Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kaeya is so dead.

This is a frighteningly frequent thought for someone who has frighteningly frequent nightmares about Kaeya dying, but nevertheless it is the first thought that pops into Diluc’s head as soon as the front door of the Angel’s Share comes into view.

Because who else but his dear menace of a brother could be behind this?

CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, reads the elegant red crayon on the scrap of paper stuck to the door. Crayon. Father didn’t put the two of them through hours and hours of handwriting practice just for Kaeya to waste it on crayon. To say nothing of the words themselves.

Of course Diluc is proud of his brother for finally committing to sobriety – if Kaeya needs any reassurance of that, he’ll repeat it until he loses his voice. But commitment has its limits. Commitment does not give one the right to shut down an entire tavern just to make it harder for one to get a drink. Unless he was trying to stop the rest of the city from drinking too, but somehow Diluc doubts his brother’s intentions were so noble.

He forces his mouth to stop hanging open and takes a deep breath before tearing the sign down and swinging the door open to find the perpetrator behind this blatant vandalism.

Said perpetrator has taken up his usual seat at the bar without a care in the world, leaning back with his elbows on the counter, his cheek resting against his fist as he flashes Diluc an unforgivably casual smirk and waves with his other hand. Obviously he was waiting for this exact moment.

“Morning, Luc,” Kaeya says, his eye sparkling in a way that signals he’s up to no good. It’s a common sight for anyone remotely close to him, but something about it today strikes greater unease into Diluc’s heart than usual. “Long time no see.”

Funny, now I’m wishing it’d been longer.

At least Kaeya doesn’t look or sound drunk. There’s not a single bottle or glass beside him, so… maybe Diluc doesn’t need to worry too much about whatever this is. And at least July is here too, perhaps his only ally in this place. She nips one of Kaeya’s fingers while he’s too busy smirking, and Diluc doesn’t stifle the smirk that pulls at his own lips upon hearing a frantic yelp from his idiot baby brother. Maybe now he’ll stop wearing those sad excuses for gloves and buy actual gloves that prioritise function over form. Or stop testing the patience of the cats around them. Or both. Ideally both.

“Why has the homicidal cat decided on me as a target?” Kaeya whines as he soothes his reddening skin. “I thought she only went after rodents.”

“Your hair could cause some confusion in that department.”

Kaeya’s eye widens as he blinks the slowest, longest blink in history, mouth hanging open just as Diluc’s had been moments before. “Take that back.”

“No.”

“You– that was uncalled for.”

“You walked right into it. And it wasn’t uncalled for,” he says, holding up the sign that’s now crumpled beyond legibility. “You have five seconds to explain.”

“Why are you allowing the homicidal cat to get away with baseless violence unpunished? Have you been training her to attack me? I bet you have. That’s the sort of bullshit only you would–”

“That was five seconds. You explained nothing.”

“What’s there to explain? The sign says it all. Put it back before you confuse your would-be patrons.”

Diluc crumples the sign up even further until it’s a tiny ball, barely even half the size of his fist–

And sets it on fire.

They watch in silence as ash trickles out of Diluc’s hand like sand through an hourglass, scattering around his feet in a small pile, trace amounts landing on his perfectly polished boots.

“You’re cleaning that.”

“Why do I have to clean your messes– I don’t even work here–”

“Then what gives you the right to declare that my tavern–”

“Our tavern, unless you want to take me to court over the inheritance split–”

“In case you forgot, you signed everything over to me–”

“Why haven’t you gone and fixed that yet?”

“Because it’s a lot of paperwork and legal fuss for something that’s useless in practice.”

“It seems like it would be useful now to solve this little dilemma.”

“Kaeya,” he groans, taking a step closer, brushing off the last of the soot from his gloves and very delicately placing one hand on the counter as he stares his brother down, “can you, for once, explain what exactly it is you think you’re doing?”

Clearly his stare isn’t intimidating enough, because Kaeya’s smirk doesn’t fade. “Tavern’s closed. Cavalry Captain’s orders.”

Oh, how he longs for the days when being Kaeya’s older brother actually meant something. Nowadays it’s just a free pass for Kaeya to annoy the shit out of him. Maybe it was always that way, but at least Kaeya used to have the decency to pretend otherwise.

“I didn’t realise the Cavalry Captain’s jurisdiction extended to the opening hours of taverns.”

“Things have changed a lot since you quit. I’m only doing my job.”

”Somehow I find that hard to believe.”

“You’re disappointed whether I do my job or not,” Kaeya says with a deep and completely insincere sigh. “But if you really don’t believe me, you can borrow a copy of the updated handbook sometime–”

“Can you just tell me what you’re trying to accomplish here?”

“Well, if you’d take a look at the updated handbook–”

“Kae–”

“–you’d see that the tavern has fallen short of the building standards outlined in Appendix 1: Inner City Affairs, Section 27-A–”

“There’s no such thing as Section 27.”

“Like I said,” Kaeya says, rolling his eye, “things have changed. Keep up with the times before you get left behind.”

“You’re telling me they added thirteen sections in four years and yet the city has remained virtually unchanged. Sounds like a bunch of pencil-pushing nonsense to me– oh wait, that’s exactly what the Knights specialise in these days, isn’t it?”

“…There’s only fourteen sections in Appendix 1?”

“You’re telling me you don’t know a basic fact like that?”

“How do you know? It’s been, what, eight years since you had to read that thing?”

“I only quit four years ago.”

“…You actually read the handbook after you made captain?”

“Naturally.”

“No– Luc, no one does that, because everyone except the newest recruits knows it’s a pointless endeavour– Archons, you really are a nerd.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Setting that aside – brother dearest, do I honestly look like I have time to read the handbook and memorise–”

“Yes.”

“–how many sections there are in each– hey.” Kaeya glares. “You know I’m a very busy man–”

“Who has enough free time to meddle in the business of taverns he isn’t even supposed to be patronising anymore–”

“The only one being patronising here is you–”

“Even if there were a Section 27 with all these imaginary building standards that I’ve somehow never heard of until today,” Diluc grits out before they can get even further off track and lose sight of the thing that started it all, “the tavern would be perfectly up to code, because it’s perfectly well-maintained. I’m ninety-nine percent certain of it.”

“Right, well, it’s a good thing you left that one percent of wiggle room, because this place is in crisis – and I’m a living, breathing crisis myself so I can say that.”

Diluc stares. Kaeya stares back.

“Don’t– Kae.” Diluc breathes out slowly as he lets go of the counter and drops into the seat beside his brother. “Don’t say things like that about yourself.”

“You and Adelinde said that acknowledging the problem is the first step to fixing it. Are you telling me not to listen to Adelinde? Should I tell her that you told me not to–”

“Calling yourself a crisis isn’t acknowledging the problem. It’s just putting yourself down for no reason.”

“Alright, then I’m in crisis – that’s acknowledging it, right?”

“…Crisis is a strong word. Don’t use it so lightly.”

“Who says I’m using it lightly?”

Can you stop worrying me with your vagueness for one second?

“Kae– are you– is everything okay?”

The weight of his voice seems to finally knock some sense into Kaeya, and the playful smirk he’d been sporting up to now falters.

“I’m– I’m okay, Luc, don’t worry–”

“It’s fine if you’re not–”

“I am. I promise. I was just joking around and got carried away. Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing.”

After what’s happened every other time you’ve told me that…

“Have you been thinking about drinking? Or– doing… something else?”

Kaeya was already looking away, but he looks away even further at that and presses his lips together even tighter, making them tremble under the pressure.

“Kae?”

“Vaguely,” Kaeya says, barely loud enough to hear, before sighing softly and turning around in his seat to sit at the bar properly, facing the opposite way to Diluc.

He tries not to let any panic infect his voice or gestures as he gives Kaeya’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “That– that’s okay. Remember, we got rid of anything you could use to hurt yourself– and I’m here for you, so–”

“It’s just hard to stop thinking like that,” he murmurs, burying his face in his hands and muffling his voice.

“That’s okay too. You’re trying your best. You’re already doing a lot better than before.” Diluc shuffles his barstool closer and leans over to rest his head against Kaeya’s upper arm. “And you’re being honest about it. That’s the most important thing. Thank you for that.”

“You don’t need to thank me for every little thing.”

“None of it is little to me.”

Kaeya’s lips curl into that familiar frown he always gets when things turn too sincere for his liking, then he drops his head onto the counter with a painfully loud thunk and groans.

“Ugh. We were having so much fun but you just had to go and ruin it as usual. Vampires are supposed to suck blood, not joy.”

“You were having fun. I was trying to figure out why you were set on killing my business behind my back.”

“Have you already forgotten what I came to this country for?” he says, lifting his head to flash another aggravating smirk at Diluc, wagging a finger in his direction to amplify the aggravation. “Today I sabotage the family business. Tomorrow? All of Mondstadt– ow.”

“Cut it out with the bad jokes.” Diluc cuffs the back of Kaeya’s head once more for good measure. “Are you actually trying to keep the tavern closed, or was this just a ploy for my attention?”

“As if I need to do anything to get your attention.”

“Be serious. Stop deflecting.”

Kaeya’s smirk flickers out of existence and he lets out a short sigh, but doesn’t say anything else.

“Do you–” Diluc chews on his lip as he searches for the right words to say. “Charles will be fine without me for a while if you need me to–”

“It’s not like that. I’m fine. I don’t have a problem being here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite.” Kaeya reaches up and ruffles Diluc’s hair with a smile of questionable sincerity. “I like being here. With you, with Rosa – with people. Shutting myself up in the apartment isn’t a good alternative and you know that.”

