Work Text:
There is a boy swathed in a halo of light.
It cradles him gently, bending itself loyally to his shape. His fingers weave between its thin, glowing strands, letting it spill over the hollows of his palms like saltwater.
Light like this is not something that Xiao has felt on his hands; if he held them open for the sky, he would catch not sunshine nor rainwater but only rotten, sanguine blood. Something so hallowed and holy would only shriek when it bit into the sin staining his soul, would sear scars into his skin, would leave blistering welts along the cracks of his palm. It owes him no loyalty, not when his karma stings so sharply around his feet. But he imagines what it would be like, to be handled so tenderly, cherished by the divine.
He imagines it would look a little like this.
Strangely, Xiao’s eyes cannot linger on the boy’s face. When he tries, his eyes slide right off, as if there were no curve of his cheek, no slope of his nose, no rise and dip of his lips to snag his gaze at all. He can see his visage, his expressions, but it all flits through Xiao’s mind without so much as a ripple, not a memory left in its wake.
Xiao’s chest twists uncomfortably. His head feels strange, all his thoughts heavy and clouded, too thick and muddy to sift through. Frowning, he tugs on one, pulling its loose thread. A whip of lighting splits through his mind before it budges, and he swallows down a hiss of pain.
The boy turns to look at him. He smiles.
It spears straight through Xiao’s heart.
The glare of the sun streams through the window, harsh and unforgiving. Blearily, Xiao forces his eyes to open. His back is pressed flush against the wall of his room at Wangshu Inn, one leg propped up to his chest. Slowly, he shifts his neck, his muscles stubbornly creaking in protest.
Sleep is a rare thing; he can’t recall the last time he had slept through the night.
There’s an itch at the back of his mind, fuzzy but persistent. A missing dream, the absence of it so loud in his head. He grapples for it, but as soon as he begins to find purchase, it only slips through the gaps in his fingers. His hand drops back to his lap.
Xiao shakes his head briskly, his thoughts dispelling back to thin air. His spear materializes in his palm, and he digs the point in the floorboards, pulling himself to his feet.
As he leaves through the window, his gaze scrapes over Dihua Marsh. It flits away just as quick.
He carries on.
Not too long into his route, Xiao passes a Statue of the Seven a little ways away. Then, when his eyes catch in line with his brain, his head snaps back. He narrows his eyes.
A lopsided, offensively green hat with a white-petaled flower sticking out garishly from its side sits atop his lord’s head. Meanwhile, a young man has somehow clambered into the statue’s lap, tying a cape with the same gaudy shade of green around its stony neck. His tongue peeks out of the corner of his lips in fierce concentration. When Xiao looks closer, he can see the sunlight glinting off a piece of glass at his waist. A Vision.
Irritation twinges sharply in Xiao’s gut. This person was making a mockery of Rex Lapis’s statue.
With a flick of his wrist, Xiao summons a burst of wind. It undoes the ribbon of the cape and knocks both it and the hat clean off.
The person shouts in alarm, but Xiao’s gone before he can hear what he says.
Xiao trudges through the rest of his day.
He patrols. He fights. He bleeds.
He watches Dihua Marsh.
Waiting is a fool’s errand, he knows. In another world, in a kinder world, he thinks he could light a wish and let it dance along the stars, he thinks he could dream and when he does, he wouldn’t bite into them so hard that they splinter into bloody shards against his mouth.
But that is not this world. So Xiao stifles his wishes. He spits out his dreams. He walks away.
The next day, Xiao makes his way down the same trodden path. Out of habit (or, if he were more honest, out of curiosity, perhaps), he flicks his gaze to the statue, and—
The person is still there, though today, he wears the cape and hat himself. He balances precariously on the edge of the statue, one hand outstretched. As Xiao watches, the wind wraps around a leaf on the ground, dips it in mud, and drops it neatly in the boy’s palm. With far too much bravado for someone completely alone, he slaps it onto the statue’s face.
Xiao's eyes scan the statue from top to bottom. Irritation returns, sharp as a whip.
Today, the boy has stuck a variety of foliage onto Rex Lapis’s chin, creating some sort of faux yellow-green beard. Xiao’s eyebrow twitches. A curl of wind juggles two matching sticks in the air, and the boy snatches them up. When he begins to balance them atop Rex Lapis’s head in a sorry semblance of horns, Xiao decides he’s had enough.
What kind of person would show such blatant disrespect to a god?
He teleports to the boy’s side in a rush of wind. Startled, the boy lets out a pitiful-sounding shriek and stumbles back, heel tipping over the edge. Xiao grabs his arm and pulls him back onto the platform before he can fall.
The boy lets out a sigh of relief, beaming at him. “Thank you—“
“Stop defacing the statues,” Xiao interrupts, stern. “You are disrespecting Rex Lapis.”
The boy blinks at him owlishly. He waves his hands in front of him in alarm. “No, no, it’s a misunderstanding, I promise. I’m an old friend, and I’m only trying to get his attention!”
Xiao can’t help but sweep his eyes over the boy’s form, from the well-worn soles of his brown shoes to the fluttering cape draped around his shoulders to the tip of the Cecilia’s leaf perched delicately on his hat. For a second, he envisions his lord standing next to this frivolous-looking mortal. In his mind, the boy sticks his tongue out and pulls on the end of Rex Lapis’s—no, Zhongli’s, he corrects himself—hair. Mind-Zhongli proceeds to drop a meteor right on the boy’s head.
Xiao dismisses the thought.
“Rex Lapis has passed,” he says instead, crossing his arms over his chest. The same half-truth all the other mortals have come to know, save for a certain traveler (though Xiao has more than one suspicion on that front). “You should leave.”
The boy just laughs, light as the wind. “Perhaps it is true, Rex Lapis is dead,” he says, voice lilting like a song. “But I doubt the same can be said for this old blockhead.” He raps his knuckles against the statue with a mischievous grin.
Xiao closes his eyes. He takes in a single, measured breath.
Then, he calls a gale to his side. It bursts outwards, ripping the dirt and foliage violently from the statue’s surface. Startled, the boy stumbles backward once again, this time fully tipping over the ledge. As a fail-safe, in case this mortal would recklessly break his neck otherwise, Xiao summons a small pillow of wind to cushion his fall. The boy lands on his back with a soft oomph, hat knocked askew.
“Do not,” Xiao orders, “do this again.”
Xiao leaves before he has to subject his nerves to any more drivel.
Later, after Liyue has traded its warm sunrays for tender moonlight and its raucous laughter for soft snores, Xiao walks along Wangshu’s roof. He drags the end of his polearm against its shingles, the clattering jarring against his ears. He lets it sting.
He hears the shrill caws of a nightingale, the piercing chirp of the crickets, the muffled shuffling of footsteps in the inn’s halls. They ring and clang and clash, spilling into the cracks of Xiao’s consciousness until they fill the gaps in his mind entirely.
Like this, he doesn’t have to think.
Like this, he can pretend he isn’t still waiting for the call of a flute.
Xiao is in a dream.
Something weighs heavy in his limbs. It turns his arms into useless sandbags, legs into anchors with their tips half-buried into the ground. All he has left are his eyes and his fangs; their points dig into his lips, pinching and sharp. They never break skin, but the ghost of iron is still bitter on his tongue.
The boy in his dreams smiles at him, a line of delicate sweetness across his lips. “Hello,” he says with a laugh, easy and feather-light. Xiao has never known laughter as easy and feather-light.
“Don’t be so scared,” the boy giggles. He strides to Xiao’s side, a pair of snow-white wings trailing behind him. The winds part a path for his every shift, bending to his will, blurring the lines between skin and air. Fluid motion, like this was a dance, like watercolors blending into one another on a canvas.
“Dear Yaksha, do you remember me?”
The boy wraps his hands around Xiao’s; even through his gloves, he can feel heat, thick and heady, sink deep into his skin. The fire licks his bones, clawing secrets in the cracks in its surface. If diviners tried to read the messages scarred within, they would find—
No, no, no. There is nothing, he is nothing, no more than skin and bones sharpened to a point. He cannot be anything but. Xiao knows better than to let himself burn, knows that Liyue is worth more than his scorched ashes, but this is a dream. This is a dream, so there are no battles to fight, no duties to follow. The boy can strike a match on Xiao’s skin, and Xiao can watch as all his armor dissolves in smoke.
The boy tugs, and Xiao comes unmoored.
Who is this?
Xiao knows him, Xiao knows him.
The answer is on the tip of his tongue.
He swallows it before it can leave his lips.
Xiao opens his eyes.
Something runs warm along his veins.
He cannot remember his dream, but he runs his tongue along his fangs, wondering how it would yield if he had held it in his mouth. If it would give, soft and pillowy, or if it would splinter, brittle and sharp.
Seconds, minutes, hours later, his tongue pushes against his teeth, searching, still, for a taste.
An Anemo-tipped arrow whizzes past Xiao’s ear, the sharp gust cutting across his cheek. Xiao doesn’t so much as flinch.
“What,” he says, words sharp as his teeth, “are you doing?”
The boy peers at him from his one open eye, bow still drawn. He’s sitting cross-legged atop a rocky outcrop, surrounded by the scattered bodies of fallen hilichurls.
The sight stirs quite a few different emotions; Xiao refuses to admit to a single one.
At Xiao’s glare, the boy merely grins. It only further yanks on the nerves in Xiao’s brain.
The boy carelessly tosses his bow aside, letting it dematerialize in a flurry of feathers. He looks at Xiao innocently. “Before you accuse me of murder, I wasn’t aiming for you!” he insists. “You just caught me by surprise!”
Xiao looks slowly at the fallen hilichurls, then back at the boy. “I heard a call for help,” Xiao says, somewhat baffled. At the time, he had thought the voice sounded familiar. He had been hoping he was mistaken.
A pleased laugh. “So you came, then? How kind of you, Adeptus Xiao!”
Xiao feels himself frown. “You know my name.”
The boy laughs once more, fuller this time. “Of course I do! You’re quite famous, you know.” He tips his head, eyes curious. “Do you know mine?”
“Do you have business in Liyue?”
The boy makes a face. “Sounds like a no. Well, in that case, you can call me Venti!”
Against his will, his brain dutifully logs the name. Venti, it sighs, prodding gently at each syllable. Inexplicably, it likens it to the sound of the spring breeze, of windchimes, of a feather’s descent. Xiao’s frown deepens. He tests his fang against the inside of his lip to feel the sting. “You didn’t need any help,” Xiao points out.
Venti gives a half-hearted shrug. “No, I suppose not. I was hoping it would get Morax’s attention, you see, if he thought I needed help. He’s been ignoring me, that old brute!”
“I can’t see why,” Xiao mutters flatly.
Venti’s eyes widen. He looks much too thrilled. “Oh,” he says with a delighted laugh, “you’re funny, too! None of the stories mentioned that you were funny.”
Xiao’s nerves twist. “I am not funny,” he bites, “and I am not kind.”
“Yes, you are,” Venti says brightly. “You softened my fall, yesterday, too. That was very kind.”
Xiao stares at him incredulously. “I pushed you off.”
“After you pulled me back on. And, besides, I was pushing your buttons, so I thought it was quite fair, really!” Venti's expression glows with joy.
Xiao forces out a harsh breath of air.
“Rex Lapis has passed,” he says, fighting to keep his tone even, “and if he were alive, he would have more important things to tend to than you.”
Venti pauses. Then, after a few beats of measured silence, he slowly says, “I’m starting to think you don’t like me very much, Adeptus Xiao.”
Xiao stabs the point of his polearm into the dirt and disappears in a flash of black.
Xiao is not kind.
It was beaten out of him long ago, soft touch and gentle heart dripping out of his flesh alongside all his blood and guts. Ripped haphazardly from his back, leaving only a mess of feathers and grief in its absence. He no longer knew how to hold sweet things without turning them to venom, no longer knew how to pull his lips into a smile without cutting his fingers against his fangs.
Xiao is not kind.
(But, sometimes, there is flute and windsong, and petals and dance, and in those lonely little hours, he thinks maybe maybe maybe—)
“Adeptus Xiao!”
Xiao stops mid-step, his foot hovering in midair. The voice that calls to him is sweet as a lyre. It makes instant irritation flare red-hot along his veins.
He makes a snap decision for the sake of his own sanity. Xiao turns around to leave.
Something hits him square in the back, thumping cleanly against the window of bare skin. When he looks down, he sees bright red apple knocking into the heel of his foot.
When directed at others, hate was a useless emotion, especially for Xiao. There was no grudge that could outlast eternity, and clinging to resentment so tightly would only worsen the binds that strangled his soul. If he could harbor such a thing, he thinks the only victim would be himself.
Annoyance, though, was an entirely different matter.
When he turns around, Venti happily lobs another apple at him. Xiao spears it on the point of his polearm. Somehow, Venti interprets this as a victory.
“That’s quite impressive, Adeptus Xiao!” Venti says, grinning. “It’s good to see you again!”
“What do you want?”
Venti laughs happily, as if Xiao’s curt nature was his sole source of entertainment. “Don’t look so wary, or I might begin to think you’re scary!” He pauses. “No, wait. That wasn’t very good, I can do better.”
Xiao begins to make his escape once more.
Venti squawks indignantly. “Wait, wait, don’t leave! No ear for poetry, it seems,” he teases, feigning a long-suffering sigh. “It’s like playing the lute for a button. There’s a Liyuen idiom about that, yes?”
This, of all things, gets Xiao’s attention. He stops. “Playing the qin for a cow,” he corrects automatically.
“Hm?”
“The Liyuen idiom. You have it wrong.”
Venti grins, all teeth. Xiao feels as if he’s stumbled into a trap.
Venti giggles. “Oh! Silly me! Thank you for stopping to correct me.”
Right. Right. He was on his way leaving. But before Xiao can make another move, Venti proudly brandishes a basket nearly overflowing with beautiful, glistening apples, practically shoving them in his face.
“Adeptus Xiao, it seems we’ve been getting off on the wrong foot. I thought I’d try to give you an offering, as a reconciliation effort!”
“You threw them at me,” Xiao reminds him flatly.
“Well, you keep trying to leave. I’m just getting creative!”
Xiao eyes the apples. He has no desire for mortal food; it never quite sat right on his tongue, the flavors too robust for him to enjoy. Even fruits and their saccharine sweetness could be overpowering. However, the image of a shrine near Qingce village flashes through his mind, of the apples he’d leave there for a god who’d never come collect them.
He takes the basket in his hand.
Venti beams. He reaches in to grab a single apple, biting into it. “Say, Adeptus Xiao, now that we’re such good friends—“
“We are not,” Xiao cuts in.
“—could I ask you for a favor?”
“I do not desire any business with mortals. My karmic debt will only harm you.”
“Buuuut,” Venti draws out the word, leaning on it, “I’ve read before that you like music! Is it true?”
Xiao shakes his head, firm. “Those stories are all made-up nonsense.”
“But do you like music?”
When Xiao doesn’t answer, Venti’s grin grows.
“Good! I’m a bard, you know, and I haven’t been able to find an audience in Liyue lately. And what good is a bard with no one to play for?”
Xiao watches Venti carefully. Watches the way the wind cards through his hair, blows through his cape, the way the sunlight holds him and kisses his skin. Xiao doesn’t know him, not at all, but—
Venti looks at him imploringly. “So, Xiao, would you like to listen to a few songs? Free of charge, of course! I’m honestly a bit desperate; I’ve been feeling very unappreciated as of late.”
Xiao must reject it. He has already pieced together the word in his brain letter by letter. The first time he tries to say it, it sticks to his tongue, burns to dust before he makes a sound. He sifts through its scraps, his brain demanding him to stitch his denial back together and spit it out, but all he finds is his heart, beating a tentative, wistful tune.
Venti smiles at him, so soft, so gentle.
He’s aggravating, Xiao urges himself to recall, but that’s not exactly right. There’s something lively about it, the way Venti will laugh and push and pull, the way it makes Xiao want to push back. Mortals often treat him with a type of veneration that’s difficult for him to bear, though it makes it easier for him to keep his distance. Venti has none of that grace, unafraid of Xiao’s presence, of his power, of his karma.
Venti breaks the monotony of his days. It makes Xiao almost reluctant to go.
(And then, there was the promise of song—)
“Xiao?”
Xiao starts. He shakes his head roughly.
He won’t. He can’t.
“You must find a different audience,” Xiao says hoarsely. “Go.”
Venti’s face falls in disappointment. Something twinges in his chest.
He buries it before he has to face it.
The dream-boy is still here. He pulls Xiao along.
