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Xiao is… conflicted.
Out of the many eons he’s lived, the lives he’s outgrown and the people he’s long known and forgotten, you are probably the absolute— truly, incredibly so— most infuriating person he’s ever encountered.
He gave you the benefit of the doubt at first, you were a traveller from beyond the stars after all. He understood not to hold it against you when you feigned ignorance towards his way, he let you roam free even in search of his presence, and sometimes, maybe once in a blue moon, he’d have half a mind to allow your company if ever you asked — but now, after almost a significant amount of time of having known you, he has come to one conclusion and one conclusion only.
You’ve cursed him.
That’s it. That’s exactly it. It would explain why you frequent your visits so much, it would explain why you’d always insist to feed him, and it would certainly explain the incessant cloud of thoughts plaguing his mind whenever you’d come up near him.
Truly, the nerve to cast a curse on an adeptus. You really had no respect.
Xiao turns his head to the wind, the nature of the sky guiding his attention to a familiar scent in the air, and as he sits on his perch, alone in a small blind spot on top of Wangshu Inn, he feels your presence before you even make your way up the steps.
He has half a mind to turn back into the shadows, disappear into darkness until you leave again (something he’s found himself doing a handful of times), but a more persistent part of him asks him to stay.
What would you do if you found him again? Would you give him more food? Maybe ask for his help? (Xiao doubts this one. Whenever he offers his assistance, you always seem to almost look offended at the offer.) Or maybe you’d just tell him how nice it is to see him again?
(The last one you’ve actually told Xiao once before and as a result, it’s rocketed him into dispersing into the shadows almost immediately. If there ever was a smile on his face or if he ever had prepared a small clip to put on your hair after that, well, you never have to know.)
“I don’t think he’s here today, Traveler.” Your little flying companion floats next to you, her voice allowing all discrepancies to be thrown outside the window.
Your eyes wander anyway.
Xiao thinks… you must not like speaking very much.
Or at least, from what he can tell, from the amount of time he’s found the two of you spending together, you rarely ever did talk. Usually, it’s always Paimon who answered the questions for you. Sometimes you’d add a little nod or smile or when he’s lucky (he doesn’t know why he thinks he is), you’d laugh— just a little bit, not too loud, like it’s always clipped back.
But your eyes have always told him a lot. It tells him more than what thousands of people he’s come across has shared with him.
Maybe that’s why he’s found himself less and less wanting to disappear off into the shadows when you’re around… you’ve always been so… kind.
“Xiao.”
That, though. That’s enough to get him abandoning his resolve in seconds.
You don’t reserve your voice for his name. And even though he’s told you, a million times over and over again, to only call for him whenever you need a weapon— you only ever call for him when you don’t.
“I’m here.” He appears out of dark green smoke fizzling away into an array of stars, and when you see him, you smile.
His ears feel terribly hot.
“Oh! You're here!” Paimon floats closely to him, her voice unbelievably high.
“We got you Almond Tofu,” She swims in her delight, flying around in a sway to sway motion as she shows him the plate, “We were checking out a commission here but the rain ended up cancelling the entire trip so we decided to pay you a visit!”
Xiao nods at the pixie. Truly a noisy creature.
You’re the one holding out the plate of Almond Tofu to him though, and as he opts to take it from you, he notices something.
Bandages on your hand…? His eyes trail upwards, less curious and more upset this time. Bandages on your head, bandages on your shoulder, bandages on your leg…
And maybe you notice the way he tenses up suddenly as he looks at you, because the next second, your hand is on his shoulder, and his eyes meet yours.
(Though, his gaze is a bit harsher than usual.)
It isn’t fair, Xiao thinks. This curse you’ve put on him is too unfair.
You touch him like this and he’s suddenly forgotten why he’s so … mad. You say his name and his resolve is shattered in mere seconds. You give him a plate of Almond Tofu every chance you can and in return, he… he will give you whatever you could wish for.
Truly, he hates this. He hates you.
“Oh … uh … Paimon will …” The little pixie floats in between the two of you, her voice a little more awkward than usual, “Paimon will go check in for us with Verr Goldet!”
She laughs nervously, but there’s a glint in her eye that Xiao particularly chooses to ignore. She scurries off in her flurry of stars.
And then it’s silent.
It takes a second for it to click that the two of you are alone now, another second for Xiao to realize that he’s still extremely upset at you.
“You are hurt.” He tells you, firm, but not cold.
You squeeze his shoulder, smiling back at him, “I’m okay now.”
Xiao furrows his brows. His eyes refusing to stop from taking in all your wounds and bruises and cuts and every time his glance lands on something particularly new, it feels like someone’s just punched him hard in the gut.
No karmic debt has ever stung like this.