“The world is more than just here and your apartment,” Diluc says, shaking off his brother’s hand. “Why are you even here in the first place? At this hour? You still haven’t explained a damn thing.”

“I was waiting for you.”

“Why the sign, then? If it was about privacy, you hardly need to worry about that so early in the day.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“What does trust have to do with it?” Diluc narrows his eyes. They’re starting to hurt. “What have you done?”

“See, there you go again, always suspicious of your sweet innocent baby brother.”

“Can you please–”

“Alright, alright. So impatient,” Kaeya says, standing up. “You really hate to see me have any fun, don’t you?”

“Where are you going?”

Kaeya smirks and starts walking backwards towards the stairs. The smirk only falls away when Diluc starts to pursue him, steps quickening with his heartbeat, and before he knows it he’s chasing his brother up the spiral staircase two stairs at time.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you pursue the Abyss Order this enthusiastically,” Kaeya says when he reaches the top step, breathless. “Starting to think I shouldn’t explain anything to you–” He breaks off into a whine when Diluc grabs him by the back of his shirt – his cape is missing, unfortunately, or he would’ve used that instead. “Alright! Sheesh. I’ll explain but only if you promise to stay quiet.”

“If anything you’re the one who should be quiet.” He huffs. “Fine. But what the hell do I need to be quiet for–”

Kaeya presses a finger to Diluc’s lips, then beckons him towards the spare room. The one that Diluc used to crash in after a long night if he was too tired to make it back to the winery, that he hasn’t felt the need to use ever since Kaeya gave him the keys to his apartment.

“What have you done–”

“Quiet.”

This time Diluc reluctantly shuts himself up, and Kaeya pushes the door with an agonising lack of haste. When it finally creaks open, they’re greeted by–

“Klee?”

Kaeya shushes him loudly. “Do you know what ‘quiet’ means, you idiot?”

“Why is Klee here?” Diluc hisses back.

The mystery of Kaeya’s missing cape is solved, at least – it’s draped over Klee’s sleeping form as she curls up on the couch, using her oversized backpack as a pillow and clutching Dodoco tightly in the one hand peeking out from beneath her makeshift blanket. And there, curled up on the floor beside her neatly arranged shoes…

“Why the hell is August here?”

“Am I imagining things, or do you sound more concerned about the cat’s wellbeing than the literal child’s?”

Maybe he shouldn’t have asked his brother to explain. He should’ve known better than to believe his brother would say or do anything that makes an iota of sense.

Klee stirs in her sleep. The movement causes the cape to slip to the floor, but Diluc dashes inside and pulls it back over her before it can fall – before it can hit August and wake the poor cat up. Poor, poor August. Helplessly subjected to his brother’s every whim, and she’s such an angel that she simply tolerates it. Bless her little heart; it’s far bigger than they deserve. Leaving her in Kaeya’s care was truly his worst mistake.

“Hey. That cat is the best thing that ever happened to me, you don’t get to call it a mistake now.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You think too loudly. It makes me want to put you in a coma sometimes.”

“I don’t recall you being too pleased the last time I was in a coma.”

“I’ve grown a lot as a person since then.”

The headache induced by Kaeya’s incessant quips makes Diluc wish he was in a coma too, but he pushes past it in favour of answers because he’s already let his brother talk circles around him for too long. “Why would you bring Klee to the tavern at this hour? It’s barely nine o’clock. How long have you even been here? And why drag August into it? You know how she likes to run off if you give her the chance.”

“I figured I ought to bring August back to her roots to remind her how good she has it with me.”

Diluc rolls his eyes so hard it must be audible.

“Alright, fine. Klee wanted August to have a playdate with the murder cat, and who was I to deny such an innocent request? And she wanted you to come along for a picnic if you were free. Isn’t she the sweetest? She was hoping we’d get to surprise you but it was so early that she simply fell asleep. You should feel bad about that. You should reflect on what a lovely morning with our dear Spark Knight you missed out on and you should feel bad about it. Shame on you.”

“It’s still morning,” Diluc mutters. “How early was I supposed to get here, exactly?”

“You should simply appear out of thin air wherever and whenever Klee wishes it. That’s what the rest of us do. Keep up, brother dearest.”

“My sincerest apologies,” Diluc says in the least sincere voice he can manage. “If you’re done berating me then we can go on that picnic now–”

Kaeya puts his arm out in front of Diluc before he can get any closer to Klee and wake her up. “I had another idea, actually.”

I don’t want to hear it. “And what might that be?”

Kaeya definitely hears his internal thoughts, and doesn’t even attempt to hide his glee at the concept of causing Diluc more pain. He tugs Diluc over to the wall, then points at some unremarkable spot just above the wainscoting. “Look.”

Diluc squints. “What am I looking at?”

Kaeya unhelpfully jabs his finger more insistently in the same direction. “Look.”

“At what–”

“Archons, you are blind, aren’t you?” Kaeya groans loudly, then steps forward and – pulls back the paint…?

“Haven’t you had your fill of vandalism for the day?” Diluc says, shooting him a disapproving look, too confused to inject the necessary anger into his voice.

“It was already peeling. That’s the problem.”

“…Is this what you meant by ‘not up to building standards’? This is what you’re closing the tavern over?”

“Indeed.” Kaeya puffs his chest out, looking proud of himself for no reason. “It’s a real travesty. Dare I say, a catastrophe. This place needs help and quick, before it’s too late and it falls into complete disrepair and past the point of no return–”

“It’s hardly a catastrophe. Don’t be dramatic.”

“I’m not being dramatic. Just look around. What would Father think?”

“I thought I was supposed to stop caring about what Father would think.”

“You should still care about what I think, and I think Father would think this is a catastrophe of devastating proportions. And you know I’m always right.”

Diluc massages his temple but it does nothing to dispel the growing headache. “You have some nerve talking about this place when your apartment is–”

“At least I have a decent couch.” Kaeya gestures wildly to where Klee is still somehow sleeping blissfully through the bickering. “Even August won’t sleep on it – that’s how sorry a couch it is. Do you know how worthless something has to be for August to decide not to sleep on it?”

It’s good enough for our Archon, Diluc thinks, and the memories of carrying a passed-out Venti up here on too many occasions make his expression more sour. For some reason that seems to delight Kaeya.

“Okay, so you have issues with the interior design of this place.” Diluc pinches the bridge of his nose. “We can talk about that some other time. Can I open the tavern–”

“You still aren’t looking closely enough.”

I’m going to gouge my own eyes out so I never have to look at anything again. “What now?”

Kaeya pulls back even more of the paint – just tear it all off, why don’t you – and points insistently again at a strange, faded marking. Diluc, against his better judgement, leans forward to get a closer look. It’s a slightly lopsided heart drawn in pencil with the letters C + E in mismatched handwriting inside it.

“Now what do you think that stands for, Luc?”

Diluc, still ignoring his better judgement, gives the question some serious thought. “Charles and…?”

The smack of Kaeya’s hand against his forehead could compete with a thunderclap. He doesn’t seem to care that it makes Diluc jump beside him. “Why in the world would that be the first thing that comes to your mind? Are we sure that I’m the adopted one, and not you?”

“What does you being adopted have to do with–”

Oh.

“Praise be to the Archons,” Kaeya drawls sarcastically. “Maybe there is a brain cell in there after all.”

Diluc’s fingers are tracing over the marking before he realises it, though he’s deathly careful not to smudge the decades-old pencil. Mother and Father. Somehow the thought that she must have been in here at least once never occurred to him. How many other places and memories has she been quietly erased from, her existence covered up for Father’s– no, his sake?

How much have I really lost?

He looks over at Kaeya – and his brother’s face has softened into sincerity again, a quiet understanding in his ever-watchful eye.

“I was thinking,” Kaeya says, leaning down and looking between the heart on the wall and Diluc, “that they must have left this whenever they decorated this place, all those years ago. But neither of them are here anymore, and it’s been ages, and this is our place now, so – maybe it’s our turn.” He smiles faintly. “I think Father would want that. For you to really make this place your own instead of clinging to whatever he left behind.”

The thought of redecorating Father’s tavern has never occurred to him either, and it makes his chest tighten for some reason. “What if I like it the way it is?”

Kaeya drops his head with a quiet laugh. “Then we’ll just touch it up a bit, I guess. But at least that would be something.” He lifts his head and taps right at the centre of the heart. “Even a little mark is better than nothing. I mean, you are proud of this place, aren’t you? You should give it the love it deserves.” Then that sincere smile turns into a smirk in the blink of an eye, and he says, “Or, I guess I could just wait until I’m married so I can really follow in Father’s footsteps–”

“Shut up.”

“Which letter do you think looks nicest next to ‘K’? Perhaps–”

“Perhaps shut up,” Diluc says, remorselessly clapping his hand over his idiot brother’s mouth, then pulling it away before Kaeya can even think of licking it like the immature idiot he is.

“So,” Kaeya says, still smirking, “what do you say?”

Diluc stares straight ahead until the letters in front of him blur together.

“Okay, at the very least you have to buy a new couch. You already said you would. And I’ve been trying to ignore this thing for years now but it’s driving me more insane than I already am–”

“Why does a couch in a room you never even see bother you so much?”

“I’m just thinking ahead – you know, if something happens and you can’t get into my apartment–”

“Is that something I have to worry about?”