When he moves, a symphony accompanies him. He swings his arm, and Xiao hears the pull of a bow against strings. His legs call the bold timbre of the brass, his wings the chopped staccato of the percussion. When he turns his head to look at Xiao, the woodwinds sing.
He is every wish Xiao had never said. He is every song Xiao has yearned to hear.
The boy hums, a tender, lilting little thing. His fingers entangle with Xiao’s, so neatly slipping into the empty gaps.
Xiao digs into the root of his chest, dredges up his voice, pulls it back into his throat. It settles uncomfortably, irritable and scratchy against the lightness of his breath.
There are many words he has never let himself keep, let them be buried by poison, washed out by blood. But now, they climb and cling to him so thickly that the weight of it threatens to choke him. Every thanks, every prayer, every last confession the wind has stolen from his withered, faltering heart—each one aches so terribly to be heard.
If he coughs it all up, what would come with it? The rotting last petals of a flower, feathers still bleeding from their quills, the grisly shards of a bitter nightmare, or, or, or—
“Lord Barbatos,” is what he croaks out eventually.
What does redemption taste like to the guilty, salvation to the sinner? Would it taste like that name, held so reverently between his teeth?
The ends of the boy’s mouth curve into a small smile, and his sweet lips part in song.
Xiao wakes.
He clutches at the petering last notes of a melody, but it, too, slides out from his hungry fingers and scatters to soil and sand. The last bits of it cling to his clothing as he slays a beast, as he watches the wind, even as he stops by a shrine near Qingce village, settling the basket of apples at the altar.
Xiao shakes his head.
It doesn’t quite matter, really. He already knows it by heart after all.
The next evening, when Xiao passes by Wangshu, he hears music sprouting from its tip, spilling over the slope of its roof and dripping into puddles at his feet. His heart knots, breath stuttering in his throat. For a moment, he is violently thrust back to a distant memory, to the tang of blood in his mouth, weary ache heavy in his bones, death crying sweet temptations in his ear.
Despite himself, he stops. He looks up.
Venti’s perched at the top, half-hidden by golden leaves. His fingers pluck at a lyre. Somehow, despite the difference in height, he catches Xiao’s eye. He grins, offering a playful wink.
It yanks Xiao out of his reverie. Air restarts in his lungs, and he flexes his fingers against his polearm. He carries on.
But here’s the thing he doesn’t expect:
He comes back.
Upon nightfall’s hushed descent, in a feat involving both wind and grit, Venti will clamber to the top Wangshu Inn’s roof to strum a tune. Each night brings with it a new song. Occasionally, Xiao will hear a melody he recognizes, old Liyuen songs that Venti claims to have picked up from Rex Lapis himself. Mostly though, Venti’s songs are largely unfamiliar, pulled from the breeze itself onto his very strings.
Still, something about their sound nags at him.
Initially, Xiao had listened from afar, not wanting to stain Venti with his karmic debt. Of course, because Venti was nothing if not persistent, this only lasted a few days before Venti began sending pleas down along with his songs (”I promise I don’t bite!” and “Can you hear it from down there? Or should I play louder? The sleeping guests would be very thankful, I'm sure!” and “I won’t force you, Xiao, but I like to see your face when you listen, so please?”).
So, slowly, in snapshots, Xiao had moved from the ground, to the balcony, to the branches of the tree, to the roof. Eventually, to Venti’s side.
The truth is this: Xiao can’t say whether or not he likes music, exactly. It’s more complex than that.
To him, music is a lifeline. There are arias trilling in the rushing blood of his veins, sonatas lilting in the air he breathes, cadenzas pushing his heart to beat on, and on, and on. It drowns out the reaper’s howls and whispers to him tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow until he can form the shape of the word with his own lips.
There are few things Xiao can put his name to. For a very long time, all Xiao had was his polearm and his karma. And then, for an evening, he had music.
There is no like or dislike for something like that.
“You seem tired,” Venti notes one evening, fingers mid-pause against the strings of his lyre. “You should sleep. I’ll make sure you don’t fall!”
Xiao looks away. A ridiculous notion. “Adepti have no need for rest.”
Venti’s eyes widen. “Really? I can’t imagine such a thing! I, for one, deeply value my naps.”
Unsurprising; the only thing Venti seemed to indulge in more than wine and apples was the habit of loafing around. “Mortals partake in unnecessary things.”
A flash of amusement flits through Venti’s expression. “You make mortals out to be so silly.”
“They are. You are.”
Venti laughs. “I think mortals are often wiser than you give them credit for! You should put more trust in them. Liyue is in their hands now, isn’t it?”
Barely, Xiao thinks, though it harbors no bitterness. His eyes flicker across Liyue, laid out for him to see. The bustle of the harbor, the jagged cliffs of Guyun, the flat plains of Guili. There will always be evils plaguing these lands that mortals cannot even fathom, the fragility of their souls not suited for war with divine wrath and resentment. In their stead, Xiao will stand in this land and purge its demons until his final breath is wrung out of his dying lungs.
Zhongli may have given his trust to mortals, may have told Xiao that he could do the same, but Xiao can’t. He needs to cling to this. Without his mask and his polearm, what else would he have?
Venti strums his lyre. The sound rings in Xiao’s ears, interrupting his thoughts. He breathes in tempo with this song, letting it lull him to a sense of peace.
“Say, Xiao,” Venti asks softly, eyes on the stars, “do adepti dream?”
Xiao frowns. Something in his heart jumps at the question, a line of tension running down his spine. “Why?”
Venti offers a half-hearted shrug. “Hm, just something on my mind, lately, that’s all! So, Adeptus Xiao, do you?”
“No.” Not in any way it matters. Xiao knows dreams best, after all, had spent countless years a thief, a demon, a monster. At worst, dreams are a brain’s idle wandering, a mishmash of thoughts with no meaning. At best, they are manifestations of foolish desire. Xiao has no time to ponder either.
(And, oh, sometimes he can still taste them, lingering like sweet poison on his tongue, and how he hates the way his mouth still waters. After all those he stole, does he truly deserve any of his own?)
“How unfortunate!” Venti laments. “What do you do when you sleep?”
“Adepti have no need for rest,” Xiao repeats, quick as a reflex.
Venti barks out a laugh. “So I’ve heard!”
“And dreams are another useless thing— “
“—that mortals partake in?” Venti finishes, grinning. “One could mistake you for an actor with how well you say your lines!”
“If you know the answer, you should stop asking.”
Venti snickers. “I think dreams are important, though! Almost as important as naps!”
Xiao levels him an unimpressed look. Venti sticks out his tongue.
“I dream of many different things, you know. I once had a dream that I became a slime, an Anemo one! Lived my whole little slime life, even raised a cute family and cute little slimy kids.” He pauses. “And then someone shot me with an arrow, and I popped.”
A moment of silence passes. Xiao lets that all sink in.
“...Like I said,” Xiao says evenly, “useless.”
“It wasn’t!”
“Do slimes even reproduce?”
Venti balks at him, aghast. “Why would you even ask?! I don’t want to think about the logistics of slime reproduction!”
Despite himself, the end of Xiao’s lips quirks upward in a small smile. Venti mirrors it with one of his own.
“I have other dreams, too!” Venti tells him enthusiastically. “Once, I dreamt that I drank all the wine at Dawn Winery, but then everyone around me turned into grapes. And I had to battle the urge to turn my dear friends into wine.”
Xiao snorts. “Do you have any normal dreams?”
Venti taps his chin, tilting his head to the side. “Hmm, let me think…I dream of Mondstadt plenty.” He pauses, eyeing Xiao, as if testing its acceptability as “normal”. When Xiao silently invites him to continue, Venti grins and begins making grand, sweeping motions with his arms. “Of its flowers, and oh, its festivals! Its stories, its dragons, and, of course, its heroes; those are my favorite ones to have. All their stories are very dear to me. Sometimes, on especially good nights, I’ll dream of meeting them.”
Then, Venti’s smile twists something nostalgic, and he strums a lonely, wistful chord on his lyre.
“And sometimes,” Venti adds, his voice having melted into something softer, tender to the touch, “I dream of being so, so small that I can be held in someone’s hands.”
Xiao can’t quite imagine that. Venti’s very presence practically demands attention; despite his short stature, Xiao has never thought of Venti as small. But watching Venti, now, so bittersweet and longing—Xiao wonders, and wonders, and wonders.
Xiao’s heart does a strange thing. It has him acting even stranger.
“I dance,” Xiao mutters haltingly, staring firmly at the worn shingles of the roof. “In my dreams. I dance.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Xiao sees Venti staring. He refuses to make eye contact. “You asked,” he grouses, feeling suddenly defensive.
“Right!” Venti’s voice cracks on the word.
Xiao furrows his brows.
“I’m just—I’m imagining you dancing,” Venti explains hurriedly.
Xiao’s grip tightens on the edge of the roof. “If you think it’s so ridiculous, then—”
“No, no! Not ridiculous, not ridiculous at all. I think...I think it’d be beautiful to see, Xiao.”
Xiao finally dares to look up. The glint in Venti’s eyes makes his heart do another one of those odd things.
“I didn’t know you danced,” Venti muses. “I only knew that you played the flute.”
Xiao flattens his lips. He doesn’t play the flute. He merely chases after a memory. The difference is quite distinct, in his mind.
Venti’s eyes flick down to the lyre in his hands. His eyes brighten with an idea, and he straightens with a wide grin. “Oh, Xiao! Have you played the lyre before?”
At Xiao’s wary look, Venti lets out another little laugh. “Here, here! I’ll teach you. I’m sure you’re tired of hearing my tunes by now, after all these nights.” He unceremoniously shoves his lyre into Xiao’s hands before Xiao has a chance to argue.
“...I wouldn’t tire of hearing you play,” Xiao says in response, the instrument feeling foreign in his hands. Don’t give me this, he thinks. I know only weapons and blood. I will break beautiful things like this.
Venti’s gaze softens at the admission. “In that case, I will continue to play for you until you do.”
Xiao swallows. He isn’t certain that day will ever come.
“But tonight,” Venti continues, “I think a change of pace could make things more exciting! Now, use your left hand to hold it, and rest it against your lap—wait, here...”
Venti leans over, right into Xiao’s personal space. When Venti’s hands near his own, Xiao involuntarily stiffens, fingers tightening around the instrument until his knuckles pale to white.
It gives Venti pause, the bard stilling entirely. Venti’s eyes watch him carefully, from the breath stuck still in his chest to his grip threatening to warp the lyre’s wood. Venti slowly retracts his hands, and Xiao feels his stomach drop. Whether from relief or from regret, he can’t discern.
Venti sits atop his hands, smiling softly at Xiao. “Then, is this all right? Please let me know if it isn’t.”
And then, a soft curl of wind forms underneath Xiao’s hand, gently nudging it into its proper place. Xiao lets it.
“Ah, all right,” Venti continues gently, “now, you can use your right hand to pick the strings, like this.”
A wisp of wind dutifully plucks the string closest to Xiao’s thumb. Xiao mimics the movement. It doesn’t ring as clear, but Venti grins nonetheless.
“Perfect! You’re a natural, Xiao. Now, okay, follow my lead...”
Venti, with the wind as his aid, leads him in a song, note by note, string by string. Xiao’s playing is something awful; the tension he tries is never quite right, some notes coming out too clipped, others blatantly out of tune. Even so, Venti praises him through it all.
“It seems my title as Teyvat’s best bard has some competition,” Venti says lightly. His hands are always an inch out of reach.
As he plays, Xiao quietly wonders how this scene will one day fade. How it will always hover in his thoughts, haunting as a ghost. How he will pluck a string on lonely nights just to hear if it will sing.
How this, too, will become another memory for him to chase.
Barbatos trails his fingers along the bone of Xiao’s jaw, delicate as sin. It leaves a path of fire, burning a streak of ash against his skin. Still, Xiao shivers at the touch. So gentle, so calamitous—so light not even a feather stirs in its wake, so deadly it unravels him whole.
Barbatos tips his head. The wind twists the ends of his braid. “What do you think this is, my dear Yaksha?”
“A dream," he confesses. His head is laden with smog. “I can never remember this when I wake.”
Barbatos hums. “When you wake,” he echoes softly.
He takes Xiao’s chin in his fingers.
Gentle.
Calamitous.
Smoke burns out from his touch.
Xiao breathes it in.
Xiao has barely made it onto Mt. Aocang when Venti flicks a spray of water onto his face.
Xiao glares daggers, sending Venti into another one of his fits of giggles.
“Just like a cat,” Venti laughs, pleased by the discovery. Xiao narrows his eyes further. “A cute, grumpy—"
Abruptly, Venti cuts himself off with a sneeze, startling the pair of them both.
“Ugh,” Venti bemoans miserably, “still can’t even think about cats without sneezing.” He scrunches his nose. He turns back to the pond of water, looking seriously at the fish swimming about. “You guys understand, right? You hate cats too, right?”
One fish does a little jump. Venti breaks out into a grin.
“Ah, I knew you’d understand! They’re the worst!” Venti glances at Xiao out of the corners of his eyes. “Well, all cats except Adeptus Xiao, of course!”
“I’m not a cat,” Xiao gripes.
“Oh no, I sense a cat-astrophe approaching!”
When Xiao doesn’t react, Venti pouts. “I thought that was pretty good. Still not an appreciator of wordplay, I suppose. Like lutes and cows still.”
“Qin,” Xiao tells him as he squats down next to Venti. “Playing the qin for a cow. Aren’t bards supposed to have a good memory?”
Venti laughs cheerfully in response, dipping the tip of his hand into the water. It generates a series of ripples fluttering outward, startling the fish. They flee to the edge of the pond, save for a delicate, pink butterflyfish. It tentatively swims a circle around Venti’s fingers.
Xiao watches it. “What are you doing here?”
“Such beautiful things grow in these high places,” Venti says in lieu of a response, trailing a finger along the water’s surface. The fish follows. “Like these lovely little fish! I’ve never seen them anywhere else.”
“Abiding Angelfish,” Xiao supplies. “Influenced by the adeptal energy of this place.”
The fish does a leap out of the water, earning a delighted noise from Venti.
“Oh,” Venti continues,” and there are those flowers, too! The ones that only grow up high!”
Xiao pauses. “Qingxin.” He says it slowly, tasting it on his tongue.
“Yes, those!” Venti brushes his fingertips against the flower on his hat. “They remind me of my favorite, the Cecilia. Lovely, white little flowers, just like your Qingxin. And Cecilias, too, only bloom on remote mountains and under harsh winds.” Venti hums thoughtfully, hand lingering on his hat. “I wonder if it’s lonely, for them. What do you think they’re looking for, standing so high?”
“I wasn’t aware that flowers had eyes,” Xiao replies, a fine layer of sarcasm interwoven in his tone. Venti snickers under his breath.
“Really, the stories should all adjust for your sense of humor, Adeptus Xiao,” Venti teases. “I may have to start penning my own. It’s too valuable to miss!”
Xiao suppresses the urge to frown. For mortals, adepti and gods were little more than symbols, ideals. No reader wanted the details, the simple banality of the mundane. Especially not non-existent senses of humor.
“I think perhaps they’re looking to the sky,” Venti tells him. “Why else would they grow at such heights, if not in an attempt to reach it?”
“They should give up,” Xiao says, no inflection in his tone. “They’re rooted to the ground.”
“Never a bad thing to hope! Besides, I could pick a flower and throw it to the skies, couldn’t I?”
“You’d kill it, too,” Xiao points out.
Venti huffs, but the smile on his lips is fond. “No sense of imagination.”
Venti’s eyes dart towards Xiao.
“Say,” he begins, poking at the water once more, “if I were to stay up here for years and years and years, what would sort of thing do you think I’d become?”
“Tolerable, maybe,” Xiao says bluntly, because he knows it will make Venti laugh. “You might know your Liyuen idioms, for one. And you wouldn’t disrespect Rex Lapis.”
“Those are my charm points!” Venti grins. “It’s how we became friends!”
Friends. Xiao’s brain stumbles to a stop. Friends, friends, friends.
“Besides, I was thinking about my looks,” Venti continues. “Would I turn pink like them?” Venti gestures a finger towards the fish. “Or,” and now he looks at Xiao, “would I become as handsome as you?”
Xiao’s heart thumps.
Friends, he thinks again.
The word is too much. The word is not enough.
Xiao can’t formulate an answer, and Venti turns his head away.
Venti’s true purpose in calling Xiao to Mt. Aocang is revealed when he ruffles through an old, hollow stump and pulls out two bottles of wine.
“Morax’s secret stash!” Venti tells him brightly. “He keeps it buried in the ground, but there’s nothing a good bit of wind can’t accomplish!”