This is… part of the curse too?
“Do not lie to an Adeptus.” He narrows his eyes, his words tipped with a tinge of venom, and he pushes your touch away, walking towards the railing of the balcony instead.
And you call, like you always do, “Xiao…”
He grits the wooden railing from beneath his hands, eyes shut tight as if to resist you, and he thinks, he’s fought no harder battle than the one he’s having now.
“I’m fine, truly.” You rarely talk, but you give him your voice anyway, “Nothing I couldn’t handle, I mean, you should’ve seen the other guy.”
The end of your sentence is topped off with a light laugh, and he feels you behind him, shuffling on your feet as if deciding whether or not to approach him.
(What a horrible scenario, Xiao thinks. If there is ever a chance where you decline to approach him or think that he’d ever want you to leave, it is a scenario worse than he can bear.)
This curse you’ve put on him… You’re a horrible person for doing so.
He can’t think, he can’t rest, he can’t even wander around the shores of Liyue without having your incessant name cloud over his thoughts.
And when you’re around, he doesn’t breathe, he doesn’t make good decisions, he isn’t … who he is.
And now, as you stand behind him, so close, so, so close. It feels like the air is suffocating him. Like the string of wounds on your body is hurting him just as much as it once have hurt you, and he knows— he knows that the only reason to explain this— the only reason he’ll accept anyway, is that you, completely, truly, entirely, have cursed him terribly so.
“Xi—“
He doesn’t let you finish.
He turns on his heels, and suddenly, you’re in his embrace.
It startles you, he feels you flinch when he takes you in, but he holds you tighter, his eyes shut tight and he doesn’t listen to the screaming voice in his head that tells him to stop.
When you ease into his touch, it’s easier to accept what he’s doing… this is part of the curse, as well.
“You are an idiot.” He tells you. “I told you to call me.”
He gave you his name for a reason. He is a weapon. Forged and built for war and defeat and violence.
But when you call his name… it is for nourishment, companionship… affection.
“You may not see me as a warrior, or take advantage of my weapon, but…” He refuses to look at you as he speaks, he feels he’d show you too much of how much he’s feeling right now if he does so, so he keeps his head tucked against your neck, his embrace unrelenting.
“When you call my name, I will not beckon to your call as a soldier.” His chest hurts. “I will come to you as a friend.”
(If he wanted to use another term than friend, then, well, you didn’t need to know that too.)
“Please.” Xiao pulls away now, his ears hot and his face in a tight frown, but his arms don’t leave your side, “Call for me when you are hurt.”
So, even if you’ve cursed him so. Even if you are the most insufferable person he’s met. Even if you are the bane of his existence and the only object of his attractions. Even if he knows that he’s not actually spellbound. You are still the one person he cannot afford to lose.
“Xiao.” You say, and he feels so very dizzy.
Your hand is on his face and he has to fight tooth and bone to resist the urge of leaning into your touch.
“On your journey for your sibling, I cannot follow you to the other nations, but for now, as you stay at the Harbor,” Xiao looks at you, “Please. Let me accompany you.”
“I can’t ask that of you.” You shake your head.
(And it only hurts a little when he thinks that you won’t be so selfish with yourself when it comes to him. You’re never selfish, but he would have liked to think that he could be an exception, like you have always been an exception to him.)
“You’re too stubborn.” He replies back. And you laugh. And for a second there’s a short smile on his face.
You didn’t come to this world for a lover— Xiao knows this more than anyone. It’s kept him up for too long than he’d like to admit. But… when he first found out you weren’t mortal… when he first found out that you too have shared his burden of life, shackled by immortality… it was the only time he thanked his stars for such a unique lifespan. An eternity with you… truly, nothing would make him happier. And just like that, he was prepared for it all. Prepared to give you his name, his soul, his weapon, his heart.
“Let me walk alongside you.” He tells you again. “Please.”
But then you told him about your missing kin. And he knew, then and there, that he could not have you after all.
Because no matter how much he looked up to you, no matter how much he sits in awe at the way the stars fall from the skies and sit on your lips, no matter how much you have made him feel — he could never do that to you.
If he took you away from your family, if he would be so selfish— he is not a man worthy of you, and that is a man he will never become.
Your stay on this world is temporary, but a selfish part of him that he tries so hard to bury deep down asks and asks the archons to keep your sibling away for just a little bit longer each time, so at least then, he can extend his time with you, even if it’s for just a little bit more.
And so, the curse you’ve put on him doesn’t relent.
So, he will walk with you. Eat with you. Talk with you. Until you run out of things to give him, until you turn to fly back into the stars.
“Okay.”
And Xiao feels, you are his heart, completely, and he will walk with you until the ends of this world.