#post ragbros fight

[addictofanimation]

It's All Over, Isn't It...? (Pokémon x Genshin Impact AU)

All Kaeya could do was sit by the large Statue of the Seven, leaning against the side as he stared at what was once his home. His eye throbbed as if to remind him of what happened not even an hour ago.

He can still see the anger on Diluc's face, feel the humid heat of the flames that swelled around his blade as it refused to let the rain put it out. He wondered if Diluc would ever come to regret what he did tonight. Kaeya certainly didn't want him to. He had forgiven Diluc even as blood ran down his face and the heat threatened to seal his eyelids together. He was lucky it hadn't damaged his actual eye.

He knew it was all over. Things would never be the same again. And Kaeya had been the one to ruin it with his own hands. He had expected Diluc's anger but had somehow overlooked that it was possible Diluc would attack him. Now he was left homeless with not a shoulder to lean on.

Well, he had someone.

The rustle of leaves behind him barely made Kaeya stir. Whether it was his helper or an enemy come to kill him, he really could have cared less at the moment. However, he found himself tensing when he heard something that sounded like sniffing.

Please be a Hilichurl, please be a Hilichurl, please...

It seemed that Barbatos saw fit to torture him because something touched his thigh and it was most certainly not a Hilichurl. It felt relatively soft and more like a paw. Kaeya barely managed to open his good eye to look before he was met with the sight of a Rockruff looking at him curiously.

To Kaeya, it might as well have been snarling and growling.

With a yelp, Kaeya shoved the young Pokemon away, causing it to let out a yelp of its own. A part of Kaeya twinged at the cry, but a louder and more irrational part of him was too scared to really register the feeling. He scrambled backward, as if doing it enough would make him fuse with the statue behind him and disappear.

The Rockruff whimpered as it hurried to get its paws underneath it again. It looked at Kaeya as if he was going to attack it, lowering itself to the ground and backing away as it whimpered frightfully. If Kaeya hadn't been so terrified, he would have felt awful.

Suddenly, the Rockruff was lifted into the air. When Kaeya looked at who had lifted it, he found himself calming considerably at the familiar figure.

Armarouge.

Armarouge was his brother's partner Pokemon and had been by his side ever since it was a little Charcadet. Diluc had raised Charcadet with the utmost care and attention. When Diluc had to battle Varka to enter the knights, the two had been able to barely scrape by with a victory and it had evolved pretty much as soon as the battle had been over and they had been proclaimed the winners.

It was a proud day in the Ragnvindr household.

Until Diluc had tossed away Armarouge's Poke Ball and had disowned it.

Because it had defended him that night.

Another source of Kaeya's guilt.

Armarouge appeared to be telling the little Pokemon something because it went from looking frightened to somehow apologetic. When Armarouge sat it down onto the ground, it gave him a look and a little yip before running off into the bushes once more.

Now that the Pokemon was gone, Kaeya found his heart rate slowing down and air making its way back into his lungs. But once the attack had passed, he couldn't help but berate himself.

He and Diluc had been working on his fear of Pokemon after a particularly harrowing encounter with their father's Talonflame in the living room. Pokemon were allowed to roam free on Dawn Winery property and little Kaeya had the scare of a lifetime when he had come downstairs from his new room to find the large Pokemon on a perch near the fireplace.

Crepus had also put in the effort to help by introducing him to baby Pokemon first, including some of his Talonflame's recently hatched Fletchings. He had even later gifted one to Diluc to help Kaeya get used to Pokemon other than Diluc's Charcadet being around. After years, it had appeared that all of their hard work was finally working. There had even been talk of getting Kaeya his own partner once he was ready.

He had almost been there, no longer cringing away from Pokemon or having a heart attack at the sight of one. He has been able to hold some of them too.

Now it was like all of that progress had backtracked.

He didn't understand how this could have happened!

