Chapter Text
The shift in Kaeya’s body morphology started before Diluc even had a chance to get Kaeya safely back to the cottage.
While it wouldn’t prevent him from getting his fledgling to that cover of safety, it broke his heart to feel the painful way that Kaeya’s back arched in his grasp. It would have been too dangerous to take the bike, and he couldn’t help but be reminded of the night that Kaeya had almost died while Diluc fled to the safety of the city and human doctors with Kaeya in his arms again then, too. How different things were now, when the first attempt had been to save his life, and this one was Diluc’s own, unique way of ending it.
It was hard to think of him as his responsibility now beyond the realms of just how one might be responsible for loved ones or guests or, technically in their case, all of the above and as his employer, but that was precisely what he was.
A sire should be the entire world to their fledgling, even if he wasn’t old enough to qualify to turn a leaf over with the help of a breeze, much less turn another vampire. It didn’t matter that Kaeya had taught him things that he had never known about vampires even if he’d been half-born one. The experience of a hired blood on the subject was that of an expert that had only witnessed the creatures from the outside of a glass box, never knowing the meaning of it. As much as Diluc loathed being the one who had forced Kaeya into that glass box with him, it was better than letting the man bleed out in his arms.
He refused to lose anyone else.
“Shh,” Diluc tried to soothe as the darkness of the night began to lighten in a gradient of black and purples on the horizon. The cabin grew larger through the tree line in the distance on the horizon, the wordless agony of the man in his arms grew in intensity, and Diluc could only grip him closer to his chest. He knew that pain all too well–the ache of blood that wasn’t his own, volatile in its nature, sinking like a stone into his stomach before seeping through his organs, seizing and converting what little of that same substance remained in Kaeya’s veins. Of having his heart slow down to a whisper before it stopped entirely, and began to beat with the blood of a monster rather than a human. It was painful, but necessary.
The cabin was kept in good shape by the same workers that kept the Winery going–often used as a hunting lodge with Diluc’s blessing, but fully capable of serving the purpose that he needed it for now–a sunless safe house for the two of them to hide in while Adelinde waited for dawn to follow his commands.
He set Kaeya in the bed, turning to make sure the heavy curtains against each window were drawn fully, blacking out the room in shadows. It would take the duration of the day to know if Kaeya would survive the transformation or not, but Diluc knew his own age wouldn’t allow him to be conscious for much longer. Fortunately, he tended to be able to get up a little earlier than a freshly turned vampire, and Kaeya would need the rest from the strain it would put on his soon to be immortal body.
The transformation wouldn’t be easy, but fortunately, Kaeya would be unconscious for most of it. Diluc had been turned at the start of a night, when his shifting body had been awake for most of its own agonies. It was the smallest mercy of what he could offer, but this way, their internal nocturnal clocks would keep Kaeya fully unaware of how badly it felt. He would be left painfully weak and likely wouldn’t truly wake up until well into the following night, but Diluc was already prepared for that, too.
Still, in the shadows of the room, he curled next to the other on the bed and closed his eyes, honing his senses and forcing himself to stay on the verge of consciousness until he could pick up the distant scent of smoke.
—
Adelinde was waiting for him outside of the cabin by the time he woke that afternoon.
It was with a start, at first–before he rolled over to see Kaeya next to him, a little paler than he had been before, but with that slow, steady heartbeat that betrayed his new immortality. Though his body had refused to allow him to stay awake to see him through that change, hearing that gradual, rhythmic pace at least offered him the comfort of knowing the worst of it was over.
He could hear her waiting, the soft rumble of the car outside suggesting that she had been there a while and was comfortable–checking his phone told him that she’d texted nearly an hour ago that she would be ready for when he awoke.
Fortunately, it was late enough in the afternoon that he could open the door without risk of sunlight hitting either of them, with long shadows stretched out across the cabin’s porch. At seeing the movement, he could already hear the car shut off, and he looked up to see Adelinde’s approach across the driveway with a familiar blue insulated cooler in hand.
It wasn’t all he could see though–even from here, the sky was painted darker than it should have been, and the smell of acrid smoke was far thicker in the open air than it had been when he’d been tucked away in the privacy of the cottage. Though the Winery was several miles away, well down the mountainside that the cabin was situated just up against, the scope of the smoke suggested it had gone up in the very inferno that he had requested she set.