“–and you decide to stay here instead, I can’t possibly in good conscience let you sleep on this couch–”

“What’s so bad about it? Klee’s doing just fine.”

“Klee’s a baby. She falls asleep anywhere.” Kaeya points accusingly at him. “You weren’t so different, you know.” Then he points accusingly at the couch. “And look at it – who knows when it was last upholstered? And it squeaks every time someone so much as twitches, and it can barely hold its own weight up, let alone another person’s–”

“Alright. Fine.”

“Alright, you’ll get a new couch?”

Diluc sighs and wonders if he’s about to make a mistake, then decides it doesn’t really matter as long as it pleases his brother for a little while. “Three days. That’s all the time you’re getting to do whatever it is you have in mind.”

Kaeya’s face lights up like a firework. “You’re going to help me, of course.”

Diluc sighs again. “Naturally. I don’t trust you enough to let you redecorate unsupervised.”

“You guys are decorating the tavern? Can Klee help?”

Klee seems to have picked up a thing or two from his brother, because no one else moves as quietly as Kaeya does – and suddenly she’s right behind them, leaning forward to poke her head through the small space between his and Kaeya’s shoulders. Diluc tries not to jump.

Kaeya is entirely unfazed. “Well now, how long have you been up, little knight?”

“Klee’s really good at decorating – Albedo lets me decorate his room all the time.” She turns to Diluc with a gasp and an impossibly bright smile, eyes alight like two little suns. “Can we make it Dodoco-themed?”

“We are not making it Dodoco-themed.”

Klee pouts. Kaeya pulls her close and pouts with her.

“…We can consider a Dodoco theme,” Diluc mutters – with way too little hesitation, what the hell’s gotten into him? – and looks away.

It’s worth it, though, for Klee’s laughter. And Kaeya’s too-soft smile as he looks down at her, eyes filled with nothing but pure, unfiltered adoration.

Kaeya scoops Klee up into his arms as he stands, eliciting another round of giggles from the kid. “Seeing as you’re being so stingy and only giving me three days, we can’t afford to waste any more time. There’s a dreadfully long list of things to think about, isn’t there, Klee?”

“Klee wants to paint – ooh, we could get Albedo to help! Albedo’s super good at painting.”

“It certainly would be a miracle if your dear brother could spare the time for that,” Kaeya says under his breath with an imperceptible roll of his eye. “Of course, it all depends on whether you’re willing to put up with yet another knight in your tavern,” he says, turning to Diluc.

“I’m already outnumbered here. How much worse can it really get?”

Kaeya laughs. “Is that a challenge?”

“It’s a warning.”

“So intimidating,” Kaeya says, not sounding intimidated in the slightest. “Ah, don’t worry so much, Luc. Between the two of us we could fix up this whole place in three hours if we really put our minds to it.”

“Klee’s here too,” she says, bouncing up on her toes, puffing her chest out and looking up proudly at the two of them.

“Of course, with Klee here we could be done in three minutes, couldn’t we?”

Diluc scoffs, but it’s more affectionate than anything, even if he won’t admit it. “Where do you want to start, then?”

“Well, there’s the walls, the floors, the furniture, and I think some new lighting fixtures might be in order too–”

“You’ve been thinking about this for a while, haven’t you?” Diluc says, a traitorous smile tugging at his lips.

Kaeya sighs. “Look, I tried to tell myself that the stains on the walls add character, but I couldn’t go on lying to myself every single night. You can’t blame me for having standards.”

“You don’t seem to mind lying to yourself about other things.”

Kaeya’s eye twitches. That shouldn’t grant Diluc nearly as much satisfaction as it does. “Yeah, well, I’m working on it. You could stand to work on it too, among other things.”

The traitorous smile grows wider. “Sure, once we finish this, I guess, since it’s apparently your number one priority now. So – where should we start?”

Kaeya nods over to the couch, where Klee’s left her backpack – and, spilling out of it, her crayons. “You can start by remaking the sign you so heartlessly destroyed, first of all.”

The things I do for you…

“See, if you’d just been a little more patient and heard me out before jumping to arson, then you wouldn’t have to do this at all–”

“The more you talk, the more likely I am to change my mind about all this.”

“I hate you sometimes.”

“I love you too.” Diluc picks up a crayon, considers it for a moment, then tosses it right at his brother who skilfully dodges at the last second. Next time. “Now stop wasting time or I’ll bill the Knights for all the lost income of the next three days. I don’t want to be the only one getting anything done around here.”

Kaeya sticks his tongue out – and then remembers to use his words like an adult, and launches into a tirade that Diluc very quickly tunes out, lest he succumb to the urge to throw another crayon at him.

The next three days might just be the longest of his entire life. Strangely, he can’t bring himself to mind too much.

Chapter Text

Kaeya has definitely been planning this little project of his for way too long, because he’d already gone and ordered buckets of sunset orange paint and had them waiting to be picked up at a moment’s notice. He either knew Diluc would be convinced to go along with it, or was going to somehow sneak in and do whatever he wanted anyway. Neither option fills Diluc with much joy.

Now here they are, sitting on the canvas sheet Diluc had hastily laid down to protect the floors before his brother could go wild with a paintbrush, watching paint dry. Literally.

His brother always has the best ideas.

“It’s a nice colour, isn’t it?” Kaeya asks, leaning so far back on his arms he may as well be lying down.

Diluc tilts his head back, trailing his gaze over the wall from floor to ceiling. The new shade of orange adds a warmth that the pale yellow from before was lacking. It’s soft and slightly pink, more muted than a real sunset, but it suits the wooden panelling well, and makes the whole place feel cosier and more intimate. It seems like the kind of colour Father would have liked. It’s at least the kind of colour he used in his paintings all the time. Perhaps that was Kaeya’s inspiration, though the odds of Kaeya ever admitting that are slim to none.

Instead of all that, though, Diluc simply says, “That would’ve been a good question to ask before putting it on every wall.”

“Translation: oh, Kae, it’s perfect – you have amazing taste and I love you so much right now,” Kaeya says in a horrible imitation of Diluc’s voice. He does not sound that whiny. And his voice is much deeper than Kaeya’s. Isn’t it?

Diluc huffs and looks away, then rolls his protesting shoulders one at a time. They’re still aching from the aftermath of that morning – turns out carrying a child while scraping paint off the walls is a little bit strenuous, actually. But what was he supposed to do? Kaeya hadn’t hesitated for a second before foisting her onto him, and she’d complained every time he suggested putting her down, insisting that she was helping him reach the higher spots even while he stood on a ladder. Spoiled beyond belief – and who does he have to blame for that? Diluc only caught a break once she tired herself out and decided to go play with the cats instead. Thank the Archons for them. Maybe Kaeya bringing August here wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Then again, he’s only in this predicament because of Kaeya, so doesn’t it all cancel out?

The aforementioned cats and Klee have been safely sequestered in the untouched upstairs room for now, though he still half-expects that they’ll come out later covered in paint despite all his efforts. Tomorrow there’ll be paw- and handprints on every surface, and Kaeya will say it adds character, and Diluc will agree but not out loud, but it won’t make a difference because Kaeya will already have won.

He rolls his shoulders again. “We’ll see how it looks when it dries. And we still have to do a second coat, don’t forget.”

“Can you for once grant me the satisfaction of just agreeing with me?”

“It’s not my fault if you do a lot of things I don’t agree with.”

Kaeya groans and drops completely onto his back. “This was a mistake. Working with you for three days is going to be a nightmare.”

“This was your idea.”

“I thought your new passion was stopping me from indulging in bad ideas. But of course you never save me when you should.”

There’s a weight behind those words that seems entirely unintentional, but it’s there regardless.

“Oi. Luc. Don’t read anything into that. It was a joke. I’m joking.”

“I’m not reading into anything.”

“Your eyes are doing that squinty thing they do when you’re really focused.”

Well, now he’s just uncomfortably aware of the ache around his eyes that matches the one in his shoulders. He shuts them with a sigh.

“It’s a lie, really – you’re always there when I need you. I know that, even if you don’t. Even if I pretend I don’t. So–”

“Spend more time worrying about yourself instead of my feelings. I’m fine.”

Kaeya kicks him, but it’s more like a light tap against his shin. “Heed your own advice first, idiot.”

They’re definitely going to end up going in circles again at this rate. Diluc is tempted to let it happen, just to see if they can keep going long enough for the paint to dry. He’s sure they could, but even the most axiomatic hypotheses require testing.

Surprisingly enough, Kaeya’s the one who puts a stop to it – not even a moment after Diluc’s thoughts trail off, his brother leaps to his feet as if struck by lightning and summons–

“The rule about swords in the tavern still applies out of business hours,” Diluc snaps, pushing himself to his feet a second after the flash of Kaeya’s blade blinds him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

One of Kaeya’s arms flails behind him, gesturing for Diluc to stay back, while the other points his sword with dogged determination towards the shadowy corner under the bar and next to the wall.

Diluc pushes Kaeya’s arm out of the way and attempts in vain to take the sword, but his brother’s grip is relentless. “Kae, seriously–”

“Shut up and let me concentrate–”

“On what–”

Kaeya lets out a scream several octaves too high for his age and latches onto Diluc’s side like a child to a stuffed animal. “Just shut up– shut up! I’ve nearly got it–”

Then, before Diluc can beat some sense into him, a knifelike shard of ice bursts forth from the tip of the blade at the speed of light and stops just short of the bar counter, piercing its hidden target in an instant before dropping to the floor. Kaeya breathes out the world’s longest breath, and dismisses his sword right as his legs buckle and he collapses entirely against Diluc, who barely manages to keep them from falling to the floor together.

