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The worst part is that it is Kaeya’s own fault, in the end. He doesn’t have to take the tortoise. In truth he isn’t obligated to think about the lumbering creature at all, because firstly only Diluc had ever been silly enough to have a tortoise as a pet, and secondly Adelinde would have happily taken care of the thing without complaint, because she was a serious woman with a terrible weakness for cute animals. So there is no reason for Kaeya to take in the tortoise once Diluc left. There is no reason for Kaeya to involve himself with any of the business of manor or winery once Diluc vanished from Mondstadt’s borders, and yet he takes the tortoise anyway.
He can’t really say why he does it. Pettiness? Sibling competition? Or maybe it is that Diluc had actually really loved that tortoise, and Kaeya is the sort of person who is tired and bitter and bizarre enough to sympathize with the small, defensive, and utterly unprepared creature his brother had left behind him.
Regardless, the whys and hows don’t really matter. The tortoise: it exists, and Kaeya has it.
“All right,” says Jean, very carefully. “But, Kaeya… that doesn’t explain why it's on top of your cupboards?”
“Perhaps tortoises can climb,” replies Kaeya.
“They cannot,” says Jean.
“…Hm,” says Kaeya.
Jean looks torn between a smile and a scolding, her eyes still on the tortoise. It’s Kaeya’s own fault too, that this conversation is happening—their dear Dandelion Knight has been overworking herself again, and because Kaeya does in-fact care about Jean’s well-being (a thankless task, as Barbara can attest, given Jean herself appears to have negative self-care tendencies), Kaeya had invited her to his place for a drink.
Granted he’d worded it like he had secret information to give her outside of prying ears, so likely Jean thinks this whole excursion is still work—but, ah. Needs must. Grand Master Varka, at any rate, will likely find the whole thing hilarious.
It would have worked well, Kaeya thinks, if he hadn’t forgotten about the stupid tortoise.
“Well, it doesn’t seem in much distress,” Jean says now, stepping further into the kitchen. There’s a small smile on her face, quiet and nostalgic. “Though… perhaps we should get it down?”
Kaeya sighs heavily, and puts down his bottle of wine. He recognizes that glint in Jean’s eye. He will not be getting a drink for a while, apparently.
Jean is dragging over a chair. “Kaeya,” she says. “Hold it steady, would you?”
“No, no, I’ll do it…” He nudges the chair with his foot and braces its back against the counter, stepping up on the seat. “I do have the height advantage, after all.”
Jean gives him a slightly doubtful look. “…You know how to hold the tortoise, right?”
Ugh.
“Of course I do,” Kaeya replies, airy, and reaches out for the tortoise. The tortoise immediately tries to bite the fuck out of his finger and, failing that, hides from him. Kaeya makes an ugly face at the tortoise where Jean cannot see.
He does know how to pick up a tortoise. He has seen it his whole childhood; he mimics the motions and thinks longingly of a drink. He hasn’t even had a sip of alcohol, and yet, he almost thinks he can hear Diluc anyway—younger and happier and chiding. The sides of the shell, Kaeya! And go slow! She doesn’t like being startled.
The tortoise is freed from its cupboard road. Kaeya descends the chair gracefully, prize held aloft.
Jean is already looking away. “Do you have an enclosure?” she asks. Kaeya narrows his eye at her slightly. Her expression is bright. She is holding herself tall and with her hands behind her back—typical Jean, trying not to look as invested in something as she actually is. She wears the same expression in the romance section of the library. Hmm.
“Jean,” Kaeya says, horrible suspicion blooming. “Do you, too… have a tortoise?”
Jean freezes. Caught.
“Well,” she says. “I, ah— not anymore, unfortunately, but as a child…” Something of Kaeya’s thoughts must show on his face, because she reddens slightly. “ You have a tortoise!”
No. Diluc had a tortoise, and Kaeya spent their whole childhood laughing at him for it, mainly because something about tortoises had been such a rich-kid pet to him. Which, yes, Jean also fits, but… ahh, he can’t tell her. For one thing, he needs another few months of getting used to his brother hating him before Diluc becomes funny again.
“Never mind,” Kaeya says, fighting to keep his face under control. “I’ll just, ah…”
“Let me help you,” says Jean, immediately.
