Chapter Text
The first time Diluc meets Beidou he wonders if he’s being pranked. It’s a weekend night at Angel’s Share, busy as ever, and in struts a tall, slender beauty with one eye covered by an ornate eyepatch. Her clothes are bright and stand out. Her mannerisms are eerily familiar, full of confidence just bordering on arrogance, except the grace in her every movement suggests she can back up that arrogance. She slides onto a seat at the bar and looks Diluc right in the eye when she places her order.
“Death After Noon.”
For a moment Diluc only stares at her.
The woman doesn’t seem to notice. Actually, she probably does. She seems like the sort who’s used to being stared at. Something they have in common. It’s in the way that she casually ignores his hesitation instead of watching him like a hawk for weakness to exploit that convinces Diluc she’s an actual legit customer. Not some actress that Kaeya or some other clown hired to come in pretending to be Kaeya’s female counterpart just to get a reaction out of Diluc. He mixes her cocktail then and serves it to her promptly. She raises her glass and chugs it exactly the way Kaeya never would, ever. Sets it down empty. Orders a beer, preferably cold. Diluc complies.
She’s on her second beer (third drink of the night) when Kaeya enters. Diluc notices his brother as he always does. Kaeya usually gives him a slight nod, which Diluc never returns, but tonight Kaeya’s eye slides right over him and lights upon the woman. A warm smile crosses his face and he makes a beeline to her.
“Captain Beidou,” he greets her, and Diluc can tell that his brother is genuinely delighted to see this woman.
The woman, Beidou, turns and a smile lights up her face. “Captain Kaeya.”
“I heard you were in town,” says Kaeya. “It’s good to see you again.”
Beidou reaches out to Kaeya and they clasp hands. Then Beidou pulls Kaeya in closer for a hug, and to kiss his cheek. That earns them a bit of attention and Kaeya some glares from the numerous Liyueans drinking at Angel’s Share tonight.
“You as well,” says Beidou, and when they break their embrace, Beidou looks Kaeya up and down with a hungry gleam in her eye. “Always good to see you.”
Kaeya then looks to Diluc and it’s only because Diluc knows him so well (Or knew him so well. Once. Long ago.) that he’s able to pick up on Kaeya’s surprise. If he had to guess the reason for it . . . Kaeya probably didn’t even realize he was there, he was so focused on the woman. Kaeya doesn’t address his shock though, and recovers quickly, giving Diluc his trademark shallow nod greeting, which Diluc doesn’t deign to return. “One Death After Noon, please. And another round for my friend here.”
Diluc serves them up their drinks and goes about his business. He does not eavesdrop on them anymore than he can help. He would prefer to ignore them except when they need more drinks, but they don’t make it easy. They’re not being . . . obnoxious, not exactly. They’re just being themselves, which is kind of just as bad. Two extremely attractive, powerful people in positions of authority drinking (a lot) together who clearly have at least a passing interest in one another . . . Every man from Liyue looks like he wants to stab Kaeya in the kidney. Every pensioner from Mondstadt with an unmarried granddaughter looks like they want to dump Captain Beidou in the harbor. It would be borderline hilarious if it wasn’t Kaeya. His mere presence sucks the humor out of every situation for Diluc.
Kaeya buys the two of them another round after they finish the first drinks he ordered for them. When Beidou buys them another round after that, they’ve started sharing a barstool. Not sitting in each other’s laps, but somehow both balancing on the same stool, each with an arm wrapped around the other, and probably a leg or two tangled up as well. Next round they’re linking arms and holding the other’s drink up to their lips for each other, tilting the cups carefully and drinking quickly so they don’t spill. They manage it, but Diluc is not impressed. If it was just Kaeya he might be entertaining the idea of throwing him out just for being annoying, but . . .
“Captain Beidou,” says Kaeya, “I have been thinking.”
Beidou gives a sly smile. “I think I know what about. You and I are a lot alike.”
“We are,” agrees Kaeya. “So alike, we’re almost like the same person, just opposite gender.”
“Yes,” Beidou says. “So we should make out.”
“Yes,” Kaeya agrees. “We’re so alike that this is probably as close to making out with ourselves as we can get.”
“Agreed.” Beidou smiles like a cat that just swallowed a canary whole.
“Not here,” Diluc finally interrupts them. He’s trying to run an establishment with a bit of class, damn it. He’s well aware that a great many hookups start here in his bar, and he can look the other way for people kissing at secluded tables . . . but not making out at the bar right in front of him.