As he spiraled downward, he felt himself being shifted but didn't put up a fight. He allowed himself to be moved until he found himself settled against Armarouge. He couldn't be more thankful that his fear of Pokemon had somehow not affected how safe he felt around Armarouge. He would have completely broken if he had become scared of the Pokemon who had helped protect him from childhood.

But that didn't stop the frustrated and sorrowful tears from running down his face. For who knew how long, Kaeya stayed against Armarouge as he wailed, the events of tonight seeming to finally catch up with him.

It was all over.

[villain-byteniwoha]

it's ironic that accounts saying they "block klk shippers" and "don't want to interact with proshippers" can always find something to say in my posts/reblogs. while I, a kaeluc shipper, personally have the "ragbros" tag blocked because I do not want to accidentally share something with a romantic context in mind, in case op is uncomfortable with that.

because I know how to put my own, as well as respect other's, boundaries in online spaces.

because I know that every single thing isn't meant for me and everyone has their own preferences.

because I know it's not only weird but also rude to go out of my way to put someone down for their interests or hard work.

but sure, call me the immoral one here for liking a fictional relationship between two fictional characters—who, keep in mind, I first started liking on the grounds that they were previously sworn brothers.

[kaeyapilled]

i like playing my main team where i have kaeya and diluc as the dps units and fantasizing about a world where they work that well together again

[theafrochick]

I think you aren't actually pro ship if you ship something questionable and go out of your way to harass people who don't like your ship. You are also part of the problem.

[tscamver]

Do you have any like scar headcannons for the brothers????? Idk how to word it but like what kind of injuries do you think they’ve obtained over the course of their lives?

(lol just saw ur recent post that’s why I’m asking)

ALSO YOUR ART IS PEAK‼️‼️💥💥

(i see ragbros so im dumping this ragbros doodle i made a while ago 🤭)

Anyways!! Omg yes, especially with Diluc— i imagine him getting most of his scars from his time at Snezhnaya, pretty much everywhere like his arms/chest/back (his back especially after seeing the claw marks on his red dead of the knight outfit), i can also see him getting scars on his hands/arms from doing labor work

For Kaeya definitely his eye after his fight with Diluc lmao, i can imagine him having a few on his hands and arms from practicing swordsmanship and being in battle. ALSO I HC HIM WITH BURN MARKS TOO!

feel free to drop anything else in my inbox whenever 🌸💝💕🎀🩷 thanks so much for asking!!

[hibiscus-writing]

Always look out for you AU

Ragbros centric since i havent posted one about them in awhile, inspired by Sparks by Coldplay, it made me cry and write this

tldr: Kaeya never receives a vision and dies during the confrontation. during his time in Snezhnaya, Diluc discovers a series of animals with a star mark on their foreheads sacrificing their lives to protect him, is it truly a coincidence?

TW: Animal death (mentioned in passing, little to no detail)

-Kaeya dies in the fight between him and Diluc.

-Diluc doesn't realise he's dead and runs away to Snezhnaya

-Kaeya's body is discovered and buried alongside Crepus, using the Ragnvindr name since nobody knows Diluc disowned him.

-except, Kaeya doesn't stay dead

-Kaeya reincarnates into various animals, with the purpose of protecting Diluc, even if it costs him his life.

-each animal form has a Khaenri'ah star in its forehead

-one such form was a baby deer, barely a week old, stumbling across a dying Diluc. Kaeya sacrifices his life, staying with Diluc the whole winter night, using his body as both a shield, a heat source, and a way to plug the wound. Diluc would survive, Kaeya's new body didn't.

-at some point Diluc became suspicious of all the animals seemingly dying for him. He thinks it's a curse, everything close to him dies, even something as innocent as a baby deer.

-once Diluc reaches Mondstat, he realises what's actually occurring.

-Both in disbelief at this theory he's created and despair realising that he's killed his brother, Diluc runs off into an unmarked domain  to blow off some steam.

-this domain was highly dangerous, and at some point, Diluc was very injured and hiding from various abyss mages, abyss lectors, ECT.

