Archive of Our Own ^beta

And if you're in love, then you are the lucky one
'Cause most of us are bitter over someone
Setting fire to our insides for fun
To distract our hearts from ever missing them
But I'm forever missing him

Youth - Daughter

The first birthday Kaeya had after Crepus's death and Diluc's dramatic departure was the worst of his life. He felt the loss of the years he'd spent happily in the Ragnvindr home like a knife pushed through his ribs, the tip digging into his heart. Adelinde sent a cake, small and beautifully decorated, but he'd felt too sick to his stomach to eat any of it. He couldn't even share it with the other knights because the thought that someone else might know it was his birthday, might give him the well wishes he wanted from someone else, was unbearable. Instead, the cake rotted in his quarters until he was forced to throw it away, the guilt choking him.

It was too much to have had a family, to have had the first blossoms of love bloom inside him, only to lose it all in one fell swoop. He both loathed and longed for the passing of time, wanting to go back and freeze his life in place when it was hopeful and bright, or for the days to simply go by so fast that he felt none of them at all. A birthday was just a painful reminder. He vowed to forget he even has one.

He almost succeeds.

Until, of course, Diluc returns and brings with him all the old aches of Kaeya's heart, the knife pushing in a little more. He hates how handsome he is still, and hates the way just the sight of him makes his blood warm. It makes everything worse and he has to work harder to keep the cool and disaffected demeanor he's carefully built over the years.

He manages it okay for awhile. He manages it until Diluc asks him what he's doing for his birthday, an offhanded question delivered between snarky quips exchanged over the Angel's Share bar. Kaeya feels himself go cold, so cold he thinks for a moment that he's activated his vision by accident.

"Nothing," he says, his tone too sharp. Too revealing.

Diluc's brows pull together in confusion. "Nothing? No night on the town? No ridiculous party?"

"No," Kaeya replies, looking past him, his eyes unfocused as he wills this conversation to end.

"Why not?"

Years of no contact followed by months of nothing but sniping at each other and now Diluc chooses to start needling him about his personal life? They have carefully avoided anything beyond surface level. No mentions of Crepus, of their fight, of the unanswered letters Kaeya had sent in the weeks following.

"It's just a day," he says, trying hard to keep his voice disinterested. As if this conversation is having no effect on him whatsoever. He suspects he's failing, however, and the heavy weight of Diluc's eyes on him confirms it.

Diluc hums, thoughtful in a way that makes Kaeya want to strangle him. "Interesting."

"No," Kaeya snaps, "it isn't." He drops a few mora on the counter and stands, the stool scraping loudly against the floor despite the din of the chattering patrons around them. Diluc doesn't stop him —although a part of Kaeya foolishly wishes he would— but he can feel the way he watches him until he disappears through the door and escapes into the night.

He avoids Diluc for the next week, which is easy as their lives don't have much overlap anymore outside of Angel's Share and Kaeya just goes when he's not there. Diona isn't thrilled with his added time at the Cat's Tail on the days Diluc is in the city, but he doesn't take it personally. The added distraction of TCG helps, and if he plays more of it in the days leading up to his birthday, then that's his business.

The day of is as normal as any. Jean is probably the only other person in Mondstadt who remembers it's his birthday and she graciously ignores it for him every year without question. Instead she sends him out to take care of a few hilichurl camps north of Springvale. He should take backup but he doesn't; he's aching for a good, exhausting fight and maybe to take a few blows while he's at it. Which he gets when he comes face to face with a couple of mitachurls, one who smashes into him with its surprisingly strong wooden shield and sends him sprawling into the grass.

Still, it doesn't take long to dispatch the pair of them and Kaeya decides to take a long route back to the city, picking fights with any other monsters he comes across. His job is to keep Mondstadt safe after all.

The sun is starting to set when he returns to the city, the buildings limned in gold light as he makes his way back to his apartment. His arms are sore from wielding his sword all day and his legs feel heavier and heavier with each step he takes. Perhaps he'd overdone it, sure to ache in the morning, but he's hopeful that the exhaustion will deliver him a sound, dreamless sleep.

He's fantasizing about that sleep as he trudges up the wooden stairs to his second floor apartment when he sees a familiar form leaning against his front door. Red hair glows in the dying light and upon hearing Kaeya's footsteps, familiar crimson eyes meet his own.

It's unfair, really, how good Diluc looks all the time. Broad shouldered and tall he looks as dangerous as Kaeya knows he is, but his long hair and neatly styled clothing softens him, gives him an edge of beauty that has half of Mondstadt mooning over him. Kaeya has been known to moon over him as well and he hates himself and Diluc for that. And he hates the way just the sight of him outside his door has sent his heart racing into overtime.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, straightforward in a way that he usually isn't. He's weary from a day of fighting and he hasn't stopped thinking about the last time they'd spoken at Angel's Share. He'd hoped Diluc would take the hint and ignore today like everyone else, but Kaeya sees the bag he has with him and it makes his stomach churn.

