the kiss (1,053 words)

There are three ways to take a dream. The first two require strength over the dreamer to accomplish, but Xiao has long since found himself weak in the face of Venti. The third can only be done by the dreamer’s consent, and only now has Xiao been able to obtain Venti’s word.

He reaches out to hold Venti’s face in his hands, a palm cupping the Archon’s jaw, and he leans in until their foreheads are nearly touching. (Venti lets out a soft sigh, the bittersweet tang of his dream breezing over Xiao’s cheeks, and his eyes flutter shut.) Xiao tilts Venti’s head up ever so gently, his wild animal heart skipping and thudding against its cage of his ribs at how easily he coaxes Venti’s mouth open with his thumb.

(Something in him hungers.)

It doesn’t feel right to be so aware of his own actions, so Xiao lets his eyes fall shut as he parts his lips and breathes in Venti’s dream.

It’s unlike anything he’s ever experienced before. The sweet dreams he devoured in his childhood were warm and soft, like a freshly cleaned blanket after drying in the sun. The nightmares he hunted later in life never went down easily, their cold, sour grit scraping his throat raw.

No, Venti’s dream is bitter— terribly so, in fact— but still pleasantly warm, like qingxin tea. Xiao is not like Ganyu; he does not enjoy the taste of medicine. But the dream, once it coalesces in his mouth, goes down just as easily as a spoonful of almond tofu, though Xiao cannot fight the waves of heavy, almost crushing, heartache it also carries.

“You can cry about it,” Venti murmurs. “It’s all right. It’s almost over anyway.”

Xiao swallows.

(He knows. Venti has always shown him so.)

((His heart is pounding too hard, though. If he cries now, he’ll only start sobbing, and that’s— that’ll only get in the way of what he has to do.))

“Hold still,” he scolds in a low voice, which only makes Venti laugh and squirm all the more. Xiao cracks open an eye, then another, and, through his blurry vision, sees Venti’s teasing smile. “I mean it— you’ll remember the parts I missed when you wake up otherwise.”

Venti pouts. “Maybe I want to remember some parts.”

“Like what?”

“Like you.”

Venti says it with such sincerity, Xiao’s only response is to stare.

(Venti holds his gaze steady.)

“I…” Xiao trails off. He feels so much in so many parts of him— his head, his hands, his heart— and yet, he has so few words to express them. Eventually, he settles on, “I don’t want you to remember a nightmare.” 

(He swallows.)

Venti sighs, something shifting in his eyes. “I still hate forgetting the things I love,” he replies, filled with longing obvious enough for even Xiao to recognize.

And there it is, that ache in Xiao’s chest again. It feels like a pendulum, swinging back and forth with such weight, something in him is bound to tip over soon.

(I feel the same way too, Xiao thinks but cannot say. He thinks he will fall down dead somehow, if he were ever to manage it, though he can’t exactly pin down why.)

“I know,” he says instead.

Venti drapes an arm around Xiao’s neck and tilts his head. “Then kiss me,” he says, like it’s obvious, like it’s easy. “I’ll keep all your sweetest moments with me right here” —with his free hand, he knocks on the part of his chest right above his heart, where his gnosis lies— “and you can take all that is bitter away from my dreams.”

Still, Xiao hesitates.

Venti drapes his other arm around Xiao and leans in to press their foreheads together. “Ever the shy one still, I see,” he muses, his smile as beautiful as the faint scent of qingxin on the mountain’s dying winter breeze. “Would you be a bit more willing if you knew I would be free?”

“I—” Xiao stutters. Venti’s smile is making him dizzy; his face has never felt this warm before. They’re so close to one another, too— Xiao has never liked being touched all that much, let alone held anyone else in his arms.

Yet, an ache in the hollow of his chest yearns for more, and he can’t find any good reasons to say no, so— 

“Yes.” The word flies out his mouth so easily, so freely, like a butterfly playing in the sun.

So Venti does. He leans in and kisses Xiao’s open mouth softly, gently, and oh-so sweetly. It seems as if he is giving everything Xiao has ever desired in the near-century they’ve spent together in his dream. (Perhaps, in a way, he is.)

And as Venti breathes, Xiao steals. He steals and steals and steals— everything from his partner’s centuries of bygone dreams to the music that hums in the back of his throat— Xiao feels something close to desperation grow in him as he tries to return at least something of his own through the kiss.

(He hopes it gets across correctly. It’s all he can do, really, as he entangles his fingers in Venti’s hair.)

But eventually and all-too soon, Xiao must come up for air, lest he drown in Venti’s dreaming. And when he does, Venti slips out of his arms, his flickering, hazy dream setting already washing away like fresh ink beneath tears.

“Venti?” Xiao calls. His lips are numb and his voice is hoarse; he feels so much colder in the Archon’s sudden absence. He reaches out, his fingertips brushing against Venti’s hand, and a breeze passes between them, rustling Xiao’s hair with tender longing.

“I have to wake up now, little dove.” Venti’s voice is faint and fading fast. “Your time is almost up, too. I hope you had a sweet dream, my love.”

Grief drags Xiao’s heart into his throat, and he can’t swallow it down fast enough to choke out the last words of his goodbye.

(“Where will you go?”)

The wind dies down. All that is left in Xiao’s hand is a single feather.

((“I need to know how to find you again.”))

He releases it on a storm of his own making, into the darkness of space between stars.

And then, he wakes up.