Chapter Text
Story One
Maybe the Rain Will Cease
Kaeya
The storm didn’t simply break over Mondstadt—it descended upon it, crashing down like an army of old gods returned to settle ancient debts.
Kaeya had known storms. Real ones. The kind that carved scars into the north and froze breath midair. Yet even he felt something coil in his chest as the first wave of wind struck. Something wrong, metallic and sharp, like the atmosphere itself had cracked open and bled into the world.
The air tasted like iron. Static clung to his tongue. Every hair on his arms stood on end.
He tightened his cloak, though the thing was drenched beyond saving, rain slapping against him in sheets. He should’ve turned around hours ago. Any sane man would have.
But sanity had never been his guiding principle—and Fatui footprints didn’t ignore themselves.
He pressed deeper into the forest.
By the time he decided he should retreat, the sky tore open with a sound like the earth screaming.
Wind slammed into him sideways, nearly bowling him over. His boots sank in mud that tried to claim him. Branches whipped overhead, snapping like bones.
Lightning flared white-hot.
Thunder answered like a beast waking.
“How… inconvenient,” Kaeya muttered, breath swallowed immediately by the gale. “Of all days…”
He stumbled, grabbing a tree to steady himself. Water streamed down his face, soaking into the collar of his shirt, chilling him straight to the marrow. His muscles shook with the cold. His vision flickered.
The storm howled louder.
Then—CRACK.
He didn’t even look up. Instinct drove him to lift his arm—
Too slow.
The branch hit the side of his skull with a brutal, sickening thud.
Light exploded behind his eye. His world tilted sharply—
—and the ground slammed into him.
Rain instantly mingled with something warm on his scalp.
He blinked up at the sky, confused, dazed, seeing only shards of white and black.
Then pain roared in, animal and merciless.
Warm fingers traced his temple—his own, he realized—coming away wet and red.
“Oh,” he exhaled thickly. “That’s… not ideal.”
Darkness crept in, cold and heavy as a tide.
It swallowed him.
He resurfaced in fragments.
Mud pressed against his cheek. His body convulsed with shivers so violent they made his teeth clatter. His head pulsed with a nauseating, rhythmic pain—each throb like something trying to claw out from inside his skull.
Move.
He didn’t know where the command came from. Only that he had to obey it.
He pushed. His limbs felt disconnected, as if someone had replaced them with waterlogged cloth. His right eye stung; his left was sticky with half-dried blood.
Lightning arced above, brief blinding color before everything washed back into gray.
He staggered to his knees.
Up.
He clung to a tree trunk, breath tearing from him in ragged gasps. Rain ran down his face, seeped into the wound, made him hiss through clenched teeth.
Everything spun.
He tried to walk.
His legs disagreed.
He stumbled forward anyway—driven by instinct, by stubbornness, by something old and lonely inside him whispering that if he stopped, the cold would finish the job.
Shapes blurred. Voices rose in the wind—except they weren’t voices. Just the storm playing tricks on his fading senses.
His boots tangled over a root. He hit one knee, palms sinking into sludge. For a moment he swayed there, breath whistling shallow and sharp.
He forced himself up again.
Time twisted. Minutes or hours or heartbeats passed—he couldn’t tell.
Then lightning fractured the sky, and—
A roof.
Warm light.
A silhouette in the distance through sheets of rain.
He blinked hard until the world steadied.
No… it couldn’t be.
Dawn Winery.
A broken sound escaped his throat—half laugh, half desperation.
He pushed forward.
The vineyard stretched before him, rows of vine trembling under the storm’s fury. He stumbled between them, grabbing posts to keep upright. Twice he fell; twice he pushed himself up, though the second time he gagged, practically coughing up rainwater, chest spasming violently.
His head swam. Fever burned under his skin like wildfire catching dry brush.
Still he pressed on.
Up the steps. One at a time. Each felt like lifting boulders.
He reached the door.
He knocked.
Pathetic, soft, nearly silent. His knuckles barely tapped the wood.
He tried again. His arm shook too much to land a proper hit.
His forehead thunked gently against the door, breath fogging against its cold surface.
“Someone…” His voice cracked into nothing. “Please…”
His knees gave out.
He collapsed sideways, body hitting the porch with a dull, heavy thump. Rain pooled around him, soaking through layers to chilled bone.
His vision narrowed.
Black crept in.
Just before it swallowed him whole—
Light.
A door opening.
A silhouette framed by warm glow.
Red hair.
Wide eyes.
A voice—sharper with fear than anything else—
“Kaeya—?!”
Then darkness claimed him.
Weightless. Floating. Suspended between fire and frost.
Hands—warm, steady, grounding. They lifted him with more strength than Kaeya currently possessed in his entire body.
Something pressed to his head—tight, warm cloth. Voices swirled around him like muffled echoes underwater.
He drifted in and out.
—firelight—
—Diluc’s voice—
—pressure on the wound—
—hands checking his pulse—
—anger layered over fear—
He surfaced again—briefly.
