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Kaeya's week had been full of work. That, Diluc could tell. Entering the tavern with a target in sight every single day, opening the door with that fake smile of his already plastered on, smiling and being loud and overly friendly as if the hoarders had granted him a wish with their presence and not an annoyance or a threat like any sane person would see them as.
And judging by the way Kaeya sweetened them up, laughed and talked, he would've believed the acting too, if he hadn't known him for most of his life, that is.
Every day for a whole week.
He had tried to inquire about the issue he was facing, one of the many nights Kaeya managed to blackout drunk his target and resigned himself to finish his own drink by the bar. It was clear he was having trouble getting the information he wanted.
"Shouldn't you of all people already know?" He had said, clearly frustrated. "Doesn't that network of yours keep you updated?"
And Diluc had known, for quite a while actually. His contacts had informed him about an aggressive group of treasure Hoarders that had settled near Stormterror's lair, hidden amongst the mountains, staying low as far as he knew.
He didn't understand, though, why Kaeya had decided to deal with it all by himself. Jean still had to send knights to scout the area, she probably didn't even know about them yet, but Kaeya did.
He didn't push any further, he as well understood the need to work outside the constraints of the knights. If Kaeya needed his help, he would ask.
And even if he didn't, he would be there anyway to guard his back.
By Sunday, Kaeya seemed to lose his patience; almost slamming his mug on the passed out hoarder by his side. That evening he sat somberly at the bar, drinking quietly with a slight tremor to his hands. Diluc could see dark eyebags under the other's eye, but didn't comment on it.
On Monday, he followed Kaeya on his route.
On Tuesday, he watched as the Captain fought a whole camp by himself, as he sliced through Hoarders and forced them to talk, as he skimmed through the diaries taken from the camp; alone near a riverside, nursing his wounds with nothing but his ice.
He missed Wednesday.
On Thursday, he watched bewildered, perched on a cliff above the supposed treasure hoarder camp, as the Cavalry Captain walked in alone and fought to lose. He watched with bated breath as the hoarders laughed with crossbows charged, as Kaeya struggled to his feet, wounded and dazed, raising his hands, giving himself up. He watched as the sword dropped from his hand and how the treasure Hoarders tied his arms behind his back, kicking his legs to make him kneel.
He knew Kaeya was a better fighter than that, so he waited even more. Because even if his mind screamed at him that Kaeya had thrown himself in desperation and blinded by frustration to the camp, he knew Kaeya better than that.
He watched as a hawk how the hoarders kicked and punched the Captain on the ground, how they spilled wine on his clothes and laughed.
Every passing second, every shuddered breath, filled with rage.
On Thursday night, the hoarders sat Kaeya in front of the fire and waited. He listened how the hoarders boasted, listing all the things their boss was going to do to him once he arrived.
Diluc watched as Kaeya's lips barely twitched with a smile.
Near the beginning of Friday, the boss arrived, and when he placed a single hand around Kaeya's neck, squeezing tightly, Diluc didn't wait for a second longer.
Materializing his claymore, already alight, he jumped onto the camp. The hoarders didn't get a chance to fight back, all the rage he had accumulated during all the waiting exploded with each of his strikes.
"Stop or I'll snap his fucking neck in half!" The boss barked behind him, hand pressed tightly around the Captain's throat, lifting him like a rag doll off the ground.
"What are you doing?!" He sneered in response, glaring at an equally angry eye.
"I said—!" The hoarder shouted, but got cut short as a glacial dagger impaled both his legs, sending him backwards onto the ground in a heap of blood, ice and screams.
"Why did you have to barge in? I had it under control." Kaeya snapped back, standing up with already untied hands and freezing the rest of the hoarders in pillars of ice with a flick of his wrist.
Diluc bit down, turning and screaming as he sent his flaming Phoenix through the frozen hoarders. The fight was over before it had the chance to fully begin, he could still feel the fire of rage very much blazing in his chest.
When he turned back, Kaeya was crouched near the boss, freezing slowly the man's body with a hovering hand as he whispered something into his ear. The hoarder screamed and begged, and finally told him what he so desperately wanted to hear.
"In— in— we trapped them in the—Thousand Winds temple! Please!" He cried and Kaeya sighed, freezing the man solid with his ice. Unforgiving. The solid expression of dread carved into the ice.
"Finally..." He stood, nonchalant, patting the dust off his pants.
