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Kaeya was made of stars.
His mother had said as much when he was little, held in her arms as she pointed up to the little dots in the sky and told him that he was made from those too. It had felt special at the time, to be like the stars in the sky that shined down onto people, that humans could point at in awe and wonder.
He hadn’t felt much like a star when his mother left him crying in his father’s arms as she walked away, nary a glance back at him as he screamed for her to come back, that he would be a better son, if she wanted a son at all. His father treated him less like a star and more of an asteroid set for destruction.
He remembers holding the Star of Khaenri'ah in his hands, tiny little palms wrapped around pointed tips as his father told him that he was special before he ripped the Star from his hands and shoved it into his right eye. Kaeya had always heard of the term ‘seeing stars’ but was never able to quite understand it until now.
The feeling in his right eye is one of pain, a pain that he would become all too familiar with when the anniversary of this day would come, hand over his right eye as tears of blood ran down his cheek. He could see the galaxy then, all of the little stars and planets that made up the solar system, the plains of space where he had not reached.
Maybe, if he holds out his hand, he can touch them now with how close he is.
Kaeya remembers the first time he had stared into the mirror after the fact, the Star of Khaenri'ah spinning in the pupil of his eye. The sclera is black as night, the iris of his eye a galaxy into the vacuums of space, and in the middle of it all is the Star that haunts his life. His father had given him an eyepatch and told to not let anyone see it, that it would spell ruin if he did.
He didn’t know what ruin his father had been talking about until later on in life, rain spilling down with a burn on the side of his face and a brother who wanted him dead.
Diluc had been something like a blessing to his life. Crepus had been too, but Diluc had been something special. Diluc was a brother, older and mature and shined like the sun in the sky. If Kaeya was the stars that glittered at night with awe and wonder, Diluc was the sun that shined in the sky to bring health and growth to the earth.
They were fire and ice, water and heat. They were never meant to mix together, and yet, they did so with such perfect elegance.
He can still remember sneaking into Diluc’s room in the mornings before Adelinde came to wake them both for breakfast. He can remember Diluc always groaning about sharing his bed, but it never contained any heat; it never did.
Diluc was someone that he looked up to, someone that he loved, but someone that he wanted to protect. In the dark of nights, when Kaeya was sure that everyone was asleep and he held the Star of Khaenri'ah in his hand, he promised himself that he would use this power to protect Diluc, to protect Mondstadt.
That promise was broken the moment Diluc set fire to his right eye, murder in his brother’s gaze as he tried to burn the Star out of him.
It didn’t work, it never did, but it left behind a scar that felt uglier than the Star itself. The eyepatch, the one that he would have happily tossed aside for Diluc, became the staple on his face. No matter where he went, no matter what he was doing, the eyepatch always remained.
The only time he took it off was to stare at the little spinning star in his pupil, the want to raise a knife and carve it out himself.
His father had told him that he was the last hope for Khaenri'ah, but he certainly didn’t feel like it. He had never felt like it, not since he stepped through the doors of Dawn Winery and learned the meaning of family and brotherhood.
So really, it wasn’t a surprise when the past had come back to bite him in the ass. He wakes up the morning with a chill to his bones and an ache to his right eye. He presses a hand to it, summoning the Star that spins in his head with precise grace. He lets the Star vanish, pushing himself up to get his day started.
At first, it’s just like any other day.
He does his duties, fills out paperwork, and takes care of the things that Jean has him doing around the city. It’s as mundane as they go, but something feels off. There’s something wrong in the air, leaning a little too close to a feeling of home that has something sinking in his stomach, a heavy feeling that is closer to anxiety.
He doesn’t know what he has to be anxious about. Everything, as far as he knows, is fine. The city is peaceful, the Knights are unharmed, and Dawn Winery is still standing. The only thing he checks on, the only thing that is regular, is Diluc. The Tavern is quiet tonight, rarely so. There’s a trickle of customers, but nothing so rowdy that it puts Diluc in a bad mood.
At least that’s until he walks through the door.
Their eyes lock across the way and Diluc sighs with the sigh that always means something that Kaeya doesn’t feel like looking into. He sits at the bar, hand curled against his cheek as he orders one Death After Noon, watching with a smile as Diluc rolls his eyes and proceeds to make the drink.
For once, it’s nice like this.
Diluc isn’t outwardly hating him and just seems to ignore his existence while he tends to the customers in the tavern. He isn’t making any witty remarks that would push the limits of Diluc’s mood and make him regret being here. It’s fine, peaceful even. The customers trickle down into nothing, leaving just the two of them as Diluc takes away his cup.