Not for the first time, Xiao is struck with a sense of bewilderment watching Venti and his mastery of the wind. Xiao has known the wind for millennia now, yet they are far more reserved with him than they are with Venti. For Venti to use his Vision with such prowess as well as to be so adept with a bow implies a level of power that belies Venti’s playful, unassuming nature. Additionally, whenever Venti manipulates the breeze, Xiao will watch his lips tug down in a subtle frown. Often, it disappears as soon as it comes, smoothening out as Venti resumes his antics, but it is still odd to see.
It’s almost as strange as Venti’s supposed relationship with Zhongli. Though insisting that they are old friends, Venti will always wash it away with vague phrases and pretty words, carefully redirecting the topic of conversation before Xiao notices that it’s shifted. Even when he realizes he’s been swindled, Xiao rarely presses the subject. Frankly, his lord’s personal life was none of Xiao’s business, though the thought may baffle him. As long as Venti was not a threat to his lord and Liyue, at least.
Venti examines a bottle closely, fiddling with the seal. When it pops open, a mischievous grin lights itself across his face. He brings the bottle to his lips. “Adeptus Xiao, do you drink?”
“No. I haven’t tried, and I have no desire to partake in your mortal temptations. I should continue my duty. I have wasted enough time today already.”
“Oh, Liyue’s fine! Let me treat you tonight!”
Xiao stares at him. “You stole the wine. That can hardly count.”
Venti laughs. “Even more reason for you to stay! When Morax inevitably tries to murder me for stealing it, I’ll need someone to protect me.”
“You think I’d side with you over Rex Lapis?”
Venti holds out the second bottle of wine, offering. “I think you’d side with whoever you want.”
And—and Xiao has never been curious about mortal pursuits. Let fools be fools, let humans indulge in their petty vices.
But he can’t help but wonder. What does it feel like, this thing that Venti chases after so ardently? Would it bring them closer, if they shared this? Would Xiao understand him more, if he tried?
Venti’s eyes glitter with something hopeful. Xiao takes the bottle.
Venti, Xiao reconsiders, may be a threat to Liyue after all. If not to Liyue, then perhaps to his lord.
And if not a threat, then certainly a nuisance.
“Moraaaaaax,” Venti whines loudly, nearly fully splayed out on the stone table. Xiao thanks whatever higher power conspired to have Cloud Retainer out of her abode this evening; he’s not certain he would be able to handle whatever disaster would ensue if they met.
Venti takes another swig straight from the wine bottle, despite the cups Xiao had managed to procure. He downs it as easily as water. “I’m drinking your wine! Your precious, precious osmanthus wine!” Venti glances at Xiao. His eyes brighten. “And oh,” he adds, just a touch louder, “I’m corrupting your adeptus!”
Xiao snorts. The second bottle remains largely untouched, save for the single cup Xiao had poured himself. “You are certainly not corrupting me. That’s a ridiculous notion.”
“I am, though!” Venti insists. “Moraaaaaaax! I’m introducing your Adeptus Xiao to the oh-so-terrible mortal temptations of alcohol! Who knows what may happen if you don’t stop me?” Venti’s head is half-buried in the crook of his elbow. He looks up at Xiao through his lashes, cheeks flush with wine.
Xiao’s finger twitches against his leg. Something flutters at his pulse point.
Alcohol is not the mortal temptation that Venti is introducing him to.
Xiao takes an abrupt drink from his own cup, the sweet wine sliding down his throat. A faint trace of peaches sticks to the back of his tongue.
“Oooh,” Venti says, teasing, “careful now, Adeptus Xiao, or you’ll get drunk!”
“Adepti do not get drunk.”
Venti smiles around the lip of his bottle. “Well, I’m fairly certain I’ve gotten Morax—er, seen him get drunk in the past! It was terribly embarrassing. For him, of course. Oh, the stories I could tell!” He polishes off the rest of the wine, slamming the bottle on the table. His eyes dart upwards, staring expectantly at the sky as if he expects a stone to drop atop his head right then and there. When none comes, Venti’s bottom lip juts out in a pout. He hides his head in his arms, muffling his half-hearted groan.
“Ugh. Things have been so terribly awful as of late. Ah, besides your presence, of course, Xiao. But Morax won’t give me the time of day, no one’s listening to my music, and even the wind feels wrong…” Venti trails off. His fingers move to grasp vaguely at his chest. “And my dreams,” he adds, quieter, his brows furrowing. “They’ve all been so strange...”
His eyes fall upon Xiao. Without hesitation, he leans over and neatly plucks the second bottle from Xiao’s side. Peering into the opening, he swirls the wine, watching its legs drip down its sides. His lips twist. “And the wine! It tastes different, not as good. Truly the worst crime of them all.”
“Rex Lapis is no fool,” Xiao reminds him. “He could have purposely changed the wine because he knew you’d steal it.”
Venti's eyes widen comically. “Wait, do you really think so?! Is Morax truly capable of pulling pranks now?!”
The genuine distress in Venti’s voice brings a small smile of amusement to Xiao’s lips, something fond growing in his chest. He covers his mouth with his hand to hide it, casting his gaze to the side and tamping down the warmth in his heart.
If Venti notices, he doesn’t comment. Perhaps Xiao should thank the osmanthus wine after all.
Though he’s certain it might be brushed away once more, Xiao asks: “What business exactly do you seek with Rex Lapis?”
“Oooooh,” Venti hums, “are you jealous I’d spend time with him and not you?”
Xiao says nothing. His eyes slide to Venti’s.
Venti’s teasing expression loosens, softens around the edges. “I jest, of course.” He pushes himself up, straightening his back. “Hmm, my business with Morax...” He twists the bottle of wine in his hand animatedly. Osmanthus wine splashes over the opening, spilling onto Venti’s fingers. Venti frowns. “That’s right. What was it again? I can’t seem to recall...”
That's it. Xiao reaches over, neatly lifts the bottle from Venti’s hands, and unceremoniously upends it into the grass. “You’ve had too much to drink.”
Venti makes a series of undignified noises, nearly leaping across the table in his haste.
“Wait, don’t waste it!” Venti wails, reaching desperately as Xiao holds the bottle just beyond his fingers. “If not for me, then for your dear Rex Lapis! Oh, he’d sob seeing you poor it out!”
Xiao heavily doubts Zhongli would shed even a single tear. Still, Xiao rights the bottle, and Venti heaves a sigh of relief
“Thank the Archons,” Venti breathes. Miraculously, the bottle is still half-full; Xiao suspects that Venti may have used his prowess for Anemo manipulation to salvage his wine. Venti makes grabby fingers for the bottle, but Xiao dutifully keeps it out of reach.
“You’ll die at the rate you drink.”
Venti pouts, resting his elbows on his table and cupping his chin in his palms. He blinks up at Xiao, looking at him with wide, pleading eyes. “I’m fine, I promise!”
It is an embarrassingly overt tactic. It is also embarrassingly effective. Xiao rushes to change the subject, avoiding meeting Venti’s gaze. His eyes catch on the flower on Venti’s hat, and he says the first thing that tumbles out:
"Qingxin.”
Venti blinks at him. “...I’m afraid this is a Cecilia, Adeptus Xiao.”
Xiao resists the urge to roll his eyes. “No, that’s—I’m aware. But Qingxin are my—” He cuts himself off, the words feeling wrong. It was silly for Xiao to have a favorite flower, but something about them had always snagged his attention. Pure hearts, as they were called. Honest and true, roots tied in dirt, petals stretching for the wind.
Lonely, Venti had said. Ridiculous, but...
“They’re... nice,” he settles for.
Venti, however, seems to pick up on the words he dropped. He perks up, eyes bright. “Oh, they are, aren’t they! Maybe we should go find some!”
Xiao shakes his head. “Out of season. They’re not in bloom.”
“Ah, really?” Like a popped balloon, Venti deflates, slinking back down. “What a pity...”
Xiao is still staring at the flower adorning the hat. Venti’s flower. Cecilias. Alone on their very own peaks.
He can feel Venti’s eyes on him. A lock unclicks. The words slip out.
“Perhaps,” Xiao mumbles, “the Qingxin grow tall to watch the Cecilia. If they’re lonely, then...”
“...They can be lonely together?” Venti finishes, sweet smile playing on his lips. There’s something warm in his gaze. “I think that’s quite a lovely notion. Who knew you were such a romantic, Adeptus Xiao? I’d almost think you were drunk, saying such things.”
“I am not,” Xiao says, but he can’t deny the thread of uncertainty woven in his tone. There’s still the echo of peaches on his tongue. Warmth in his gut. Venti’s eyes on him. Venti’s laughter in his ears. “Do not slander the adepti with your mortal shortcomings.”
Venti hums. “No, you’re right,” he acknowledges. “I doubt you’re drunk. Your thoughts have always been so beautiful, after all.”
Xiao’s heart thunders in his ears. Beautiful.
Venti leans in, and—
And makes a desperate grab for the bottle in Xiao’s fingers.
The spell shatters. Xiao jerks his hand back, mind still whirling. The rest of the wine splashes over the lip of the bottle and spills out.
All over Xiao.
There’s a moment of stillness.
Venti stares, wide-eyed.
Xiao takes in one measured breath. Lets it out.
“Venti,” he grits out.
“...Ehe.”
Xiao twists his water-logged gloves, squeezing the excess liquid back into the lake. His clothes feel sticky against his skin.
“Are you going to wash your shirt next?” Venti chirps at his side, accompanying it with a rather salacious wink. Xiao turns to look at him, sharp enough that Venti lets out a nervous giggle. “Just, um, trying to bring some levity!”
Venti’s presence is unusually distracting, centimeters away from being pressed against his side. Every shift he makes feels amplified, rippling out and brushing against Xiao’s exposed nerves. Xiao wants to move away. Xiao wants to close the space.
He chalks it up to the wine. Useless invention it was.
He does not think of Venti calling him handsome. He does not think of Venti calling him beautiful.
Xiao wordlessly tosses his wet gloves at Venti, who squirms out of the way with a yelp. He bites back the beginning of a smile.
As Xiao runs his fingers through the water, washing away the sticky residue from his skin, he finds Venti’s gaze tracking his movements. He frowns. “What?”
Venti blinks, snapping out of a daze. “Oh, nothing! It’s just your hands. I haven’t seen them before—not without your gloves.” Venti holds up his own hand, palm facing Xiao, to illustrate his point.
And Xiao, a streak of boldness burning through him, turns and presses his hand right against Venti’s. Palm-to-palm, fingertips aligned.
Venti starts, eyes wide, but keeps his hand in place. A delicate pink blooms across Venti’s cheeks.
“It’s just a hand,” Xiao says, voice level.
Venti swallows. “I—um, yes. It’s—certainly a hand.” Venti tentatively brings up his other hand, fingers ghosting a line along the edge of Xiao’s wrist. “Can I...?”
Xiao nods.
Venti shifts so that he’s holding Xiao’s hand in both of his. Slowly, softly, he traces a thumb tenderly over his fingers, his knuckles, his palm, every dip and ridge. Xiao keeps himself very, very still.
Battle-worn and weapon-ready, Xiao’s skin is marred with countless scars and calluses, an ugly portrait of death and murder and bloodshed. It is not a very nice thing to hold. He had always imagined that Venti’s hands were their counterparts, as soft and delicate as they looked. However, the tips of Venti's fingers bear thin layers of hardened skin, born from plucking the strings of his lyre, from drawing his bow. A warrior in his own right.
The way Venti’s touch runs over his skin is unbearably sweet. The blood staining Xiao’s hands is bone-deep, but if he shuts his eyes, he can pretend that it is all being swept away.
Xiao lets out a shuddering breath. It’s been so long since he knew touch like this.
He can still feel the alcohol in his gut. He can feel Venti’s touch against his hands, his breath against his skin.
It’s intoxicating.
“This feels like a dream,” Xiao finds himself saying, half-dazed.
Venti glances at him questioningly.
“Only in my dreams. I’m only touched like this in my dreams.”
Gently. Carefully. Like he was something that could break. Like he was something worth holding together.
Venti’s breath catches. A myriad of emotions cycle through his face. Xiao can’t pick them apart, but none of them are pleasant, and Venti only deserves happy things.
“Do not—” Xiao starts, but his tongue wrestles with the rest of his words. He gives up, looks beyond the edge of the mountain. “There is nothing here worth mourning,” he ends on instead.
Venti shakes his head, brows drawn. Then, he reaches to one of his braids and tugs out the hair tie keeping it in place, the wind untangling its locks. He slips it gently over Xiao’s hand, lets it settle against his wrist.
“For you,” Venti says softly. “So you can always feel this and know this is real. And that you can have these things in reality as well, Xiao.”
And that—that has always been an impossibility. He is a weapon. He has watched life bleed out from beneath his fingertips, has pilfered their souls, their dreams, their futures. His life is repentance for the souls he reaped and the cruelties he wrought. He will drive himself to the grave at Liyue’s behest; the dead cannot absolve his guilt, so Xiao will let it wind around his neck until it chokes out his final breath.
Kindness, tenderness, they are not the salvation he is allowed to seek.
But.
Xiao eyelids flutter shut. The hair tie is sweet against his wrist.
Venti’s fingers curl around Xiao’s hand.
Tentatively, Xiao’s fingers curl back.
Barbatos sings softly into his ear, notes threading through Xiao’s heart. He tugs Xiao into a loose embrace, looping his arms around Xiao’s neck.
Barbatos’s wings come up to cover the two of them, carving a private shelter with only their quiet breathing, their matching heartbeats. A cascade of downy white feathers rains down, soft against Xiao’s skin.
“You’ve been working hard, haven’t you?” Barbatos sighs. His breath tickles Xiao’s ear.
“It is my duty,” Xiao mutters, his fingers twitching at his side. His arms feel leaden still, but his body is a warzone. Desire flares bright in his veins, the last streak of a comet alight across the sky. A blaze of glory burning to its destruction.
“So noble,” Barbatos says, words saccharine sweet. “You deserve to rest.”
Rest, was it? He had no need for rest. Demons did not rest, and what was Xiao if not a monster himself?
But Barbatos presses his fingers against the back of his neck, and, like this, Xiao wants nothing more than to let himself fall apart in his arms.
Xiao cannot have this.
Xiao cannot live without this.
Barbatos laughs, bells tinkling in the air. “You said it yourself, yes? This is a dream, after all. Here, you can let yourself rest.”
That’s right. That’s right. He can pretend here, that these are things he can hold. He leans his forehead in the crook of Barbatos’s neck. Xiao melts into his embrace.
Barbatos keeps singing. Soothing. Alluring.
(But it sounds—different. Something about it stirs uneasiness in his chest.
His heart hums along.
The notes clash.)
There is a shift, subtle but prominent. It can easily be said that nothing changes at all. It can also be said that nothing is the same.
Touch becomes a secret shared. Venti will press against his side, will hang off his arm, will hook his foot around Xiao’s. Will let his head rest on Xiao’s shoulder, hair tickling Xiao’s bare skin, as Xiao listens to gentle plucks on the lyre, each finding a moment of repose in the other’s shadow.
It is easier now, to accept these casual moments of warmth. If Barbatos had shown him light, Venti had taught him how to hold it, how to let it weave itself between his fingers without fearing its burn. Kindness is always deserved, Venti will tell him, cheek soft against his arm. You, whose soul is so gentle, deserve it most of all.
It is a difficult thing to believe; it may be weeks, decades, centuries before Xiao will let himself think those words without needing to rip them apart.
Still, every journey has a beginning. Xiao’s starts with moonlit songs and a bard’s hand held in his.
Xiao still wears the hair tie around his wrist. Its presence is a private matter, tucked quietly under his glove, hidden from view. It is almost forgettable; Venti had scrounged up another hair tie to fix his braid, and neither of them bring it up again. However, when Xiao thinks closely about it, he can feel it pressing pleasantly against his skin, tender as a kiss.
Dreams will melt away, slipping off his weary, grief-bent shoulders and crumbling to sighs on the wind. But this, this is real. Solid.
This, he keeps close to his heart.
There’s something off about Venti tonight.
He’s standing, distracted, eyes still watching a long-set sun. His twin braids flutter in the wind. When Xiao teleports to his side, he startles so terribly that he nearly slips off the edge of the roof. Immediately, Xiao catches him by the arm and yanks him back before he can topple to the ground.
Venti laughs, light and airy. “Thank you, Xiao. Always catching me when I fall.” His voice rings hollow, sounding distant. Xiao frowns. He opens his mouth.