Kaeya breathes out another long breath and grins back at Diluc. “That was a close save.”

He really wants to let them both fall, if it’ll wipe that irritating grin off his brother’s face. “Save from what, exactly?”

“The evil that was plaguing your place of business for who knows how long. You’re welcome. I’ll accept payment in the form of a non-alcoholic Death After Noon, whenever you get round to figuring that recipe out.”

Diluc shoves his brother off, ignoring the panicked cry, and kneels in front of the rapidly-melting ice on the ground to figure out what exactly this so-called ‘evil’ was.

There’s a dead spider in the puddle.

His heart sinks like a stone.

“You killed June 2nd,” he says, hollow, gathering the now-lifeless creature into his palms.

“…June what?”

And she was doing such a great job, too. Between her and July, the only unwanted guests in his tavern were the human ones that he couldn’t (legally) do anything about. She was going to be more useful than ever in the summer, the season in which insects cause the most trouble, and now…

Kaeya’s mouth is hanging open wide enough to catch flies. Pure mockery for the innocent being he just murdered, no doubt. “You can’t be serious.”

Diluc stands again, and reaches with a heavy hand and heavier heart for the pot of lamp grass on the other end of the counter. He’s been trying to keep at least one plant alive here, ever since Kaeya gave him that flower and vase for Windblume, because it does brighten up the place a little with more than just its gentle glow. Now the soil around that plant will serve as a burial ground for this creature that was taken from the world too soon, forever a reminder of his brother’s callousness and not the once-thoughtfulness of his gift. Such a cruel turn of events.

“Diluc. Look me in the eyes and tell me you didn’t actually name a fucking spider.”

He ignores his brother’s stammering and pushes aside the soil before carefully lowering June 2nd into the shallow grave. The lamp grass seems to dim, slightly. He always thought they were empathetic flowers, and now he has proof. This is a sad, sad day for all of them–

“Luc. A spider. Seriously? You know, I’ve tolerated this silly naming quirk for longer than anyone should have to, but I’m drawing the line at spiders. That’s insane. That’s– come on. You can’t actually be mourning it. You’re not that insane. Tell me you’re not that insane.”

“She contributed greatly in her short time here,” Diluc murmurs. “She won’t be forgotten.”

“You– you are so–” Kaeya makes some unholy sound unbecoming of a human, let alone one of his status and supposed dignity. “That’s it. I’m going to burn this place down to the ground and pray that you’re still inside when I do.”

Burns don’t hold a candle to the all-consuming pain of grief. He would know.

“June 2nd. June 2nd. Unbelievable. Insanity. Insanity upon insanity. It’s just too much. You can’t expect me to just accept this.” Kaeya is pacing about madly behind him, his stomping barely muffled by the canvas sheet, but Diluc doesn’t break from his mourning vigil. “I’m telling Addie. If there’s any conditions to her love for us, this has got to be one of them. And if it isn’t, then she’s insane too, and this family is beyond saving.”

“You’re the insane one, killing my spider for no reason–”

“Your spider– it was a spider, what other reason do I need?!”

“Let me mourn in peace, Kae.”

Then before he can blink, his brother shoves him into a still-wet wall, and it all kind of falls apart from there.

Kaeya returns after a much-needed walk to cool his head with an alchemist in tow, one who graciously chooses to ignore the orange paint still stuck to both of their clothes in favour of smiling pityingly, as if this is the kind of thing one should expect from the renowned Ragnvindr brothers these days. That’s a slightly depressing thought considering that Diluc has never met him before. Regardless, he puts down the paintbrush and steps away from the Kaeya-shaped imprint in the wall to greet their unfortunate guest – Klee somehow beat him to it, having rushed downstairs before the door even opened, as if she could sense her brother’s presence from a mile away, and climbed onto his shoulders before he could get a single word out.

“I apologise for not introducing myself sooner, although I’ve heard plenty about you from – ah, Klee, please don’t–”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Diluc says, wincing in empathy as he shakes Albedo’s offered hand while the alchemist suffers under the weight of Klee on his shoulders. It’s a weight Diluc has grown perhaps too familiar with by now, but the man before him looks like he could be snapped in half like a twig at any moment, and though he’s trying oh-so-valiantly to smile through the pain for the kid’s sake, his discomfort could not be more obvious.

An awkward silence descends upon them. Kaeya, paragon of reliability, has somehow made himself scarce already. Diluc only took his eyes off him for a second, damn it. But he wouldn’t be Kaeya if putting others in uncomfortable situations didn’t entertain him at least a little bit. And Klee’s a pretty good icebreaker, in both the figurative and literal sense, so it could be much worse.

“Now all of Klee’s big brothers are best friends,” she giggles, wrapping her arms rather tightly around her brother’s neck and forcing out a choked laugh from said brother. “Oh, wait – Diluc, do you know Razor and Bennett?”

“I’ve seen them around before.” Only a handful of times, though. Most of what Diluc knows of Bennett comes from the drunken gossip of his many fathers when they stumble into the tavern every night. On the other hand, the Wolvendom kid is very good at staying hidden, and Diluc’s never encountered him close to any human civilisation, not even the winery. It should probably surprise him that someone as loud as Klee managed to get near him without scaring him off – then again, if there’s anyone in Teyvat who can overcome a barrier like that, it’s Klee. He would know…

“You should come fish-blasting with us! Razor knows all the best spots,” Klee says, eyes shining far too brightly at the thought of decimating yet another aquatic population. Even Albedo seems too resigned, but Diluc can empathise with that as well – talking a younger sibling out of doing something they shouldn’t is like drawing blood from a stone.

In fact, it can very easily end with the younger sibling drawing blood from the older one, because they’re merciless like that. And with Kaeya’s influence it’s only a matter of time before Klee treads down the same path, no matter how sweet she seems to be now. How very unfortunate for Albedo. But maybe Diluc can bond with him over this.

He’s definitely not just making excuses for his brother. All younger siblings are menaces to the core without exception.

“Klee, don’t forget what Jean said last time,” Albedo says warningly, but it’s far too gentle to actually discourage her, and he seems to know this as well as Diluc.

“It’s okay! Kaeya always knows to get us out of trouble.”

“Who, me?”

Oh, there he is, finally. Diluc stares unimpressed over his shoulder as Kaeya pushes his way into the tavern through the back door, a heavy-looking box in his arms. Diluc doesn’t move to help him, but Kaeya is grinning anyway once he’s put it down, bizarrely energetic.

“I’d never dream of going behind our dear Acting Grandmaster’s back,” he says with mock offence, but the facade falls apart quicker than a house of cards when Klee giggles back at him.

“Kaeya,” Albedo starts, but the last syllable fades into a sigh of pure defeat. Diluc’s never felt more empathy for anyone in his life.

“Air your grievances with me later,” Kaeya says, still grinning, as he moves past both of them towards the long, now-empty wall next to the front door, and presses one hand gingerly against it. “Anyway – what do you think of this?”

Albedo strokes his chin thoughtfully. He glances around the tavern once before nodding. “It seems like the best place to me.”

“The best place for…?” Diluc asks when his brother won’t stop grinning.

“I was thinking,” Kaeya says, finally releasing Albedo from Klee-carrying duty and setting her down on solid ground again with a surprising lack of resistance, “that a mural might be nice here. You’d have a more pleasant view when you’re working behind the bar, at any rate. And Albedo is probably the most talented painter I know, so I thought – who better to ask than him?”

“A mural,” Diluc echoes. He narrows his eyes at Kaeya. “So you can push me into it while it’s still wet, just like before, huh?”

“Don’t go naming any spiders,” Kaeya says, his smile thin, “and no one has to be pushed anywhere.”

“Spiders?” Albedo says.

“You didn’t hear anything,” Kaeya snaps. “There are absolutely no spiders here. Don’t even think about it.”

Albedo’s face falls in a way that Diluc is afraid to read into.

“You could fit so many Dodocos on here.” Klee stretches her arms out to either side like she’s trying to hug the wall, happily ignoring the brewing conflict between her ‘big brothers’. “We could paint a big happy Dodo-family!”

Albedo laughs softly and pats her head, then looks back at Diluc. “Kaeya suggested I paint the landscape around Dawn Winery. I agreed that it would be a pleasing addition, and would be more than happy to oblige, but of course the owner’s preferences are paramount.”

“I am technically part-owner, you know…”

Diluc squints at the wall. For the longest time it’s been practically bare, save for a few miscellaneous paintings by anonymous artists, flyers he never bothers to take down, a coat rack that no one ever bothers using, and the (now that he thinks about it, horribly out of place) deer head that’s been there so long no one can remember who hunted it in the first place. So to imagine, in place of all that, the sweeping vista of the winery instead, rendered in vivid greens and blues against that soft sunset orange…

“I’d like that,” he murmurs. He looks at Albedo, and smiles. “I’d like that a lot.” Then reality hits him. “But– surely you couldn’t paint something like that in just three days–”

“Not to worry.” Albedo smiles back. “That’ll be more than enough time for me.”

“Told you. Most talented painter I know,” Kaeya says. He ruffles Albedo’s hair like he does with Klee, and Albedo apparently has the patience of a god and forces a smile without a word of complaint. Diluc feels an inexplicable urge to apologise. “Though we still have to do a second coat of paint here and let it dry, so you’ll have to start tomorrow, Albedo.”

“That’s fine. I’ll need the time to sketch out the design first anyway.”