"Finally?" Diluc repeated, vanishing his claymore and stomping over, shoving Kaeya harshly, making the other stumble back with a wince.
"What were you thinking?" He but screamed.
Kaeya glared. "What a coincidence to find you here, Master Diluc. Thank you for your assistance, although you almost blew over the whole operation."
With controlled breaths, Diluc managed to not slap Kaeya across the face. "Me? Was there even a plan to begin with or did you jump into the camp hoping someone would come to your rescue?"
Kaeya rolled his eye and Diluc felt his vision flare at his side.
Turning around, the Captain started walking through the camp. "I didn't simply jump into the camp without a plan, Diluc. This is something I'd been working on for weeks, but even if I told you so, you wouldn't believe me." He said, murmuring the last part. He picked up his sword from a broken crate and swung it calmly.
The Pyro vision user hoped the blood boiling inside of him wasn't an effect of the vision itself. A small sense of satisfaction came when Kaeya stumbled, shoe getting trapped between some weeds. Diluc was just there to catch him, holding his upper arm tightly as Kaeya recovered his footing.
"If your plan was to get beaten up half to death, you managed just well."
He tried guiding Kaeya to sit but the other just stepped away, albeit shaky, and stubbornly refused the other man's concern, glaring back at Diluc while pressing icy hands against the now frozen blood by his chest.
He hadn't seen that wound from afar.
"Don't touch me." He said.
"Your wounds need attending to. Don't be stubborn."
Kaeya laughed, fake as always. "Very observant there, but I don't have the time for such thing."
"I saw how they beat you. You can barely put both legs straight on the ground. Stop pretending you're okay."
"So you can pretend you care?" Kaeya asked, without an emotion to his words.
They looked at each other for a moment before Diluc scoffed.
"So inefficient you want to be, to drop dead halfway to Mondstadt? Or will you use your aggravated wounds as an excuse to avoid working? If that's your plan, it wouldn't surprise me."
Immediately, Kaeya smirked, cynical and cold. He stood straighter, looking at him sharply.
"You didn't seem bothered at the scene while they kicked me open, "he said with something so deeply fake in his voice, "for how much you complain, you stayed quite still for the whole of it. Just at the last possible moment did you jump in. I would dare to say you even enjoyed it—"
The loud slap almost echoed in the mountains.
Diluc breathed through clenched teeth with his arm stretched, closing his open hand into a fist and barely holding back from doing it again. "You're unbelievable." He spat, bringing his arm down.
Kaeya flinched back, barely noticeable. He stood struck for a moment too long, watching with a conflicted eye the other as his cheek reddened.
Then anger flew wild.
Almost too fast for him to react, an ice wall broke from the ground beneath him, trapping his coat in the ice, frosting his sleeves and legs, with a knife sharp ice spike just below his neck, barely close enough to scratch him. Diluc immediately froze. He could melt it, call upon his fire, but the shock and the look on Kaeya's face struck him like lightning. So he stood still as a statue as the other turned.
"Consider this a warning, Master Diluc. Leave." Kaeya seethed his name out, walking away, leaving a path of frost under his steps.
As if , Diluc thought as the ice vanished not a second later.
.
It was clear Kaeya was in pain, not enough to make him stop but enough to keep an arm braced around his chest. Yet, he dutifully kept walking with long anxious strides.
Diluc followed quietly behind, wisely choosing to not say a word since they left the camp.
Soon enough the Dawn Winery came into view. Although Kaeya didn't even spare it a glance.
Based on the single illuminated window, Adelinde had stayed up even though he told her to not wait for him. He felt small relief at the thought of not having to deal with it alone.
"Stop," Diluc spoke, breaking the passive aggressive silence that had settled between them. "Let's get to the Winery and heal your wounds." He suggested.
Kaeya ignored him.
.
By the time the moon was high above them, they reached the crossroad that led to Mondstadt.
Diluc tried again, taking two long steps to catch to Kaeya. "I suggest we head to the cathedral."
The other laughed unimpressed. "I didn't know Master Diluc got so wounded against a few Treasure Hoarders. You are free to go, I wouldn't think to stop you."
Diluc bit down any retort. His patience was nonexistent, yet still followed when Kaeya stumbled on his way to the path to Windrise. Offering an arm for support and nothing else.
.
The path was covered in hilichurls and all kinds of monsters the knights should've cleared by now. Nevertheless, Diluc fought them all. Not even allowing Kaeya to unsheathe his sword to step in and help.