-all of a sudden, when it seems like Diluc is about to be caught, a tiny fox pup with a star on its forehead yips out, catching the enemies attention, then it runs away, bringing the enemies with it, sacrificing its life.

-Diluc manages to escape, but not without coming across the barely alive fox pup. Diluc thanks the fox pup, comforting it in its last moments, before curiosity gets the best of him and he asks.

-"...Kaeya?"

-the fox pup licks Diluc's hand in response, staring up at him with bright blue eyes, before succumbing to its injuries.

-Diluc knows for sure that these animals are Kaeya now. Heartbroken, he cradles his brother's fox body, as he returns home, to give his brother's new body a proper burial.

-soon enough, there's a dedicated area in the dawn winery, filled with the animal body's Kaeya's sacrificed to keep Diluc safe, and each body piles on Diluc's conscious, knowing that Kaeya has died multiple times, because of Diluc, whether it be from protecting him, or being at the other end of his sword.

-life goes on, the citizens of Mondstat see random animals trailing behind Diluc each day, from a bunny, to a frog, to a mouse, no matter what, it has a star on its forehead.

-when Diluc notices Kaeya's presence, he tries his best to make it as comfortable as possible, to keep this version of Kaeya alive for as long as possible. It could be bringing a pet bed around with him so Kaeya has a comfortable place to sit when Diluc's bartending, or making sure that Kaeya gets the best diet for his species.

-for a while before the Dvalin incident, Kaeya remains relatively safe, he manages to live a whole rabbit's life, only dying from old age to be reborn as a turtle. 

-its during this turtle life that the Dvalin incident occurs, and Kaeya dies twice, once from protecting Diluc from falling rubbles off a building, and once by using himself as a shield from Dvalin's attacks.

-after the dust settles, Kaeya continues to live, as different animals, protecting Diluc to the best of his ability. 

-When the abyss order attacks, Kaeya is a peacock, and he stands as a symbol of Mondstats hope, as Mondstat triumphs.

-as a last ditch effort, Diluc begs Kaeya to rest, now that the dangers are gone. Kaeya dies in his arms on the battlefield, as the knights celebrate a victory around him.

-unlike the Multiple times before, a new animal doesn't appear. No puppy trailing behind him with a star on its head, nor finch chick hooked onto his shoulder.

-Kaeya has gone into rest. Diluc allows himself to fully process everything, a grieve for every one of Kaeya's forms.

-years go by without any sight of Kaeya, and Diluc accepts that he is truly gone. Diluc has a child through a surrogate, a young girl with fiery red hair and eyes.

-Diluc's daughter never appears to encounter danger, despite no animal following her around. It's as if something in the wind was protecting her in his stead.

-One the drive back from a late night of business in Mondstat, he passes by the spot father had found Kaeya all those years ago, and since he was there, Diluc decided to take a look.

-instead of the empty clearing he was expecting, the clearing was full of intervals and calla lilies, with small star shaped statues along the clearing, creating a gateway. Cryo crystalflys fly freely about, and the grass is a soft white.

-what god Diluc's the most, was the basket in the middle of the clearing, the exact place Kaeya was left.

-Diluc peers inside the basket and sees Kaeya, alive once again but this time, human. Kaeya has been reborn for the final time, as a human baby. Identical from before, only difference being a star on his forehead.

-Diluc cries out from joy at being able to see his brother once again, but human on top of it. This commotion awakes the baby, who when looking up to see his brother once again, smiles.

[anotherferalrat]

I have a proposition for my fellow kaeluckae/whatever we're called enthusiasts

(Ragbros peeps r welcome too as long as we don't fight in the tags/comments/asks/etc bc my idea isn't technicallyyy explicitly romantic but the kaeluc tag is lookin dry af and so that's where we tagging)

But hear me out guys.

An animatic to 'Into the Open Air' from the Brave soundtrack. Or at the very least this is The Kaeluc Song.