“Great!” Kaeya claps his hands. “Say, why don’t you take Klee down to the winery while you’re at it? Working with a real-life reference is always best, no?”

Albedo freezes. “Wait–”

“We’re going to the winery?” Klee clasps her hands together.

“You should get going now if you want to make it before dark,” Kaeya says, taking advantage of the alchemist’s stillness to push him forward, smiling sharply all the while.

“Can we go see Adelinde?” Klee asks. “Do you think she’ll give us that super yummy juice again? Ooh, or will she make a super delicious lunch for us?”

“I’m sure she’ll be delighted to do all of that and more for you. In fact,” Kaeya says, pulling a small envelope from his pocket, “I actually have a letter I’d like for you to deliver to her. Can you do that for me?”

Klee takes the letter like it’s made of glass and tucks it carefully into her backpack, right underneath one of many Dodocos – or are those Jumpty-Dumpties? Diluc doesn’t know. He tries not to think about it. Thinking about how a city overflowing with liquor lets a girl walk around with a battalion’s worth of explosives on her back only risks triggering a migraine he really doesn’t need right now when the very embodiment of a migraine is standing right in front of them.

Albedo manages a small shake of his head as he looks helplessly at Kaeya. “This wasn’t part of the agreement–”

But Klee already has literal stars in her eyes, so distinct and bright she might as well have stolen them straight from Kaeya, and Diluc knows all too well how hard it is to say no to eyes like that.

The second Albedo’s shoulders fall in a defeated shrug, Kaeya pushes them both out of the tavern, giving Klee just enough time to wave goodbye before sending them off.

Diluc has seen enough of that smug grin to last him to the end of the year, yet Kaeya still won’t give it up.

“Are you blackmailing him?” he asks before his brother can get a word out.

Kaeya plants both hands on his hips. “Excuse you. I don’t blackmail my friends.”

“You blackmailed me.”

“Oh, that. Really? You call that blackmail? Please. It’s not like your half-assed secret identity is actually a secret to anyone with half a brain. What a comfortable world you live in, where blackmail means being forced to accept help from people who care about you, instead of being allowed to do everything on your own.”

“…Like you’re much better,” he huffs. “Whatever. How much are we paying the alchemist for the trouble of dealing with you, again?”

“Nothing. He’s doing this for free.”

Diluc waits for Kaeya to correct himself. Kaeya, unsurprisingly, doesn’t.

“Kae. You can’t just ask someone to paint a whole mural for free–”

“I have clocked up several years’ worth of overtime looking after Klee when her brother was too busy with some experiment or other. He should be grateful that this is the only payment I’m asking for.”

“And here I thought you were looking after her because you cared about her.”

“Albedo doesn’t need to know that.”

Good grief. As if anyone would believe that Kaeya doesn’t love Klee from the bottom of his heart. No amount of acting or scheming on his part could ever disguise that fundamental fact.

“Let me guess – next you’re going to tell me that this whole redecoration project was nothing but a convoluted ploy to get Albedo to spend time with his sister for a change.”

“I’m very good at planning ahead, aren’t I?” Kaeya winks. “That’s why I’ve been Cavalry Captain longer than you. That’s why Varka gave me the title almost as soon as you quit.”

“What an honour,” Diluc says dryly.

“Indeed. At least, Father would agree.”

Diluc clenches his jaw. “Your utter lack of consistency on the matter of whether I should care about Father’s opinions or not is thoroughly irritating.”

“You can care about his opinions without letting them rule your life. That’s always been an option. You just need to stop idolising him.”

“Like you’re much better,” Diluc says again, mostly without thinking, and for once, Kaeya is stunned into silence.

“…I do not idolise him,” Kaeya says when he recovers.

“No, you don’t,” Diluc concedes, “but– but you care just as much as I do, don’t you? You let his opinions rule your life too, just differently–”

“That couldn’t be further from the truth–”

“Moving out of the manor,” Diluc pushes on, “and leaving practically everything he ever gave you behind, and never visiting his grave, and staying with the Knights even when you knew you were too good for them, and–”

And waiting for me– writing to me, and waiting for my return, and watching over me just like old times even when I tried to push you away, and–

“And… redecorating,” Diluc finishes weakly, arrested by the shimmer of something unreadable in Kaeya’s eye.

Kaeya holds him there with just his gaze for an unbearably long moment. Then he walks over to the box he brought with him and picks it up with little ceremony. “Some ornaments for the walls,” he says. “Help me sort through them. There won’t be room for everything.”

Each sentence too clipped, too shallow. Diluc’s definitely fucked up again somehow. “Kae, I’m sorry–”

“One thing’s for sure, we’re definitely not keeping that deer head. It’s hideous. Almost as bad as the couch. I can appreciate, in a sense, the morbid character it lends – certainly works wonders in attracting the shadier types to a place like this – but it’s got to go.”

“Kae–”

“Help me now.” Kaeya hunches his shoulders. “Help me with this, and then we’ll paint the second coat so it’ll be dry by the time Albedo comes by tomorrow, and then we’ll go home. We can talk later.”

Kaeya can’t be too upset if he’s still inviting Diluc home, or so Diluc rationalises to himself.

“Okay.” He sighs. “Let’s see how bad your taste is, then.”

Kaeya smiles, faint, and cuts opens the box with a knife Diluc didn’t know he had on him.

Diluc doesn’t realise how much tension he’s holding in his shoulders until he crosses the threshold of Kaeya’s apartment and goes practically boneless on the spot.

July leaps from his arms and dashes into the darkness like this is as familiar a place as the tavern. Being confined to the spare room left her restless. August doesn’t take too kindly to her domain being so easily intruded upon, and dashes between their feet in relentless pursuit of the other cat, uncaring of the way Kaeya nearly trips over her in the chaos and drops their takeout dinner from Good Hunter.

“Well, don’t they get along swimmingly,” he grumbles as he kicks off his shoes. “As if my furniture needed another claw-wielding menace around when everything’s shredded to bits as it is.”

“Good excuse to buy another couch,” Diluc says, following his brother into the kitchen. “Sounds like you need it more than the Share.”

“Once you see the sheer magnificence of the couch I’ve ordered for you, you’ll be begging me not to take it away.”

Kaeya’s voice is still too reticent, his words too sanded around the edges, but Diluc smiles and huffs out a laugh at his joke anyway.

Both cats forget their other pursuits as soon as the takeout bags drop to the table, and leap up beside them like whatever’s inside belongs to the cats and the cats alone. Diluc did ask for an extra Sweet Madame precisely for this reason, though, so it’s not like he can fault them for such an assumption.

“They’re just like us,” Kaeya says, scratching August under the chin. “The pure-hearted blue-eyed darling that everyone adores, and the murderous ginger that everyone only tolerates because they’re mildly useful.”

“I’m not ginger.” Diluc folds his arms. “And you were calling August a ‘claw-wielding menace’ barely a minute ago.”

“Anyone is innocent next to Miss Juliet here.” Kaeya taps July on the nose. “I bet my entire life savings that she’ll kill us both in our sleep tonight.”

“Well, that’s not saying much–”

Kaeya’s next two words are not sanded, but instead sharpened beyond belief. “Go on.”

Diluc shrinks back in his chair. “Nothing. Never mind.”

“No other comment on my financials? It’s okay, Rosaria gets on my case about it whenever she has the chance. Has been doing so since the day I turned eighteen. I’m sure the keeper of my half of the inheritance can’t say anything that hurts worse than her.”

Well, so much for reticence. But Kaeya wouldn’t be opening up like this if he wasn’t ready, so…

Diluc clears his throat. “Is it later yet?”

Kaeya almost drowns him out by violently ripping open one of the bags. Almost.

“You–” Kaeya starts, then draws in a deep breath. “It’s not Father’s opinions that control me.”

Diluc takes the other bag and opens it as quietly as he can while keeping his gaze on Kaeya.

“I mean– maybe it was, for a while. To an extent. I’m not a psychopath. He was my– our father. Of course I cared about what he thought. What he would think if he were there. Here.”

Kaeya’s blinking too rapidly, but there are no tears in his eye. Diluc pushes the bags to the side to give himself an unobscured view of his brother’s face.

“But it’s– you. You’re the one– it’s your opinions that I care the most about. It’s always been that way. And I know you probably won’t ever believe it, but everything I did, even after you left, I did it all thinking of you–”

“You changed your name.”

“Yes, and I did that for you too–”

“It was Father’s name before it was mine. You can’t separate me from him that easily.” Diluc leans forward as much as he dares, and brushes a bit of hair out of Kaeya’s face. “Maybe now, but – back then, you couldn’t have.”

Both cats nudge at Kaeya’s arm in turn. He remains completely still beneath Diluc’s hand.

“It was always you,” Kaeya says, hollow.

“It’s okay to admit that you care. Even if it feels like too much.”

Kaeya looks him straight in the eyes for a single, broken moment, then pushes Diluc’s hand away and buries his face in his own hands. Only for another moment though, and then he’s looking back up at Diluc, but his gaze is terrifyingly distant.

“Don’t you think he’d be angry? That I did everything I could to leave him behind? To give up everything gave me?”

“You held on to the most important things.” Diluc takes one of Kaeya’s hands in his own. “Kindness. A sense of responsibility. The loyalty that lets you do whatever it takes to protect those you love.” He takes Kaeya’s other hand too, and squeezes them both gently. “He would never be angry with you.”

Kaeya squeezes back.