“Pshh. Mondstadt bar tenders are such prudes,” Beidou complains and slides off their shared barstool.
“Don’t be mean to him, he can’t help it,” Kaeya says. “Hey, I have another idea.” He leans in close and says something that Diluc can’t hear into Beidou’s ear. Beidou smirks and nods, and when Kaeya offers his arm to her, she takes it.
They leave then, and somehow Diluc is even more annoyed than when they were here. He has a pretty good idea of what Kaeya’s idea was. Damn near everyone in the tavern does by the looks of it, and since people in this town are so prone to trying to drink their problems away, it makes for very good business. Diluc barely has time to think about his brother’s antics for the rest of the night, he’s so busy serving alcohol.
It’s none of his business. Kaeya and Beidou are both adults and neither was so intoxicated that Diluc feels like he should have intervened. This is hardly Kaeya’s first romantic relationship (if it’s actually a relationship and not just a one night stand). He very much doubts it’s Beidou’s either. They can both do what they want.
Doing what they want . . . turns out to be exactly what they were doing. Diluc learns this on his ride home, back to the winery, after closing up for the night some hours later. He doesn’t expect to see his brother again that night, but when he reaches the fork in the road just past Springvale, he hears very familiar laughter coming from Drunkard’s Canyon and sees flashes of light from many, many superconduct reactions.
Usually Diluc takes the southern road home these days because the state of the road in Drunkard’s Canyon has gone so far downhill, his wagon is far too likely to get stuck in a rut . . . but Diluc can’t help but be curious about what exactly is going on in there. Or more specifically, what the devil is Kaeya doing now?
Fighting, apparently. Alongside Captain Beidou. Drinking as well. They must have picked up some bottles on their way, because Diluc certainly didn’t sell them those. Diluc watches, quite impressed, as Beidou slings around her claymore one handed, while using her other hand to chug down whatever is in her bottle. Kaeya is back to back with her, his Glacial Waltz activated, so icicles swirl around them, chilling and cutting hilichurls. Then Beidou summons electro to her sword and smites them down in a shower of sparks and flurries. As Kaeya’s icicles die down, Beidou replaces them with swirling electro-bolts of her own, that spark and chain from one hilichurl to the next. Kaeya surges forward and blasts the survivors with Frostgnaw, triggering yet another round of superconduct reactions.
It’s impressive, especially considering that they’re both inebriated. You wouldn’t know it by the way they’re moving. It’s almost like a well coordinated, extremely deadly dance that they’ve practiced so many times that they have it down perfectly. They seamlessly switch up who attacks, who defends, who takes the lead, who uses their powers. What’s even more impressive is the number of dead hilichurls all around them. Diluc watches them and feels something tight in his chest as he remembers . . . remembers back when he and Kaeya used to fight side by side.
Not quite like this. Kaeya didn’t have a Vision back then. Only Diluc did, but they still teamed up together to take on bandits, and hilichurls, and anything else that needed dealing with, and no enemy was ever able to stand before their combined might. (There’s a part of Diluc that still believes that if only Kaeya had been by his side the night their father died, the two of them would have prevailed against that monster. It makes no sense. Deep down he knows Kaeya would have likely just gotten killed . . . but some part of Diluc still believes they could have beaten it, together.) Even without a Vision, Kaeya just had a knack for knowing exactly where he needed to be to best compliment Diluc. Their fighting styles just synced up, with Diluc slinging pyro and carving a path while Kaeya used his speed to dart all around the battlefield, controlling the fight’s flow, both of them covering the other as needed, both of them just so confident in their abilities and each other.
What would it be like to fight alongside Kaeya again? Diluc wonders as he watches the blinding purple and pale blue flashes light up the night around Kaeya and Beidou as the two captains give a whole new meaning to the word revelry. Would Kaeya and Diluc still be able to manage it if they even wanted to? People with cryo and pyro Visions are notorious for not being able to cooperate to save their lives, but if it’s Diluc and Kaeya . . . no wait. They don’t get along anymore. Funnily enough, they haven’t since the night Kaeya got his cryo Vision, though not for that reason . . .
Diluc turns his wagon to take the southern road home, leaving Kaeya and Beidou to their fun, and definitely not still wondering if he would be able to fight with his brother as well as they used to, if he even wanted to.
For the people who just finished reading my other fic, Poisoned Dreams, this fic is in the same continuity. This chapter is just set before the Ragnvindr brothers start reconciling. It will eventually catch up, then pass Poisoned Dreams . . . then Diluc might actually admit to himself that he’s jealous that everyone’s getting to fight with his bro but him!