#Luckae !
Content warnings for mild to heavier angst & grief. Mentioned and minor character death.

A 'what if' scenario that shouldn't be taken as canon, as a heads up!

Forgiveness had happened at a strange pace, where neither could tell who had forgiven who first--or who should have been forgiven for what.

Diluc and Kaeya gathered the pieces of their lives together like a vase that had been shattered for close to three years.

Of course there would be pieces missing. It had laid there, on the ground and in tatters, to be trampled further by careless words and aching grudges, but it was a project that both, wordlessly, had agreed to embark upon together.

They would fill old gaps with new memories.

No one can say they're surprised when they spot Diluc tilted in the doorway of the Angel's Share, pressing a kiss to Kaeya's cheek on his way out.

The red on said cheek was not from any particular drink in his system.

Those who witness it say it's the prettiest, most genuine laugh they've ever heard Kaeya give.

It's a careful journey. They try not to talk about things that will set off their disagreements.

Diluc's involvement in hunting the Fatui. The Darknight Hero. Kaeya's sleep schedule, his questionable decisions.

Kaeya's loyalty, and his confession almost four years ago.

For a time, things are good.

They meet in secret, and when Jean admits, with some embarrassment and exasperation, that /everyone already knows/, they don't have to meet in secret anymore.

Ladies and grannies all over Mondstadt lament the loss of their single lives, but...

They are happy, and people can only be happy for them.

Then, both the Knights of Favonius and the Adventurer's Guild both announce their plans to begin expansion and research into Dragonspine.

The first announcement calls for assistants. They need to set up a camp. It will be a joint effort, and the fact that Albedo has disappeared as well in his interest in studying... something atop the mountain compiles it all into...

Well, Kaeya's increasingly poor mood.

He's still bad about being open with certain things. Diluc doesn't begrudge him this--it's one of those things they don't talk about to avoid fighting.

But Kaeya is increasingly ill at ease, sheltered off and sleeping less. And Diluc... well, he's worried.

It's easy to scale the wall to the Headquarters of the Knights of Favonius, to help himself into the window where Kaeya is poured over his desk, a glass of wine on the desk and his forehead held in one hand, his pen in the other. He's pushed his hair back, away from his face.

For all his smooth talking and pretty face, no lack of confidence about his body, Diluc recognizes the fact he's pushed his hair, normally worn over his eyepatch, as vulnerable body language.

He's quiet, and worried more that Kaeya jumps a little when he touches him.

Normally, Kaeya would have known the minute he'd opened the window. He was attentive, like that.

Diluc had taken him by surprise.

When he was sure the other was aware it was him, Diluc's arms circle his shoulders slowly, from behind.

He doesn't miss that half of the paperwork on the desk that had once been his are to do with the expeditions planned for that snowy hellscape.

Kaeya has been trying to stop half of them, with... increasingly vague reasons.

"Be honest with me," Diluc starts slowly, resting his head on Kaeya's shoulder. He can feel the tension remain, because honesty is a strange concept between them, now. He has never pressed Kaeya for more than what Kaeya was willing to give, and that.... well, that scared Kaeya.

"What is on Dragonspine that you don't want people to find?"

Kaeya went very still, closing his eyes as he let out a shaking exhale, leaning back into Diluc's warmth. He's silent for long enough that Diluc isn't sure that he'll answer, before in a quiet voice:

"A hidden Khaenri'ahn outpost. The one I came from."

It was honesty. It was what Diluc had asked for.

Still, he felt his heart sink low into the pit of his stomach, and his arms tighten around Kaeya out of some instinctive, distant possessiveness.

"You're trying to protect them."

"...I'm trying to protect everyone."

"Everyone?"

Kaeya exhaled slowly.

"It's been... what, fifteen years? But the outpost struggled, even when I was a child. They barely survived, there. If the Knights march on the mountain, they'll feel threatened. They'll try to fight."

"You don't think they're a threat to Mondstadt?"

Kaeya sighed, softly, the sound forlorn and distant and a little bitter. "If I did, I would have done something about it sooner. ...I've been thinking I need to warn them. To tell them to clear out, to go-- ... anywhere else."

