Featuring: Sibling bonding. My first attempt at writing fluff, I'm pretty proud of it. Diluc in denial. Happy Kaeya. Confused as heck Crepus.
All Diluc had learned from this was that younger brothers were as annoying as heck. So if this was supposed to teach him a lesson or something he was missing it entirely.
He had come out of the bathroom ready to start his not-day deciding that if he was trapped in this dreamscape when he got to the Knights of Favonius headquarters he was going to punch that sucker Eroch in the face so hard he was going to feel it for months on end. Years even. He was never going to forget it, and the look on his face would be priceless. He never did get to enact his vengeance on that monster.
Who was there to ruin his good mood though?
His one and only blue haired definitely not brother popped up out of nowhere while Diluc was inspecting his former stuff trying to see if anything was misplaced, he knew it wouldn't be but it was a dream. "Do you want to play Knights V Zombies!? Or we could be pirates and go treasure hunting!" his eyes were lit up with so much hope and enthusiasm it almost hurt, "Or or… really anything!"
Diluc really, really didn't want to play these silly games again. He had spent so long trying to bury the past just like his father's bones six feet under. It always found a way to pop back up. He diplomatically dodged the answer he wanted to give and parroted what his father said earlier, "We both have training."
Kaeya's eyes sparkled jumping up and down, shaking his head rapidly, "We don't actually! Father just got a letter that it's canceled because a recruit got hurt somehow!"
Knights of Favonius, so inefficient. He wasn't even surprised. How could he have ever been so blind?
Diluc was torn between glad he didn't have to do knights training which embarrassingly enough was on the back of his mind with the thousands of doubts swirling in his head, but now actually thinking of what he'd have to made him want to hurl. Work for the Knights again, never in a million years.
Only problem was Kaeya staring at him with wide adoring eyes and a slightly tilted head as if waiting for him to give the commands, that was how it used to be after all right? He would be lying if he said he didn't miss the way Kaeya would look at him like he was the strongest best person in the world.
"So? Can we please play soon! I know I can beat you!" he said, practically wheedling by now.
Diluc raised an eyebrow, he couldn't recall a time Kaeya won their games. Excluding the past year, where everything was a psychological game that Kaeya was the champ at, "You never beat me."
"I bet I could drink you under the table." said Kaeya cockily.
"You're too young to drink." replied Diluc wishing that they didn't share a room, then he could kick Kaeya out, but no his younger self had to decide to share a room.
This was met with a pout.
Diluc decided that if this was a dream he would be able to control things right? So using all his will power he willed for Kaeya to leap out a window. It's not like this was real.
Kaeya stayed firmly in front of him though much to his annoyance, using oh no… puppy eyes. Diluc held firm though crossing his arms, not conceding into the most adorablest puppy eyes known to man, begging him please please please I'll do anything in a way words just can't.
For a good 10.819 seconds.
As they went to their favorite spot in the Dawn Winery, they could hear their father discussing things with someone from his office, they seemed to be discussing what happened at the training ground, apparently some wayward anemo allogene somehow created a wind current that caused an avalanche. Great training knights.
Their special spot was a nook in the woods surrounding a small shed that had been fixed into a playhouse, later it was ruined and they had relocated, the remains turned into just another storage space. It was kind of odd how accurate everything was in the dream, Diluc didn't even know he remembered until Kaeya had started bounding in the direction of the Statue of Seven. Diluc was heading for the river before remembering at this point in time they weren't allowed down there because of a high number of slimes.
While weaving through the grapevines Diluc slowed his pace to catch a crystal fly, its iridescent wings fading from its body, melting perfectly away and all he was left with was a crystal. He could not believe he was going along with this, blame Kaeya and his damn puppy eyes. "Hey Kaeya! We could use this for the treasure!"
Kaeya glanced over, "Yeah! It's so shiny! Let's get more!"
And no. Diluc totally did not have any fun, running around the grape vines gathering random objects and giggling about them with Kaeya from sun up to sun down. He did not smile more times than he did in 4 years, and they definitely did not build a pillow fort afterwards to hide his buried treasure which was just a pile of random mora and crystal cores with a couple of seashells mixed in so Kaeya could become a knight and try to slay thee terrifying dragon.
That did not happen.
But if it were, which if it did Diluc would never admit to, Crepus walked in to find the two of them tumbling around on the ground fighting over a shiny pink and blue seashell, "It's mine evil dragon! You have stolen these gems from my village! Prepare to feel justice!"
Kaeya ran at Diluc with his wooden sword, bowling him over and knocking down a wall of his cave and stabbing at his head. "Never! I shall breathe fire on you, insignificant knight!"
Diluc threw pieces of colored paper at Kaeya since there was a strict no fire in the winery or near the winery.
