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Now and Then

Chapter 3

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Kaeya stared down at the package the courier had set beside the table. Much to his chagrin, sleep and breakfast hadn’t cured his headache. It pounded in triumphant circles around his mind like a winning racehorse, back and forth and back and forth. Seated across from him, Amber eyed the box eagerly. 

“What’d you get?” she asked. 

That was the problem. He had no idea. Kaeya picked up the knife he’d been using to peel an apple, slit open the lid, and peered inside. 

“Archons,” he groaned.  

The vase he bought the previous night glowered up at him, reflecting light at all the wrong angles and in all the wrong colors. Kaeya lifted it out of the box and studied the painted base. He’d paid twenty-two mora for this? 

“Have a look.” He slid it in Amber’s direction. “I’m going to put your tulips in it.” 

“Wow, thanks.” She pressed her index finger against the handle and spun it in an idle circle. “It’s very…bright.” 

Kaeya wiped the knife blade on his trousers and sliced the apple in two. He pushed half toward her and wrapped the rest in a napkin, which he slipped into his pocket for later. He needed to speak to Jean, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to. He could imagine her face falling as he recalled his run-in with Diluc at Angel’s Share, the sadness in her eyes shuttering behind a tight-lipped I told you so , the papers on her desk stacked like walls between them. Next to Kaeya himself, she had been Diluc’s best friend. Life wasn’t so simple anymore. 

Kaeya replaced the vase in the package and tucked it under one arm before standing. Seeing Jean could wait. What he really needed was something for his headache as soon as possible, more clinical than Barbara’s usual songs and healing prayers. 

“Where are you going?” Amber asked, sensing his dismay. 

“The laboratory. I’m hungover.” 

It wasn’t a lie. Kaeya had barely stepped into the laboratory before someone shoved a stoppered vial in his face. The liquid inside shone molten gold, as viscous as honey. Without looking up from a boiling beaker, Albedo shook the vial at him. 

“For your hangover.” 

The Knights’ Chief Alchemist stood at a counter with his back to the door, the hem of his white coat riddled with burn holes. The laboratory smelled like scorched hair, and clouds of smoke drifted between the metal sconces fastened to the high stone walls. Kaeya uncorked the vial and obediently downed the contents, slotting the emptied glass tube back into Albedo’s fist. It was sweeter than usual, but he didn’t mind. 

“Are you busy?” he asked. 

“That depends.” The beaker popped, and Albedo stepped back to finally meet his eyes. “Will it be quick?” 

“I have a headache.” 

“Yes, which I believe I just remedied.” 

It was their own old rhythm. Despite his reclusiveness, even Albedo knew of Kaeya’s frequent outings and the drunken state in which he would return from them. 

“It’s more complicated than that,” Kaeya said.  

How was he supposed to explain that though his headache had only started yesterday afternoon, he had been forgetting things for months? How was he supposed to explain that it had only been small things at first—a dropped task here, an overlooked detail there—but that now there was more on the line? How long would it be before he forgot about Diluc’s return? How many times would Kaeya rediscover his homecoming before Diluc knew something was wrong? He knew that Albedo wouldn’t be able to translate the emotional nature of his grievances, but perhaps that was for the best. Perhaps Kaeya needed someone who could treat them like problems to be solved rather than pools to drown in. The confession was already on his lips. It would only take one other person to lighten the load. 

Albedo looked at him expectantly. “I’m on a clock, Kaeya.”

Tell him. Tell someone. Anyone. 

But at the end of all things, Kaeya didn’t want to be solved. He wanted to be understood, and he knew that if he couldn’t give himself even that much, no one would. 

“It’s nothing,” he said, his mouth dry. “I’ll let you get back to work.” 

Albedo shrugged and turned back to his beaker, his silhouette illuminated by the windows on the laboratory’s far wall. “Suit yourself.”

---

Flora, the aptly named girl manning the flower stand, gave Kaeya a questioning look as he perused the labels underneath each bouquet. Windwheel aster, calla lilies. He squinted, trying to read the descriptions underneath. 

“What’s this, Captain?” she teased. “Welcome-home gift for Master Diluc?” 

“Not quite.” A loose corner of the stand’s awning flapped in the wind as Kaeya pointed toward a bundle of white, star-shaped blossoms. Cecilias. “A dozen of those, please.” 