He feels tipsy, but not overly drunk that would leave him with a hangover the next morning. He feels aware, present in the moment. Which makes what happens next all the more worse.
He’s in the motion between getting up from his seat and pushing himself away from the bar when a loud noise echoes through his ears. It sounds like static akin to something that might come from a radio. It’s grating, painful to all of his senses. His right eye, briefly, pounds with the sound.
“Kaeya?”
He turns around, catching Diluc’s blank face. Despite how well Diluc has trained himself to not show his emotions on his sleeve, he can still see the vague hints of worry that churn the space in his ribs, a nostalgic feeling that hurts more than it should.
“I’m fine, Master Diluc.” He says with impressive charm. It would have worked better if it didn’t feel like someone was drilling a hole into the side of his head. “Just a little bit tipsy. No need to–”
He doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence before the world explodes into pain and stars that feel like suns. His right eye burns with something that he cannot name, a feeling that he cannot describe. It feels like someone has taken a knife and dug the blade into his eye from the back of the socket.
Visions pass by his eyes, pictures of a home long since razed to the ground by the Archons. Voices whisper into his ear, that he’s their hope and their savior and that he’s to bring Khaenri'ah back to a glory that was long since lost to them. He can see his father standing in front of him, whispering to him that he is to make Mondstadt theirs.
His mother walks away from him, thunder clapping as a vision of Diluc jumps through her to cut him in half.
He gasps, working eye snapping open as he looks around the room in pained agony. Diluc has him in his arms, holding him close to his chest as he tries to get his attention. Kaeya ignores it because he knows what this is.
This is Khaenri'ah and something is happening to it.
Before he can ponder anything else, the pain grinds to a halt, his body suddenly limp in Diluc’s arms. His heels, which he had zero control over, finally stop digging into the wooden floors. His nails, achy and raw, fall flat against his side. His right eye throbs in time with his heartbeat, the eyepatch feeling like a cage.
He rips off the patch, ignoring the blood on his hand in favor of placing it over his eye. He focuses like he always has, imaging the pricks of a Star in his hand. Instead, he gets a shock of pain that has him screaming again. This… This shouldn’t be happening. The Star should come out like it always does, in his hand with little fuss.
He tries it again, the pain roaring nausea into his belly. He tries it a third time, ignoring Diluc trying to get him to stop when the Star finally comes into his hand.
It’s cracked.
Cracked isn’t the right word, but maybe shattered. The pieces of the Star are chipped, eroding away in his hand. It barely pulses in his fingers, barely holding on and he knows that something happened in Khaenri'ah. He stares down at it, letting it rest against his stomach as he lays his head against Diluc’s chest.
He feels tired and raw, pulled apart and pulled back together with zero grace.
He feels, oddly, like he’s just given birth, the little Star on his stomach the proof of an existence he never wanted. He opens his left eye, aiming up towards Diluc. His older brother looks like a mess, something close to tears.
“Kaeya?” He whispers. “Are you okay?”
He doesn’t feel like it, but he’s not going to say that, not while he feels like hot garbage. He sits up, surprised that he’s entirely in Diluc’s lap. The Star, so carefully floating, is about to be put back into his eye when Diluc grabs his wrist.
“Can I… see it?”
Instantly, he’s reminded of that night in the rain, eye scorched with flame and blood as Diluc swears to kill him. Before he knows it, he’s always across the room, Star held against his chest as Diluc sports a hurt look. He doesn’t know what to say or how to explain himself, just that he doesn’t want Diluc touching it.
He can already see it now, Diluc holding it in his hand with a blank stare before wrapping his fingers around it and crushing it with barely any force. It would not be the first time that Diluc has crushed something of his.
But the look on Diluc’s face gets him to reconsider it. He walks back over to his brother, placing the star in his hand. He expects to hear the shatter, the snap of a Star exploding like the ones in space. Instead, Diluc holds the Star as if it were a wounded baby bird. He loves and hates the sight all at once, a mix of emotions that has him regretting everything.
He turns around, walking around the bar to go into the private bathrooms to splash water on his face. The water is cold against the heated flush of his skin, eyes lifting to look into the mirror. He looks tired, bags under his eyes that scream of a body worn down. The one working eye, because the other stopped working the moment his father slammed the Star into it, looks dimmed like melting ice.
In the middle of it all is Diluc behind him, Star of Khaenri'ah held in one hand as the other hesitates by his side. He takes the star back from his brother, leaning his head back to slowly put the Star back into his eye. It melts, the sight gory if he hadn’t done it so many times by now. He shakes his head once it’s over, looking back into the mirror to find the star shaped pupil that has haunted his life.