Like look, literally every verse is perfect: And yes, I'm going through the whole thing bc this song is actually p short<3

This love, it is a distant star Guiding us home wherever we are

First, all Kaeya's star imagery and also I like to think Diluc came home bc he physically couldn't stay away any longer. I don't care if it isn't canon, this is my delusion and ur all here for the ride<3

This love, it is a burning sun Shining light on the things that we've done

Now this is Diluc's side, what with him being the sun of the two (but not in the soft, cheery sunshine way; in the passionate scalding all-consuming way. Yall know the post). The second line can either reference That Night (if ya wanna be fuckin sad about it) or it can be about their growth, how they eventually realize they're both at fault for the state of their relationship.

I tried to speak to you every day But each word we spoke, the wind blew away

Once again emphasizing how they're not helping their situation. Mainly this made me think of that one event with the letters and then how a lot of their early interactions are just them saying whatever to do the most damage. LIKE BRO THEIR INTERACTION IN VENTI'S STORY QUEST KILLED MEEEE but that's a post for another day. If this were an animatic, the wind part is where I imagine like- Diluc and Kaeya pass each other and one of them turns around but the lineart then like collapses into lines of wind and then it cuts to Venti who looks sad bc 'My children r stupid'.

Could these walls come crumbling down? I want to feel my feet on the ground And leave behind this prison we share Step into the open air

This is them trying to take the first steps towards reconciliation, if they can move on from their past that seems to be hurting the both of them, if they can clear the air so to speak (pun very much intended).

How did we let it come to this? What we've just tasted, we somehow still miss How will it feel when this day is done And can we keep what we've only begun?

Now this is timeskip, like mid-reconciliation. Things are good but there's still an awkward tension between them, like they're walking on eggshells. They want to get past this but they're afraid of hurting each other again and of going back to that place where they were strangers.

And now these walls come crumbling down And I can feel my feet on the ground Can we carry this love that we share? Into the open air

It all comes full circle. It was a hard road. They probably end up fighting several times over the course of it. But they make it. I very much think their official reconciliation moment should happen in the rain bc cyclical narratives go brrr.

This love, it is a burning sun

Back to animatic imaginings cuz I can't think of anything narratively to put here. But I need a shot of them sitting up high to where they're overlooking the winery and then they like lean on each other's shoulders. Or dare I hope for a hug. GODDAMMIT I JUST WANT THEM TO BE AFFECTIONATE-

DO YOU SEE THE VISION?????

[ventiddieus]

Edit: Found, tysm!!!

I'm trying to find a fic I read quite a while ago, and was hoping for some help if anybody recognizes any of this! Everything I remember is below the cut

It was about Kaeya and Diluc, I’m 99% sure it was platonic/ragbros but it’s not completely impossible that it was kaeluc.

It had to have been posted before July of 2023 at the absolute latest because I’ve been looking for it since August. 

I think it was a multi-chapter, but I could be wrong.

It was definitely written in English, and I’m almost positive it was a completed work.

It was definitely hosted on ao3

As for the plot, here are all the details I remember 

Kaeya was hit by a curse/spell/potion (or something similar) that made him say the opposite of what he meant or just outright nonsense.

Whatever the curse was, it was eventually going to be fatal, and they were working on a time limit. 

Kaeya and Diluc set out on a quest to find the ingredients for an antidote, which included them fighting a regisvine (cryo or pyro), and oceanid, and finding a golden loach pearl. There might have been more steps, but these are the ones I remember.

When they fought the oceanid, one of them (I think Kaeya?) almost drowned.

When they were finding the loach, it got away and they thought that they had failed and would run out of time, but then they realized it had dropped the pearl. 

When Kaeya saw the loach and tried to point it out, he said “axolotl” instead because of the curse.

I think that Kaeya got progressively weaker throughout the fic from the curse.

Any help at all would be super appreciated, I have no idea why I didn’t bookmark this because it was one of the most memorable fics I’ve ever read! 