“Do you want him to be angry?” Like you wanted me to be, that night?

Kaeya squeezes tighter.

“Even if he were – that wouldn’t make you any less his son.”

Diluc doesn’t know what about those words breaks Kaeya out of his self-inflicted spell, but he’s grateful for the small yet unbroken laugh that follows. “No shit, Captain Obvious.”

So he allows himself a small laugh in return. “You’re the only captain here.”

“That I am. And as the highest authority in this room, I say we ought to start eating already. All this sentimentality burns a lot of calories, you know? You’re the one who always complains I don’t eat enough. And look, the cats are starving. The least you could’ve done was open up the chicken for them before you started trying to play grief counsellor, or whatever that was just now.”

Diluc lets that slide, because bickering burns more calories than sentimentality. “What did you order for us, anyway?”

Kaeya opens the box in front of him at last with a faded smile. “Northern meat stew.”

Ah.

Father’s favourite.

Chapter Text

Mirrors.

Part of Kaeya’s grand redecoration strategy is to put up mirrors everywhere. To add more light to compensate for the lack of windows, and to make the place feel bigger… and for a sense of security Diluc didn’t realise he needed until now.

When Kaeya hasn’t been dragged up to the bar by Rosaria, or Venti, or hell, even Diluc himself – when Kaeya is working, he usually picks the table in the back left corner, tucked in an alcove next to the front door. Shrouded in shadow, hidden well enough that those with something to hide won’t be scared off, yet with a clear line of sight from him to the bartender, and an equally clear line of sight to the closest exit. Intentional? Almost certainly. And perhaps it should warm Diluc’s heart to realise that Kaeya had stuck to that same spot even after Diluc began working behind the bar – that Kaeya had trusted him to watch his back in the tavern, at least, if not anywhere else–

But Kaeya has no qualms about picking other tables either when his preferred spot is occupied, and on those occasions it seems he spares little to no thought to the bartender’s line of sight. Or if he does, he simply decides it doesn’t matter.

These mirrors, strategically placed in the corners of the tavern, could change that.

Diluc’s hands are shaking slightly as he rolls one of the convex mirrors between his hands. He drops it back in the box Kaeya had brought yesterday, and slumps against the wall of the storeroom.

Of course, as with every vaguely useful idea Kaeya comes up with, there are caveats and stipulations that have Diluc grinding his teeth down to dust.

Can’t put up too many of these, or it’ll make people feel like they’re being watched.

“And people like that don’t talk,” Diluc says, echoing Kaeya’s words from yesterday, from their discussion of these ‘decorations’ over dinner.

This tavern is no holy place. Not even an Archon’s constant presence could make it so. This tavern, despite being right in the heart of the city, has always been undeservedly hospitable to those with no reservations about harming said city. It’s been that way for as long as he can remember, and he’s always used that to his advantage – he doesn’t bartend for the sheer pleasure of mixing drinks, after all. Father probably used that to his advantage too; he wouldn’t have tolerated it otherwise.

So maybe it is hypocritical of Diluc to want to tell Kaeya to put an end to this kind of ‘work’. He should’ve known that Kaeya wouldn’t give it up, even if he’s going to quit drinking alcohol during those off-record meetings. Maybe it’s foolish of Diluc to only be thinking about this now, when Kaeya’s actually offering a way to ease Diluc’s mind even if it makes that work more difficult.

He picks the mirror back up and stares at his warped reflection.

Kaeya asking him to build a secret interrogation chamber beneath the tavern would be easier to deal with than this. Than letting him rub shoulders with those who wouldn’t hesitate to put a knife in his back should the opportunity arise, and having to watch it all through a goddamn mirror–

The scars he’s seen on Kaeya’s back flash through his mind, bleeding red on pallid bronze, and Diluc rests his head against the cold silver of the mirror to drive the image away.

At least I’ll be watching, instead of being left in the dark.

Maybe a bartender’s gaze in a warped reflection overhead will be a strong enough deterrent for the worst.

Diluc pulls all the mirrors out of the box – the convex ones as well as the plane ones framed in prettily-carved wood – and sets them gently on the ground beside himself, as he tries to focus instead on the rest of the decorations that have nothing to do with any kind of underhanded work.

It’s quite the eclectic collection. Wooden carvings, ceramic sculptures, decorative plates, little pots and vases of clay and glass ready to be filled with flowers or maybe even seashells. An alarming amount of them are fashioned after cats. Margaret will definitely comment on that if she ever drops by. But there’s plenty of other animals too – owls, and falcons, and some suspiciously Dodoco-shaped rabbits – so at least Diluc will have some plausible deniability.

There must be stories behind all of these, reasons that Kaeya picked them out. Half of them probably just for jokes at Diluc’s expense – but he’ll look forward to asking about them anyway when he gets the chance.

A loud scraping noise from beyond the storeroom has Diluc poking his head out at last – and suddenly Rosaria is there, one hand on her hip, right in the middle of the tavern. Along with a new couch. The most needlessly embroidered couch he’s ever seen in his entire life. And the most annoyed Rosaria he’s ever seen in his entire life, too, but Rosaria is perpetually annoyed, so that’s hardly remarkable. He turns his attention back to his brother’s taste in decor, amazed at how Kaeya can continuously fall short of his expectations – except–

“How’d you get in?”

“Morning to you too,” Rosaria says as flatly as ever. She holds up one of her claw-adorned fingers. “Your locks are easy to pick.”

Diluc looks back at the couch. “Kaeya sent you?”

“I commissioned the kids to help deliver it,” the sender interjects from the second floor, leaning so far over the railing he was supposed to be varnishing that he’s practically hanging from it. “You didn’t scare them off, did you?”

“Pretty sure Bennett was about a second away from setting this thing on fire, and the little princess wasn’t exactly helping matters,” Rosaria says, still looking at Diluc and not up at Kaeya, clearly having expected these sorts of antics from him before arriving.

“Your brother wasn’t there?”

“Razor’s not my brother.”

“Razor’s your brother?” Diluc asks.

“I just said he isn’t–”

“Forgive him, Rosa. He spent so long in denial that he assumes everyone else must be doing the same.” Kaeya grins wickedly down at him and then at Rosaria too. How fortunate that Kaeya tries to inflict misery upon them equally. “At least tell me you paid them properly on my behalf.”

“Of course I did. I don’t steal from kids.” She points at Diluc. “You owe me a drink,” she says, as if that’s at all related to the prior conversation.

But Diluc knows better than to question her. All he can really do is sigh as she stalks forward and drops into her usual seat at the bar.

“You carried that couch in all by yourself,” he notes absently. He also notes to himself, with a mixture of relief and mild amusement, that both cats have come out from their hiding places to investigate their new plaything, and haven’t hesitated to sink their claws into the once-pristine fabric. The reason he let Kaeya bring them back here is escaping him, since it’s not like they can do anything but get in the way, but he decides in that moment that he doesn’t really care.

“I’m not carrying it upstairs for you, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Kaeya, deeming the stairs too inconvenient for his never-ending theatrics, leaps straight down from the second floor to join them. Both Diluc and Rosaria watch with equally unimpressed stares as he rolls and rises triumphantly from his landing, only to immediately stumble forward and barely catch himself in time before hitting the counter head first.

“Isn’t it great?” he says, still breathless, unfazed by their apathy.

“It’s a couch. How great can it be?”

“It’s more than a couch.” Kaeya lifts the cats out of the way to set them down on the counter, tugs on a loop of fabric sticking out from underneath the cushions, and suddenly the whole couch is coming apart in a whirl of gears and metalwork to transform into – “A bed, too. The Fontainians really know what they’re doing, don’t they?”

“You ordered a couch all the way from Fontaine?” Just how long has he been planning all of this, exactly? Does he ever think to inform Diluc of his plans ahead of time, or is Diluc supposed to just go along with his brother’s demands without question every single time–

“Ah, there it is, the pure gratitude in my dear brother’s voice. How I missed that sound. You’re very welcome, Luc.” Kaeya flops onto the couch– bed, now, apparently, and kicks his legs up onto the armrest with a contented sigh. The cats jump back over to join him. They make an insufferably adorable picture together.

“The only person who’ll ever use it is Venti,” Diluc grumbles. “He’s the last person who needs more incentive to stay here.” Though the fact that it’s already completely covered in cat hair might be enough of a disincentive to counter it…

“You could charge rent for this thing. I’d pay, if I wasn’t your brother and automatically entitled to using it for free.”

“That’d be borderline theft.”

“When did you become such a moral and upstanding citizen?”

“Can I get that drink now?” Rosaria says, tapping each of her claw rings in quick succession against the table, so sharply Diluc swears there are new scratches in the wood. It’s a miracle that Kaeya’s seriously committing to sobriety when he’s surrounded on all sides by such poor examples.

“What do you want?” Diluc asks, resigned, and prays that she orders something sensible like tea, or coffee, or even juice–

“Fire-water.”

“…You know we don’t serve that here.”

“Fine. A Death After Noon.”

He looks out the window. He looks back. “It’s not even noon yet–”

Rosaria makes some sound that’s almost a growl but masked by the way she clenches her jaw and looks away. “You are useless,” she says when all he can do stare blankly at her.

“Oh, I know what this is.” Kaeya sits up and points straight at Rosaria, with a smirk that’s somehow more aggravating to Diluc than usual even though it’s not directed at him. “Withdrawal symptoms.”

“Shut up. I’m not an alcoholic like you.”