Diluc grimaced. "...To Dragonspine on your own? A Cryo User?" His hand stretched out slowly, running along Kaeya's bare wrist. Notably cold.

He wouldn't last long, with how much lower his body temperature was naturally.

"Who else could, without knowing them?"

Diluc's fingers wrap around Kaeya's wrist where he's touched, using it to lift Kaeya's hand up, so he can brush his lips to his knuckles.

"Take me with you."

Kaeya nearly chokes at the offer, half turning out of shock, and... reservation. Diluc can't blame him for being wary.

"I don't want to do anything but what you want. I won't even go in to the outpost, if you prefer. I trust what you're telling me."

That word, that little mention of /trust/.

It steals the breath from his lungs, his gaze wide. Maybe it was because he'd never though he'd hear those words again, or more that he'd never thought he'd hear them from Diluc unprompted.

Diluc drives the point home, gently.

"I trust you because I love you, Kaeya. We can go under the cover of tomorrow night, before the expedition sets out tomorrow night. You just have to promise me you'll eat a full meal, and sleep tonight to prepare."

Kaeya almost winces at the details of the deal, but nods.

"....If you're sure, tomorrow night?"

Diluc presses a kiss to his temple. "Tomorrow night."

'Tomorrow night' does not come quite quickly enough for Kaeya--and truth be told, after carrying him back to the Winery for Adeline to stuff him full of a real meal for once, Diluc had had to wrap full behind him, keeping him warm in bed before Kaeya would drift off.

He had fallen asleep in the middle of a sentence, soft whispers of a strange, subtle anticipation of seeing other Khaenri'ahns after so long.

He'd been so young when they'd left their homeland for the outpost, but if memory served, he might have an aunt on Dragonspine.

Diluc lays awake for a while after, listening to Kaeya breathing, uneasy over the lingering thought of Kaeya having any family that might try to take him back with them when they evacuated.

He sleeps hard on it, and has dreams that border nightmares.

Neither feel particularly well rested when they wake up late the next day, even though it's the first time in a while they've taken to sleep more than eight hours in one another's arms.

They prepare, regardless, bringing down winter coats from storage and packing food.

Adelinde has long learned not to question either of them, but her unease is apparent as she checks their weapons, and mends a hole in Kaeya's thicker coat. Diluc insists he takes a few of his own shirts instead of wearing his open-chested one, buttoning him up.

They set out at twilight, knowing that it will be harder for anyone who might have embarked early on the mountain to find them; they're also less likely to run into trouble on the edges of night, too.

Even Hilichurls tended to be diurnal.

They travel with Elzer on horse to the outside foot of the mountain, before they leave the horses entrusted into his care. Not even beasts of burden could last long in the tundra-like temperatures.

"...This is where your father found me," Kaeya whispers, quiet. Fond.

"Here?" Diluc asks, a little surprised. "He said he found you at the edge of the Winery."

"This /is/ technically the edge of the Winery. He always said it was lucky it was late summer, because the snow branches out further in fall and spring. I would have frozen to death."

They make it across the stream, grateful for the thickness of their boots, and Kaeya ducks deep in his coat already. The bite of ice is immediate.

"Up here is where I got my vision, too," Diluc murmurs after a moment.

"When we got lost?" Kaeya asked, calling the memory to the forefront of his mind. Like they had, long ago in a time when they'd been much smaller and much less aware of the world, he'd held Diluc's hand and tried to guide him away from the mountain.

"Mhm."

They both feel little, in that moment, tiny in the face of this mountain and the unknown that awaited both of them in the Khaenri'ahn outpost.

"How far is it?"

"...I... I'm not sure," Kaeya answers, uncertain. "But I'll recognize the hidden signs for it."

It's slow going. There's enough old relics and dry wood that whenever they need to stop and warm themselves, Diluc can make a small fire. It was more dangerous that they had set out at night; the temperatures dropped faster, and the winds blew harder.

More than once they huddled against one another to walk against the chill, relying on Diluc's heat and Kaeya's control over the frost to divert the worst of the snow whipping around them.

The first ruin they come across makes Kaeya pause, his brows knitting.