[changewingwentz]

Ragbros week omg can you believe it guys !!

Day 1 (play fight/duel) forgot to post it here whoops..!

[mcd217]

Since I posted my non-angsty Ragbros headcanons, I suppose it’s time for the angsty ones…

(This list is much shorter)

Kaeya wears gloves to cover burns he got from Diluc during their fight, when Diluc’s sword got so hot it nearly melted Kaeya’s

Kaeya is afraid of fire aimed at him, of course

Diluc waits until Kaeya passes out drunk and the tavern is empty so he can talk about how much he misses “before”

When Diluc says “I’m not your brother”, Kaeya thinks that Diluc hates him, but it’s really because Diluc believes that he doesn’t deserve to be called Kaeya’s brother

Diluc cannot look at himself in the mirror, he reminds himself of Crepus. So Adelinde has to make sure he looks fit to go out

[crows-of-buckets]

Kaeyas hangout has got me thinking about his parents (for some fucking reason)

Like. I headcanon that his father cared for him but in a very very distant way. I've done a few doodles of him idk maybe I'll post them in a little bit.

But I was like. Specifically thinking of his mom. My version of his mom is from sumeru, and had kaeya when she was early 20's. She ended up meeting his dad when he got injured in a fight of some kind and she patched him up and blah blah they fell in love and had kaeya.

After kaeyas mom had him, I think kaeyas dad took kaeya away. Either for safety reasons, or because he's khaenriah's "last hope" or whatever. Either way I think his mother is DISTRAUGHT because of this. I think she spends actual years looking for kaeya, trying to find some way to meet him.

If she ever does find him, I do not think kaeya would trust her in the slightest. Like and with good reason too. His father would have always told him she died in child birth, so what proof does she have that he is her son? Idk I have a very specific idea of who she is as a character but I'm struggling putting it into words.

I also don't think kaeyas dad is completely evil and horrible. I do think he thought what he was doing was right, and that he would be willing to do whatever it takes for what he thinks is correct (mind you I have no canon facts to base this off of lmao), even if it means hurting someone else

Idk for some reason I always end up thinking about the ragbros parents it's weird. I have a whole ass headcanon dynamic for the Ragnvindr parents, I even have a name for dilucs mom. Hell I was tossing around ideas for papa alberichs name last night what is it with me and making OCS of characters parents

[frostknaw]

Im cooking up some light angst for my baby boys first story post 🤭 I also forgot to put this in his description but Kaeya has burn scars from his fight with Diluc like both arms his right side and some of his back (the ult mostly hit his side tho) so yk that and a bit of arthritis as a treat.

My apologies ragbros and kaeya fans this is a right of passage.

[winterlogysblog]

Kaeya Alberich (Masterlist)

Under the Kaeya Lore (On Crack) Series in AO3

Disclaimer: My fics may or may not make you cry

PS. Will contain a shit ton of Ragbros content

With Betrayal Comes Punishment - My First Genshin Fanfic

Set after the events of 3.5 Caribert Quest, did I kill Kaeya in this? Who knows ehe~

A chance to let it all out - Pierro visits Mondstadt to have a little chat with Kaeya (don't worry Pierro is good in this)

Final Farewell - Kaeya dies (that's it ehe~) (Roughly based on Halfdan's death scene and Rukkhadevata's farewell to Nahida scene)

For you are a child of Mondstadt - Varka being a parental figure to Kaeya. Set after the fight of April 30th

Where is the Captain? - (multichapter) (finished) Kaeya went missing and is kidnapped by the Abyss order

We Want Our Captains Back - The Cavalry came back to Mondstadt

Wine and Memories - Kaeya celebrates Weinlesefest with the people he loves (Post Ragbros Reconciliation)

How Can I? - (multichapter) (on hiatus) Kaeya is stuck in a dream and Diluc is there is bring him back to reality

Winter's Embrace - (multichapter) (on going) Fatui Kaeya AU

Warmth of Lies - (multichapter) (Completed) Kaeya dies instead of Crepus

More coming soon...