The Ragnvindr family didn’t grow Cecilias anymore. The ornamental gardens were mostly bare, surrounded by brick walls taller than Kaeya’s head and covered in ivy, and the kitchen garden was overrun with weeds. After Diluc had left, Adelinde and the manor’s other employees had turned to managing the Dawn Winery in his stead, abandoning the infrastructure to nature and time. The house itself had crumbled into relative obscurity. 

As Kaeya picked his way up the paved slope to the property’s gates, he tried not to notice the newly broken windows and rotting beams accumulated across the manor’s façade. Some of his possessions still remained inside, like gold in a sunken chest, but he hadn’t retrieved them. Some artifacts were better lost. He adjusted his armful of Cecilias and pushed past the creaking gates, then crossed the lawn to the evergreen tree marking the corner of the yard. The grass soaked the knees of his trousers as he crouched and placed the bouquet at the tree’s base. 

“So,” he said to the tree. “He’s back.” 

The tree, as usual, didn’t answer. Bemused, the sun watched on from its perch in the sky. 

“Business at Headquarters is as usual,” he continued. “Jean is neck-deep in her tax frenzy, Rosaria’s still a truant, and Albedo is unearthing alchemy’s next huge discovery. But everyone in Mondstadt seems to know that it’s only going to be quiet for so long.” 

Somewhere deep below the damp, overgrown grass lay Crepus’ coffin. Kaeya could still feel its varnished wood, smooth underneath his gloved fingers as he lowered it into the ground. It had smelled like leather and healing herbs. He hadn’t known what the small, round leaves and yellow buds were for. Crepus was already dead, after all. 

“Ever since I showed up on your doorstep, I had tried my best to show you that I wasn’t afraid.” Kaeya swallowed the lump forming in his throat. “I’m still trying, but I don’t know who I’m trying for anymore. Maybe it’s my father and Khaenri’ah. Maybe it’s the Knights. Maybe it’s still you, somehow. All I know is they believe me, and I can’t let them down.” 

He took a shaky breath. “I can’t remember anything anymore. They slip away just as I reach for them: lists and alibis, small things. I’m worried that it’s going to be the bigger things next. I’m beginning to forget what my father looked like.” 

He could leave Khaenri’ah behind, abandon his belongings in the caverns of his childhood, but no matter what he did, Kaeya would still be walking history of his own life. He had lived as his people died, destroyed in the darkness of their own walls. He had lived as his father deserted him in the pouring rain. He had lived as Diluc bore down on him, fists blazing. He was proof that it all had happened, and that he had lived nonetheless. 

“Kaeya.” 

Kaeya’s stomach dropped. He turned around slowly, holding his breath as his brother halted at his feet. Diluc’s face was grim and withdrawn, his eyes cold. He consulted the gilded watch ticking at his wrist, one of Crepus’ favorites. 

“A buyer is touring the property in six minutes,” he said. “You should go.” 

Kaeya rose to his feet. “A buyer?” 

Diluc nodded toward the house as if he was dealing with a rude, indignant child. “Land is valuable around here, but it’d be more expensive to try and restore the place. If you have any personal effects you’d like to recover, you can come back tomorrow.” 

“You’re selling the house?” 

“Yes.” He smoothed his coat lapels. “That’s five minutes, now. Please leave.” 

“Wait.” Kaeya’s heart pounded between his ribs, almost deafening. He focused on the Cecelias at his feet, inhaling their honeyed scent, but it did little to calm him as anger rose like a tide in his chest. “Don’t you think I should have a say in this? Where are you going to live? What about Father’s grave?” 

“I’m staying at the Dawn Winery,” Diluc answered. “Both properties are legally in my name, and I will manage them and their associations as I see fit.” 

Ice ran through Kaeya’s veins, a chilly reminder of the Vision secured to his belt. “He’s not an association,” he snapped. “He’s your father, and mine, too—” 

“Did he know about your connection to Khaenri’ah?” 

The air between them was still. “Father wouldn’t have handled it like you did.” 

“I’m not so sure. My family doesn’t enjoy being lied to.” Diluc checked his watch again. “Four minutes. Remove yourself from my land, or I’ll drive you out myself.” 

“I didn’t lie to you.” 

“You kept the truth from me, which is as good as the same.” 

“What was I supposed to say?” Kaeya demanded. “That I was a spy? That if war between Mondstadt and Khaenri’ah broke out, I’d be a traitor, too?” 

“After all we’ve done for you?” The sun disappeared behind a cloud, casting them in the manor’s shadow. “Where were your people when you needed them the most? We took you in—my family, the Knights, Mondstadt itself—we cared for you when even your own father couldn’t bear to keep you by his side, and you would still abandon us for all those who abandoned you?” 