"It's your birthday," Diluc says, as if it's that simple. As if he cares.

"And since when does that matter to you?" Kaeya snaps, pushing past him to unlock his door. Diluc moves out of the way.

"I deserve that."

Kaeya doesn't deign to respond to such an asinine statement. He pushes open the door and makes to close it on him, but Diluc wedges his boot in the way before he can manage it.

"Can I come in?"

"You really have some nerve, Diluc Ragnvindr."

"Please?" Diluc asks, holding up the bag and giving him a look that can't quite be described as puppy dog eyes but is something close. It throws Kaeya so off balance that for a moment all he can do is stare which Diluc seems to take as a "yes" and pushes his way inside.

Kaeya shuts the door behind him and slumps against it, watching as Diluc takes in the sparingly decorated apartment. It barely looks like anyone lives here at all and Kaeya is struck with just how sad it must seem to someone else. He never invites people here, preferring to meet elsewhere for drinks instead. There's no art on the walls, no personal touches despite the fact that he'd moved in over a year ago. It's not a home, just a place he lives.

Diluc sets the bag on the small kitchen table and then begins to rummage through his cabinets.

"What are you doing?" Kaeya asks, defeated. Now that Diluc's here, there won't be any getting him out until he's done doing… whatever it is he's doing. He's infuriatingly stubborn that way, a trait that only seems to have gotten worse in his time away from Mondstadt.

"Looking for plates," Diluc replies, pulling out the only two plates Kaeya owns. Mercifully, he doesn't say anything about that or the fact that there's only one bowl in the cabinet beside them.

"Why?" Kaeya doesn't understand what is happening or what Diluc is doing. He hates how the man has waltzed into his apartment and taken over the same way he's waltzed back into Mondstadt after so many years gone. He hates the way Diluc commands whatever space he's in and he really hates the way he just… let him.

"Because it's civilized to eat off of plates," Diluc replies and begins pulling food out of the bag. There's a sweet madame from Good Hunter as well as a bottle of wine that he set out on the table and Kaeya expects there to be cider as well —Diluc never drinks wine anymore— but there isn't.

"Please tell me you have more than one glass," he says, turning his attention back the cabinets. Kaeya does although in that moment he wishes he didn't. He pushes off the door and crosses to the table.

"This is cold," he says, inspecting the sweet madame.

"It wouldn't be if you hadn't taken your sweet time coming home," Diluc replies, because of course he would find a way to make this Kaeya's fault.

"I'm not going to eat cold food."

Diluc sets down two wine glasses and rolls his eyes. "If only one of us had some means of heating it up. Oh wait."

Kaeya snatches the bottle of wine and uses a knife to pry the cork out. He needs alcohol for this before he strangles Diluc to death and then has to explain to Jean why it was justified. Jean's on his side for most things, but murder might be pushing her a little too far, even if the murdered deserves it.

Diluc takes the bottle from him, carefully avoiding Kaeya's hand with his own. Kaeya pretends he doesn't notice. Pretends it doesn't sting. His emotions are a tangle inside his chest, a confusing push and pull of anger and desire that he tries desperately to swallow down.

They eat and drink in silence. Kaeya doesn't know what to say and Diluc isn't offering any more explanation for his presence than he already has. The food is good and Kaeya had tried not to be impressed with the skill at which Diluc had managed to control his vision to reheat it. The man hadn't even had his vision with him while he was away and it seems unfair that he should have regained his control over it again so quickly.

Kaeya takes another sip of wine. It's a red, fruity and bright tasting —his favorite kind. Diluc is sipping at his own, barely drinking it at all. Kaeya almost offered him something else but he's not sure there's anything in the cryo box and he doesn't want to open it and find it empty.

"Why are you doing this?" he asks finally when he can't take the silence anymore. The quiet between them is almost comfortable, echoing a time when they used to eat together often, and he feels the need to wreck it.

"It's your birthday," Diluc says again. Kaeya opens his mouth to say something snarky but Diluc holds up a hand, stopping him. "You used to love your birthday."

That much is true. Birthdays used to be grand affairs in the Ragnvindr household. Crepus liked to indulge both boys with parties at the Winery, Adelinde and the other kitchen staff going all out on a special dinner and a grand cake. They were spoiled and Kaeya basked in the attention. The presents were nice, as was the food, but what he always liked best was being surrounded by people who were wishing him well. Crepus would ruffle his hair and congratulate him on the strong young man he was becoming with every passing year and Adelinde would hug him tight and tell him how handsome he was getting.