[moni-harmonia]

Hey!! i hope im not bothering you by my weird question but i don’t know who else to ask about my problem. i lost this one ragbros fanfic on ao3 a while ago and i’ve searched everywhere for it, its about kaeya and diluc trying to set up breakfast dates (platonically) but every time something interrupts then, like a fight or work or something.

Sorry, I don't know that one. There are sooo many Ragbros fanfics and it's been a while since I've been reading them.

If any of my followers know, feel free to tell anon in this post!

And I'm not bothered, don't worry. Hope you end up finding it!

[quaggyday]

Angst idea

From my other post about a Diona Bennett sibling dynamic, what if Bennett had a betrayal with Diona, something similar to what happened with Diluc and Kaeya ( anybody got ideas Im kinda stuck with that)

Here’s the thing whatever happens next is very not good. Diona reacts similarly to Diluc, Bennett loses his little sister and this time its not his bad luck but himself that hurt someone. Or if it wasn’t his fault the self hatred would completely rise as he hurt another person he cares about when he didn’t mean to. And for Diona who has finally been able to open to someone older than her that she can trust she now feels completely destroyed and utterly confused with emotion. To her was Bennett a big brother and helped her life get better because he was genuinely good? or was it to hide the betrayal or hurt her more

Or if she reacts by forgiving and caring for Bennett holy shit the ragbros would see that and feel a total whiplash of emotions. Not to mention its history repeating in any way possible for them. And I have a feeling they’d be the ones helping pick up the pieces after a fight

Sorry if this is structured weird just my weird and angsty ideas. If anybody has ideas lemme know

[dandelion-wings]

Whyyyyy won't you write the test subject au!?

I am literally so hooked already, I need more than just scraps of information about it.

Don't get me wrong, I do love using my own imagination and can very much just expand upon this au in my own mind, but there's just something more relaxing about getting to read about it.

I by no means aim to pressure you into writing it! I accept that if you really can't be asked, but please just answer me these, dearest Tumblr user dandelion-wings.com:

- please describe what they did to him at the Akademiya. I sound like a sadist when I say this (I promise I'm not) but I love reading about the torture characters go through because it helps me understand their pain and trauma better.

- does Kaeya meet Diluc again? In the first part you did say Kaeya ran away to Sumeru age 11, so I assume that follows canon event, which means he had been in the Ragnvindr household for some time before capture. So does he recognise Diluc when he sees him again? I've imagined this whole emotional ass scene where they see eachother again for the first time in six-ish years and it made me tear up.

- does Crepus live in this au? (listen. I am a sucker for ragbros and their family, okay!) I assume the Ragnvindr household reacted in some way when Kaeya went missing, seeing as he was a somewhat major part of their lives. Maybe Diluc's birthday plans were different and he never died to the delusion and Ursa the Drake. Perhaps he is still alive and Kaeya recognises him and then Crepus promises to bring hell upon whoever left his son in that state.

- I assume Kaeya makes a good recovery. Does he still join the Knights? I'm not sure they'd let him in with only one arm with missing fingers, but then again it is the nation of freedom so who knows. What does he end up doing?

Many thanks, I love the au,

Friend of the stars <3

Mostly because I have so many WIPs and AUs already (including an entirely different one where someone removes Kaeya's fingers), and I work too jobs, I cannot write all of them! "I'm not going to write this" is a mantra against things I do not have the time to write even though I want to. XD;; It may well go into the warm-ups rotation, tbh. The other reason is that it's a lot darker and iddier than I usually post on main and I always get very anxious about idfic/kinkfic stuff (if I hadn't been so compelled to try and exorcise it with the Compressed Version that totally did not make me stop thinking about the Longer Version I probably would not have posted about it at all). Like, I spent a very serious five minutes looking at this ask thinking, "man, this is going on main, should I sanitize it any" before deciding that the of-questionable-taste parts are essential to my enjoyment and, so, well. I am not going to.