Kaeya gives up. She is not going to let the tortoise thing go. This is just going to be the rest of his night, apparently.
The tortoise pokes its head out its shell to try and bite the fuck out of his finger yet again. “Really?” Kaeya says to it, and heads for the enclosure before it can try for a third time and succeed.
Jean follows after him, eyes on the tortoise, murmuring under her breath. “Eyes seem clear, and it can lift itself from the ground… it’s not breathing with an open mouth… looks alert, too…”
Kaeya places the tortoise down in its enclosure— a small patch of wall by a window for sunlight and warmth, water bowl and half-eaten vegetables included. Look at him, tortoise-caregiver extraordinaire: he even has that ugly looking moss-and-bark soil mixure for the flooring. He dares Jean or Diluc to find fault with any of it.
He’s fine. He’s doing fine. He’s given the stupid thing everything it could need; what right has the tortoise to complain?
Kaeya draws his hand away before the tortoise can snap at him again, and flashes Jean his best smile. “Do I pass the test?”
Jean flushes. “I… I apologize, Kaeya. I’m sure you’re taking great care of it.” She sounds so genuine about that bit, too, that Kaeya actually almost feels guilty. “I just... it's very nostalgic for me. I guess I got a little carried away.”
“That’s fair enough, I suppose.” Kaeya straightens from the floor, and brushes the dust from his legs. Maybe this night can be salvaged after all? “But I do recall inviting you here for—”
But Jean is staring at the enclosure. “Kaeya,” she starts slowly.
“…Jean.”
“Where’s the hide box?”
Kaeya blinks at her. He follows her gaze to the enclosure. It looks as close as he could make it to the one he remembers Diluc having— the grassy floor, the shallow water bowl, sunlight and warmth, etcetera— and he cannot figure out the look on Jean’s face.
“Hide box?”
She looks at him. Kaeya looks back.
“Ah,” Jean says.
.
A hide box, as it turns out, is a small box-like enclosure for the tortoise to—as the name implies—hide. Apparently, according to Jean, it is a necessary component of the enclosure responsible for severely reducing a tortoise’s stress and anxiety. Nevermind that the tortoise has its own damn shell to hide in. Nevermind that at all.
This does not entirely explain why Kaeya is now cutting up old mailboxes at ten at night with a still unopened bottle of wine— except, perhaps, that Jean really is invested in tortoise care. Aggressively invested.
Honestly, it's almost midnight. Usually Kaeya would be at least two glasses in by now; it is truly a loss.
Jean has settled next to him on the couch, her sword unlatched and leaning against the wall and her back bent over his coffee table as she tries to bend unwilling cardboard into a half-moon shape. It is a tireless and fruitless task: the package board refuses to be molded, and Jean’s eyes are narrow with challenge and thought. There’s even a little breeze blowing through Kaeya’s apartment, despite the fact all of his windows are latched shut. It’s the least in control he’s ever seen Jean, and it is, if nothing else, a fascinating side to this whole annoying endeavor.
“For Barbatos’s sake,” Jean mutters, when the package board unbends again.
“Let's do this tomorrow,” Kaeya suggests, shamelessly.
She shakes her head. “No, no, I… it really shouldn’t be taking so long, I used to make these all the time…”
Kaeya plucks the cardboard from her hands; Jean rubs at her brow and leans back against the sofa, resigned. “You yourself said this would be a temporary one, yes?”
“Well… wood or stone would be better, yes, but—”
“So it doesn’t need to be perfect.” Kaeya lowers the package board and lifts up his hollowed out box.
Jean presses her lips, visibly reluctant. As annoying as Kaeya finds this whole situation, he has to admit it's an interesting side of Jean. He did invite her here to make her rest… and while this just seems like more work to Kaeya, Jean is utterly entraptured. Her eyes are bright and focused; some of her hair has even fallen from its usually neat ponytail. She hasn’t glanced at her paperwork even once.
It makes Kaeya re-evaluate her words in a new light. She had said herself the tortoise was a childhood pet… but tortoises live long lives. Perhaps she just owned an older one, or maybe when she joined the Knights she had to pass the creature on to someone else who had the time and energy to contribute to its happiness. Either way— it was a loss, and one that cut deep.