Kaeya didn't say a word, but allowed it, pausing his walking to wait until Diluc finished, recovering his own breath Diluc knew he was missing.
They could barely see the stairs towards the ruins of the temple when out of nowhere a Mitachurl came barreling down the path directly towards them. They dodged easily. Such big creatures could only ambush a deaf and blind person and even then, they could probably feel the rumbling under their feet to warn them.
Bracing for a harder fight, Diluc set his claymore aflame, focusing on his next target. The Mitachurl blocked his strikes but, eventually, the ambers ate through its shield and true damage was dealt. It was big and strong, fast despite its stature, but nothing Diluc hadn't fought before.
So focused he was on the fight that he didn't even realize when Kaeya slipped past him and towards the ruins by himself.
Just when the Mitachurl fell with a disgruntled groan, did Diluc hear the overbearing silence around him and turned to the emptiness where Kaeya should've stood. He glanced around, searching for the idiot that dragged him along, but only found scattered hilichurls laying on the ground leading up the path.
Then, came a scream. "Ack—!" followed by the distinctive sound of explosions.
To say the least, his stomach dropped to the depths of the Abyss.
He followed the sound, running like his own life depended on it.
"Down!" He managed to warn once he reached the last stair.
Kaeya's head snapped at him then ducked and, not a second after, Diluc's Phoenix ran through the already half frozen Ruin guard, instantly breaking it into pieces.
"What is wrong with you?!" He screamed, anger evident on his steps as he got closer to the Captain. Captain who somehow looked worse than after being beaten to a pulp by the hoarders. He had blood trickling down his temple and the subtle wheeze he managed to hide all through the way there, was now clear for Diluc to hear.
"I—" Diluc didn't let him finish, certain it would be a stupid excuse or a petulant 'I had it under control', which would've made him just the more angry.
Grabbing a handful of the Captain's coat, he dragged him to his feet.
"Do you have a death wish?!" He sneered.
Kaeya only stared, brow furrowed, still trying to recover his breath from the fight.
"What is so important that you would walk in and do stupid shit like this?"
But Kaeya batted his hand away again, weakly, and stumbled backwards a few steps. Without answering, he made his way towards the edge of the arena.
Diluc was about to turn and leave when he heard it.
"Sir Kaeya!" A little boy screamed, followed by a chorus of: "You came!" with equally high pitched shrieks.
He came closer to the commotion, and sure enough, behind dark iron bars, a group of five children huddled as far as the bars allowed towards the Captain.
"Of course I came." Kaeya said without a wheeze, without a stumble. "How did they get you there?" He asked one of the oldest boys.
"They pushed a big rock from behind there." He said while pointing towards a boulder.
The kids were dirty and messy, their clothes ragged and Diluc was sure they were starving too. They didn't look wounded though. With a quick glance to the other, he could tell Kaeya saw the same.
"Care to lend me a hand, Master Diluc." Kaeya turned to him, his usual smirk in place.
Diluc, dumbfounded, just nodded, following the Captain to the back of the walls.
As much stubbornness both of them might've harnessed, the boulder won, with triumph.
"They are usually six or seven when they move it." One of the kids kindly added after Kaeya and Diluc nearly lost their arms trying to push.
The Captain laughed, slightly wincing at the motion but hiding it well enough for none of the kids to notice, then he turned to Diluc. "Would you mind sending a bird towards Mondstadt asking for some knights?"
And Diluc really wanted to snap. Argue with 'we could have gotten help when we were at the bridge', even mutter a petulant 'I told you' even if he hadn't told him anything. But he couldn't do it in front of the kids, and he hated Kaeya knew that.
He sighed, nodded, then whistled to call a bird he luckity had follow. He sent it and stood to watch as the kids told Kaeya everything they knew, and Kaeya, in return, reassured them.
"Your parents are all waiting for you." He told them, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the bars. "Me and Master Diluc took care of the hoarders that attacked you, they won't bother you ever again." The kids cheered.
They asked for the red on his clothes and he told them it was wine. They asked if he arrested them and he told them that he did. They asked if Diluc was his assistant and he laughed and said that no, he was a civilian that crossed paths with him. Mostly half truths but he could expect nothing else from Kaeya himself. It was… nice to be on the other side of the lies for once.
The knights they requested arrived with the first rays of sunlight on Friday morning. Six young men that cowered when Diluc glared at them.