A bed beneath him. Blankets piled high, but he still shivered. Fever pulsed hot beneath his skin. His head throbbed, every heartbeat a hammer.
He groaned, turning his head toward movement.
Diluc sat beside him.
Kaeya blinked, disoriented. He tried to speak.
“Hey—” he rasped.
“Don’t,” Diluc cut in, voice thin and uneven. “Just… don’t talk.”
Kaeya meant to laugh. It came out a pained exhale instead.
The world tilted.
He slid back into darkness.
The fever took him.
He dreamed of lightning fracturing into shards that stabbed through his skull. He dreamed of falling. Of a hand grabbing his wrist just before impact—red hair haloed by firelight.
He woke with a gasp, chest seizing. His body jerked violently, blankets twisting around him like restraints.
Hands steadied him instantly.
“Easy. Hey. Kaeya—look at me.”
He blinked up, single eye hazy with fever.
Diluc.
Still here.
Still worry etched between his brows like he couldn’t smooth it out even if he tried.
Kaeya slurred, “Sorry…”
Diluc’s jaw tightened. A muscle jumped.
“Just stay alive,” he said quietly. “Apologize later.”
Kaeya let out a breathy huff that turned into a cough so vicious it curled him forward. Pain stabbed through ribs and skull. Diluc supported him without hesitation, one arm bracing his back.
He eased Kaeya back down slowly, adjusting blankets with a delicacy that didn’t match his usual rigid posture.
Kaeya’s chest burned. His breath wheezed. Cold sweat clung to his skin even as fever baked him.
“W-what… happened…?” he forced out.
“You arrived at the winery during a thunderstorm,” Diluc snapped softly. “Hypothermic. Bleeding. Barely conscious.”
Kaeya blinked slowly. “Don’t… want to impose.”
Diluc stared at him like that was the most infuriating thing he’d ever heard.
Kaeya shivered violently.
Diluc cursed under his breath, pressing a warm compress to Kaeya’s chest. “Your fever’s spiking again.”
Kaeya’s head lolled to the side. His eye slipped half-shut.
“Kaeya.” Diluc leaned closer, voice sharp. “Open your eye.”
Kaeya tried. Failed. Tried again.
The world flickered.
His breathing hitched—short, panicked, shallow.
Diluc’s hand cupped his jaw, steady but trembling. “Stay with me.”
Kaeya whimpered softly—embarrassing, involuntary. Pain carved down his skull. Darkness seeped in from the edges.
“Diluc…” he whispered, raw. “Didn’t know… where else… to go…”
Diluc’s fingers twitched.
Something broke quietly in his expression.
“You came here,” he whispered. “That’s enough.”
Kaeya slipped under again.
Time blurred.
He half-woke to a cool cloth on his forehead. To Diluc muttering curses at linen bandages. To bitter medicine against his lips. To a steady voice reading something—reports, perhaps—to keep him awake.
Once, he woke to the sound of Diluc pacing the length of the room, hands shoved in his hair, muttering frantic fragments.
“He’s burning up—
winds, this is bad—
why didn’t he turn back—”
Kaeya tried to speak, but only managed a soft sound.
Diluc was at his side in an instant.
“Kaeya. Hey. Stay with me.”
Kaeya’s blurry eye focused on him.
Diluc’s fear was barely concealed—raw, biting, real.
Kaeya reached weakly toward him—fingers brushing Diluc’s wrist.
“It’s… okay…” he murmured.
“No,” Diluc snapped—voice cracking. “It isn’t.”
Finally—mercifully—the fever broke.
Kaeya woke drenched in sweat, chest heaving. But the fire under his skin had dimmed. His head still throbbed, but the sharp edges softened.
He exhaled shakily.
Turning his head, he saw Diluc slumped forward in a chair, head resting on crossed arms at the bedside. Exhausted. Keeping vigil.
Kaeya stared.
A quiet laugh slipped out.
Diluc jerked awake instantly—eyes snapping to him.
“You’re awake,” he breathed.
“You’re… terrible at resting,” Kaeya rasped.
Diluc ignored that entirely. His palm pressed to Kaeya’s forehead—warm, solid, grounding.
Kaeya leaned into it.
Diluc’s shoulders sagged—relief so visible it hurt to look at.
“Fever’s down,” he said softly.
Kaeya let his smile soften, not the sharp mask he normally wore.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “For not… letting me die on your doorstep.”
Diluc looked away quickly, clearing his throat.
“You can thank me by not doing anything that stupid again.”
“No promises,” Kaeya murmured.
Diluc shot him a look that said he’d throttle him if he weren’t injured.
Kaeya’s eye grew heavy again.
Diluc adjusted the blankets—gentle, precise, almost tender despite the stiff line of his shoulders.
“…Rest,” he said quietly.
Kaeya hummed—warm, safe, bone-deep tired.
His eye fluttered shut.
Just before sleep claimed him, he felt a hand rest briefly against his shoulder—solid, steady, lingering a second longer than necessary.
Outside, the storm finally eased.
Inside, warmth remained.
Kaeya slept.
Safe.
Home.