Work Text:
-[ Late Afternoon ]-
The sky had ripped apart, bleeding a terrifyingly familiar red to cover the world in its blood, and dark clouds had rolled in, painting the sky black, and allowing no light to even peep through its thick curtain of darkness.
It was like the Cataclysm yet again.
It was another end to an era of blissful peace. Another disaster, another catastrophe, another battle to endure.
But this time, Mor—ahem—Zhongli was here, and this time, no part of Liyue would fall; Xiao wouldn’t allow it to, he couldn’t allow it, not with his lord here as well, not with so many lives to protect, not with it being his duty.
(A pathetic part buried so deep inside of him wished to live so he could see those blood-blue eyes again, and so he fought, for that was what he knew best, and what he would only know.
He was a liar.)
Xiao stumbled forward on the battered ground littered with broken weapons and torn fabric, trying desperately to continue standing and ignoring the bodies scattered around him as he walked like a drunkard, eyes blurred with blood and exhaustion, and limbs dragging like boulders connected to bone.
Xiao's mask felt connected to his face as if it had simply merged with the flesh, and every gasp and pant felt like breathing in pure fire; shuddering things that took an absurd amount of strength to do.
(So weak.
So pathetic.
The end will be soon, with how utterly powerless you have become.
How lovely! How we wish to await your terrible demise.
Fight and die, filthy beast!)
Voices clamored, screeches filled Xiao's mind, overpowering the noises of fighting around him; it was so much, too much, make it all just sto—
He heard a singing whoosh behind him and shot forward with tainted anemo, so corrupted it was almost completely black, barely dodging one of the Celestial Envoy’s attacks, evading the glimmering blade by a hairsbreadth as those golden-blue eyes gazed at Xiao with nothing behind them, not even a single emotion marring their clearness, like glass stones embedded into porcelain.
Too close. Too slow.
(A shame, a terrible shame.
Why can’t you die, you disgusting creature?
DIE!)
Xiao scolded himself inwardly, feeling that familiar rage and protectiveness rising back up to surge through his weary veins, fueling a new bout of strength as his spear swung around, barely a whistle announcing its appearance as it smashed against the Celestial Envoy’s blade, shattering it on impact from brute force and tainted wind.
Shick!
The Envoy’s head fell to the ground with a heavy thud.
Is this the end? He thought numbly, pain only a distant memory as another impossible weight tugged his eyelids to the ground.
Looking through blurred vision, Xiao saw no more Envoys, only the Millelith, Adepti, and other Allogenes.
The world faded to black, and then nothingness.
(In the distance, the green-haired doctor rushed to the fainted Yaksha, swiftly picking him up, and running, as fast as he could with that frail body of his, to the hastily set up medicine camp.
There, the Yaksha slept. His mask no longer merged with his face, scrunched up in anguish, contorting his usually calm features into harsh edges.
Voices murmured, and he floated in a red-black void.
Only to be awoken by—)
~ ~ ~
“…Xiao…”
Xiao awoke immediately, shooting upright on the mattress with his back ramrod straight and eyes wild with fear, leaving the other people in the tent no room to protest or even turn their heads when he suddenly disappeared in smoke and sparks, worry and panic so alarmingly clear on his otherwise stoic face.
The agitated winds of Mondstadt whipped around Xiao when he arrived in a Knights of Favonius-style tent, the shield and two swords symbol, one which he had grown accustomed to, emblazoned across the front of it, above the open flapping fabric of the entrance.
But Xiao didn’t see any of that; he didn’t see the outside, the crowds of knights running about, the injured being carried, food being delivered, the shouts and orders, the commotion of care, for he was inside, kneeling next to a bed with a pale, stricken face.
Because in that bed was Lohen.
Reckless, bloodthirsty, caring, human Lohen.
His dull, glazed-over eyes were half-lidded, looking at both Xiao and a world Xiao couldn’t see, and his mouth, bloodied and a thin, shaky line, was pressed into a strained smile, crinkling the edges of his eyes into small crescents.
Lohen’s top was ripped open, revealing a few peeks of ashy skin, a disturbingly grayed colour compared to his previous healthy complexion, and the bandage was thick with blood, quickly darkening and spilling over the edges with gore, bright red like the sky.
“Lohen! I’m here, please—” Xiao's voice cracked with a broken sob tearing through his throat, his eyes welled with tears, and the world became watercolor again, but he fought against the tears, trying to engrave Lohen’s every figure into his brain, every smile, the color of his eyes, his laugh, everything.
Lohen closed his eyes with a deep sigh, “ ‘m sorry…” he breathed, voice slurred, breaths coming in stuttering, irregular gasps, and pain shook his entire body, lacing his words with agony and blood spilling out
“Why…? Why…?” Xiao begged, his gloved hands reaching up to cup the knight’s cold face in his hands, a touch so gentle and love-filled that it sharply contrasted the rest of him.
“Closer…” Lohen’s voice was barely audible, just above a whisper, and it tore at Xiao's heart with every utterance, ripping it slowly into an innumerable number of shreds.
Xiao complied, leaning toward him, and his lips were captured in a kiss that stopped time.
It tasted of metal and salt, of a final goodbye and untold sorrows.
It tasted like a bittersweet dream, of an unavoidable fate.
It tasted like pain itself.
It stretched into infinity and beyond, a moment enlarged by pure love, a slow, heavy pressure that carried with it the future they dreamed of and the past they had shared. It held everything their words couldn’t describe, all those thoughts and feelings that had lingered too long, and when they parted, with hesitance and reluctance to let go, Xiao knew that this was Lohen’s final farewell.
Lohen’s eyes stayed closed this time, never to open.
Xiao didn’t let go of his body, clinging to it like it was the only thing tethering him to this terrible, terrible world, and perhaps, in a way, it really was.
(Why didn’t he call my name?)