They moved the boulder with little effort, Kaeya staying by the door, monitoring the situation. Diluc knew his energy was just running too low to pretend moving didn't hurt and keep the lies at the same time. He would scoff at him but part of him felt stupidly guilty over Kaeya being so hurt. The other's words burrowing deep in his chest.
He did just sit and watch—
"Sir Kaeya!" A little girl came running towards the Captain, hugging him tightly, the rest followed along. A moving sight, yet Diluc barely managed to hold in a laugh when they squeezed a cry out of Kaeya.
Weakly, the Captain managed to shoo the teary kids away towards the knights. "Escort them to the cathedral, make sure they are not hurt. Notify Jean, she will handle the rest." He said in his commanding voice, that serious tone he would use to mock him when Diluc had just become Captain all those years ago.
"Are you coming with us, Captain?"
"No. I need to see if they left evidence behind. Making sure the kids are safe is most important. I'll leave it to you."
With a cacophony of goodbyes from the kids and quiet salutes from the knights, the group left. The echoes of the kids' laughs following like a trail behind.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Diluc asked once it was quiet again.
"The hoarders had kidnapped the first kid two weeks ago." Kaeya answered instead, walking inside the cell, picking up papers.
"Why didn't you involve the Ordo?"
"The hoarders threatened the parents with their kids lifes if the Ordo got involved. They came to me instead, funnily enough." His hand barely trembled as he picked between a broken crate.
Diluc stood quiet. His anger subsided the moment he heard the first kid, dying completely when he saw them throw themselves to the Captain's arms. The only thing left in his chest was the aching worry. Watching Kaeya stumble and wheeze, applying ice ever so subtly over different wounds.
"Nothing of importance." Kaeya noted as he glanced over the papers scattered on the ground.
"Why didn't you tell Jean?" One of the only competent knights, in his opinion. She wouldn't have allowed Kaeya to do all of this alone. Maybe that's why he didn't tell her to begin with.
"As much of a great Acting…" Kaeya breathed and choked, falling into a coughing fit, doubling over. Diluc barely managed to catch him, helping him to sit.
"You should've gone with your knights. If you die here, any information you could've found would be worthless."
Kaeya wheezed in a breath, pressing a hand against his chest, not in smugness, to Diluc's worry, but in pain. "Can't risk missing information. Less with such a dangerous group." He rasped.
"Stop talking."
Ice creeped from under Kaeya's fingers, surrounding the stuttering chest with frost. "That will hold until I get back."
"Kaeya."
"Hm?"
"Stop talking."
Kaeya stared at Diluc, somewhat annoyed, but Diluc didn't care. He was too tired to care and pretend he didn't care. He was worried, tired, he felt guilty and he wouldn't be able to sleep if he let his stupid… Kaeya walk to the city and trust he would take care of himself, as if the past few hours weren't enough proof of the opposite.
"I'll carry you." He declared, kneeling with his back to Kaeya.
Of course, Kaeya opposed. "I can walk by myself." He started but Diluc knew very well he couldn't.
"On my back or would you rather I carry you like a sack of potatoes?"
There was no room for resistance. As much as Kaeya would like to decline the offer, maintain his dignity, and walk himself back to Mondstadt, he used more energy than he had in him on the walk there. So he sighed, took a step forward and plopped himself on top of Diluc, who held his legs and stood up, making sure Kaeya wouldn't fall backwards.
They— well, Diluc started the walk back.
It was quiet for most of the time. The breeze of the morning sun filling the silence between them.
To be honest, Diluc was tired. Exhausted from two sleepless nights and two shifts at the tavern, plus the fights. And he was sure Kaeya felt the same way, if a bit worse.
"You can sleep." He told to the man lying on his back.
It took him a few minutes to feel the weight of Kaeya's head rest fully on his shoulder and his arms hang around his neck.
It was nostalgic, reminiscent of the old times when they were a family not fractured by truths and lies and death. When they were little and carrying the other home after a long day was just something they did to show they cared.
Although, Diluc stopped, glancing at the trees and the grapevines and the red roof of his home, he couldn't say he didn't care. Bringing Kaeya home after a long week, it was fitting for them, even if it didn't feel like it.
Maybe it was the tiredness of everything finally catching up talking.
Nevertheless, Kaeya would be home and he would be safe. And when Jean inevitably grounds him for his stupid plan, Diluc will rest easy knowing Kaeya will be maybe a room over and not walking alone to his own demise.