Venti cuts him off before he can speak, pressing a finger to Xiao’s lips. “Ah-ah! There’s no time for that, tonight, I’m afraid. I have quite a repertoire prepared, and I haven’t a second to waste!” The smile he tries doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
Xiao purses his lips into a thin line, but he lets Venti tug him down to a sitting position. Venti slides into his usual theatrics, puffing his chest out and clearing his throat for his grandiose, superfluous introductions. His fingers tremble against the strings of the lyre.
“Venti,” Xiao starts, uneasy.
A sharp, discordant chord. Xiao suppresses a wince.
“I have stories to tell you, today.” Venti’s voice comes out too loud, too forced, like he’s spent hours rehearsing what he was going to say. “They’re all very important, so please, listen closely, will you?”
“...I will,” Xiao says. I always do, he doesn’t.
This time, when Venti smiles at him, it glows genuine. Unfortunately, this does little for the muted distress beginning to stir in Xiao’s gut.
“Thank you,” Venti says, and it’s a full-bodied sigh of relief, the tension bleeding out of him with the wind of his breath. It’s strange, for this to be treated as something burdensome when Xiao has always thought it a blessing to hear Venti play.
“Let us begin! It starts, as many stories are wont to do, with a pair of friends.”
And so Venti sings to him. He tells him of a tale, of a kind and courageous boy and the wind sprite that he charmed. He tells him of a tyrant who wielded gale and storm, whose own tornado drowned out his people’s cries. He tells him of the tyrant’s lover, of a red-haired warrior, of a devoted priestess, of the revolution they championed.
He tells him of a wolf, a falcon, a lion, a dragon. Of rebellion and bloodshed, of daybreak and hope.
This is not like his usual songs. He sings and sings and sings, desperate, fervent, until—
Venti hisses, jerking his hand back. Red beads at the pads of his fingers. Venti’s eyes flick towards his lyre, but before he can make another move, Xiao catches his wrist.
“Stop,” Xiao murmurs, already adjusting to a standing position. “Stay here. I will be back shortly.”
When Xiao returns, carrying the meager medicinal supplies he stores in his room in Wangshu, Venti’s still staring at his fingers. He must hear Xiao’s footsteps, for without looking up, he begins to speak.
“You know,” Venti tells him, “this isn’t the first time this has happened.”
Xiao sits at his side, taking his hand. “You should pay more attention to your limits.”
Venti chuckles. “Getting lectured by the great Adeptus Xiao about such things...Aren’t you being a bit hypocritical?”
“If I was not aware of my limits, I would not be the sole surviving Yaksha,” Xiao points out as he cleans the wound. Venti had been playing with such force that the strings had rubbed through his calluses, digging to the softer skin below. Though the cuts are small and shallow, Xiao tends to them diligently.
“If you were aware of your limits,” Venti says, and there’s something underlying his tone that Xiao can’t pinpoint, “perhaps you wouldn’t have nearly succumbed to your karmic debt, only to be saved by Barbatos.”
Xiao’s head snaps up. “Where did you hear that from?!”
Venti smiles noncommittally. “Oh, I know my stories! I’m a bard, after all.”
Xiao watches him, troubled. The answer was far from satisfactory. He’s certain he’s the only one who knows this tale.
Or, well. There could be another, but that was more difficult to contend with. It is easier to think that a god is simply ignorant than to know that Xiao is not worth coming back to.
Xiao pushes the thoughts away. He carefully wraps bandages around Venti’s fingers, slow and precise. When he treats his own injuries, it is typically a haphazard affair, only enough to prevent further irritation. Venti, however, is worthy of the kindness he thinks Xiao so capable of.
As soon as he finishes, Venti wiggles his fingers, smiling softly. “Thank you, Xiao.” A pause. “I feel like I’ve been saying that a lot, tonight.”
He thinks: I should be thanking you.
Then: Songs, touch, laughter—these are gifts I cannot repay.
And then: For you, this is not a chore, it is a want. I want to do this. I want—
He stops. Swallows. Says: “You do not need to thank me.”
Venti hums. “I want to, then. I want you to know that I’m grateful for you.”
Xiao has no words for that. Venti has this way of making him feel...important. He is accustomed to the mortal world’s timid deference; the adepti have long been respected by Liyue’s people, and Xiao’s status within these ranks is nothing to be scoffed at. But Venti always notes the little things, the ones buried in a place beyond adeptus and yaksha and warrior. Relics from a simpler, happier time. It makes Xiao feel clear-cut and exposed, and for once, he doesn’t want to shy away.
See me, his heart whispers. Know me.
It’s a strange, unsettling feeling. Freeing, too, if he dares to admit it.
Venti tests his fingers against the lyre, winces when he tries to pull its string. “Hm, perhaps I was a bit too...reckless in my playing earlier.”
That is one way to put it. “You were,” Xiao says. Then, after a moment: “Why?”
Venti purses his lips. “I’m just a bard,” he says, again, less impish, more rueful. “I’m not the hero, I tell their stories. And I think, just in case, someone else should hold onto them, too. Then, one day, if I can no longer carry them, they still have somewhere to go.”
Xiao grinds to a halt. Turns to stone. The air has frozen solid.
Contingency plans. Because Venti was a mortal. Because nothing, not even songs, are eternal. Because if every journey has a beginning, so too must it have an ending.
What a cruel thing to be reminded of in this moment.
But why bring it up? Why mention it, unless—unless—
Xiao’s heart is in his throat. When he speaks, his voice is brittle. “You—you’re not—you aren’t—”
Venti’s head whips to him in surprise. “No, no, no!” He shakes his head frantically, grasping Xiao’s hand in his. His thumb brushes over the bump of the hair tie on his wrist. “No, I’m fine. I think. It’s nothing to worry about. I just wanted to tell you. I want them to be remembered. And I trust them with you.”
Xiao focuses on the feeling of Venti’s hand over his, lets his touch melt through the glove. There is not much he can offer, and even less he can admit to, but…
“When the Qingxin bloom,” Xiao murmurs, “I will dance. If you write me a song.”
Venti makes a surprised but pleased sound. “Oh, what an offer, I would be a fool to not accept! I’ve always wanted to see you dance, and writing a song for you would be an honor. Do you have any requests?”
Xiao thumbs over Venti’s pulse point, feeling the steady beat beat beat against his skin.
If there’s anyone’s memory he wants to keep...
“About you. I want—“ He looks away abruptly. “...I want something about you.”
Venti falls silent. Xiao counts the heartbeats against his thumb.
Then, quietly: “And if I’m not who you think you are?” A pause. More tentatively, a flutter in the breeze: “Or if I’m not quite anyone at all?”
Who is Venti, to Xiao? Xiao has not known him long, but he thinks he knows enough. He knows that Venti is quick to laugh, quicker to love. He is as playful as he is kind, as whimsical as he is gentle. He will dress Rex Lapis’s statue in ridiculous outfits, will say silly things because he knows it will make Xiao smile, will stroke a weapon’s cutting edges and not be afraid to bleed. There are still many things that Xiao has yet to learn, but he at least knows the delicate rhythm of Venti’s heart.
It is all Xiao needs.
“You’re Venti,” Xiao says, helplessly honest. “There’s no one else I...”
His words fall off, slipping back into the wind. Not yet, not yet.
Venti sighs. He leans against Xiao’s arm. Rests his head against Xiao’s shoulder, hooks his foot around Xiao’s.
“All right, then, Xiao,” he whispers, “I’ll be looking forward to it.”
Fingers against his neck.
Fingers against his chest.
A song in his ear.
“I’ve saved you once, dear adeptus, didn’t I?”
He did, he did, he did.
“Will you let me save you again?”
Yes, he thinks. I am tired, he thinks.
Barbatos, he thinks. Barbatos, Barbatos, Barbatos.
Xiao is on fire. Xiao is burning.
Xiao is—
“Xiao!”
Xiao starts awake. There is no time for thought; he materializes his polearm in his grip and points it forward in warning, instincts roaring to life.
Two, green eyes blink innocently back.
Venti smiles sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Tension leaves him in a huff. His polearm dissipates back into thin air. “You need to be careful. I could’ve hurt you.”
“You wouldn’t have!” Venti says with easy conviction, waving off his concerns. “And in my defense, you kept telling me that adepti don’t sleep! I thought maybe you were just having a really long blink.” He grins.
Xiao doesn’t feel the need to reward that with a response. Still, Venti must sense Xiao’s amusement, for he just laughs happily. Light filters in through the window, and Xiao squints when it hits his eyes. He’s sitting with his back pressed against the wall of his room in Wangshu. His head feels out of sorts, muffled. He idly moves his limbs, trying to shake out the strange, heavy feeling weighing them down.
“Why are you here?”
“I was looking for you! I knocked, and you weren’t answering, and the door was unlocked, so...” Venti, at least, has the decency to look guilty. “But I swear, it’s urgent!”
“Urgent,” Xiao repeats, unconvinced.
Venti gives a quick sliver of a smile. He bobs his head from side to side, his braids bouncing with the movement. “Are you free?”
“I have my duty to tend to.”
“Ah, I’m sure Liyue will be fine! Oh, or I could tag along with you?”
Xiao frowns. “You shouldn’t. It’s dangerous.” And then: “This doesn’t sound urgent.”
“It is!” Venti insists, though his eyes dart back and forth uncertainly. He extends a hand towards Xiao. “I’m just...I just want to have a nice day today, and my days are far nicer when you’re around. That’s all.”
Venti so rarely asks things for himself. Important things, that is, and though this seems minute upon first glance, there is a pleading urgency underlying Venti’s tone. Something imperative lies here, something Xiao isn’t privy to yet. He tips his head, listening. Liyue is not in danger. Something else might be.
Venti bites his lip, rocks on the balls of his feet. He shifts, half a step back, retracting the hand he offered. “But if you can’t today, then that’s all right, too, don’t worry—”
Xiao catches his hand. Pulls himself up to a stand.
“...Where do you want to go?”
Venti smiles.
Sunlight spills out from behind Guyun Stone Forest’s craggy peaks. Its warmth is a welcome weight on Xiao’s skin.
Venti sighs contentedly, digging the tip of his shoe into the sand. “Oh, I bet it feels so nice! Maybe I should remove my stockings right here and now?” He looks at Xiao, eyes squinted in mischief, grin bright.
For a fraction of a second, Xiao’s eyes dart towards the aforementioned article of clothing. And then he imagines them gone. Inexplicably, he feels the tips of his ears redden and he looks away sharply, hiding the lower half of his face with his palm. For a multitude of reasons, many of which he can’t bring himself to articulate, Xiao manages to say, “You should not.”
Venti cackles.
“There!” Venti puffs his chest out in victory. “For our first sandcastle, I think it looks quite nice!”
As he speaks, the tip of their serendipitously tall tower begins to slide to the ground. Xiao uses a burst of Anemo to keep it upright.
“It does,” Xiao acknowledges, though he doesn’t quite have a bar for these sorts of things, especially when it comes to this particular mishmash of Liyuean and Mondstadtian motifs. But if Venti, master of poetry and song, says it looks nice, surely it must. “It doesn’t have structural integrity,” Xiao adds, because it’s true. “It won’t last.”
Venti makes a face. “Well, it doesn’t need to last, as long as our memory of it does! Then it will live on with us.” He squats down, jamming two short sticks just between their castle and its wobbly, misshapen moat. “See, this is us!” he says.
A pause.
“You’re the shorter one,” Venti adds, because he’s a menace. “Since you’re short.”
Xiao looks Venti dead in the eye and lets the tower crumble.
Xiao lifts the Starconch to his head, the opening slotting over his ear. He listens for a beat, then says, “It still sounds like the wind.”
He’s sitting in the sand, one leg propped up, the other teasing the edge of the water. The tide swells, a wave lapping at the sole of his shoe. Venti’s back is pressed flush against his.
“Hmm... Try this one! It sounds more ocean-y, I think!” Venti chirps, pushing another Starconch in his direction. Xiao accepts it.
This time, when Xiao brings it to his ear, he still hears its tell-tale hollow echo. However, soon after, it begins to bleed into a short, lilting melody.
“Did you listen?” Venti prompts when Xiao stays silent. Xiao can feel Venti’s weight against him shift, the latter certainly digging through the sand for more shells.
“There’s music,” Xiao murmurs, a subtle note of wonder coloring his words.
Venti makes a sound of approval and shoves another shell towards him. “Try this one, then!”
Skeptical, Xiao slowly raises it to his ear.
“Well, Adeptus Xiao?” Venti’s voice, melodic and soft, whispers from within. “Are you having fun?”
Venti leans back, resting more of his weight against Xiao. He settles his head against Xiao’s shoulder, braid brushing against Xiao’s arm. “Well?”
Despite himself, the smallest of laughs blooms from Xiao’s throat. It’s a soft thing, only recently rediscovered, but even so, a part of it slips into the shell and latches on. He passes it to Venti, hoping that it in itself is an answer.
“Ah,” Venti sighs as he listens. Awe flowers from his tone, sweet as pollen. When he laughs, it sends pleasant vibrations down Xiao’s back. “Music, indeed.”
Venti’s legs are crossed in front of him at the mouth of the cave. In his palms, he cradles a Geo crystalfly, giggling as its wings tickle his skin.
“Hold still,” Xiao mutters, his fingers clumsily tangled in a lock of Venti’s hair.
“You’re taking so long,” Venti teases, making no effort to hold still at all. “The mighty yaksha, baffled by a braid!”
Xiao scowls. He wonders what Venti’s hair would feel like without his gloves, if it would be as soft and silken as it seems. “You’re the one who asked me to do this.”
A laugh. The crystalfly floats free from Venti’s grasp. “You’re the one who caught them all. You said they’d look nice in my hair.”
Xiao fiddles with the crystal core in his other hand, trying to position it in Venti’s braid. He keeps his eyes glued to his work, not daring to look up to meet Venti’s gaze. “I haven’t done this before,” he says, shoulders hunched.
Venti kindly pats his knee in reassurance. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Venti swipe a crystal core from the pile at his side. Humming, Venti leans forward (much to Xiao’s dismay—what was so difficult about holding still?) to slide the crystal core along Xiao’s hair. He holds it just above Xiao’s ear.
“Maybe something like this?” Venti says. “Ah, you look good no matter what I do. It’s unfair.”
Xiao’s cheeks burn; he wonders if Venti can feel it radiating off his skin. “Venti,” Xiao says. He’s unsure if he can say anything else. His fingers are still caught within Venti’s braid.
Venti laughs, sweet, soft. “Xiao,” he replies, palm shifting to the side of Xiao’s face. Xiao looks up, catches Venti’s eyes in his. His heart stumbles uselessly in his chest. His eyes dart to Venti’s lips. These desires are of no use to adepti. But Venti’s hand is gentle against the curve of his cheek, and he wants—he wants—
A crystalfly dips between them, a trail of golden glitter dusting down. “Xiao,” Venti whispers again, a tenuous tremor to his voice. A breath of air teases Xiao’s lips. “Can I...?”
Xiao closes the gap.
Venti’s lips are soft and warm against his. Xiao has never kissed anyone before, has never even considered it, except with Venti; for the first moment, he feels stiff and foolish. However, all his worries soon come undone bit by bit, washed away by each beat of his heart. Venti, his heart sighs, and then nothing else seems to matter then. Venti, Venti, Venti.
Venti lets the crystal core fall to the ground. He cards his fingers through Xiao’s hair, cupping the back of his head. Xiao melts into the touch.
When Venti breaks away, he comes to rest his forehead against Xiao’s. Xiao is still holding Venti's braid in his fingers, and he trails his fingers up its length to ghost against Venti’s cheek. Venti covers Xiao’s hand with his own, guiding it to press flush against his face. Tentatively, he runs his thumb along Venti’s cheekbone, and Venti sighs contentedly, letting his eyelids flutter shut.
“Thank you for indulging me,” Venti laughs, a little breathless. Xiao doesn’t trust the steadiness of his voice, so he gives a soft hum in response. “Adeptus Xiao,” Venti says, always so willing to give him choice, “what do you want to do now?”
His heart, so used to being stifled, easily thrums an answer. He wants, so terribly, so desperately. For once, Xiao lets it guide him.
He pulls Venti in again, and again, and again.
A crystalfly floats by the cave’s opening. Xiao tracks it with his eyes, hand half-raised as if to catch it.
The night air is cool as it curls against Xiao’s cheek, but not uncomfortably so. Venti’s quietly humming a made-up tune, his head resting in Xiao’s lap. The weight of it is calming, grounding; it soothes the sharper edges of his karma, returns to him a taste of peace.
Venti reaches up to grasp Xiao’s hand in his, intertwining their fingers. Xiao lets a small smile flicker to his lips, which Venti returns tenfold.
A few moments of serene silence pass.
Then, Venti lets out a shuddering breath, shattering the quietness of the cave. His grip on Xiao’s hand tightens.