And Diluc….

He and Diluc used to stay up late well after the party, gorging themselves on cake as they hid amongst the grapes of the vineyard and tracked the moon as it moved across the sky. They would talk about everything they wanted to do before their next birthday, hands intertwined and heads pressed together as they whispered to each other.

The last birthday party Kaeya ever had was smaller than the ones of his childhood, just close friends and family around him. He and Diluc had been more inseparable than usual and they snuck kisses in whenever no one was looking. It had been that night, under the blanket of the stars and the wind kissing their bare skin, that Kaeya gave himself over to Diluc Ragnvindr completely.

Even now, he cannot scrub that memory from his thoughts. Even now, Diluc has him.

"Things change," Kaeya says, a truth and a lie wrapped into one.

When he tries to clear their plates, Diluc doesn't let him. Instead he takes their dishes and washes them in the sink. Kaeya lets him, draining his wine glass and eyeing Diluc's still full glass. He's debating just stealing it —no sense in wasting good wine— but is distracted when Diluc returns to the table, this time with a cake.

"What the—?" Kaeya starts, staring as Diluc sets it down on the table. It's small and crooked, the frosting wolfhook blue. There's no writing on it although it looks as if an attempt had been made and then scraped off.

It's the worst looking cake Kaeya has ever seen in his life. Worse even than the one he and Klee and made for Albedo's last birthday last year which Klee had insisted frosting herself.

"Is this supposed to be a cake?"

Diluc glowers. "Obviously."

"Did it get into a fight with another cake?"

"Kaeya." There's a growl in Diluc's voice, a warning that makes something hot slip through Kaeya's veins.

"Did Adelinde suddenly forget how to bake? Did she go blind, is that why it looks like this?"

Diluc grabs a knife from one of the drawers. It's too small for the task at hand but he hacks into the cake with it anyways. "I made it."

Kaeya stares at him. Opens his mouth. Shuts it. Stares some more.

Diluc shoves a slice at him. It looks cooked through at least, which is a blessing. "Here."

"You cannot expect me to eat this."

"I do and you will."

"You're bossing me around now? On my birthday?"

Diluc is glaring at him, his face flushed slightly from annoyance. It makes his somehow even more attractive. He's so collected most of the time, that temper of his carefully tamed the way it wasn't when they were younger. Kaeya seems to be the only one who can make it flare like this and he takes immense satisfaction in doing just that.

"Eat the damn cake."

Kaeya buries his fork into it and takes a bite. It's dry and the frosting tastes like someone left half the sugar out.

"You should have let Adelinde make this."

Diluc takes a bite out of his own piece and screws up his face in revulsion. Kaeya laughs, the sound bubbling up in him, loud and uncontrollable. He throws his head back and laughs, the absurdity of the whole situation overcoming him. He laughs until tears start to form and he has to push back his eye patch back to dry them.

And all the while, Diluc watches him. Crimson eyes are trained on Kaeya, and if Kaeya pays attention he can see a small seed of affection in that gaze. He can see the way Diluc's lips twitch, like he's fighting back a smile.

He can see the way things used to be and the way they could be again.

"Are you quite done?" Diluc asks when Kaeya's laughter finally fades.

"For now."

Diluc pushes his plate away. "You don't have to eat that," he says.

"Oh no," Kaeya replies, shaking his head and shoving Diluc's plate back at him. "We are both going to eat this awful excuse of a cake. You made it and now you have to deal with the consequences."

Diluc grumbles but stabs at his slice with his fork. "I suppose I deserve this."

"You do."

"But you don't, Kaeya. Please don't eat that."

The words are a caress and a knife all at once. He does deserve this awful cake because he's been an asshole and because even as mad as he's been, he can't fully blame Diluc for the reaction he'd had all those years ago to Kaeya's confession. It had been an awful time to tell him the secret he'd been holding close, his reasoning muddled by grief and guilt.

Neither of them have dealt with the pain in their lives very well, both of them lashing out in different ways. Both of them hurting each other in the process.

He is not blameless in this tragic dance of theirs, and still Diluc had made this cake for him, as bad as it is. Diluc had thought about him, had taken the time to create something with his own hands and offer it up as a gift. A wordless apology. It's not enough, but it's something.

Kaeya takes another bite, winces at the taste, and swallows it. "This is the worst cake I've ever had."

"I told you not to—"

"Thank you, Diluc."

They stare at each other, possibility stretching between them. The potential for forgiveness, for real forgiveness, seems closer now than Kaeya ever thought possible. This hasn't fixed them by any means; that road will be a long and difficult one. But maybe it's a road they can travel down. Maybe next year he'll let Adelinde make him a real cake.

Diluc does smile now, soft and hopeful. "You're welcome, Kaeya. Happy birthday."