Dawn is breaking in the distance, lifting light to the crumbled wall.

"What is it?" Diluc asks, noticing his pause.

"This was... in better shape, the last time that I was here. They maintained it better."

"Maybe they let it lapse as a disguise?" Diluc suggests, his brows furrowing at the strange lettering written into the walls. He couldn't read it, but he couldn't help but wonder if Kaeya could.

"That's..." Kaeya just shakes his head, and tugs his hand. They continue.

He seems to have some sort of bearings now, and they move in the dips between where the mountain rises and falls.

"Your father left you, didn't he? Do you think he would have returned here?"

"There's a chance," Kaeya admits, softly.

"Are you ready to see him, if he did?"

"I don't know."

It's not an elaborate lie about how he would gladly face down the man with some ire, or a joke, or... anthing else, and DIluc knows he isn't lying. He leaves it at that.

The more ruins they come across, the more sick Kaeya looks. Breathless, anxious, unnerved--Diluc has always seen Kaeya's confidence, and the further they go, the more he fears what he's done in agreeing to escort Kaeya this far.

"We can go back," he offers silently, squeezing Kaeya's fingers in his own.

"No. I just. It's less familiar than what I thought."

"Do you still know how to get there?"

"I do. I know it definitely, now."

They continue.

Kaeya stops for a moment, to stare hard at a set of pillars surrounding a frozen spring. Without warning, he tears his gaze from it, and storms hard to a long snowed-in path that Diluc would have missed if Kaeya hadn't been there.

"Kae-!"

It's too cold, the morning sun hasn't melted anything yet, but its light is blinding and makes it hard for Diluc to chase after him. Like a startled deer, Kaeya's run is more leaps and bounds, legs carrying him too quickly to be safe.

Diluc stumbles through the snow at a slower rate, eventually growing frustrated enough to lash out with fire to make it melt before him, so they'll be able to find their way back, too. It keeps him from breaking his ankle, probably.

When he catches up, he finds Kaeya at the mouth of a cave, beautiful in how its walls were formed of melting and freezing snow again.

He's standing there, a look of disbelief and painful shock lingering on his face. He looked lost. Completely, utterly lost.

"It was here," Kaeya gasps, his breaths coming in short, whispy huffs from how hard he'd run. I swear it was here. There was-"

Diluc is breathing just as hard as he catches up, looking into the mouth of the cave.

More runes. Shadows of what might have been structures, toothpick thin and either broken down for firewood, or... abandoned entirely. No signs of life. No campsites, no buildings, not even the residue to suggest that anyone had even passed through, recently.

But Diluc is too attentive. They both are. He sees it, and realizes it, before Kaeya can even allow himself to consider it.

"...are you sure?"

"This was where it was. We-- there's a mechanism to move a gate to block out the winds, left over from how they settled in the ruins," Kaeya looked over, but all that remained of it is a stone wheel and shattered, rusted chain links.

"This doesn't make sense, where is..."

Diluc tore his gaze to the other, taking a slow step forward. "...Kaeya, these... these ruins and remains are hundreds of years old, not decades."

"That's... not possible, Diluc."

Diluc grimaced at the answer, but after hearing of what had happened in Springvale, he couldn't shake it.

"What do you remember about your father leaving you at the edge of the Winery?"

Kaeya winces. It's a sore subject.

"Why does that matter?" Kaeya starts, breath still short.

"Did he leave you in the cold? Did you wander back into the Winery grounds afterwards?"

"I don't-" Kaeya winced, taking a short breath. He just remembered that look--that look of loathing, of hope, that /he/ was hope.

Everything else, now, fifteen years later--it felt like a blur. He couldn't tell if it was the trauma of wandering lost, hours later, or waking up alone until Crepus had found him.

All he remembered was how cold it had been. How his little arms had felt, wrapped around himself.

Cold, like ice had enveloped him entirely.

He'd wondered for so long if that was why the cold had found him again in his Cryo Vision.

"What are you saying, Diluc?" He asks, turning to Diluc with his heart breaking already.

"There's...been a few cases of people, and animals, getting thawed out from being frozen, lately." Diluc murmured, taking a careful step forward.

