Chapter Text
Lumine is sitting in the living room with a bottle of gin and a burnt lollipop when Kaeya appears on the rug.
She wasn't quite expecting a ghost to pop up out of the slowly gathering mist, or rather, not one her age and exceeedingly beautiful.
"Good morning," she says, more as a greeting than a judgement on the time of day, which is in fact evening judging by how dark the curtains are.
"Why hello." The man crosses his arms, smirking down at her whilst licking the last of some crumbs from the corner of his lips. "Oh? You even brought me gin?"
Lumine glances sheepishly down at the bottle. "No, I…cut my foot." She shows him the wound, which is still bleeding, and the man immediately lets out a sigh that betrays his livelihood as being that of a caretaker of some sort.
"Oh, come here. You need to clean that." His shoulders lower, the surefire sign of a hefty bout of pouting beginning. He walks closer, kneeling besides her with his arms out near her feet. "May I?"
Lumine is just trying to wrap her head about the fact he's not entirely see-through. Only a little bit, around his shoulders perhaps. "Uh…sure."
Kaeya gets to work unwrapping her foot, curious to see what's wrong with her under the… "tissue bandage," he mutters under his breath, clearly judging her choices.
"Hmph."
When he looks up, Lumine is pouting, her arms crossed over her chest as she stares him down.
"Lot of judgment from a ghost," she says.
Kaeya's finger slips up in the air, as confident (in his correctness) as an albatross is in landing on a chunk of ice. "Au contraire, if laws are writ in blood, then the dead can judge how you take care of your injuries."
Lumine's jaw does a little fishy thing that has Kaeya smirking down at her.
"Hmph," she says, quieter this time, realizing he's right, to some respects.
"Anyways, didn't you ask me here to help you?"
"No, I asked you here to help you."
Kaeya's dabbing the blood on her foot, a welcome sight until they, simultaneously, appear to jump a little. A ghost is dabbing the blood on her foot. He's picked up the tissue, his fingers not wantonly blowing through the little pieces of cloth, and is now cleaning her, the blood blooming beneath his fingers, and even dripping onto his other hand, held steadily in place over her rug.
"Thoughtful-"
"-ghost?"
"-man," she had been saying, and speaks at the same time as Kaeya asks his question. They meet eyes.
"Well, I'm pleased to make your acquaintance," he says, grinning.
Lumine frowns a little, trying very hard to coalesce the image of the young man before her with any she might recognize. An old farmer's son who happened to get a good university job? A well-read merchant who came here and found misfortune?
"I only kicked the bucket a short time ago," Kaeya says. "Makes me probably a year older than you."
"How did you know-?"
Kaeya grins, absolutely devilishly. Lumine decides she wants to see more of that look, irregardless of how infuriating it may be.
"I see. You just guessed, and tricked me into saying it." She's crossing her arms again, narrowing her eyes to try and look more imposing.
It doesn't work, to say the least.
Kaeya smiles to himself. He reaches out, delicately sliding his fingers underneath her foot.
Lumine gasps in surprise. "Oh, you are not supposed to be able to do that."
Kaeya immediately lowers her foot again, quickly letting go and moving back. "I'm sorry." His eye is wide in concern, and he swallows fast, his throat suddenly dry with fear. "I didn't mean to hurt you. Have I?"
"No, no, you haven't." Lumine reaches haphazardly near him, or rather, her fingers jump up into the air like a spider feeling out the world, and then lower to the rug, disappointed in herself. "I'm sorry. You did nothing wrong, I was just surprised. I'm not used to being touched," she tries to explain, gesturing around the house they're in.
"It is rather empty," Kaeya says, smiling at her. "What did you eat your past house guests?"
"I'm not that type of witch. Have you ever pushed anyone down a set of stairs?"
"Only the ones who deserved it," Kaeya says with a wicked little grin. He kneels down before her again, resting his elbow there while he studies her expression. "Would you like help?"
"Yes."