“Everything went according to plan?” He asked, and she offered a nod upon her approach.
“Every member of the coven present has been confirmed to have perished in the fire. I also came across a few things while covering our tracks.” Adelinde murmured, frowning as she set the cooler of blood on the porch. She didn’t look past him—given what she’d gathered from the security cameras the night before, she could only imagine the state he’d found Kaeya in. She had anticipated as much, and packed extra in the cooler accordingly. “In the room of the employee involved in the issue, there was evidence of the coven’s interference in Kaeya’s appearance from the beginning. Namely, a poison that’s known to draw out a reaction similar to an allergic fatal reaction.”
“...they have been pushing me to make my first kill in feeding for quite a while,” Diluc acknowledged quietly, his arms crossing with enough force that his knuckles were white against his own bicep. ”It’s surprising that they’d go so far as to kill him just because I found him as an alternative.”
“Forgive me for speaking out of turn, Master Diluc, but given how they handled your mother, is it really surprising?” Diluc’s gaze dropped, his lips folding into a thin frown. It seemed he fully acknowledged the comment, and even agreed with it, but his silence invited Adelinde to continue. “The fire department has already put out most of the fire. They’ve been paid for their compliance in reporting that only human bodies were found there. The remaining members of the coven from their own families will have questions–and I’ve already prepared to blame a small group of vampire hunters for it, should they query it.”
Diluc pressed his lips together at that, glancing back to the darkness of the interior of the cabin as he stepped forward, lifting the cooler in preparation to carry it back inside. “There won’t be any need for that.”
Adelinde paused, confusion writing carefully across her face. “There won’t?”
He dragged his tongue across his lower lip, finding strangely that his mouth wasn’t dry with hunger after waking as it usually was. Perhaps siring a fledgling of his own had signified some sort of transition in his capabilities. He had woken earlier than usual, and now, he only felt the low burn of annoyance in him at the situation rather than gnawing bloodlust. “For having acted against me in this way, for so long, and for nearly killing him–” he took a breath, looking back at the woman who had looked after him for so long of his mortal, and now immortal life. “I’m going to hunt every single one of the rest of the coven down. I can understand if this means if this makes me too dangerous to render your services to any longer. Effectively, I’m proven a dead man now regardless.”
The conviction in his tone left no room to mistake him as joking, and yet, Adelinde gave a little laugh. “I have long disagreed with how the coven both handled your father, and then you. Your plans for independence won’t free you from my advice that easily, Master Diluc. I’ll have a false identity prepared for you both by tomorrow morning, with all of the necessary documents for you to continue operating safely on this quest. The Ragnvindr Estate was set up so that in the event of your death–planned as it was now–you’ll have several access accounts to inherit your traditional finances. I have already stored the effects you requested at another safe house in the city and a safety deposit box under my name.” She held up the key for it, and Diluc’s fury softened for a moment in her direction as he accepted it.
“I’m afraid that the trouble I’m going to cause you is likely just starting, but I will always be grateful for how you never fail to get me out of it.”
“What sort of stewardess of your estate would I be if I could not handle this as well?” she offered, and the fondness in her tone was unmistakable. “Now please, leave the rest to me. You have a fledgling to look after, now, and I’m sure he’d appreciate some explanation as well.”
She may have been no vampire, but even she could hear the somewhat short, hasty gasps for air that started immediately behind him in the cabin on the bed. She was an incredibly intelligent woman; they both knew that staying there for a second longer put her in incredible danger.
“Thank you,” Diluc finished, clearly agreeing and freeing her to go get some much needed sleep before she started on preparing their new lives. He closed the door behind himself, casting the cabin in darkness once more–though his eyes worked in the dark already, watching as Kaeya stirred. It was a little earlier than he anticipated, but it was also exactly how he expected. The vampiric blood within him had fully turned him, but now it ached within him with no sustenance, having consumed what Kaeya had left within as it cannibalized his body into a monster that would always need more.
Diluc sat next to him on the bed, immediately opening the cooler with one hand after setting it on the floor, and using his other to brush the hair from Kaeya’s expression, clearing it away from his furrowed brows. “Shh. It’s alright, I know you’re hungry, it’ll be alright,” he soothed, as Kaeya jerked awake.