Kaeya looked as if he might fall over.

"You can't be serious. You can't mean that-"

"These ruins are /old/, Kae. No one alive would remember details like what you've shown, leading us here."

No one alive.

No one alive.

"Gods, they're all gone," Kaeya realizes, crushingly, all at once.

His legs nearly give out, but Diluc is there to catch him, this time. Kaeya's breathing is so uneven against his shoulder that Diluc fears he might hyperventilate.

"It's been-- it's been /centuries/, even Khaenri'ah-"

He had known his homeland was a mess of ruins and the lingering survivors that scraped by.

But how far had it truly fallen from what he could have realized, safe in Mondstadt?

Khaenri'ah's last 'hope' had sat slumbering in ice, for how long?

Kaeya ducked his head to Diluc's shoulder, shaking it as he grasped to the fur that lined Diluc's winter coat. Bitterly, shaking, he choked on a laugh.

"No wonder my father never came back for me."

"Shh. Come here, come here," Diluc coaxes, holding him tightly. He opens his jacket to wrap it around them both, fingers brushing against the back of Kaeya's neck.

"I'm alone here, aren't I?" Kaeya choked. "Everyone I knew, any of my family here, they've been dead for so long-"

"No," Diluc answers with a sharp conviction. "You're not alone."

Briefly, his mind flashes to the time before he'd returned, and he tucks his face against Kaeya's jaw.

"I won't ever let you be alone again, Kaeya."

He can feel the other's tears, cold too, against the curve of his neck, and for a while, he lets Kaeya cry his quiet sobs into his shoulder. It's fine. He can keep them both warm, just as he had when he'd gotten his vision on this damnable mountain as children.

When Kaeya's breath stops catching at the back of his throat, Diluc eases away, slowly, but carefully. He cleans his cheeks of wetness before it can freeze on his skin. Every motion slow, careful. Reassuring.

"I love you, Kaeya," he reminds, because Kaeya needs it, now.

He needs it now, more than ever.

Numb, Kaeya nods, and Diluc continues, steadfast in anchoring him abreast of that grief.

"We're going to go back down the mountain. I'll send a letter to Jean. You're going to take a few days off, and... I'll monitor the expedition's correspondence."

Before Kaeya's confusion could grow, Diluc kisses his cheek, then his forehead, leaving blossoms of warmth everywhere his lips touched.

"If they find anything of what happened here, you'll be the first to know. We'll find names. We'll make a memorial. We'll honor them."

Kaeya nods, and Diluc's words melt the ice that had threatened to encompass his heart again, grounding him. Warming him in ways his fingers couldn't.

"Right," he agrees, coming back to Diluc in the moment, rather than suffering in an unknowable past. "I-... thank you, Luc..."

"Don't thank me," Diluc encourages softly, thumb brushing his cheek once more. "I will do anything to make this easier on you, Kaeya. Let me take care of you."

Neither of them can say that Kaeya had done the same for him, but their mistakes were in the past, now

The only things that matter are what will come in the future.

Kaeya had bared what he could of his past to Diluc, and had been crushed for it in the process.

There was never going to be a question of loyalty, or honesty, again.

"Let's leave. We don't have to come back again, not unless you want to," Diluc promises, wrapping his gloved fingers against Kaeya's hand. "Do you want to look for anything, before we go?"

Over his shoulder, Kaeya stares into the void of the cave.

So much of his childhood had been spent in a place that was now lost to time, he realized--and to see it destroyed, to see everything and everyone lost to the sands of time might crush him, even under the protection of Diluc's warmth.

He'll remember it how it was.

Swallowing the lump that had risen in his throat, instead, he squeezed Diluc's hand, and turned away.

"...Take me home, Luc," is all he can request instead.

Diluc nods, presses another silent kiss to his brow, and pulls him back towards the melted path.

Kaeya has one home, now.

It is not the frigid cold of a hidden outpost in Dragonspine.

It is not in a Khaenri'ah that he too, would not recognize after hundreds of years.

It is Mondstadt. It is the Winery. It is Diluc.

And he will hold it close, as the last thing he has.

///end