He reaches once more for her foot, slipping his fingers along the archway. He makes quick work of cleaning her up, grabbing one of her discarded bandages on the floor, "Floral print, I like it," and then wrapping it around her foot.
"Thanks, I thought it was cute."
"Very. Makes me wish I could wear some."
Lumine reaches beside her for another bandage, holding out her hand to Kaeya. "Want to?"
He freezes a bit.
He's a ghost, he doesn't need one. He can't ever be fixed, can't ever be sent home again. He's doomed to wander or to wait or to seek revenge or to be consumed or to be sent somewhere else. He's no more important than the peasants from whence they came, who always seem to be dying, executed, tortured, and then passing through the phases of history with their names and marriages and joys as forgotten as dust motes in the setting sun. Never quite making it into cameras' pictures, never fully being recorded, always being left behind as something we've forgotten that we know how to love.
Lumine's heart breaks at the thought, but she watches Kaeya solemnly, still extending her hands towards him. He looks down.
Her fingers are woven with veins, filled with blood. Like a little leech, or some sort of walking plant, pumping her own energy into the world. Filling it with her carbon dioxide, stealing the oxygen from plants who are overwrought with it, who beg for someone to walk by who is breathing, who might sing or dance or step or crawl or cry. Who may live amongst them and not leave them lonely. Is that god?
Kaeya reaches for the witch's fingers, his grazing her own. His are cold, so cold, and brush along hers, and he feels a terrible crack within his heart.
It's said that when you're having heart pains, it's your stomach. Or the muscles in your shoulder. Or anything else, because humans cannot tell where their heart is.
But those who have laid in the grave with grief can tell intimately that their heart was buried with their loved ones, that the dirt they spit out on their climb out of the dark was laden with jeweled bugs stolen from a carcanet of peace, and now that adoration sits in their chest like a strained burden, forever weighing them and giving their head flights of fancy to other worlds where things were different.
Kaeya looks into Lumine's gaze, his soul held in awe.
She smiles gently, and he knows he's made the right decision.
Diluc is crawling out of a fucking grave. Of course.
He's on his hands and knees, throughly not enjoying the process of shoveling dirt from his head down to his toes, where he wriggles it into the cavity wrought by his body, within the coffin. He's already eaten the dates offered to him within, and now he's busy dragging his fingernails up through the soil. It's either better or worse that it's recently rained, that the dirt sloughs off of him. That he reaches a hand up and breaks through, from earth to the land of air and freedom. He closes his fist, pulling it back down and cupping what little precious air is there through his lips. Then he punches up, scattering soil. Again, and again, until there's a little hole and he can finally get some air.
From there, it's a matter of digging himself out. He has to get the weight off of his chest before he's crushed. He has to carefully shovel out his neck, his sternum, the side of his heart. It would suck if that lung collapsed first, being the smaller one. It would suck more if his heart did, finally succumbing to the stress of being utterly exhausted from life, and the tolling effects of the after version.
So far, the end credits have been a roiling version of irony and hatred. He bites hard to steady himself and to not panic, scared someone will come up behind him while he's doing this. He has a distinct thought of a man with a shovel, man with a shovel and a knife and an axe and-
Diluc crunches onto a pebble and nearly spits it back out. "Disgusting."
Sure, he has no air, but sometimes you need to talk yourself through the process.
He cups his hands in front of himself, and starts backwards swimming. He shoves the dirt up and away, as if he's trying to swim in on himself. And slowly, he's crawled out, until he can finally wriggle wriggle in the loosened soil around his legs. His elbows dig into the dirt, and he drags his lower half painfully from the soil. It collapses numerous times, onto the side of his knee, and then sending a rock onto his ankle. But he grits his teeth, grunting.
And once he's done that and is sure any potential killer could hear him, he roars for good measure, dragging himself out in one fell swoop.
Sure, it's not the most surefire way to survive what he's just endured.
But it does feel good, to come roaring out of the pit.
His legs are too shaky to properly stand, so he falls back to the ground.
There's a bit of gin on the ground, which Diluc swipes his finger through. "Eugh." Disconcerted, he makes a disgusted sound, wiping it onto a leaf rather than getting it onto his pants.