That pretty eye he’d always admired was sightless and feral and blood red with hunger, not able to perceive anything in front of him except for the sole purpose of locating something to consume. Already he could see the fangs that had pushed out Kaeya’s normal incisors, cast aside now as he nearly bit into his own arm just to find anything to sink those teeth into. Diluc stopped him, and instead, pressed the blood bag to his lips. It was an unhinged way to do it, but it was the only way he could also satisfy that instinct to bite without yet offering up his own arm. His blood would be like poison to him, given that Diluc hadn’t yet fed and had nothing fresh to offer.
As if those fledgling instincts could pick up the scent of iron through plastic, Kaeya bit into it without even needing to be instructed, grasping onto Diluc’s arm for dear life while his sire held the bag for him while it deflated slowly. It was a messy feed, but they always were, the first time. Adelinde really had planned ahead–there were more bags stocked in that cooler than Diluc could probably handle in a month, and it was only for a day or two until they could restock.
Kaeya went through four of them, immediately, grasping the next each time until Diluc restrained him carefully until he calmed down and stopped squirming to get more. If left unattended, he would glut himself into sickness. Eventually, the fledgling seemed to come to his senses after the older vampire held him in place until the meal had a chance to truly set in, easing his pain and hunger. Diluc knew the experience that would follow, too–every sense hypertuned to where even the distant cricket chirps outside of the cabin would feel like tiny screams. He was just grateful he’d done it well away from any city; Diluc had thought he’d go mad from the sound of people and heartbeats everywhere when his father had forced him to turn.
Now, he wondered if that had been at the demands and instruction of the coven rather than his own father’s decision. Finally, Kaeya seemed to come to his senses fully enough to speak, and Diluc’s grasp loosened around him.
“You turned me?” Kaeya’s panic was evident in his voice, but his next words were equally unexpected. “Did you get permission? Have you cleared this with your coven? Diluc, this can have you hunted-“
He had cast the other out—he had accused him of unfaithfulness and dropped him right into the waiting hands of predators ready to kill him to maintain power over Diluc. He had turned Kaeya into a blood sucking vampire, and after all of that, the first thing that Kaeya did was worry about was him?
“I won’t be hunted,” he promised before Kaeya’s worry could intensify any further. “The Manor caught fire after I took you back from the man that tried to kill you.”
Perhaps it was a lie by omission to not tell Kaeya he had instructed the start of that fire, and had personally killed the vampire who’d brought him to death’s door; they were things he would need to discuss with him in the future, but part of him felt like Kaeya was the sort of person to ask why he hadn’t taken such drastic actions to ensure his safety sooner. There had been no lost love between his fledgling and the coven after seeing how they’d been treating him so far, after all. Before Kaeya could question it, though, he continued, already ready to spin right into another slurry of words that Diluc had been waiting to spill from the moment he’d realized what had happened the night prior at the Manor.
“I’m sorry.” He had to pause, for just a moment, because there were many things to apologize for at this point, and each of them was a little more severe than the last. “I’m sorry that I ever even allowed myself to think that you’d done something like that to betray me. I’m sorry that I didn’t try to listen, or know better–and I’m sorry that I ever let them lay a hand on you in the first place.” He swallowed, even if he didn’t really need to, and let his idle grasp fall to Kaeya’s hands, squeezing them until he turned them over to run his thumb along the lines of Kaeya’s palms. “And I’m sorry that I did this to you, too. That I brought you into this world without asking you, and that I took away any chance you ever had at normalcy again.”
Silence hung heavy between them in the air, before finally, Kaeya exhaled slowly, letting the heavy apologies roll off of him like water. He offered up a half-smile, strained not by the weight of his new immortality, but by his uncertainty of where to begin with Diluc’s profuse words.
“I was Compulsed, for one. You wouldn’t have been able to get the honest truth out of me even if I’d have been able to get in a word edgewise. They planned it from top to bottom to hit you where they thought it would hurt you most, so maybe I should be the one to be sorry for leaving you with such an open blind spot.
“Kaeya, I-”
“Ah-ah,” Kaeya interrupted, lifting his fingers before they pressed together and sealed like an invisible zipper over Diluc’s mouth. “You had your time to talk. This is mine. If you’re really sorry, you’ll let me speak.”