Kaeya pretended to shriek in pain, "I retreat for now!" He ran back to grab a stuffed fairy doll that they had found stuffed in the attic. "Oh grand Fairy Godmother! Please give me fire resistance!"
Crepus grabbed the doll doing his best Fairy Godmother voice, "Oh of course dear!" He said in a very, very high pitched voice before booping Kaeya with its wand. "Wish granted!"
Kaeya bowed in thanks before rushing back to Diluc tumbling through waves of literally paper thin fire and pouncing again. "The evil dragon has been slayed!"
Diluc fake died dramatically screaming and collapsing into a stack of pillows with his tongue lolling out.
The boys father chuckled, leaning down to both tickle them before they could protest and was met with screams of laughter and protest, "Okay okay, enough rough play, you're going to break something, besides it's almost time for bedtime."
Diluc and Kaeya shared an ugh expression with each other.
"Hey you can't be making faces behind my back! You're really in for it now!" said Crepus in a fake stern voice leaning down again to tickle them, their squeals of joy ringing throughout the halls.
And because Crepus was also a sucker for puppy eyes they celebrated another 15 minutes of playtime with a pirate game in which Crepus was the opposing pirate team with a powerful relic at his disposal and Kaeya and Diluc were the good pirates.
Crepus eventually had them actually go change into their pajamas and settle into bed. Diluc stared at the room he had once inhabited, wondering if he could dream in a dream. He hadn't slept in this room in ages, he settled onto his fluffy mattress. It was a bunk bed set up with a mattress that slid out underneath in case they had friends over which they frequently did since Diluc back then, in practically another life, was a social butterfly, chatting people's ears off and winning them over with a smile, he absently wondered if he would have been closer to Kaeya's older self than he was his own older form.
Kaeya barged in and plopped down on Diluc's bed immediately cocooning himself in blankets. "Close the door!" hissed Diluc closing the door behind his brother, younger him was an absolute psychopath for allowing Kaeya to share a room with him.
Diluc pushed Kaeya over with a huff and dragged some blankets over himself. Kaeya had often suffered from nightmares when he was younger, and occasionally when he was older, so since Kaeya seemed to spend more time in Diluc's room than his own Diluc's bed had been transformed into a bunk bed, which really didn't even matter because Diluc's bed practically became Kaeya's after Kaeya fell off the top bunk and the most chaotic night since he had come there his head bleeding well into the morning and a panicked Diluc screaming just as loudly as Kaeya, of course Kaeya had apologized profusely causing such a disruption, as if it was his fault that his skull cracked open, because his younger brother was an absolute idiot like that at times.
Diluc really really hoped that he didn't have any tonight because he could only faintly remember what he did to calm him down.
Diluc had gotten himself settled in, but Kaeya bit his lip looking around as if he was doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing. "Kae?"
"Huh?" asked Kaeya immediately, snapping back to alertness and staring at him with confusion written all over his face.
"You going to get some sleep?" he asked rather bluntly, but then again his younger self had always been blunt, maybe it wouldn't be noticed.
"Oh uh, um, yeah!" he said laying next to him, stiff as a log.
They laid like that for who knows how long, neither of them moving an inch. At some point Kaeya had scooted closer, as if he wasn't sure that he was allowed to get close. Diluc glanced over at him to see Kaeya's blue eye peering back at him, studying him, "Not tired?"
A shake of a head was the response.
An awkward silence fell again, just the sound of their soft breathing and wind blessed by the Anemo Archon blowing through the trees and grapevines outside. Outside Diluc saw the stars above, "Hey Kaeya, I see your constellation in the sky!"
Kaeya's eyes sparked with interest moving closer to Diluc to get a better view of the night sky through the window, and sure enough right in the middle on the horizon, was Kaeya's constellation, bright stars aligning in an almost S shaped constellation mimicking an elegant bird coiled up in the heavens.
Kaeya pointed to another, "What constellation is that?"
It was a Monoceros Caeli defined at the horn with a giant star a similar shade to Kaeya's own stars. "That's a narwhal, Monoceros Caeli, it's a warrior of Celestia."
Kaeya leaned over Diluc a bit so he could see a different constellation better, then pointing to another and another asking what they were, Diluc had a faint memory of doing this when Kaeya had first come and had been fascinated by the concept of stars forming shapes. The longer they talked though the heavier their eyelids became. By the time the moon was high in the sky, but not quite midnight, they were both too drowsy to care that they were curled up against each other. Diluc glanced down at Kaeya, his younger brother's words slurring together, head buried in Diluc's shoulder and his hair being gently combed absentmindedly by Diluc's fingers.
Maybe this dream wasn't so bad.
I don't know if you could tell but I had a blast working on this chapter. xD