This is your chance. You are our last hope. He swallowed a lump forming in his throat, tasting the bitterness of his inner cheek, then met Diluc’s eyes. The darkness in them rivaled the Khaenriah’s black stone sky. Where were your people when you needed them most? The truth was that they needed Kaeya now more than he would ever need them again. He was a prince, a savior, free from the curse that turned them into the monsters felled by the Knights of Favonius and the immortals stuck underground. 

He had also been a child. 

“Master Diluc! The rumors of your return are true!” 

Kaeya and Diluc turned as the manor’s buyer shambled past the gate, his shoulders hunched like an insect’s as he considered the house at a distance. He was old, white-haired, and fat around the middle, which his leather belt did little to relieve. Kaeya didn’t recognize him at all. He tried to imagine the house restored under someone else’s watchful eye, the carpet lining the stairs trodden down by a stranger’s boots. 

“Master Goth,” Diluc said, his tone carefully warm. He was a businessman, after all. “Thank you for coming. I was just showing this man out.” 

“Indeed,” Kaeya added as he brushed the grass from his trousers, “this property is rich with the history of one of Mondstadt’s oldest families. In fact, Master Ragnvindr’s father is buried under this very tree.” 

Goth’s mouth fell open as he glanced at the pine. A muscle in Diluc’s jaw ticked furiously. Dead bodies tended to lower property value, after all. Kaeya elbowed him in the side and strode away, the fresh smell of Cecilias heavy in the air. If he had learned anything about Goth in the moment of knowing him, it was that he was short and ugly and tapped into the city’s rumors like a spile. By the time the week was over, everyone in Mondstadt would know of the Ragnvindr home’s special feature. At the moment, Diluc was probably livid. 

As Kaeya returned to the Knights of Favonius Headquarters, he caught sight of Albedo sprinting across the training grounds in his direction. That was strange. He was sure that the one and only Chief Alchemist preferred to avoid strenuous physical activity as much as possible, with the exception of his treks into Dragonspine. 

It then occurred to him that Albedo wasn’t only running in his direction, but running toward him in particular.

“Kaeya!” 

Kaeya balked as Albedo skidded to a halt in front of him and thrust something thin and fragile into his hand. Sunshine glistened against its cylindrical glass edges, reflecting off the golden residue stuck to the bottom. He recognized it as the vial of hangover medicine he’d downed earlier. 

“What is it?” he asked. 

“How do you feel?” Albedo demanded. “Is your headache gone?” 

“Well, I…” He hesitated, unsure of what to say. It was mostly gone, likely stored away in some chamber of his brain until another more inconvenient occasion. “For now, I guess. I feel better.” 

Kaeya stared as the alchemist snatched the vial away and held it to the light, studying its sparkle. His arm quivered as he lowered it and finally looked up, his blue eyes shaken and wide. 

“I gave you over twenty times the recommended dose of the wrong medicine.” He turned the vial over in his palm. “It's meant to prevent blood clots. Klee blew a hole in the lab wall two weeks ago, and we’ve been using it as rat poison ever since. I know you’re not the same size as a rodent, but—” 

“Albedo.” 

“You should be dead, and—” 

“Albedo!” 

The alchemist stopped. He was visibly shaking, his entire body trembling like a leaf. Kaeya had never seen him like this before: vulnerable, unsure, afraid. No one had, perhaps ever in the history since his creation. Something in the air was working hard to untie all the order Mondstadt had ever known. 

“Take your time,” he murmured. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.” 

Albedo’s knuckles blanched as he clutched the vial tightly. “I know what you are.” 

Kaeya’s heart stopped. His chest trembled as he tried to breathe, but found that his lungs were already full. The curses that bound Khaenri’ah’s people were as fresh as blood in his mind. One of wilderness and the other of immortality. Could it be? 

“What is it?” he asked. 

“Not here.” Albedo surveyed their surroundings and shook his head. “The laboratory. Now.”

Notes:

I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Expect even fewer updates until the new year because I need to get into school and the American college admissions process is deeply flawed (I want to level a small country.)

EDIT (9/30/24): Reading it back, I wasn't thrilled with how this chapter left off and added a few more lines to close it up the way I wanted to. That being said, I have a calculus test tomorrow and it's 10:30PM, so it's safe to say that I'm not thrilled with much right now. Best wishes <3