Thread by @morphasia4

A 'what if' thread on Cryo Visions.
#Luckae implied but nothing romantic here.
TW: Major Character Death, Violence, Injury, Blood
Please heed content warnings and mute as necessary.
Thread starts below.

The night the Crepus dies, Kaeya knows that he has to come clean.

There's many reasons for it, but inevitably, all of them return to the same two conclusions.

1. He could not face Diluc again if he helped him through the loss of his father still wearing his mask of lies.

2. If all else went wrong, if all else failed, and one day he /was/ forced to turn against Mondstadt, Diluc would be know ahead of time, and be prepared to stop him.

Kaeya is aware that it is cruel to do this tonight. He knows fully what Diluc has lost, and even though the ache of losing Crepus rang a little hollowly through him, too, the truth is still better than enveloping Diluc in arms he might hate for it later.

He's waiting for Diluc to get home when the other storms in from the rain, fury in his gaze and a snarl on his features. Something has already angered him. Like a thread spun out to the very last string, he looks ready to kill.

But Kaeya has already resolved himself to truth.

His one saving grace, perhaps, is the fact that he does not see Diluc's Vision at his waist.

He doesn't know where it's at, but the lack of it makes Diluc just a little less deadly, he thinks. It means there won't be fire chasing Kaeya down, just Diluc, himself.

He thinks he's prepared to take Diluc, should it devolve into a fight. He doesn't want it to, but he thinks it might be easier. They're on even grounds, without Visions. They've trained together for years. He knows his movements. He'll defend until Diluc wears himself out.

They're alone in the Manor. Kaeya has sent away the servants for the sake of this admission, for the sake of their privacy. They will have to plan a proper funeral in the morning, after all.

Tonight was theirs, good or bad, alone.

Diluc opens his mouth, ready to vent something furious--to explain just where his Vision was, where his coat was, Kaeya is sure. He doesn't get a chance to speak, before Kaeya blurts what's on the tip of his tongue.

"I'm a spy, Diluc."

Diluc freezes, the fury wiping off of his face for the sake of simple shock, then the start of disbelief.

"--What? Now's- Now's not the time for jokes, Kaeya."

But he knows the other has more tact than that. Kaeya's hands curl into fists.

"I've been a spy all along."

He can see the precise moment that it clicks for Diluc that this isn't a prank.

He can see the darkness crawling into his gaze, into his heart.

"I- was planted here, all of those years ago, to spy for a dead nation with a grudge against Mondstadt. I-"

It's the worst time that he could have said this. Not when Diluc has been betrayed by the world, today--the world, the Knights, and now Kaeya, too.

Before Kaeya can get another word out, Diluc punches him so hard that he nearly staggers back into the fireplace.

"Were you part of it?!" Diluc barks, before Kaeya is fully aware that he's even been punched.

It's okay.

He expected his anger. Especially tonight.

If it helped Diluc take out some of the torrential storm brewing in his chest, so be it.

Still, he struggles to understand the words.

It doesn't help when Diluc grabs him by the collar and hoists him to the doorway.

He couldn't stand to have him in his house--because it is /his/ house, now--for another second.

"Diluc-"

The storm inside Diluc rivals the one around them as he drags Kaeya out into the rain, kicking as he tried to get his footing.

He nearly throws him, and Kaeya skids back into the muddy puddles of the road leading to their home.

Diluc's hair had already been weighted by the rain, and now it hung heavy in his face around wild eyes.

"Were you a part of them?! Were you involved with killing Father, Kaeya?!"

"No-!" Kaeya answers quickly, terrified that he's been misunderstood. But, had he- "I... I don't thinks so! I don't know who was behind that!"

Diluc's almost frantic with the fact that the last person he thought he could trust in the world is no longer his.

"But you've been lying this whole time?! How do I know that you're not lying /now-/!"

Kaeya felt his throat go dry as the sound of scraping metal betrays the smooth motion of Diluc drawing his claymore.

His short sword meets the heavier weapon mid-swing.

If Diluc had actually had his Vision, Kaeya thinks he might be dead by now.

He had expected Diluc's anger.

He had not expected this.

"Let me explain!" Kaeya snapped over the roar of the rain. "I don't have any- I don't /want/ to betray you-!"

Every time he tries to get a full sentence out, every time he tries to explain why he has waited until now to come clean, he has to deflect another heavy blow.

There is no one in the Manor to stop them. He thinks now that that might have been a mistake, but he doesn't know if Elzer or Adelinde could even assuage their young Master's fury, now.

Not if he couldn't.

"Luc, please!" he calls.

"Don't call me that!" Diluc roared, like the Lion Tooth they had all expected him to one day grow into being. "Don't act as if I will /ever/ forgive you for this!"