Xiao frowns. “Venti?”
“Mm,” Venti murmurs lightly, “I’m just tired, I think.”
“You can sleep,” Xiao tells him. It’s not too cold that Venti will fall ill. Besides, Xiao can take them back to Wangshu if needed.
Venti bites his lip. “Xiao, I...” he starts, hesitant. Sighs. Squeezes Xiao’s hand. Tries again. “There’s... things I should tell you. But it’s—I just—” He cuts himself off with a self-deprecating laugh, bitter and acrid. “Ah, I’m just a coward, really.”
Xiao has never hated the sound of Venti’s laughter until now. “It can wait.”
“I’m not sure it can,” Venti says, punctuating it with another one of those horrible little laughs. He rubs his thumb along the back of Xiao’s hand. “Sometimes...I almost feel like I’m fading,” he whispers. “I feel strange, and my head hurts, and I just feel so exhausted now...”
“You should see a doctor in Liyue Harbor tomorrow,” Xiao tells him, ever practical. Venti makes a face, and Xiao huffs a laugh.
“Sleep, tonight,” Xiao says softly. “I’ll be here when you wake.”
Something about that strikes Venti. Venti’s eyes widen, fingers tightening in Xiao’s hold. His expression crumples, a watery shimmer glistening in his eyes. “Okay,” he whispers, voice terribly small. “That—I’d like that. Thank you.”
Xiao rests his head against the wall of the cave, listening to the quiet sound of Venti’s breathing until it evens out. In his head, he counts them: one, two, three.
His heart beats in tandem. One, two, three.
There is a word, he thinks, associated with each count. It makes a simple phrase, one that’s still too large for him to say.
But every journey has a beginning.
This one starts like this: one, two, three.
And if every journey has a beginning, it must have an ending.
This one ends like this:
One: Barbatos’s laughter ringing in his ear.
Two: Barbatos’s fingers hot on his chest.
Three: “Rest, dear Yaksha,“ Barbatos croons. “Soon, you will be free.”
Barbatos is the god of freedom, and freedom is a thing that Xiao has never let his thoughts entertain. Yet things are only so tempting when they come from Barbatos’s lips. Gods and their ire, these are things that have no death, and Xiao has sworn to always be there to quell them, but, oh, his limbs are so heavy and his heart is so weary.
Barbatos had brought him peace, once. Xiao can find it once more, in this bloom of feathers and song.
Freedom. Yes. He can be free.
Barbatos winds a hand into Xiao’s, the skin-on-skin contact causing a shiver to run through Xiao’s bones. He’s not certain when his glove had come off, but that isn't important. Xiao looks, and—
His wrist is bare.
There’s nothing strange about that. He’s never worn anything there. But still, that’s—that’s wrong, isn’t it?
He’s missing something. What’s he missing?
Barbatos’s touch is searing through Xiao’s skin, something vile burning through his veins. Agony and fire and destruction, and yes, that’s what touch is for Xiao, it’s all he’s known, and—
Wait.
He’s still staring at his bare wrist.
That’s right. Once, someone had held his hand and told him touch could be kind.
He sucks in a sharp breath. He clings to that memory, pulling, pulling, pulling.
He pulls out sweet melodies and sun-bright laughter, crystalflies and Cecilias, your thoughts are beautiful and you deserve this, too and—
Venti.
Venti, Venti, Venti.
A streak of clarity breaks through the fog in his mind.
That’s right. He can’t stay here. He has to return to Venti’s side, to be there when he wakes.
Violently, he jerks away from Barbatos’s embrace, stumbling back. His polearm materializes itself, a cool and steady weight in his hand. Fire is still blazing through his skin. He holds his polearm forward in warning.
Barbatos is still smiling. “Oh,” he says, and now that the fog in his head has abated, Xiao can hear the way that voice echoes with ruin, layered with devastation. Though he still cannot see Barbatos’s face, he can feel the air crackling with energy, Anemo savage and furious as it whips around them. This wind is sharp. Bitter. It is nothing like the gentle wind he once met, tickling Dihua’s reeds.
Barbatos snaps his wings back, stray feathers snagged into the storm. He wraps a hand on the polearm pointed at his chest, just below its point, stilling it. “Adeptus Xiao, don’t you wish to be free?”
Freedom. It is still foreign to his ears, uncomfortable on his tongue. He does not know freedom. But it couldn’t be this.
“This is a dream,” Xiao says, “and you are no savior.”
And he drives his spear through Barbatos’s chest.
But Xiao does not wake. His polearm is still in his hands.
The wind is dying down, storm stilling to an eerie silence. There is only the slow drip drip drip of blood onto the ground, deafening in the quiet. The thick, heavy feeling in his mind is fading, clarity of his senses returning to him in ragged shards. His eyes slide to Barbatos’s face, and this time, his eyes can catch on his features, can shift look into see, and he sees—he sees—
“Venti?!”
The name is wrenched out of his very chest, horrible and choked and strangled, coughed out like petals, like feathers, like nightmares. Venti is—He stabbed—
No no no nonono—
He needs to wake up. This is a dream. This is a nightmare. Wake up wake up wake up—
Why isn’t he waking up?!
“...Xiao...?” Venti’s voice is a threadbare whisper, a mere ghost of the one Xiao is so used to knowing. His eyes are half-lidded and unfocused. The word seems to steal the rest of Venti’s energy. His eyelids fall shut, and he falls unconscious, tipping forward as his wings disappear in a shower of bloodstained feathers. Xiao catches him by the shoulder, keeping the polearm in place out of fear of worsening the wound.
“Venti—Venti!” Xiao urges, voice edging on desperation. His stomach churns, nausea welling up thick in his throat. His mind is fumbling, grasping for laughter and crystalflies and something—anything—other than this, than blood slick on his palms, breaths faint against his neck, a god dying in his arms.
(Not just a god, but his—his—)
This—this is an ending, one he cannot accept without it snapping his spine under its weight. Loss has always been his most dear and most dreaded companion, always winding her fingers around his heart until her nails pierce through its veins. Still, he has persisted, he has lived, he has survived, even as his heart is bleeding out. But a loss like this, done by his own hands—how can he survive this?
Venti stills in his arms.
(No.)
His karma shrieks in his ears.
(No.)
A roar thunders at his back, but he can’t afford to pay it any attention, until—
“Venti!”
Lumine storms in from the back of a dragon, her pixie companion nowhere to be found. She runs to Venti’s side, followed by a woman he doesn’t recognize. When their hands touch Venti (Venti, cold, unmoving, Venti), Xiao stumbles away as if burned.
The woman summons a field of restorative Anemo energy, glowing over Venti's wound. Xiao’s spear clatters to the ground.
The pair of them are speaking, but most of it rushes through his ears. Pieces of their conversation manage to shatter through the uproar in his mind:
“—Barbatos—”
“—Abyss—”
“—Windrise—”
Lumine’s eyes finally lock onto him, golden and sharp.
“Xiao—”
But Xiao can’t listen to this. He can’t be here, he can’t.
Lumine must see this in his expression, for she reaches forward to stop him.
“Wait!”
He’s gone in a flash of teal and black.
In the wake of battle and blood often comes devastation.
For Xiao, this comes in the form of clarity.
There was a god who had saved him, once. The god wove a breeze through the holes of a flute and it blew spring into his soul, brought verdant fields and golden sunlight pooling over its rim. There, flowers could bloom without withering away and birds could have wings without clipped feathers and nightmares could twist into something sweet enough to swallow down.
Spring is ephemeral; soon after, the flowers rotted, the birds lost their wings, the nightmares carved him bloody once more. Still, the wind had sown a seed, buried it deep in his heart. And he waited and listened and hoped—for songs and springtimes and sunlight, for the seed to sprout so he could see if it could one day bloom into something beautiful.
The thing he forgot: Xiao is not a creature meant to listen and wait and hope. And his soul has nothing beautiful to be found.
And this, this was where the mistake lay: Xiao—Xiao, the weapon, the bloodhound, the sinner—thought he could be capable of saving someone, too.
When the wind carried to him something bitter and caustic, he foolishly thought he could turn it soft, turn it sweet. Instead, the god, cloaked in abyss and corruption, grabbed ahold of his wants and thanks and prayers. It poisoned his thoughts, muddling his senses, his perception, his judgment. It turned seconds in reality into minutes, into hours, into days in a dream.
In his dreams, Xiao can have crystalflies and songs and pretty bards in his hands. There, he can taste the sweetness of desire and hold laughter between his teeth without tearing it apart.
But this is reality.
In reality, Xiao only has blood and carnage and a god’s corpse at his feet.
Xiao carries on.
He trudges through his days.
He patrols. He fights. He bleeds.
He does not face Dihua Marsh.
He does not listen for a flute.
This is enough. This must be enough.
A week passes.
Two weeks.
Three.
And then, Xiao no longer keeps track.
After all, nothing changes. Not even the direction of the wind.
“Xiao,” Verr Goldet calls to him one day. He is dripping blood onto Wangshu Inn’s floors, but Verr does not seem to mind. “Are you all right?”
He’s heard this question before, laced with Zhongli’s steady concern, with Ganyu’s hesitant worry. Each time someone says it, a new wave of bitterness seizes his heart. He is not the one deserving of this care.
“That is none of your concern,” he says, rather unkindly.
“You stay at my inn,” she tells him gently, “so it is my concern. You’ve been pushing yourself lately. I think it would be wise to rest.”
Rest.
No, he does not want rest, of all things. He wants to dig his fingers into his chest and rip his beating heart out of his ribcage. He wants to feel every hurt, every sting, until he rots for all he’s done.
But he has a duty to Liyue. He has a debt to repay, so he will repent for his sins and wait for the day it buries him whole.
“It is none of your concern,” Xiao repeats, harsher. A growl underlays his tone.
Verr Goldet frowns. She opens her mouth, then lets it fall closed. “Be safe,” she says to him eventually, right before he leaves the inn.
He does not acknowledge her words.
When he returns that evening, Verr Goldet has cleaned the bloodstains from the flooring. A plate of almond tofu sits on the balcony.
He leaves it untouched.
Karma binds his ankles, his wrists, his neck. Xiao grunts through the blood and debt pooling around his fangs and stabs his polearm deep into the dirt. Wafts of bitter corruption simmer off the massacred monsters at his feet.
Blood oozes from a brutal cut on his side, and Xiao hisses as a whip of wind bites against it. His movements had been careless today, limbs unwieldy and feet slow on the draw. It’s laughable, almost, for someone of his caliber to fight so clumsily.
His demons wail, sharp against his tender eardrums. He grits his teeth. Tightens his fist.
He cannot rest.
He cannot.
(What would his dreams hand him, if he did? And when they were torn from his still-sore fingertips, what then?
He is so, so tired of losing things.)
A mitachurl’s roar, feral with hatred, breaks through the anguish roiling in his gut. He curses. He spins around, but his feet are still too sluggish, his hold on his powers too uncoordinated. The axe comes down. Though he lurches away, he knows it’s still too slow. Grimacing, he braces himself for the hit.
A gust of wind crashes straight into the mitachurl's chest.
He watches it, struck still. For a wild moment, something skewing too close to hope flutters up to stick in his throat.
“Xiao!”
It crumbles to dust.
Xiao forces out a rough breath. His fangs sting at his lip. “It’s you.”
Paimon flutters by his head. Through his mask, he sees her stomp her foot in the air. “Hey! Paimon has a name, you know!”
“Paimon,” Lumine chastises as she approaches, sword in hand. “Hello, Xiao.” She eyes the aftermath of the battle, slight frown pulling at her features as she takes in Xiao’s sorry state. Xiao crosses his arms, dematerializing his mask and feeling it settle against his hip. His karma is still scalding against his skin, grating to his ears, but whatever purification power Lumine possesses is able to take off a bit of the edge.
“We were headed to Wangshu, actually.” Lumine says it so carefully, watching his expression. “Would you like to come with us?”
It comes out closer to a request than a question. Still, Xiao shakes his head, ignoring a sharp sting from his wound. “I have business elsewhere.”
Lumine and Paimon exchange a look. She opens her mouth, and, for a fraction of a second, Xiao thinks she may demand his assistance, an order built on the brick and gravel of the promise he once swore to her.
Lumine, of course, does not. Unfortunately, what she does say is infinitely more effective.
“Please?”
Lumine slides a plate of almond tofu across the table. Her own side is overcrowded with plates on plates of Liyuen dishes, which Paimon begins inhaling at rather alarming speeds.
“From Smiley Yanxiao,” she explains, clicking a pair of chopsticks against her plate, “as thanks.”
While Xiao tended to the worst of his injuries, Lumine and Paimon had rushed through a commission for the inn’s resident chef. Though, he notes, their meager fetch quest did not seem to warrant quite this much reward (did mortals truly need help with such simple tasks like vegetable-picking?).
When Xiao doesn’t move, Lumine glances at the almond tofu and hesitates. “Is something wrong? We can order you something else if you’d like.”
“No,” he says, stilted. I can’t have this, he wants to say. Dreams and sweet things, do you really think I deserve it?
Lumine blinks. She’s still staring at the dessert in front of Xiao. Sighing, Xiao picks up a spoon and lets a smooth chunk of almond tofu slide down his throat.
Lumine relaxes, just a hair. “We meant to visit you earlier,” she informs him apologetically. Her fingers are clumsy with the chopsticks; a sliver of bamboo shoot slips from her grasp and plops onto the table. “It’s just been busy lately, with...” She trails off.
Paimon swallows down a mouthful of Tianshu meat. “With Venti almost dying,” she completes without hesitation.
Xiao stiffens. Lumine winces.
“...Right.” She sighs, and it takes whatever good mood she had with it. She pulls at a loose thread on her glove. Xiao watches as it comes out, and out, and out. “We wanted to make sure you were okay. You left so quickly.”
“I am used to dealing with dark forces,” Xiao mutters. The thread snaps.
Lumine laughs lightly, but there’s no humor in it. “You immortals,” she says, “never looking after yourselves.”
Xiao isn’t quite sure what to say to that. He doesn’t think it’s really about him at all.
Sensing the shift in mood, Paimon rests a light hand on Lumine’s shoulder and offers her a crystal shrimp dumpling. Lumine smiles gently in response, graciously accepting the gift.
“You’re our friend,” Lumine tells him softly after she swallows it down. “We care about you. We just want to ensure that you’re all right.”
Xiao takes another bite of the almond tofu. The texture he so used to savor feels unpleasant in his mouth.
“...I was not hurt physically,” he says. “Zhongli was able to help with the lingering effects of the abyssal corruption.” He remembers the weariness of Zhongli’s eyes then, the bow to his shoulders. How Xiao had looked at him and the realization of I am the reason he almost lost a friend had hollowed him out.
Lumine’s smile turns genuine, relieved. “That’s good.”
There are a few more things he could say, sticking to his tongue like syrup. I might have slipped into his dream, for one. I met someone there, and when he held my hand and softened my cannots into cans, I wanted to believe him. I have never wanted something like that before, another. And, most desperately: I no longer know if he was real. Tell me, was that, too, a trick of the abyss?
He does not say any of them. He swallows another piece of almond tofu. The sugar is tacky in his mouth.
“How is Barbatos?” he asks instead.
Lumine leans back against her seat, something troubled flickering across her face, eyebrows knitting together. “He’s...he’s healed, physically, and the abyssal corruption is at bay, but...” Her eyes dart towards him, as if uncertain if she should continue. Uncertain how Xiao would shoulder this hit, too. Idly, he wonders what she thinks Barbatos means to her. He wonders if she might be correct.
“He hasn’t woken up,” she finishes quietly. She folds in on herself, palms on her elbows, chin tucked to her chest.
“But he will!” Paimon insists, all fiery conviction and pure determination, as if she could command her will into the universe on belief alone. “He just really likes sleeping, but he’ll wake up soon!”
Lumine looks less convinced. Still, she echoes, “He will.”
Xiao’s fingers curl into a fist on his lap. “I apologize,” he says, guilt heavy on his breath.
They both turn to him, confused. “What?” Lumine frowns. “Nothing’s your fault, Xiao.”
Xiao scoffs, bitter and hateful. “You were there. You know what happened.”
“It’s not—”
He has no desire to hear any of her lies, no matter how well-intentioned. “Don’t avoid the truth. I nearly ended his life.”
Though he’s known it for so long, this is the first time he has said it aloud. It is like grieving it anew, hearing it now. He takes a deep breath, forcing the wind to hold him upright.
Lumine shakes her head. “I’m not, Xiao. By the time we arrived, the storm was in full force. If you weren’t there, I don’t think we could have ever gotten through its walls. We were running out of time.”
