what I’m doing. I just didn’t count on the monsters surprising me.”
Kaeya hums, his eyes sliding shut as the steady thumping of Dainsleif’s heart calms the fear inside. He’s still planning on giving him a pretty thorough tongue lashing once he’s out of immediate danger, but for now he simply leans in closer, moving his hand up to cup the back of his neck.
“You are,” he whispers, capturing Dain’s lips. “ Very lucky I like you, Twilight Sword.”
Dainsleif breathes a shaky sigh, smiling a little, and kisses him back.
Maybe it’s a little more than like., But Dainsleif doesn’t need to know that just yet.