“Former alcoholic, thank you very much. And if not getting your fix for one night threw you off this badly, then maybe you ought to reflect on that, hm?”

“You don’t have a damn clue what you’re talking about.”

“The Cat’s Tail was open last night, was it not?” Diluc says before Kaeya can get another word in and somehow get both of them killed right there and then. “You didn’t go there?”

Rosaria barks out a laugh with very little humour behind it. “Yeah, about that–”

The bell above the door rings sharply. Now Diluc knows damn well there’s a perfectly legible sign there telling everyone that the tavern is closed – not written in crayon this time, mind you – so Mondstadt’s literacy rate must be well and truly in the gutter, and it’s hard to keep the consequent irritation out of his face as the door swings fully open.

All five of them – cats included – fall silent, turning their gazes with unsettlingly effortless synchronisation to stare down the newcomer.

Jean stands frozen in the doorway. Her hand jumps from the doorknob like it stung her.

“I’m so sorry,” she stammers, a rose pink blush dusting her cheeks, “I was just– I thought it would be locked–”

“Come in, Jean,” Diluc says, irritation melting away, and her face somehow turns even more pink. “What brings you here?”

Rosaria is oddly talkative today. She throws Jean a sharp look out of the corner of her eye and says, “This is about last night, isn’t it?”

Jean’s too busy staring down at Kaeya on the couch-bed thing to reply.

“Come sit,” he says, sitting up just enough to make space for her, patting the cushions invitingly. Even the cats follow suit, shockingly enough. “You look like you’ve been on your feet since sunrise, and this here is the most comfortable couch in the city.”

She blinks several times, then shakes herself out of it, glances around at the (fully dry now, thankfully) walls, then looks back at Diluc with a charmingly bemused half-smile. “I thought Kaeya was joking when he said you would be redecorating.”

Diluc fights the urge to glare at Kaeya, keeping his gaze firmly on Jean. “It was his idea, not mine.”

“Ah. Well, that explains it, I guess.”

“Isn’t it sad,” Kaeya says, “that even Jean thinks something as simple as decorating is beyond your current level of creativity? All our past selves would be devastated if they could see you now.”

“I’ve only just arrived and you’re already dragging me into your bickering,” Jean sighs as she drops down onto the couch next to Kaeya. He ignores the half-hearted complaint and pulls her into a hug that she relaxes into with unnatural ease – or, it would be unnatural if the initiator of the hug were anyone other than Kaeya or Lisa. The picture warms Diluc’s heart just enough to chase away the ‘glare at Kaeya’ urge for now.

He pulls three glasses from the shelf behind him and sets them down on the counter alongside a bottle of wolfhook juice. “Have a drink while you’re here,” he says, pouring out the juice and stepping around the counter to hand each of them a glass, starting with Rosaria. “You really do look tired, Jean. Is everything alright?”

Rosaria looks like she wants to complain – but Diluc nods as subtly as he can in Kaeya’s direction, and she takes the hint.

Jean looks like she wants to complain too, but he presses the glass more insistently into her hand, and she takes it with yet another sigh. “Thank you,” she says, world-weary. “I’m fine, really. It’s nothing.”

‘It’s nothing’ means nothing coming from Jean of all people, but he holds that thought – if he gives her enough time she’ll drop the act all on her own and start talking, because out of the four of them here she’s the least resistant to talking about her problems, a fact that both reassures and frustrates him.

While waiting for that to happen, he contemplates turning the last glass upside-down over his brother’s head – but that’ll end in a year of ranting about how he ruined the new couch, so he decides against it. For now.

“‘It’s nothing’ means nothing coming from you,” Kaeya says, glancing between Jean and Rosaria, and snatching the glass from Diluc before he can do anything with it. “What’s this about last night? I was too busy being mauled to death by cats, you see, and my brother here was perfectly content to just watch it happen, so you’ll have to enlighten us both.”

August doesn’t take kindly to the blatant character assassination, and bats at the glass in Kaeya’s hand as best she can from her stretched-out position in his lap. July doesn’t move, but that surely means she’s saving her revenge for later.

Jean shakes her head and laughs with uncharacteristic anxiety. “It really wasn’t that–” She coughs and cuts herself off when all of them continue staring into her. “Okay, so there might have been an… incident, at the Cat’s Tail last night, that forced them to close early, but–”

“Three injured, seven missing,” Rosaria says, deadpan. “Quite the incident indeed.”

“Those seven are all in custody now, actually, so–”

Diluc cuts them both off to get to the most important thing: “Are the cats okay?”

Kaeya throws his head back against the couch with a groan. “Of course that’s Diluc’s first question.”

“The cats are all fine,” Jean says, sighing yet again.

“The cats are probably the reason those three were injured in the first place,” Rosaria says, and takes a long sip of her juice.

“Well,” Diluc says, “then they probably deserved it.”

Jean splutters. “Diluc–”

“You still haven’t told us exactly what happened, just that apparently the cats got away with it,” Kaeya says while ignoring August’s renewed attempts at spilling his drink all over the couch.

“Your usual clientele had to go somewhere else last night,” Rosaria says, looking Diluc straight in the eye. “You know what they’re like.”

Diluc can feel the mirrors at his back, all the way from the locked storeroom. He can see Kaeya’s afterimage in the corner of his eye, lingering at his usual table, and the overlapping, flickering apparitions of so many nameless, faceless strangers hovering around him.

He looks to Kaeya – the real one. There was a shadow in his eye just then, Diluc’s sure of it, but it’s gone by the time their gazes meet.

Rosaria stares into her glass with something that isn’t quite a smirk. “Apparently a few rounds of Genius Invokation is all it takes to rile them up.”

“…Three injured and seven missing over a card game?”

“They’re all in custody now,” Jean mumbles.

“Fascinating. Never a dull day in this city, is there?” Kaeya pats her on the back. “The second I stop drinking, something this exciting happens at the next tavern. It’s a little difficult not to take it personally.” Before Diluc can muster up a glare, Kaeya flashes him a catlike grin. “Relax. I’ll just have to find some other way to stir up trouble while sober.”

“Please don’t,” Jean says. Begs, really, and Kaeya’s grin actually falters for a moment. “You can set a good example for the younger knights. They’re more inclined to listen to you when it comes to alcohol, at least.”

The sanctity of the Ordo hinges on Kaeya actively setting a good example?

…They’re fucked.

“Knights of Favonius,” Diluc says with a roll of his eyes, “always so–”

“I know, I know,” Jean says, and it almost sounds like a whine, which means she must really be at the end of her rope, and that’s almost enough to make him apologise even though he’s entirely blameless here. She drops her head against Kaeya’s shoulder and groans. “Mother was right. This city needs new drinking laws. Or at least some better regulations among the Knights, but who would ever agree to that?” She lifts her head just to take a forlorn sip and then goes right back to hiding her face against Kaeya. “She’s going to be so mad at me when she comes back, isn’t she?”

“Hey,” Kaeya says, squeezing her shoulder tenderly, “what are you getting so worried for? It’s not like one little bar fight negates all the hard work you’ve been doing. And she doesn’t seriously expect you to upturn Mondstadt’s drinking culture overnight.”

Jean doesn’t look at all convinced. “You know how she is.”

“I know she’s not as unreasonable as she might seem sometimes. By the time she comes back, whatever happened last night won’t even be relevant anymore. It’s hardly relevant now–”

“That’s the thing.” Jean’s voice drops. “I think she might be coming back fairly soon.”

The gravity of her words is enough to make them all go still.

Kaeya breaks the silence, but even he sounds utterly dumbfounded. In other circumstances, Diluc would take some pleasure in that. “The expedition’s coming back?”

Rosaria’s grip on her glass tightens. Her claw rings scrape against the stem. “Even Varka? I thought he’d stay away for longer.”

“I think it’s just Mother and some of her company for now,” Jean says quickly. “And I’m not sure when, exactly, but – she wrote to tell me that she was already on her way back, so…”

Diluc is cold, all of a sudden. He’d been grateful – selfishly, perhaps – to learn that most of the Knights, and especially Varka, had taken off on an expedition of mysterious purpose just a few days before he’d returned to the winery. At that point, the last thing he’d wanted to do was talk to any knight, least of all the Grandmaster himself, not after everything that had happened under his authority. Not even with Eroch gone.

…And now they’re coming back. Just Frederica, for now, but surely it won’t be long before the rest of them follow.

“Jean,” Diluc says quietly, only able to meet her shimmering eyes for a second before looking away, “you don’t have to worry. She’s your mother. She’ll be happy to see you and Barbara more than anything else. And she’d be a fool not to be proud of you for everything you’ve done in her absence.”

There’s that shadow in Kaeya’s eye, again, but he doesn’t know what to make of it. He tries to ignore it.

Jean sighs for probably the thousandth time that morning. August meows plaintively in her direction, and gives up on chasing Kaeya’s drink in favour of nuzzling Jean’s leg, though she stubbornly refuses to move from Kaeya’s lap.

“You’re right,” she says, soft, as her free hand cards through August’s fur and the deep wrinkle in her brow smooths itself out. “You’re right,” she says again, with a firm nod, and downs the rest of her juice in a single terrifyingly quick gulp. “I’m being stupid. I’m sorry. You’re right! I know you are– I’ve just– ever since I got her letter, I’ve been so– I don’t know, distracted, or nervous, and I–”

“Don’t worry about it,” Diluc says. “Just focus on doing what you have to – what you’ve been doing all this time. It’ll all be fine. And if you need help with anything” – he locks eyes with Kaeya – “you know we’re always here for you.”