“Yeah!” Paimon nods vigorously. “You helped save him!”
“The physical damage to Mondstadt is repairable,” Lumine says. “But had the storm continued any longer, he would have hurt its people. For someone like Venti, I’m not sure there could have been any coming back from that. You stopped him just in time. There wasn’t much else you could do, Xiao.”
Saved, they say. Xiao can feel that word drift from their lips, float on the wind, settle against his rigid frame. No matter how soft its shape, it still nips against his raw skin, stinging.
“His wound is completely healed,” Lumine adds, reaching back for her chopsticks. “Whatever is plaguing him now is not by your hand.”
Xiao’s fingers curl tighter, unwilling to accept the things they say. “That’s not…I can’t…”
Lumine and Paimon share a look with one another. Their constant shared companionship almost seems to have lent them a peculiar kind of telepathy, and they appear to arrive at the same conclusion. They set their food down, perfectly in sync.
“Would you like to see him?” Lumine asks. Paimon's nodding along.
Xiao freezes in place. “What?”
“Venti,” she clarifies. “Would you like to see him?”
"I..." He shouldn’t. He knows he should stay far, far away.
But perhaps it’s the feeling of the word saved, prickly and novel, slowly easing the blackness in his chest. Or perhaps it’s the guilt, still rotting away at his heart.
Perhaps it’s simply the sweetness still lingering on his tongue.
Xiao’s mouth runs dry. He says, half-order, half-plea, “Take me to him.”
In all his years, Xiao can count the number of times he’s left Liyue on one hand.
Half of them on behalf of his god, who on rare occasions would request that he carry out official business in neighboring lands. And now, the other half on behalf of another god.
“He’s at Windrise,” Lumine informs him.
“He’s sleeping in the tree,” Paimon adds sagely.
Xiao stares at them. “....You left the comatose Anemo Archon in a tree?”
A wry smile pulls at Lumine’s lips. “It heals him, so we thought it would help. The Knights have told people to keep away, and a friend’s keeping watch.” She pauses. “If it helps, that’s where he usually sleeps.”
“...The Anemo Archon sleeps in trees?”
“Yeah… the Tone-Deaf Bard is realllllly lazy,” Paimon says, like that helps.
Lumine laughs under her breath. “He’s also penniless,” she says, and though her words are not exactly kind, her tone is warm, fond. “He plays at the tavern so people will buy him drinks.”
Paimon swivels over to Xiao’s head, eager to continue their string of grievances. “He steals food from the winery, too!”
Like this, the pair of them continue to regale him with stories of Venti’s various feats, slowly unraveling the details of his daily life. The picture they paint is a far cry from the Anemo Archon he had once envisioned, all grace and gentle power. But between his antics and his kindness, the tales they weave sound so terribly like the Venti he once met.
Xiao listens to them all. It’s all he has wanted to hear.
The aforementioned friend turns out to be, of all things, a dragon.
Dvalin is wary of Xiao’s presence, curled tightly around the tree as if hoarding a trove of gold and gems. The feather of his tail sweeps along the grass, kicking up clouds of dust in its wake.
“I understand you did not want to hurt him,” the dragon says, his voice a low rumble, “but it was still difficult to see.”
Xiao can’t fault him for that.
Lumine, luckily, has enough charisma for the both of them. She falters once, only on defining his and Venti’s relationship, but when she glances back at Xiao for help, he merely stares back. Eventually, Dvalin begins to ease, the worst of his worries soothed by Lumine’s reassurances. Though he is evidently far from thrilled by Xiao’s arrival, he at least comes to accept it.
Dvalin raises one of his wings and, there, tucked against the tree, dressed in that obnoxious green that he so loves, is Venti. He’s missing his hat, but his braids are well-plaited. He looks peaceful, eyes shut, lips and cheeks rosy with life. Relief pools in Xiao’s ribcage, his heart unclenching as he watches the subtle rise and fall of Venti’s chest.
He’s alive. He’s alive. Xiao lets out a trembling breath.
In another world, in a kinder world, Venti has just drifted off to sleep, his head on Xiao’s lap, and their fingers are tangled together. There are crystalflies leaving a trail of golden stardust and Starconches heavy with laughter at their side, and Xiao is counting Venti's breaths as his heart beats along, steady, steady, steady.
He feels a phantom pressure wrapped around his wrist, snug over his pulse point. When he runs a finger along his glove, it’s flat.
His fingers curl into a fist. That’s right. That is not this world.
(But could it be, one day?)
Once, Venti had told him of a game that mortals play with flowers, one about love. They would pluck the petals off, one by one. “They love me,” they would say. Pluck. “They love me not.” Pluck. Over and over again until its pistils were entirely bare, holding onto the last petal like it was a product of divine ruling. Like most things mortals partook in, Xiao had thought it ridiculous.
Still, for a moment, as he watches Venti sleep, he imagines that he has a flower in his hand. He pictures that he tugs out its petals, one by one.
(Can. Cannot. Can. Cannot.)
In his head, he stops halfway through, petals still plenty enough that he cannot deduce its resolution. He knows what the answer should be. He also knows what he wants it to be. Right now, he’s not certain he can face either.
A leaf is pulled loose from the tree, caught by the wind. It flutters down, looping once, twice, thrice in the air before settling softly on Venti’s cheek. Lumine gently picks it off. Dvalin’s tail curls over to rest atop of Venti’s legs.
Xiao returns to Liyue.
Before, Xiao could count the number of times he’s left Liyue on one hand.
This changes.
There is no precise schedule, for Xiao still has his duty to tend to, but if the karma is quiet and the wind is sweet, Xiao will find his feet taking him to Mondstadt. He keeps his distance, close enough to count Venti’s breaths, but far enough that he can disappear if Venti begins to stir awake.
Dvalin learns to acclimate to his visits. Sensitive to the shadows that linger on Xiao’s form, the dragon struggles to be completely at ease, but he eventually accepts the inevitability of Xiao’s presence. Upon his arrival, Dvalin will silently loosen his grip, lift his wing, and let Xiao see that Venti is still alive, alive, alive.
One evening, Xiao sitting amongst the tree's rough branches, Dvalin speaks to him.
“He has mentioned you before. Once.”
Xiao frowns. He lets go of the leaf between his fingers. “That’s not possible. We haven’t met.”
A low noise grumbles in the back of Dvalin’s throat. He raises his head, looking at Xiao through the gaps in the leaves. “Did the girl not say the two of you were friends?”
Xiao crosses his arms. “...The situation is complicated.” Then, curiosity bubbling out with it: “What did he say?”
“Hm.” Dvalin lowers his head back to the grass. A flower blows lazily in the wind. “It was centuries ago. I no longer remember the details. Only that there was a warrior in Liyue he played a song for. And that he wished to meet him, one day.”
It is not nearly specific enough, harboring none of the minutiae that Xiao inexplicably craves. How did he know who Xiao was? Why did he save him? Did he think Xiao noble? Pitiful? Did he know he had an Anemo Vision? Did he think it suit Xiao, for him to have something that connected the two of them?
And, most notably: if he wished for them to meet, then why did he never return?
This revelation is a strange one to bear. His life has carried an echo of Barbatos for so long—in the apples he leaves at the altar, in the notes of the flute he plays on lantern-lit evenings, in every turn of season as winter’s strident winds gave way to spring’s benevolence. Barbatos was a ghost on the edge of his story, ever-present, never tangible. To hear that Barbatos held him in similar regard is surprising; it sends a jolt of electricity through him, tingling through his fingertips and leaving wisps of smoke in its wake.
He breathes it in, bitter and sweet both, intricately intertwined. For once, he doesn’t choke.
Xiao pushes himself off the tree, landing swiftly on the ground. Fear roils in his gut, but he stifles it. He had hoped that Venti would wake on his own, had thought that if Xiao intervened he would only bring ruin once more.
But he has a debt to repay. And—and it’s Venti. For Venti, he can try and face his fears.
“Ensure that no one disturbs us,” he tells the dragon, kneeling at Venti’s side. He pulls off his glove, letting it fall to the ground. The wind brushes against his fingers, cool against his newly bare skin.
The dragon watches him closely. Adeptal energy coalesces into ribbons at their feet, twisting along the tree’s gnarled roots.
“Adeptus,” Dvalin warns lowly, “if you bring him any harm...”
“I will not,” Xiao replies. It is said with far more conviction than he feels. His heart is an unsteady creature nestled in the core of his chest, fiddling, fluttering, faltering.
Dvalin is not particularly moved. Nevertheless, as Xiao settles in at Venti’s side, Dvalin shifts so his largest wing hovers over the pair of them, sheltering them both.
Xiao’s eyes flick over Venti’s sleeping face. They run along the soft curve of his cheek, the gentle slope of his nose, the sweet rise and dip of his lips. Even like this, his beauty is striking, dappled by sunlight, lashes dark against pale skin, raven hair tickling his temple. However, the stillness is disquieting. Venti’s true beauty lies in his vivid spirit, in the brightness of his laughter, in the way the world bends to follow his charm. To see him like this, unmoving, a prop in the world instead of the light it chases, makes Xiao’s chest twist.
A stray wisp of wind twirls through one of Venti’s plaits, tugging a few stray strands of hair loose. Even the wind aches with his absence.
Xiao reaches for Venti’s hand and—
A sequence of images rapidly flashes through his mind:
A spear of jade, piercing through Venti’s chest.
Venti, pale, life spilling out of him in Xiao’s grip.
And the blood. Blood, blood, blood—
When he blinks, his hand is crimson and haunting, and he snaps it back, curls it into a tight fist. His karma flares wildly, dark, sinister, and Dvalin’s tail whips against the ground once in warning.
He blinks again. His hand is clean. His heart is pounding in his ears.
He takes a deep breath. Waits until the worst of his sin slinks back down to the earth.
He steels himself. Tries again, because these are things worth trying again for. He entwines his fingers through Venti’s and—
And, once more, they fit so neatly in its gaps. His skin, windborne and smooth, is cooler to the touch than before, but the familiarity of Venti’s hand in his is terribly grounding. He gives it a slight squeeze.
His eyes close, and a dream swallows him whole.
Sensation comes to him in bits, like stained glass shards clinking into its frame. First, there is the warm crackle of laughter, steady as flames stoked in a hearth. A matching tinkling of bells, drawn out like a sigh of windchimes tickled by the dancing breeze. Petrichor sweetens the air, blooming pleasantly from the dampened soil. He can feel flicks of grass teasing his arm, dew still clinging to their blades, and the kiss of sunshine tickling his skin.
His eyes flutter open. Light filters in, painting his sight in a watercolor of teals and golds and emeralds, shifting and shifting still. He blinks. Their continuous ebb and flow begin to taper, bending to fit within invisible lines. He blinks again.
Like a rubber band snapping into place, the scene clicks into focus.
It’s Venti he sees first. Venti is sitting on a worn wooden bridge, right between two crooked wooden posts. His legs hang off the side, tips of his shoes skirting along the water's surface. He looks—different, somehow. He's lost his hat, and his usual braids are missing their cerulean ends. A brown cape, pinned with a delicate Cecilia, is draped over his figure, obscuring his trademark greens. When he tilts his head, his eyes are bright, clear. Blue. Light as the sky.
Is this Venti from a time before, perhaps, a true mortal? Before Barbatos, before the crown of an Archon was bestowed upon his head? But there’s still something off, in a way Xiao can’t pin down to words. The way he holds himself feels strange, the tempo of his laughter just a half step out of beat. Xiao is hesitant to call him Venti at all.
The source of the bell-like sound twirls into Xiao’s view: a little slip of an elemental creature, no larger than a bird. It flits about playfully, light as a dandelion’s seed pulled along a breeze, every shift accompanied by its own shade of laughter, each eye a thin sliver of light and mirth. Almost-Venti cups his palms, and the little wisp settles into his hands, a flurry of bells and joy and—
Ah.
It’s difficult to say what does it, exactly. If it’s the way the wisp flutters about to the boy’s song, or the way its eyes curve and glitter in delight, or the way it gently brushes against the boy’s cheek. If it’s the way it weaves away the bitter gale to bring a breeze soft enough to carry feathers and petals and pleasant dreams to the boy’s open palms.
Sweeter than spring. Kinder than love. Brighter than hope.
Not yet a god. Not yet a bard. Still worthy of every bit of Xiao’s faith.
The boy speaks.
“My friend,” he says lightly, and even his tone and inflection are different from the kind Xiao has grown used to hearing from that voice, “haven’t you heard enough of my songs by now?”
The sprite floats over to bump into the boy’s nose. “How could I ever tire of such a thing?” Its voice is a light, ringing thing, soft as chimes singing in the springtime sun. Even through the bells, Xiao can hear the familiar rise and dip of tone, the shape of its words.
“Hmmm.” The boy cups the sprite in his hands. “I’m certain even you have your limits. I only have so many melodies to play.”
“Then play them again! I’ll listen, I will, I will!” the wisp says, spinning around his head. “We fight for freedom. Shouldn't I be free to do as I please?”
The boy chuckles. “Certainly. The thing about freedom, though, is that you don’t let other things make your decisions for you.” He tilts his head. “Not even fear.”
A puff of air blows back the boy’s bangs, and he laughs.
“You know I always treasured your company,” he says kindly. “I’m not sure what I would’ve done without you.”
“You’re speaking in the past tense, silly bard. Humans can be so strange." The wisp rubs against the boy's cheek affectionately. "Don't worry, I won’t leave your side, I promise! I’ll learn your freedom, no matter how long it takes.”
The boy smiles, but the edge of it wobbles. “It was never my freedom I wanted you to know. I only ever wanted you to find your own.” He unpins the Cecilia on his cape, holding it out to the sprite. “Besides, isn’t there something you were looking forward to?”
Xiao’s vision blurs, the white-petaled flower fuzzing out at its edges. When he blinks, it sharpens back, and his breath catches.
In the boy’s fingers is a single, blooming Qingxin.
The sprite falters. Xiao’s heart mirrors it.
A small laugh. The boy lets the wisp snuggle back into his hands. “Now, it’s about time to greet our company, isn’t it?”
The sprite squeaks, startling and ducking into the boy’s cape. “Is it Sir Ragnvindr?! Hide me, he’s been awfully annoyed with me as of late!”
Another laugh, more amused this time. “You’re in luck today, then. It’s someone you’d rather like to see, I think.”
There’s a soft trill of curiosity. The sprite pokes its head out of the boy’s hood and swivels its head. Its eyes land on Xiao.
Time stutters to a standstill.
The grass stops swaying, the water stops rippling. Xiao is locked to his position, legs frozen in ice, blood heavy with debt. Upon this reunion, he had braced himself for hatred, for spite, for every bitter thing he has ever known. But there is none of that in those eyes.
“Oh,” the wind sprite says, and sometimes, desolation is not wholly destructive, sometimes it is soft and gentle and threaded through bells on a breeze. “My mind is being quite cruel to me today, it seems.”
“Ven—“ Xiao stops himself. Swallows. “…Lord Barbatos.”
If he had learned the lyre better, perhaps he would know how to pluck his vocal cords into a song. Instead, it is this dry, raspy, dying thing, horrid to speak, worse to listen to. Still, Venti smiles when he hears it. “Adeptus Xiao.”
The second hand ticks forward. Time stumbles onward.
A breeze billows forward, curling around the boy sitting on the bridge in an embrace. He turns so his eyes meet Xiao’s, gaze warm and knowing, and he gives a single nod. Then, he disperses into a waterfall of dandelion seeds, splintering back into thousands of whispered wishes. One flutters by Xiao’s ear, a note of music drifting by with it. Pleased. Grateful.
Those are heavy emotions to bear, weighty on his back. He’s not certain he can uphold them yet, but he owes it to Venti to try.
The wind wisp drifts to Xiao’s side. “Always so handsome, even if you aren’t real,” it titters lightly. “Who knew my silly little mind could create something as beautiful as you?”
Xiao looks away sharply. In spite of the situation, warmth blooms on his cheeks, right to the tips of his ears.
Venti laughs affectionately. “And you still get flustered just the same. Still so cute.”
“You…” It’s so terrible, how easily his composure can be undone. He attempts to school his features into something neutral. “You’re avoiding the subject.”
“Hm? I’m not, I’m not! There’s nothing to avoid!”
“There is. You know it, too. Not just this conversation, but Mondstadt. Your friends.” Me, he thinks, unbidden.
“You,” Venti whispers in turn.
It undoes the chain locking Xiao in place. Xiao holds his hands out, cupping them together. Venti comes to settle in his open palms, his feet tickling Xiao’s skin and sending little streams of wind curling through his fingers. So delicate, this little being of wind, only partly solid in his hands. If he tightens his grip, he thinks it would slip out through the sides of his fingers, scattering back into a secret dancing in the air. He does his best to keep his hands still.