She has missed this. It is as clear as day; it makes him feel almost bad for blowing the wind out of her sails. But also, it is almost midnight, and he hasn’t had any alcohol yet and—
Well. The tortoise hides in its own shell so often, Kaeya isn't really sure it even needs a box.
He’ll just invite her over again, he supposes. If nothing else, the tortoise will provide a good excuse to trick her into taking a break.
Jean must be thinking something among similar lines— at least in regards to the late hour— because at last she sighs and leans forward, taking the box from his hands. “...I suppose you're right.”
“As always,” Kaeya remarks, airy.
Jean knocks their knees together in admonishment, then stands to place the box in the enclosure. Kaeya reaches for the wine bottle and his knife. There’s an old trick to opening bottles with a blade and some well-timed Cryo…
“It was…”
Jean. Kaeya glances back at her, still working on the wine cork. She has placed down the hide box and is surveying the enclosure for the last time; her back is to him. He cannot see her face.
“...It was Diluc’s, wasn’t it?”
Kaeya, who has popped the cork and finally managed to steal a moment of time to pour himself a glass of wine, pauses with the drink halfway to his mouth. “Sorry?”
“The tortoise.” She watches the tortoise wander. “It was Diluc’s pet.”
She says it halfway like a question, but with a conviction that says she knows she’s right. Kaeya lowers the glass slowly, and wonders what gave it away.
What he says is: “So?”
Jean doesn’t move for a long moment. Then she glances back and smiles at him. There is something about her expression— something between sadness and exasperation and an even stranger fondness— that startles him. “...It’s nothing. Just— please don’t let it wander on top of cabinets anymore, Kaeya.”
Kaeya sighs loudly at her. Jean laughs.
But the look on her face stays with him—enough that, when Jean has finally passed out on his couch—(“I’ll just close my eyes for a little bit and then I’ll head home… I didn’t mean to stay this late, I apologize—” and Kaeya had nodded and hummed and said all the usual platitudes, and made plans for what to make her for breakfast in the morning)—Kaeya stays up, watching Jean and the tortoise both.
He had not, in fact, been entirely lying to Jean. In the thirty minutes Jean has been asleep, the tortoise has somehow nudged open its enclosure and is now wandering across his apartment carpet. Though he still has no idea how the damn thing got up on those cupboards.
“You’re more trouble than you’re worth,” Kaeya tells the tortoise. “Truly, I don’t know what possessed me.”
The tortoise blinks slowly at him. It has wandered into the warm circle of light from the last lit lantern, soaking in the glow.
“Though,” Kaeya reflects. “I suppose I do have you to thank for giving our dear almost-Grand Master a break.”
There is no response. Kaeya swirls the wine in his glass. He still hasn’t had a sip. He’s not even entirely sure why. Perhaps he has yet to find the stomach for it.
It’s dark out. The shadows are familiar in the way Mondstadt’s blinding sun has never really managed to be.
Kaeya looks at the tortoise. The tortoise looks back—empty black eyes, hollow and reflective, shining in the light. What a quiet, withered creature. So defensive, so slow, quick only to hide. He cannot fathom what Diluc once found so fascinating about the creatures; cannot understand why Jean had smiled so small and fond at the thing. That cracked, wrinkled shell, heavy as stone and smoothed soft by sand and sea—it seems too great a burden to bear, and yet the creature drags itself on anyway.
Kaeya considers the tortoise. The tortoise considers Kaeya, its eyes half-lidded in the warmth of the lamp.
“Well,” Kaeya says, and falls back on his floor, staring at the ceiling. Jean has started snoring on his couch—loud and droning and completely unprofessional, blending perfectly and hilariously with the buzzing of cicadas and the midnight wind rattling his shutters. The whole scene is almost enough to make him smile, even if he will never investigate why. “I suppose I can drink to that.”
He turns around and clinks his glass against the tortoise’s shell, a ringing toast. If Jean were awake, he knows, she would scold him for it—unnecessary cruelty, to tease a creature so clearly out of its depth.
But for the first time, the tortoise does not flinch or bite at him. It does not hide. It blinks its dark eyes languidly back, and then curls, slow and deliberate and secure, back into its shell to sleep.