“Thank you,” she says, her voice overwhelmingly awash with gratitude, and smiles.

That smile is such an exact replica of the one she used to wear when he was still her captain that he wants to look away again – but he wills himself not to, for her sake. He keeps watching as she starts to get up, dismissing Kaeya’s protesting hug, rambling about all the work she has to do and how she’s wasted too much time here already, but it’s all getting a bit lost between needless apologies.

“When will the tavern reopen?” she asks, not noticing when Diluc plucks the empty glass from her hand.

“In two days, if all goes well.”

“Good. That’s good to know. Good luck with redecorating – though it doesn’t seem like you need it, really, it looks lovely already. I should let you get back to it. Sorry for just– barging in like that–”

“Nothing to apologise for, Jean. I’ve told you before, you’re always welcome here.”

She smiles at that. Then she’s at the door, and with one last bright smile and a breathless ‘thank you’, she’s gone and the tavern is silent again.

It still smells faintly of dandelions.

“Wow. For a moment there you almost sounded like a man who has his shit together, Luc.” Kaeya twirls the glass in his hand. “I would say something about heeding your own advice, but I fear we’d just end up going in circles around nothing, again, somehow.”

“Glad you’re finally catching on,” Diluc mutters. The spell cast by Jean’s brief visit has been lifted, just like that.

“She seemed even more unstable than you two normally do,” Rosaria says. “Which is saying a lot for her. What is with you all and your complexes around your parents?”

“That’s rich, coming from you.” Kaeya jumps up from the couch, quickly followed by August leaping after him onto the countertop, and he slides into the barstool next to Rosaria, only to sling one arm around her shoulders and lean in far closer than she would allow anyone else to lean. “Didn’t know you missed Varka that much, Rosa dearest. Want to talk about it? Talking about our feelings is such fun.”

“I don’t miss him. Why in the world would I miss him?” She shrugs Kaeya’s arm off with a huff. “You never know what you’re talking about.”

“Forgive him, Rosaria,” Diluc says, fighting back a smile as Kaeya fights not to topple out of his seat from the force of her shrug. “It seems he can’t help but antagonise all the older siblings in his life.”

“Can you blame me? That’s just one of the many instincts we younger siblings have to develop if we want to survive in this world. Of course you two could never understand.”

“You’re the one who gave him that instinct,” Rosaria says, pushing her now-empty glass towards Diluc, “so you’re the one who should be begging for forgiveness.” Those claw rings of hers are definitely leaving scratches in the wood. Good thing they’re in the middle of redecorating. “And I’m not an older sibling to anyone, so. Stop that. Both of you.” She looks back at Kaeya. “This is why I don’t tell you things – you always find a way to twist it into something completely ridiculous.”

“Sister Rosaria,” Kaeya says with a smile that’s begging to punched off his face, “if I could talk the master of denial himself into accepting his eternal place as my big brother, what makes you think you stand a chance?”

Rosaria’s lips press into the thinnest line, stretched by the effort of holding back that punch. “Was that your doing, or the cat’s?”

August purrs and nudges Rosaria’s forearm.

Kaeya pouts. “You are just like Diluc, aren’t you? So quick to trample all over my delicate heart for the sake of some feline.”

“She’s not just some feline,” Diluc reminds him sternly, and August thanks him for it with a gentle bump of her head against his palm and an even louder purr.

“I’ve never met a man with hearing as selective as yours, Luc. It’s quite incredible.”

“One has to be selective, given the sheer amount of nonsense you spew on a constant basis.”

“Truer words were never spoken,” Rosaria concurs.

“Great. The people I love most in the world are ganging up on me now– oh. Now there’s an idea,” Kaeya says, snapping his fingers in a way that can only mean he’s about to say something mind-numbingly stupid while patting himself on the back for his cleverness. “Rosa, if you married Diluc, that’d make you my sister-in-law. Then you’d have to accept that you’re an older sibling to at least one person.”

…Somehow that was even more stupid than I could’ve anticipated.

If there’s one thing Kaeya is good at, it’s exceeding expectations, for better or for worse.

“Brother dearest, this is the part where you propose to Rosaria.”

“And why on earth would I do that?”

“You said you’d do anything I asked of you no matter what, that one time.”

“Thanks for considering my feelings on the matter,” Rosaria says. “Real gentlemen, both of you.”

“Of course I’ve considered your feelings, Rosa. You’ll get a lifetime of free alcohol and unfettered access to the nation’s largest pool of wealth. Do you realise how many people would kill to be in your position right now? What more could you possibly want?”

“A brother-in-law who isn’t an idiot, for one.”

“After everything we’ve been through together? That’s hurtful. And here I was planning to help you kill your future husband and split the estate with you, so that I can finally get my half of the inheritance back from my cruel tyrant of a brother who refuses to do the necessary paperwork.”

“Plotting my demise right in front of me is an interesting strategy. Good luck.”

“Thanks, Luc. I knew you’d have my back.”

“What the fuck are we even talking about,” Rosaria says, and buries her head in her arms. “You two are so fucking stupid,” she adds – muffled, but it’s exactly what anyone would expect her to say in this situation, so he hears it loud and clear.

“You did it,” Diluc says, gesturing to the fallen nun as the grin on Kaeya’s face grows wider. “You broke Rosaria. Are you happy?”

August bumps her head against Rosaria’s with a soft mewl.

“I’m disappointed,” Kaeya says, leaning back as far as he can without falling off the seat. “That was easier than I thought it would be. Guess the withdrawal symptoms hit her harder than I realised.”

Rosaria lifts her head again, and slips a knife out from under her sleeve fast enough to whip up the air around them. “I’ll show you what I’m really in withdrawal from.”

“No swords in the tavern,” Diluc says. “That includes knives and daggers and blades of any kind. If you must murder someone, at least do it outside and clean up when you’re done.”

“Speaking of murder,” Kaeya says, laughing nervously as he leans away from Rosaria’s glacially-retreating blade, “where is Juliet? She’s very good at disappearing without warning, isn’t she? Someone should go find her before she goes on a killing spree. You know what, I think I’ll go do that, and spare you all the trouble of dealing with her violent tendencies. Because I’m kind and generous like that.” And with that paper-thin excuse, Kaeya runs up the stairs, two at a time, and leaves Diluc and Rosaria in a strange kind of peace.

She’s smirking ever so slightly in the direction that Kaeya ran off. It’s jarring, somewhat, to realise that he knows her well enough now to read those sorts of subtleties into her expressions.

“You’re just as bad as him,” Diluc says with a sigh, and turns to start washing up the glasses. “You’re only better at hiding it.”

“No one’s better at hiding things than Kaeya,” she says, eyes narrowing, the mirth fading from her face like a dying candle. “You and I should know that better than anyone.”

That much… is true, as much as Diluc would hate to admit it.

“I never did get to ask – how was that business trip of yours?” Rosaria’s hand finds the lamp grass situated at the end of the counter, and she tousles its delicate leaves while avoiding his gaze – or perhaps, sparing him from hers. “Kaeya was worrying himself stupid while were you were gone.”

“…I’m aware,” Diluc says carefully.

“You came home a day late, and the next day Kaeya decided he was going sober, for real this time.” She leans her cheek against her palm, tapping the fingers of her other hand languidly against the table, not with enough force to scratch, this time. “Something happened, didn’t it.”

“He’s fine now,” Diluc says, too quickly, too sharply. August tilts her head at him, blue eyes bright like twin skies and hard to pull away from. He breathes in slowly, and exhales even slower. “He’s going to be okay.”

“Hmm.” Tap, tap, tap. Rosaria looks back at him at last, her eyes ice-cold. Impossibly colder than usual. The flat line of her lips is like a blade against his throat, but he doesn’t flinch. “If you say so. I’m holding you to that.”

Diluc is saved from having to say anything more by his brother rushing down the stairs, July in his arms, ranting about how the cat was trying to lure him into a trap and murder him, or some such nonsense.

And then Diluc is saved from having to say anything to that by the bell over the door ringing sharply once again. He swears this time that he’s going to have to have a long talk with whoever’s in charge of education in Mondstadt these days, because how the hell can everyone be missing the damn sign–

But then the door swings open, and–

“Hi Diluc! Hi Kaeya!” Klee bursts in like one of her explosives, all giggles and laughter and glee. “Hi Rosaria! Oh, the kitties are here too! Hi kitties!”

Behind her stands not just Albedo, but Adelinde and Elzer too, just a step behind him. They’re all smiling down with varying degrees of exasperation and fondness at the young knight rushing ahead of them.

“Adelinde said if I didn’t blast any fish on the way here that I would get to try Diluc’s super special ex– excl–”

“Exclusive,” Elzer says, dropping a tentative hand to Klee’s head.

“Diluc’s exclusive fruit juice!” Klee finishes, placing her hands on her hips and looking up at them proudly.

If he were Kaeya, he’d be rushing to praise her, ushering them all inside and getting ready to listen to all the stories the little knight has to share with them, preparing his own stories to tell in return. But he’s not, so the sight of all their faces together in the doorway drags any rational thinking to a halt.

“Elzer, Adelinde,” Diluc mumbles, a shamefully inelegant greeting, but it’s the best he can do. “I– why are you both–”

Adelinde holds up an envelope – the very same one Kaeya had handed to Klee just yesterday before he sent her off with Albedo.

Diluc looks at his brother.

Kaeya winks back and gives the cat in his arms a formidable hug. “I told you. I’m great at planning ahead.”