“But Xiao,” Venti says through a gasp, words half-broken with remorse, “how could I face any of you now?”
Instinctually, Xiao’s fingers twitch, and the wisp’s wing flutters at the movement. His hands are itching for the cold weight of jade against his palm, something solid to battle with; he had come here looking for an enemy to mar, an evil to hack and slay at until it released Venti from its clutches. He hadn't expected to only find Venti himself. The sole hero. The sole enemy.
Even if he could stomach the idea of harming Venti, weapons would have no use here. This is not a battleground he feels steady in.
“You can,” he tells him first, struggling to find the correct thing to say. Then, when that only serves to silence Venti, he adds, “What do you mean?”
The wisp tucks in on himself, wing curling around his form. The scenery around them rocks and shifts, bleeding into flashes of memory. Different parts of Mondstadt, wind-torn, trees and crops uprooted from the soil. Scattered debris, bits of pillars and ruins and rooftops. Though the city was relatively intact, other parts were less fortunate, especially closer to what Xiao now knows was once Old Mondstadt.
The fallout of the storm, Xiao realizes. He hadn’t seen the rest of this nation, besides what was just beyond the epicenter of the disaster. Xiao was so used to the wind’s gentle and kind nature that he had forgotten how cutting and brutal it could be when sharpened into a weapon. Venti doesn’t turn to watch the changing scenery, but he nestles closer into Xiao’s hands, head ducked.
“I did the very thing I swore I would never do,” he whispers once the flashes end. “I—I’ve hurt Mondstadt. I’ve hurt you. I’ve caused you all so much pain and suffering. If Mondstadt looked at me with hatred… if they looked at this face with hatred—!” He stops, choking on his words. His form is trembling. A whip of wind snakes its way through Xiao’s hair, and Venti watches it with unsteady eyes. Breathing slowly, Venti takes a moment to scrap together the tatters of his composure.
“I’ve sullied his reputation,” Venti says eventually. His voice is dull, lifeless. “I’ve hurt the things I love the most. How can I bear to look at any of them without withering away?”
And this, this is a fear that Xiao knows well. He has had it gripping his heart ever since he woke up from that long, long dream and stabbed a spear through a god’s missing heart. Watching Venti contend with the same demons is a difficult thing to witness, if only because his own wound bleeds along with it.
Xiao thinks back to Lumine’s tender concern, Paimon’s bright affection, Dvalin’s steady loyalty. “They miss you,” Xiao murmurs.
Venti shakes his head. “Mondstadt doesn’t need a god. I didn’t—I was never meant to be a god, Xiao, no matter how you saw me before—" Not bestowed, Xiao realizes distantly, forced. “—I was never who you thought I was. I’m only….this. And I’m tired.”
“You are still who I thought you were.” Sweet. Kind. Bright. Perhaps Xiao had invented a god out of a song, but the notes were just the framework, a hollow skeleton. The soul of it, he had found in the ringing of Venti’s laughter, the feeling of Venti’s hand in his. Venti was the swell of each phrase, the vibrato, the crescendo, the ritardando. He was every bit that made the song worth listening to.
Venti doesn’t seem to hear it. “I can simply sleep for a few more centuries. Or—or longer, perhaps. Teyvat is entering a new era, and the current Mondstadt, I’m certain they can thrive without my guidance. After all, the Abyss still has my statue, and like I am now, I’m—I’m a liability. I can’t put everyone at risk.”
Something is stuck in Xiao’s throat. Not flowers, nor feathers, not even nightmares. Only his bruised, bleeding heart.
“They don’t need Barbatos,” Xiao says, words soft. If he spoke louder, his voice may break.
It’s not the correct thing to say. Venti physically flinches, visceral, wounded, and Xiao frowns.
“I didn’t mean it that way.” He brings the sprite to his face. “It’s not Barbatos they miss.” That I miss. “It’s Venti. Not a god. Just…you.”
“Me?” Venti laughs bitterly. “Who could that be? I told you once before, that I’m not quite anyone at all. I am merely an echo of every soul I once loved. Can’t you see it now, Xiao? I’m just this ugly, pathetic mosaic of grief.”
But isn’t Xiao the same? Xiao is Bosacius’s integrity, Indarias’s strength, Bonanus’s kindheartedness, Menogias’s loyalty. Even the memories of the souls he robbed a lifetime ago—he carries bits and pieces of them, thinking of them whenever he carries out his duty. Despite it all, or, no, because of it all, he is still Xiao. Xiao, who closes his eyes to lose himself amidst songs and dances and flowers. Xiao, who might have fallen in love, once, with a wind wisp. Those dreams are all his and his alone.
Xiao still knows the rhythm of Venti's heart. It is all he needs.
“You’re Venti,” Xiao says to him quietly. Still just as honest. Still just as helpless. “There’s no one else, for me.”
Venti watches him. The silence between them is so heavy. A thin curl of wind brushes tentatively against his ear, and the wind sprite flutters over to Xiao’s face, leans to nuzzle gently against Xiao’s cheek. “Ah, Xiao,” he murmurs quietly, “if only this were real. Then I may never have to sleep again.”
The reminder that Venti doesn’t think this real stings sharply, but Xiao pushes past it. It’s for the better, Xiao thinks, lest Venti lose his vulnerable honesty.
“You love mortals,” Xiao says, feeling the flutter of Venti’s wing in acknowledgment. “If you trust them as you say, then don't think the worst of them. They are your friends. They care for you. They will help you if you ask.”
He thinks of Venti, now, tucked right against his cheek, how he harbors none of the bitter hatred Xiao had expected of him. It makes him feel ashamed, how quick he had been to forget the kindness of Venti’s heart.
“To be in your presence is an honor,” Xiao tells him. “How could anyone hate someone like you?”
The sprite lets out a small, startled laugh against Xiao’s cheek. Light blooms in the corner of his eye, and then there’s a pair of arms looping around his neck, a head slotted over his shoulder.
“Thank you, Xiao,” Venti sighs, no longer tinny and bell-like. His voice is thick with emotion. Soft hair tickles Xiao’s chin. “You are always kinder than I deserve.”
Xiao’s arms draw themselves around Venti, hesitant around his waist. “There are people waiting for you to wake up.”
Another small, wet laugh. “What a strange thing. I’m not too used to people waiting for me like this. But it’s rather nice, I think, to have people to go back to.”
Venti buries his head further in the crook of Xiao’s neck. Xiao tightens his grip. He can feel Venti’s tentative heartbeat, perfectly in tune with his.
The world around them begins to peel away, the water, the bridge, the tree, all dissolving into a gentle storm of pure white flower petals, carried by the wind.
Just as Xiao closes his eyes, he hears a voice, no louder than a prayer on the wind:
“Xiao, I hope it’s not selfish if…if I wish….”
When Xiao opens his eyes, he feels Venti’s hand locked into his and the bark of a tree digging into his back. Noticing Xiao's stir of movement, the dragon wing cocooning them begins to fold back.
Something is different. Though barely any time has passed at all, there’s a new energy humming in the air, palpable, electric. It’s when a curl of wind brushes past his ear that it dawns on him.
It’s the air itself.
In Venti’s awakening presence, the wind has come alive. He can feel it as it courses through his hair, winding around his ankles, tickling his lungs. The breeze by his ear is singing something pleased, grateful. The element of freedom in full force. Even with his Vision, Xiao realizes, the wind was never something under his control. Instead, it had merely been complying with his wishes, trusting the will of its longest friend. Now, they have stirred awake, affectionately twisting and humming around their god.
There’s a flutter of Venti’s eyelashes.
For a moment, Xiao is held still, utterly transfixed by the boy at his side, the breeze dancing in the air. Venti’s finger twitches, brows furrowing. Like a reflex, Xiao lifts his free hand to even out its crease.
And then the panic sets in.
Xiao blinks, heart leaping to his throat. Startling out of his trance, he rips his hands from Venti’s, pulling himself to his feet in one swift movement.
Dvalin’s eyes shift to Venti, then to Xiao. “Conquerer of Demons,” he starts.
“I’ve repaid a favor,” Xiao cuts in briskly. “That is all.”
Things are easier said than done, especially when they are said in half-real limbos. He’s only had Venti in dreams. Facing him awake is another feat entirely.
Xiao is karmic-bound, and Venti is freedom, and Xiao is a bloodhound, and Venti is an angel, and Venti is meant to fly, and Xiao is meant to—
This is too much. He may be mirroring Venti’s actions, the very ones he had just advised against, but this is a different situation entirely. It is because Xiao thinks the best of Venti that he cannot stay. In his dreams, perhaps he had more, but here Xiao only has his karma and his mask; his palms are so terribly empty. There is nothing else can give, and though he knows Venti is kind enough to accept him regardless, Venti deserves better than a useless weight on his ankle. Let Venti think that the Xiao he found was a fragment of his imagination, that whatever they had built was only something to reminisce on. Xiao is content to begin listening from afar once more, to begin finding spring in the wind again, to dream of flutes and lyres and chase these memories and nothing more. He is free to do that much, at least.
(The thing about freedom, though, a voice in his head chimes, is that you don’t let other things make your decisions for you. Not even fear.
He casts it away with his spear.
He, of all people, is not scared.)
“When he wakes,” Xiao tells the dragon, “leave my presence out of this.”
He’s gone to Liyue in the next breath.
A wisp of wind huffs in his ear.
Dragons, as it turns out, can be incorrigible gossips.
Xiao discovers this only days later. He is washing blood off the point of his spear when he spots a flash of green, right atop a cliff. At first, he pays it no mind; the weather was warming, after all, so the sprouting patches of springtime flowers were to be expected.
A few seconds pass. Water drips down the point of his blade. It hits the surface of the lake, rippling out, distorting his reflection. He watches as it evens out.
Then, something clicks.
He freezes.
Another drop splatters against the surface.
That particular shade of green. Gaudy. Obnoxious. Charming.
It was awfully familiar.
He whips his head around, so quick that his neck groans in protest, and sure enough—
Venti stands, perched right at the cliff’s edge, braids billowing in the breeze. His eyes are shut, lips just slightly parted, hands clasped behind his back. Graceful. Beautiful. Xiao almost wonders if he’s been thrust into another dream.
Venti opens his eyes. They lock onto Xiao.
His heart nearly gives out entirely, seeing those eyes again; it has been so long. Even from so far away, Xiao can see the way they soften when they land on Xiao, the way they shine with warm affection. Venti’s lips curl up in a smile.
Then, while Xiao watches, Venti brazenly steps from the edge of the cliff and plummets to the ground.
Xiao nearly chokes.
He’s gone in a flash, collecting Venti in his arms before he can even begin to think. He feels arms loop around his neck, a smile pressed against his rapid-fire pulse. The feeling of it almost tempers the livewire panic thrumming hot through his veins.
Almost.
He takes them both to safety, landing on solid ground with Venti still in his hold, one arm under his knees and the other on his back. Venti looks up at him, unperturbed, arms still circled around Xiao's neck. He smiles serenely.
Xiao has half a mind to drop him.
“What are you doing?!” he demands, adrenaline turning his tone sharp. Venti doesn’t seem to mind, his expression only softening further. His hat is missing, having been lost somewhere in the drop; frankly, it hadn’t been in Xiao’s priorities.
“Nothing, really,” Venti says, voice entirely too calm, “I just wanted to see if you’d catch me.”
Xiao gapes. Or, the closest approximation to gaping that his face will contort to. “That’s—”
“Besides,” Venti interrupts, hand sliding down to pat Xiao’s chest reassuringly, “the winds wouldn’t have let me fall, don’t worry! I was always safe!”
As if on cue, Xiao feels the wind drop something soft onto his head. He doesn’t need to look. He knows it’s that god-forsaken hat.
“You’re absurd,” Xiao gripes. “That was reckless.”
Venti only laughs. “Your words are a lot less menacing when you wear that hat.”
Xiao glares at him, unimpressed. He shakes the hat off in one, firm motion, much to Venti’s distress. Venti begins to wiggle in his grasp, trying to reach for it, so Xiao sets him down on his feet, steadying him with a hand. His arm lingers against Venti’s back, still craving that familiar warmth.
He pulls it back. Crosses his arms over his chest to lock them in place.
“Lord Barbatos,” Xiao says evenly. He needs to get away; Venti’s presence makes him do unpredictable things.
“It’s Venti!” Venti corrects happily, adjusting the hat on his head.
“Lord Barbatos,” Xiao repeats, strained. “It’s an honor to meet you.” He ignores the way Venti frowns at him for that. “Are you seeking an audience with Rex Lapis?”
“Hm, no, not this time, I’m afraid! I was looking for you.”
Xiao pauses, alert. “Is there danger?”
Venti lazily waves his concerns away. He’s still smiling, joy bursting off of him, near-tangible. “No, nothing of that sort, don’t worry!”
Xiao's fingers tighten against his own arm, pushing bruises into his skin. “Then I can’t help you.” He emphasizes each word, forced through gritted teeth. “You should leave.”
Venti blinks at him. “…This feels like a very strange version of deja vu.”
Xiao stays silent. He will not acknowledge the thing that Venti keeps incessantly poking at.
Venti gives a dramatic sigh, shuttering his eyes and stretching his arms over his head in a grossly overt display of defeat. “Well,” he laments, “it seems my presence is unwelcome! Then perhaps I will take my leave after all.”
Since when has that ever stopped you, Xiao thinks, too used to Venti’s constant pestering. He bites it back.
Venti opens a single eye. He peers at Xiao. “But, of course, as a parting gift, could you answer a single question for me?” He takes in Xiao’s expression. Juts out his bottom lip in a pout. “Don’t look so scared.”
“I’m not—” He cuts himself off, shaking his head. “What’s the question?”
All of a sudden, Venti appears hesitant, eyes darting to the side. The sudden meekness only serves to exacerbate Xiao’s suspicion. “Ah, just a silly little musing, really. Just something on my mind.” He laughs, an undercurrent of nerves lying beneath it.
Cautious, Xiao says, “Go on.”
A smile flickers to Venti’s face. “Well…I’m wondering. Tell me, Adeptus Xiao. Do adepti dream?”
It catches Xiao off guard. His reply comes sharp, quick as a reflex. “No.”
Venti keeps silent. He tilts his head to the side, waiting.
“It doesn’t matter,” Xiao says instead, quieter, less barbed. “Dreams aren’t real.”
Venti hums thoughtfully. He holds a palm out, glancing at Xiao’s hand as he does so, a wordless request. Xiao’s hand moves on its own, commanded by a magnetic pull, settling easily into Venti’s. Venti’s smile softens. With his free hand, Venti reaches to one of his braids, tugging out the hair tie. Xiao watches as the wind runs its fingers through the undone plait. The echo of a false memory overlays on top of it.
Gently, Venti slides the hair tie over Xiao’s wrist, right over the overwhelming thump-thump-thump of his heartbeat. “Well,” he says quietly, “the important parts were real, I think.”
Xiao’s words are lost to him entirely, swallowed by a swell of emotion. “Venti,” he says uselessly, because when he has nothing else, that’s still the only word his heart knows. Xiao’s fingers begin to curl around Venti’s hand.
“Venti!”
The sudden shout knocks him back into momentum. Xiao’s hand snaps back as if stung. Venti’s eyes widen in alarm. “Oh no,” he whispers.
He ducks behind Xiao just as Lumine and Paimon come into view.
“Stop hiding, Tone-Deaf Bard! We already saw you!” Paimon swings over to Xiao’s side. He feels Venti stick his head out, fingers on Xiao’s shoulder.
“Ehe! Hello there, dear traveler, Paimon!”
Lumine puts her hands on her hips. “I keep telling you that you can’t just disappear like that without telling us, Venti. We were worried!”
“But you two looked so busy, and I thought it would be quick! Don’t worry, Xiao here has been making sure I stay out of trouble!”
She sighs, exasperated, thoroughly unconvinced. “That doesn’t really make any of this better.” Her eyes flick to Xiao. “Thank you though, Xiao, for keeping an eye on him. I guess this is a good a way as any to tell you that he’s awake.”
Xiao thinks about how Venti threw himself off a cliff minutes before. He decides to keep this to himself. “He came to Liyue with you?”
“Well, we had some business to take care of, so he asked to tag along.”
“We’re on babysitting duty,” Paimon adds.
Venti slinks out from behind Xiao, frowning slightly. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
The three of them all turn in unison to stare him down. His frown lengthens.
“He should be resting,” Lumine says, turning back to Xiao. “But this was the compromise.”