Then he sits, catching his breath for a good moment.
It takes a longer second for him to spot a lollipop, and begin to frown.
It takes another second for Diluc, struggling for air, to put a hand to his throat and feel the blood.
"So you're telling me some guy hit you with a car?"
"Yeah, I bet he was drunk."
Lumine frowns, glancing at the half-sloshing bottle of gin in her hand. "That explains it, then. I found this in the woods, and figured I'd see if I could figure who it belonged to."
"How come?"
"She turns the bottle upside down, so Kaeya can see the blood along the bottom."
"So you used your witchy powers in the hopes of finding a missing person?"
"I used it in hopes of finding whoever did this. With the amount of blood I found, I figured there's no victim to find. And it's not you?"
"No, it's not me. I told you, I was hit by a drunk driver when I was walking home."
"Why were you walking home?"
"I got in an argument, went for a drive, and broke down near here."
Lumine's brow furrows. Her boots ring out on the cement as they walk along the road. The woods on either side of them are filled with trees that seem to lean in, keen to hear this story.
Travelers are here, travelers with tales to hear.
Kaeya, for his part, makes little sound. He's definitely dressed in an old-timey outfit, except for the nail polish and the eyeliner.
Lumine squints at him, trying not to notice how his shoulder remains partially see-through. Her foot hurts, and it's a good distraction. "So, where's your car?'
"Sweetheart, this was a year ago. Last Halloween? Didn't you hear about it?"
He has a sad, hurt edge to his voice suddenly, the last wisps of a ghost asking if anyone remembers him. "It's been a long time, but I didn't think it had been that long. Only a year. Surely, someone, after a year, remembers me. Surely I haven't been completely lost to time, right?"
Lumine's heart aches for him. She reaches out on instinct, her hand settling on the fabric of his sleeve. "I only just moved here. I'm sorry. I don't know everyone who got hurt, it's on me."
Kaeya meets her gaze, more moved by her trying to make him better, than by the idea that perhaps no one in town speaks of him to newcomers anymore. That the old members have moved out, that his friends don't visit here ever year. He hasn't found a single-
"Are those flowers?" Kaeya spots them first, as he's meant to. Yellow, and beautiful, interspersed with lavender.
"Daisies?"
"Zinnia." Kaeya crouches beside the bouquet, reaching out tentatively. They're tied with red and blue ribbons, a clear indicator that someone remembers him. His fingers curl around the stems, lifting them up carefully into his arms. There's a small token dangling from the bouquet - a single golden Mora for him. It's obviously a replica.
"The flowers of remembrance," Kaeya says, in awe.
"Pretty. See? Someone remembers you." Lumine points to the coin. "Someone-"
"Diluc?!" Kaeya's scream is heart-rending. He rushes forwards fast, stopping to freeze, jittering, on the edge of the road.
Lumine follows, her breath puffing into the abnormally warm autumn air. She stops short, looking ahead of her and the lantern. There's a man standing there, dressed as a vampire, with a slit throat. He's sucking on her lollipop, dropped in the woods whilst she ran from finding the bottle, looking more annoyed by the noise than anything. And the light, but he doesn't squint, staring dead at where he thinks she is.
He's admittedly surprised when she steps out and isn't a grown man holding a shovel. Diluc's pinky twists in his ear, drawing dirt out, and he looks beside her, to Kaeya.
Kaeya is breathing hard.
"Another odd feature for a ghost to have," Lumine mutters.
"Fuck," Diluc says aloud.
"Diluc?" Kaeya's voice is absolutely distraught. Tears are already welling, as the shock gives way to wanton emotion.
Lumine quickly puts a hand up before the man is too beside himself to hear anyone. "Relax, I brought him back, he'll be okay."
"He will?!" Kaeya turns to her, then surges forwards, into Diluc's waiting arms. Or, rather, he knew Diluc would catch him, which Diluc does, wrapping his arms tightly around Kaeya in response.