Which means that the rest of this is under a cut and trigger warnings for that first answer include, along with the requisite medical experimentation, dismemberment/mutilation, suicidal thoughts/actions, and sexual abuse/trauma.

The highlights of the research team's activities:

To start with before anything else because this is ongoing and general: confinement, obviously, constant restraint (growing increasingly severe over time, c.f. the shock-collar, which is movement-sensitive and just kept getting turned up over the years), and a caloric intake just barely sufficient for continued functioning, because it is harder for a starving person to fight back. Also, at least once the curse was induced, they did not at any point use anesthesia/pain relief because "pain response is an important scientific datapoint."

I haven't decided how they eventually did manage to induce the curse, but initial attempts were straight-up torture, in the hopes that sufficient negative emotion and/or fear for his life would trigger it. You can insert whatever you like here, but I personally am a perennial fan of waterboarding and near-drowning.

When it did finally trigger, it was first visible in his right eye, which promptly got removed for analysis. Fortunately for him, Anatoli wanted to see if it would spread to the left (it has, thus far, not).

It then started manifesting in his right hand, spreading up his arm (if this sounds a lot like the specifics of Cursed Transformation: I went with very similar mechanisms, why build from the ground up when I've already done some thinking about it), and as soon as it was established above his right wrist, he lost the last two fingers on both hands for a side-by-side comparison. It continued to spread, both up the arm and, once it reached the shoulder, appearing patchily elsewhere on his body. There were more tissue samples taken consistently over the next four years; most of them were smaller than whole fingers, but some were fairly significant chunks (he is probably also short a toe or two but Anatoli had his extremity data at that point, he wanted a variety of sites).

Despite the starvation diet, he did hit puberty in here. At which point both the sexual abuse and additional mutilation show up, because Anatoli's chief research assistant and second-in-command decided to "conduct tests of his sexual response as the curse progressed," which was 100% a "if you write it down you can call it science" excuse for rape. Which, because he was being very consistently dehumanized here (it is significantly easier for most people to carve into a terrified child if you convince yourself they're a monster, not a person), she pulled off in part by treating him more like a person than anyone else in the lab, which did not help him trust Lisa later on.

Concurrently he was both hitting a growth spurt and developing actual powers to go with the curse, and Anatoli was already considering castration with the hope that it would, as in animals, make him more docile. Discovering her 'research' made him decide, not that maybe he should fire his chief research assistant, but instead that he didn't really want to risk being accused of breeding monsters, and. so.

(One of my guilty pleasures in whump-rescue fic is the Rescuee, with no idea what their rescuer is getting out of this, offering them sexual favors as 'repayment,' and this is my idfic so that 100% happens here. And then Lisa's rebuff fucks Kaeya up in its own way because he associated the chief assistant leaving off, some time afterwards as he got too old for her tastes, and immediately dropping all pretense of seeing him as a person, with further advancement of his curse moving him from the 'human, thus desirable' to 'inhuman, thus no longer desirable' category. So at least initially it read to him as, Lisa talks a good game, but clearly she doesn't think he's human enough to touch like that anymore either.)

Incidentally 'I am no longer human enough to even be worth being touched (in ways I didn't like but that I've nonetheless been taught to associate with humanity)' was the main trigger for the first of the three suicide attempts in Anatoli's custody. Others followed, because every time the curse intensified there were more tissue samples, and more restraints on him, and horrible tests of his powers and general physical capabilities, and so on.