Venti pipes up. “To be fair, all I’ve done lately is rest!”
Lumine ignores him. “We’re just trying to stay on the safe side while we figure things out.” She looks back at Venti, and her expression softens with fondness. “But it’s really nice to have him back.”
Venti beams.
“Wait a minute!” Paimon zips to Venti’s face, fingers on her chin. “What happened to your hair?”
“Hm? Oh, this?” Venti plays with the end of his undone braid, letting strands of black-blue hair sift through his fingers. “I just wanted to try something new! How is it, how is it? Do you think I'm more handsome now?”
Paimon screeches a petulant quip, and Xiao tunes out what quickly devolves to squabbling, simply watching. It’s nice to see Venti so animated, so different from the still and lifeless version he had been watching these past few weeks. Venti glances over and catches his eye, and a warm smile blooms across Venti’s face. Xiao’s heart flutters helplessly in his chest.
He can feel the hair tie sitting on his wrist, even through his glove. It feels a little like a dream, like a memory, like a promise.
It even feels a little bit like a song and dance.
Later, after Lumine and Paimon depart with Venti in tow, Xiao takes to Liyue’s peaks.
It is easier to think, there. His karma is less binding, his heart less heavy; if he shuts his eyes, he can imagine phantom wings unfurling from his back, aching to waltz amongst the winds once more.
Here, too, he can see the Qingxin.
He still remembers when the grounds here were barren, all the flowers withered to dust and winter whisking the last of their souls away. Though once it had been lifeless, seeds have begun to sprout again. The first few Qingxin he finds are still tight buds, reluctant to face the sky. The wind, harsher in these heights, batters them, yet they stand tall and resilient, growing still. Before he goes, his fingers linger on its heart-shaped leaves, tracing a line along its edges.
Just as the sun languidly slips itself beneath the horizon, washing mountain and stone in rays of coral and rust, he finds what he’s been looking for:
A patch of newly flowered Qingxin.
Still so new to the world, their petals are an untainted white, untouched by the elements. They bask under the sky’s watchful eye. Ah, they sigh lovingly, so this is what I have been waiting to see. Though the soil is soaked in blood, their roots tangled with sins of eons past, still, they bloom.
Still, they bloom.
Xiao squats down to pick a single flower, twirling it between his fingers. He plucks off a single petal. Then another. Another. All the while, an absurd mortal game plays in his head.
See, the thing about Qingxin: Qingxin all have five petals. And Xiao is no fool. For the final petal to carry the answer he wants, he merely needs to know where to start.
The choice was always in his hands.
The last petal flutters to the ground. Xiao makes his decision.
Xiao breaks the stems of the rest of the flowers, holding the blooms gently in his palms. The breeze comes, sweet against his skin, bright in his ear. It knows what he wants without asking. The wind curls around the flowers and carries them off until they are pinpricks of white, disappearing into slender wisps of clouds.
He watches as it goes.
On the roof of Wangshu Inn, Xiao keeps perfect silence. There is no clattering of his polearm on shingles, no shuffling inside the inn’s halls. This night, even the nightingales and crickets take a rest from their chatter.
He waits. He listens. He hopes.
A flute pierces through the quiet, brilliant as the full moon. When he hears it, he lets the smallest of smiles flick on his lips. The melody serenades him, winding its way around his soul, undoing the stiff knots of karma in his veins, pressing a kiss against his tenderly beating heart. Last he had heard it, it was meant to save him. Tonight, its mission is much simpler.
Xiao follows it.
In Dihua Marsh, Venti is perched on a small stone outcrop, legs dangling over its side. He does not pause in his playing, even as Xiao arrives, though his lips form a smile against his mouthpiece. A flick of wind comes to tug at Xiao’s hair, brushing against his cheek in greeting.
Xiao doesn’t interrupt; he’s always liked listening to Venti play, after all. He sits himself down at Venti’s side, watching the deft expertise with which he plays, the way he will dip and move with each phrase of song. It can be mesmerizing to see someone so in love with a melody that they are pulled along with it, no longer constrained to just lips and hands. The wind is fond of it as well, Xiao thinks, from the way it weaves around them, as if it, too, were hanging on to every note.
The moon’s gaze is loving, sweet as it bends around Venti, softly illuminating his face, the same soft curve of his cheek, the gentle slope of his nose, the sweet rise and dip of his lips. It makes his features look ethereal, born of sunlight and cast in moonlight. It is not a new thing to see, exactly; they had more than their fair share of moonlit evenings. But Xiao had long resigned himself to only have memories of this, and even that he felt was more than he deserved. He had clung to them, had clutched them close to his heart, had held them so tight his knuckles turned white. Not even he was privy to see them, afraid of how they might decay if he opened his hands.
Now, Xiao doesn’t want to turn away.
Venti finishes his song, the last note tapering back into silence. He opens his eyes, setting his flute on his lap and letting it disperse into a delicate trail of Anemo particles. For a moment, his eyes linger on the horizon, watching the line where sea and sky embrace. Then, he straightens. Steels his nerves. Spins to face Xiao.
When Venti turns, Xiao’s eyes catch on a sliver of white, lit by the gentle glow of Anemo. His breath sticks in his throat, eyes widening. Only from this angle can he see that Venti’s hairstyle has changed once more. A lone braid dangles down to frame his face. The other lock of hair is undone, instead twisted and pinned up to the side of his head. Placed right next to the Cecilia on Venti's hat, as if blooming right from the twist of his hair, are a few sprigs of freshly-picked Qingxin.
A note of warmth unfurls in Xiao’s chest.
“—Xiao!”
A voice knocks him out of his thoughts, and he starts, fingers scratching against craggy stone. “I—what?”
Venti’s expression grows amused. “I was just asking if you liked the song, but it seems you weren’t even listening. So unappreciative,” he teases lightly. “It’s almost like playing the qin for a cow.”
Xiao pauses. “Or,” he counters, tongue thick and heavy in his mouth, “like the lute for a button.”
A small laugh startles out of Venti. “Yes,” he agrees, airy and awe-struck, “just like that, I think. Though I have to admit, the first one has a much better ring to it.” The hard line of tension leaves his shoulders, smile turning warm. “Hello, Adeptus Xiao. I was worried you wouldn’t come.”
“You called,” Xiao replies, but hesitates. Then, because the actual truth of the matter is much simpler, he adds, “I wanted to.”
This earns another laugh from Venti, near relieved this time. “I wanted you to want to.” His gaze slides back to the sea. His brows furrow. “I have a lot to apologize for. Firstly, I was deceptive about who I truly was, and I’m sorry for that, Xiao. I’m sure it hurt when you realized that…” He trails off, biting his lip.
“You knew me,” Xiao says, wanting to hear it from Venti himself. “You knew you…saved me, all those years ago.”
Venti nods. “I did. I wanted to meet you, honestly, but it never felt appropriate after that. I didn’t want you to have another thing you felt chained to.”
It's relieving, to hear that it was not Xiao's incompetence that kept Venti away, but only his own hesitance. Still: “I hoped you would return,” Xiao admits quietly.
“Maybe I should have,” Venti muses. “Maybe I’m making excuses. Maybe I was only worried that I’d disappoint you. Still, I’m glad we were able to properly meet, face-to-face.” He pauses. Smiles teasingly. “Even if you spent the first few times scolding me.”
Embarrassment flares in his cheeks. “I thought you were being disrespectful to Rex Lapis.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I was!” Venti says brightly, and Xiao huffs in amusement. It earns a smile from Venti. “I’m glad for it, though. That you were able to meet me as Venti like that.” It grows quiet for a moment. The wind tickles Xiao’s skin. “Though,” Venti adds, “the circumstances could have been better.”
Xiao stiffens. A wave of dread roils in his stomach, nearly nauseating. “I’m—I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. Never.”
A slip of wind weaves around his arm, offering a kind, reassuring squeeze.
“I know, Xiao. I’ll never blame you for that.”
“You should. I nearly…”
“I won’t. Unless you will fully blame the damage of Mondstadt on me?”
Xiao’s mouth goes dry. It is hard to swallow. Venti gives him a gentle, somber smile.
“I’m still not entirely certain what happened. It put the part of me that was still lucid in some sort of dream, and I must have dragged you into it. When we met, I didn’t fully understand the situation. I knew something was wrong, and I suspected that between Dvalin, my missing statue, and the loss of my gnosis, the abyssal poison might have something to do with it. That’s why I was looking for Morax at first; I thought he would be able to help if disaster did strike.” His smile twists. “I just…didn’t realize that it had already happened.”
“I thought I could help you,” Xiao confesses. “There was a debt I needed to repay.“ And though we never met, I think if you had gone, a part of me would have died with it.
Venti shakes his head. “There was never any debt. But you did save me, more than I think you know, so thank you, Xiao.”
“You, too.” Xiao looks down. “More than just that night. Thank you.” For your songs. Your touch. Your laughter. For the way you make me believe in a version of me that died long ago.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
“I am afraid,” Xiao begins, voice hoarse, “that I will hurt you. That there is nothing for me but violence left. That I cannot be what you deserve.” It is strange to hear it, the way it leaves his lips now. Once a certainty, a foregone conclusion, the only ending Xiao knew the shape of. The hair tie on his wrist makes it bend, twists them into crystalflies twirling in the wind. His hands curl into a fist on the rock. “But I want—this. You. I want you.” He stops. Hastily, he adds, “Only if you do, too.”
Wind comes around to loosen his fingers, prodding at his knuckles until his hand unfurls. When Xiao doesn’t move away, Venti reaches over, pulls Xiao’s palm into his lap. He runs a thumb over Xiao’s hand. Even through the glove, his touch is almost too tender to bear.
“I’m afraid, too,” Venti admits quietly. “You probably know that best, after all. Oh, but Xiao—” And now he laughs, small, wondrous. “—you are always so gentle. So patient, so caring, so devoted. Your soul is such a lovely thing to know. How could I not want you, too?”
Xiao stares, mind rendered useless from Venti’s words. He—he hadn't quite prepared for this, for a yes. His heart, a terrible, fragile thing, could burst from the swell of emotion rocking his chest.
Venti begins to bring Xiao’s hand to his lips. This, of all things, manages to startle Xiao out of his stupor.
“Wait. Don’t,” Xiao chokes out, strangled. He tries to pull his hand away.
Venti immediately drops it, alarmed. “Oh no, Xiao, I’m sorry—”
“No, it’s not that,” Xiao clarifies, blushing furiously, all the way to the tips of his ears. Somehow, this feels more embarrassing than anything else he’s said this evening. Whatever romantic mood has certainly been soured. “The glove, it’s not…it’s filthy.”
Venti blinks. Then, he bursts into laughter so strong that his whole body shakes with it, almost toppling off the rock entirely. Xiao puts a hand out to steady him, and Venti tips into Xiao’s arms instead, falling into a pile of giggling mess.
“Oh gods,” Venti laughs fondly, “you’re so terribly endearing, Xiao. How did the world ever come up with someone like you?” Xiao feels Venti press a kiss to his cheek. Xiao hums lowly, tightening his arms around Venti, wanting to feel the solidness of his warmth.
“We should go on dates," Venti tells him. "Real ones, now. I want to go back to Guyun. I want to get another Starconch with your laughter to listen to.”
Xiao feels strangely offended. “…I’m right here.”
“But you aren’t portable, Xiao! Besides I don’t think I’m funny enough to make you laugh as often as I want to hear it.”
Xiao traces idle shapes on Venti’s back. He thinks Venti’s the only one who can really get him to laugh at all. That should be an achievement on its own. “How often do you want to hear it?”
Venti laughs quietly, breath warm against Xiao’s neck. “I’d never want it to stop.”
Venti is going to take him to the grave one day, what with the things he says so easily. Each one stops and starts his heart anew, its rhythm following the lilt of his words.
“I do dream,” Xiao murmurs into his ear. “About you. I would dance to the sound of your playing.”
Venti hums contentedly. He tangles a hand with Xiao’s, locking their fingers together. “That doesn’t have to just be a dream, if you wish.” Venti pulls back, enough to throw Xiao a playful smile. “I hear the Qingxin are in bloom, after all. I believe you owe me a dance.”
Xiao meets his gaze. “Then you owe me a song.”
“Of course! I already have one in mind. It’s about a little wind wisp, a dream he had, and the handsome bird he met there.” He leans forward once more, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “You know, some may even say it’s a love story.”
Xiao’s mask materializes on his face, hiding the flush of his cheeks. “They’re unreliable,” Xiao tells Venti as he shifts, untangling their hands to stand amongst the reeds. Water sloshes around his shoes. “They can’t even get their Liyuean idioms correct.”
Venti huffs playfully. He pulls a flute out of thin air. “Hey! I got it right this time! I’ll study them, I promise. Will you help me?”
Xiao lets himself smile behind his mask. “I will. As long as you need.”
Venti grins back. “I always knew you were a romantic, Xiao.” He places the flute against his lips.
Venti plays his first note.
Xiao takes his first step.
Like this, they begin.
Sunlight pools into Wangshu Inn, settling warmly over them both.
Xiao’s toying with Venti’s hair, fingers carding through the longer locks gently enough so as to not wake him. Late last night, Venti had wheedled Xiao into taking them back to his room, and, despite sleeping for weeks on end, had pulled them both on Xiao’s unused bed, snuggled himself into Xiao’s chest, and dozed off soon after. It was an almost impressive feat.
At first, Xiao had been reluctant to join him in slumber. The last time this situation played out, Xiao had awoken to blood, to carnage, to devastation. It made him uneasy, the possibility of that replaying. Still, with Venti solid and warm in his arms and his heart wrung dry, it wasn’t long before exhaustion took hold and his own eyes fell shut.
When he woke, it was to warmth, to sunshine, to Venti’s face relaxed in repose.
His heart had never felt so fond.
Now, he tentatively separates the lock of hair into three thick strands. He has never braided before, but he’s watched Venti do it, once or twice in the past. Idly, he starts to overlap the pieces, fingers awkward and fumbling. As he moves down the plait, the braid begins to take shape. However, even with his untrained eye, he can tell it is…unseemly. Certain sections jut out unevenly, while loose strands spill from others. His brows knit in focus.
Partway through, he feels something shift beneath him. He glances down to find two bright green eyes watching him, amused. Immediately, Xiao flushes, dropping the half-done braid.
Venti laughs lightly. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.” He reaches a hand up to trail along the ugly braid Xiao wove into his hair. Xiao is struck with a fierce desire to undo it before Venti can properly see it.
“I was just…” When Xiao finds he can’t scrounge up an excuse, he pivots. “It’s bad,” he says bluntly. “I’m not skilled at things like this.”
“Anything from you is lovely,” Venti sings, because he’s a charmer. “Though I could teach you if you’d like.” He’s still watching Xiao, thoughtful. Xiao frowns, looking at him in question.
Venti buries his head into Xiao’s chest with a content sigh. “Mm. I just like waking up to you,” Venti murmurs. “It’s nice.”
Suddenly, there is a thundering of footsteps on the staircase below them. Venti shoots up to a sitting position, immediately alert. “Oh, right,” he says, “I didn’t tell Lumine.”
“What?”
“Well, see, she didn’t want me going off on my own last night. But I needed to see you, so I did! I just left when she fell asleep!” He beams as if this is an acceptable thing to do before yanking the covers over his head. “Please protect me, noble yaksha! I’m but a humble bard!”
Xiao resists the urge to roll his eyes. He knows Venti is anything but. “She’s not a violent person.”
Venti pokes his eyes out. “No,” he agrees, “but this is probably the fifth time I’ve disappeared on her. And she’s absolutely terrifying when she’s mad.”
Right on cue, there’s a storm of knocks against the door, the poor thing rattling with it. “Venti!” Sure enough, Lumine’s sharp voice cuts through the room. “I know you’re in there, Verr Goldet told me!”
“Ah, I knew asking for that extra pillow was a mistake,” Venti muses. “Xiao, how do you feel about making an escape?”
“Terrible,” he says flatly. “You would make her even more upset.”
“Well, how I see it is that I could apologize now, or I could apologize in fifteen minutes with a bouquet of flowers.”
“Venti! Xiao!” Lumine pounds harder.
“Okay, I think that may be my signal to go. Surely flowers would help preserve my head, yes? And perhaps a homemade dish. Or ten.” Venti glances nervously at the door, then back at Xiao. “Will you come with me?”
Xiao catches Venti’s hand in his, lacing their fingers together. “You know I will.”
Venti’s eyes scrunch in a smile. He tugs Xiao forward by their joined hands, close enough that their noses brush. Venti blinks in a question. Xiao bridges the remaining gap.
He may never have to sleep again.