“Kaeya–”
“Stop.” He puts his head down, hands holding him up as he leans against the skin. “Just… stop, Diluc.”
From the mirror, his brother rolls his eyes. “I haven’t even said anything.”
“Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t want you to?” The tone is biting, snapping in so many ways. “You can’t just hold me in your arms and ask to see the Star when it was the very same thing that you tried to burn out of me. Or have we forgotten that moment?”
Diluc snarls. “I didn’t. Is it that shocking that I might actually still care about you?”
“Yes!” Kaeya whips around, anger flashing in his eye. “Yes, it is surprising because as far as I remember, you burned half of my face, abandoned me in Mondstadt without even a word, and come back to act as if I don’t fucking exist! As if what we had died with Father!”
Diluc shoves him against the sink, hands fisted into the collar of his shirt. They stare each other down, fire and ice forming a deadly concoction. Kaeya smiles, a smirk that hides the real hurt in his chest.
“What? Was what the little spy said too mean?”
Diluc sighs slowly through his nose before letting him go, the fingers of his left hand rubbing the bridge of his nose. Kaeya doesn’t know why they do this, coming so close to forgiving each other before throwing it back into their faces. It’s tiresome, but the hurt is vast and wide like the ocean.
Simple apologies won’t ever get rid of the nightmares that leave him with a pounding eye and tears dripping down his cheeks. Simple apologies won’t ever get rid of the nervousness he feels when Diluc throws fire in his direction, mind flashing back to that night that he will never forget. Simple apologies won’t ever get rid of the hurt he felt when Diluc told him that he wasn’t part of the family anymore, that he wasn’t allowed in Diluc’s life anymore.
Simple apologies won’t ever get rid of the feeling that he should have gone back to Khaenri'ah, that life would have been better if he had been in Dilic’s life at all.
“Kaeya…” Diluc sighs again, hand falling from his nose. “You aren’t– I didn’t– …I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what happened that day, for what I said to you. I should have… listened to you and not have reacted in the way that I did.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You mean seeing the Star in my eye and deciding that it needed to be burned out of me? Or do you mean lighting your sword on fire and nearly murdering me? Or do you mean the burn scar on my eye because you couldn’t stop to listen to me?”
Diluc is silent and he knows that if his brother says that it was the wrong place at the wrong time, he’s going to leave and never come back.
He’s lying, but it’s a thought he entertains.
“What I did to you that day was something that I never should have done.” The apology in Diluc’s voice is clear, unmistakable. “When Father died, I blamed myself for what happened. I thought that I could have prevented everything if I had just been strong enough. And then when you told me where you came from, all I could think was…”
He looks down at the floor. “That I was pretending to be your brother?”
“And that your loyalty was to Khaenri'ah and not Mondstadt.” The admission hurts, aches in his chest like his brother’s claymore running through him. “I didn’t… I was too swept up in Father’s death to understand you, to see what you needed from me.”
He scoffs. “And what did you think I needed, Master Diluc?”
“Someone to believe you.” The pit in his stomach is heavy and his mouth feels like bitter acid despite how sure Diluc sounds of himself. “It was a secret that you had been carrying with you since you came to Dawn Winery. You felt torn between two places and wanted me to know that your loyalty lied with me, with our family.”
Kaeya stares, the saliva in his mouth catching on the empty feeling in his chest. There’s a remark on his tongue, something about Diluc always seem to think that he knows so much about him, but he holds it back. Diluc is the same brother who let him crawl into his bed in the mornings, the same brother who played with him and made him feel like a person rather than a tool.
Diluc is also the same brother that left him in the pouring rain with a burn over his eye.
It’s a dichotomy: The face of a brother who loved and cared for him, who held him in his arms and sat with him in front of the fireplace contracted with the face of a brother who stood over him with the intent to murder.
It’s hard to settle that, hard to look at that and not feel that maybe, somewhere deep down, Diluc hated him and maybe still does to an extent. The want to toss his apology back into Diluc’s face is tempting, overwhelming if he were to think about it. But he’s tired of this. He’s tired of the fighting, the words that they don’t mean tossed into each other’s face to leave behind more open wounds that never heal. He’s tired of acting like he hates Diluc, like he didn’t hold his Vision for him for years until his brother finally came back.
“...Okay. I forgive you.” Something inside of him softens, melts into a puddle that feels like a weight. He steps forward, carefully, and wraps his arms around Diluc. “...I missed you.”
Diluc is silent, unmoving for all of a few moments before hugging him back. “I missed you too. I won’t… I won’t ever do that to you again.”
“I know.” It sounds like a promise, just like the ones they made when they were little. “I believe you.”
He hopes that the promise actually sticks this time.