Diluc nodded, not needing to be told twice. Once he was sure that the redhead wouldn’t try to compound on his guilt again, Kaeya continued:
“And secondly… I would be dead without you. I always sort of anticipated it–not because of you, but because I got into this job young. You’ve seen my bite scars.” Diluc didn’t interrupt, even though he sorely wanted to mention that all of them should have healed over during Kaeya’s transformation–even the one he’d received that had nearly killed him. The only bite mark that would ever scar on Kaeya’s flesh would be any inflicted by his sire. He didn’t know why, but something about his own saliva reacting with the blood that had turned Kaeya would make them permanent, but it was a favor that could be returned likewise. “I expected some vampire to overfeed from me in the VIP room of a shitty little night club someday. The fact you weren’t willing to let me go is the first time anyone’s ever actually cared about me.”
Kaeya swallowed, hard, as if it was a little difficult to admit, but knowing that he’d always thought so lowly of himself made Diluc’s chest ache with far more than just guilt. When Kaeya didn’t stop him, Diluc shifted slowly to gather the other into his arms, pulling him half into his lap just for the sake of holding him, awake and alive and willing and finally safe. “You’ll never have to worry about being cared for again. I’ll take care of you for the rest of our lives. I swear it.”
Though Kaeya gave a little laugh, he buried his face fast into the other’s shoulder, his arms circling him in turn. “So dramatic, Diluc. I’ll have to hold you to that. But the manor didn’t really just catch on fire, did it?”
Diluc paused, hesitating as he realized he’d have to confront the topic much earlier than he anticipated. “...no. I refused to live under their thumb any longer after what they did to you. And I plan to take care of everyone in the coven that wasn’t there today, too. I’ll make sure you’re in a safe place before I do it.”
Kaeya shifted, sitting up from where the other had embraced him, lifting his hand to brush a thumb along Diluc’s cheek. “...you think I’d let you go do that alone? I’ve known how to kill a vampire from the minute I took up this job, even if I’ve never had to before. I know you probably think you can do this on your own, but are you going to deny me my chance at a little revenge, too?”
Diluc wasn’t entirely sure that he’d ever be able to fully anticipate the words that would come out of Kaeya’s mouth, but once again, the other had managed to take him by surprise.
“I won’t deny you anything. Ever.” It was a swear, as Diluc lifted one of Kaeya’s hands to press his lips against the back of his knuckles. “If you don’t want to feed from people, then I’ll feed extra so you can have it from me. If you don’t want to stay here, we can go anywhere in the world. It’s all ours.”
“I wouldn’t promise all of that,” Kaeya offered, grinning in a way that flashed those new, sharp fangs. “You might spoil me. I’m fine with blood bags, for now, unless you want me to repay the favor for all of those bites you left me over the last month.”
Diluc’s cheeks flushed, just a little, in a way that made Kaeya want to offer back up some of what he’d drunk in his veins just to see him turn pink again. “What if I want to spoil you?” Still, the sight of him, permanent in his life now instead of a creature whose life would end in the blink of an eye, had Diluc’s heart warm, and he couldn’t stop himself from leaning forward, pressing a kiss against Kaeya’s lips. He’d been clumsy with his own fangs the first few days, so the gesture was careful and deliberate.
“Then you can start,” Kaeya mumbled, brushing his hands through the other’s hair before he leaned over to grab another blood bag. Though he clearly fought against the instinct to overindulge, he held it out to Diluc insistently, “by having your breakfast and taking care of your own needs first. We have until the end of time to start planning on how to get rid of the rest of your coven, and but for now, we can talk about what we want to do after that’s all over. Let me take you back to America and show you some of my favorite places.”
“We can make a list,” Diluc agreed, taking the offered bag. A little more civilized now, he tore the tip open, and brought it to his lips. Kaeya watched him carefully as the scent of blood filled the air freely once more, and before he could help it, his tongue brushed along his lower lip, betraying that greed. “...after I tear into this and teach you how to slow feed so you don’t make yourself sick.”
“...whatever you say, sire,” the fledgling offered, taking full advantage of how the strangely formal title made Diluc’s breath hitch. “It’s your turn to teach me everything you know.”
Diluc shouldn’t have found the suggestive teasing as distracting as he did, but he tilted the bag to his lips with a speed he hadn’t had since his own first meals after his transformation. If Kaeya was so eager to learn in exchange for how much knowledge he’d had to give Diluc from the other side of experiencing it…
Well, he now had an eternity to teach him in turn.