Kaeya had expected this.

But his world, his dream of Mondstadt, shatters, still.

Diluc offense and Kaeya's frantic, fleet-footed defense leave them both scraped with a dozen little knicks and bruises. Just as Kaeya manages to get space between them, Diluc manages to close it.

He wants me dead, Kaeya realizes, with some horror.

There were no faces for the men responsible for his father's death.

But for now, Kaeya's own would fill that void.

His calls are no longer pleads for reason. In a way, they're pleads for his life.

Reasonably, he is faster.

He could run.

Diluc would not have the stamina to keep up with him, after the day he had had.

He should run.

But he is desperate for any small thread to mend this situation, to fix his mistake of honesty. He's desperate to salvage what they have.

He doesn't think that Diluc knows what his own bloodlust is pushing him to do. He has faith in Diluc, still.

He has faith in his miniature Lion's Tooth, one of the bright, shining beacons of the city he has come to love.

It is his turn to save Diluc, maybe, from himself.

He will make this right.

"I don't want to hurt anyone here!" He calls out, as if he has not already hurt Diluc with words alone, lowering his sword.

It leaves him defenseless for when the claymore actually makes contact.

Really, it's only the fact that Diluc's foot slips in the worst of the mud they'd been fighting over that keeps him from being cleaved in two.

He is, however, hit with the full force of the blunt side of it, and sent half-flying.

Even over the roar of the rain, Diluc can hear the crack that Kaeya's neck and skull make against the wooden post fence that he collides with.

His body crumples against the fence, his sword clattering to the ground feet away from him in the puddles of dirty water.

Diluc drives his claymore into the ground to stabilize himself, breathing hard.

Preparing for Kaeya to stand. To shout more. To lie more. To-

He doesn't.

Kaeya doesn't move.

A river of red sinks into his white shirt, down from his neck.

Seconds tick into what feel like eons.

Diluc's heart, hammering from the adrenaline in the fight, begins to crawl it's way into his throat.

Kaeya does not move.

Not even the rise of his chest in the flutter of breath in the cold of the storm.

Diluc begins to stumble towards him, dragging his sword in his wake.

He does not know if it is the sensation of victory or the sensation of terror that drops his heart from his throat to his stomach.

He reaches out, fingers brushing the other's bloodied throat.

He could choke him. He could make sure he never brought the kind of harm that admission could bring to Mondstadt.

Kaeya already feels ice cold.

In Teyvat, Visions are granted to those who are deemed worthy by the Gods.

It was often discussed why, and how, their targets were chosen, but there were a few universal facts--such as Pyro Visions being received when one needs to protect something the most.

Electro Visions were received in moments of great ambition.

Hydro Visions were granted to those who showed themselves to beat great fluidity in their skill.

And Cryo Visions....

Well, Cryo Visions were granted to those whose life had not yet reached fulfillment.

Those who were far too interesting to let die easily.

Cryo Visions are given to those who breathe their last breath far too early.

Cryo Visions are a second chance at life.

The light that shines as the Vision forms of Kaeya's life essence, the last shreds of it, and draws color back into that cold skin as it condenses at his chest.

It creates such force that it blasts Diluc back, leaving frost clinging to his wet clothing.

Kaeya inhales sharply and audibly, like his first breath of air after drowning.

His eye snaps open as his body jerks forward, curling inward.

His iris was glowing the same, sharp blue, as he looks down, catching the weight of the Vision in his lap before anything else.

A Cryo Vision.

/His/ Cryo Vision.

His gaze-- wide, startled, and almost ruined with betrayal-- jerked up to where Diluc was moving to stand, shakily, where he'd been knocked back to.

Diluc is shaking, unable to even fully comprehend what he had just done.

When Kaeya gathers himself, his Vision and his sword clutched to his chest, he flees into the rain of the night, staggering away from his own pool of blood.

In Liyue, there is a girl who died on the field of battle, saved by the Adepti and a Cryo Vision.

There is a boy who died, overcome by his own yang energy, saved by his fellow exorcists and a Cryo Vision.

There is a half-Qilin who died of a broken heart and isolation, saved by worth bestowed upon her by Rex Lapis and a Cryo Vision.

In Mondstadt, there is just a little girl who died of a father's neglect and saved by a kind bar owner and a Cryo Vision, and one other.

A Knight who died at the hands of the one person left in the world that he trusted, who was saved by his loyalty to the people who he should have been born to betray...

And a Cryo Vision.

//// end! Thank you for the person who funded this.

Fun facts, as a follow up:
-Kaeya ran because people /know/ what a Cryo Vision means, and he realizes this meant that Diluc really did kill him.
-He feels a certain affinity with other Cryo users after that.
-Even if they reconcile, they never speak of that night again.