At some point they made him kill animals and, later, hilichurls (and Kaeya knows exactly what hilichurls are) to see what he was capable of. A lot of the power-testing was Bad in general because he didn't want to help, and so the efforts made to overcome his sullenness on the subject were very much of the 'push him until he loses control' variety. He still has a lot of Issues around handling animals. :)

Taking most of his right arm off was actually not for Anatoli's research. Anatoli and his team were all Spantamad; he was acquainted with an Amurta researcher who wanted a sample. That Kaeya was starting to grow claws on the remaining fingers of that arm, and that the Cryo veining was most vivid there and the Abyssal powers were clearly linked directly to it, and that those powers were growing stronger and threatened to eventually overwhelm the wards they were capable of, were... significant contributing factors. Half the reason Anatoli allowed Lisa onto the team, despite her associations with her very anti-human-experimentation mentor, was because she had a Vision and was significantly better at magical wards than anyone else interested. And it looked like they were going to need that sooner or later.

To answer the second and third questions together, I honestly have not thought tremendously far past the return-to-Mondstadt part of the plot, but we have determined that he does not meet Diluc at that time, because things in Mondstadt progress as in canon, including Crepus' death. And the timing is such that, after Kaeya has chosen Mondstadt (Lisa wanted Mondstadt, but gave him options because it seemed clear that he needed to feel like he'd made a choice) in large part because he has fond memories and a desperate hope that Crepus might have some sympathy, Lisa and Kaeya arrive in Stone Gate in time to hear that that Dawn Winery is closed because it's in mourning for Crepus, and its young master has recently passed through going the other way. :>

Though the household did react to Kaeya going missing those six years ago! Crepus spent months upon months in Sumeru hiring everyone he could to scour the place, and Kaeya knows that because Anatoli went out of his way to wipe out his test subject's trail in terror that Crepus might have the leverage to get the Akademiya to make him give him up. Which is why he'd hoped Crepus might, at the very minimum, give them shelter and/or give Lisa some money, despite the whole 'Abyssal taint' thing. He was banking very, very hard on 'even if I can't repay Lisa for getting me out myself, Crepus can afford to.' Finding out that he'd just died, that Kaeya had just missed seeing him alive, was devastating and triggered suicide attempt #5.

TBH I am not sure he makes a 'good' recovery per se! It depends on your definition, but like, while he does spend a good few years getting help unpicking his trauma, he still has plenty by the time of game start. I don't think he joins the Knights directly, as a knight; I don't know exactly how things wrap up (theabysscomeshome and I have talked through to the Dramatic Final Confrontation of what would be the second fic if I was writing it, but not the aftermath), but while Lisa becomes Ordo Librarian once the risk of extradition to Sumeru is cleared up, if Kaeya joins at all it's in some kind of auxiliary role.

Lisa does get him a catalyst early on, and he learns eventually how to channel his Cryo through it so he can disguise the source, and thus is fighting-capable, but in all honesty this may be another AU where he joins Benny's Adventure Team, because he fucking loves Bennett. Whenever he says something that he thought was normal and everyone else looks horrified by, Bennett blithely responds with some almost-as-horrifying anecdote of a bad-luck incident. Bennett lets him help with his chores and equipment maintenance, and whenever Kaeya fumbles things because he has all of three fingers, Bennett blames his own bad luck and apologizes for it. Bennett, all of twelve years old at the time, full-on attempted to fight the celebrated Captain Jean Gunnhildr for the sake of Kaeya's freedom. Kaeya mostly gives up on killing himself as a solution to every problem because he realizes it's entirely possible that Bennett will blame himself, and that would be intolerable.

(Bennett's reaction to Diluc, when he returns, is way more similar to Kaeya's initial reaction to Razor than Kaeya thought he was actually capable of.)

So, yeah! I don't know entirely where it goes, but I don't think he's a standard Knight in this AU at any point. (Among other things, he flat-out refuses to fight or kill hilichurls.) He may end up being on-call for them in some capacity, he may become an adventurer with Bennett and just drop any useful info he picks up into Lisa's ear to share with Jean, he may end up a library assistant, I'm not sure. And he does, regardless, do the same 'using his linguistic knowledge/Abyss associations to gather information on the Abyss Order's movements' thing for them. But even with the catalyst he honestly doesn't meet physical-capability standards, and he doesn't want to be directly within a command structure, so I don't think the Knights are right for him.