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The night air in Liyue was heavy with the scent of damp stone and old dust, the ruins rising like broken teeth against the moonlit sky. Wind whispered through shattered pillars, carrying with it the low, unsettling hum of something corrupted—something ancient and wrong.
Aether adjusted his grip on his sword, golden eyes scanning the darkness. “You feel that too, right?” he asked quietly.
Xiao stood a few steps ahead of him, polearm resting lightly in his hand. His posture was rigid, alert, every muscle coiled like a drawn bow. “Karmic residue,” he said. “Strong. Stay behind me.”
Aether smiled faintly. “You say that every time.”
“And every time you ignore it,” Xiao replied without looking back.
Despite the sharpness of his words, there was something protective in the way Xiao positioned himself—just slightly in front, blocking Aether’s path with an unconscious precision honed over centuries of battle. The Traveler noticed it, as he always did.
They moved deeper into the ruins, footsteps echoing softly. The oppressive feeling thickened, pressing against Aether’s chest until even breathing felt heavier. Then—
The ground trembled.
From the shadows emerged the enemy: a twisted mass of condensed malice, its form shifting and unstable, claws scraping against stone as it let out a shrill, piercing cry. Corrupted energy pulsed from its core, staining the air violet-black.
“Tch.” Xiao spun his polearm into position. “When it strikes, do not hesitate.”
“Same to you,” Aether replied, already charging forward.
The battle exploded into motion.
Xiao vanished in a burst of Anemo, reappearing above the creature and driving his spear down with lethal precision. The impact cracked the stone beneath them, wind screaming as it tore through the enemy’s body—but it wasn’t enough. The creature howled, lashing out with tendrils of dark energy.
Aether dodged, rolling across the ground before slashing upward, light flaring along his blade. Each strike carved away at the corruption, but for every wound they inflicted, the enemy seemed to grow more frenzied.
“Xiao—on your left!”
Xiao twisted just in time, parrying a strike that would have pierced his side. “Focus!” he snapped, though his eyes flicked to Aether again and again, tracking him even as he fought.
The creature surged, gathering power for a final, devastating blow. The air vibrated violently, and the ground beneath them fractured.
“Xiao!” Aether shouted.
But Aether moved first.
He saw the opening—the exposed core, pulsing erratically—and acted on instinct. He leapt forward, ignoring the danger, sword raised high. The strike connected, shattering the core in a burst of blinding light.
The enemy screamed. Then struck back.
The blow came fast, brutal, slamming into Aether’s side and hurling him across the ruins. He hit the stone hard, the impact knocking the breath from his lungs as his sword skidded uselessly away.
“—AETHER!”
Xiao destroyed what remained of the creature in seconds, fury lending his movements a terrifying speed. When the last traces of corruption dissolved, he was already running.
Aether lay still.
Blood soaked through his clothes, dark and spreading, his breathing shallow and uneven. His eyes fluttered weakly as Xiao knelt beside him, hands shaking despite his effort to control them.
“You reckless fool,” Xiao hissed, pressing his palm to the wound and channeling Anemo to slow the bleeding. “I told you not to hesitate—not to sacrifice yourself!”
Aether gave a weak, crooked smile. “Still… worked, didn’t it?”
Xiao’s jaw clenched. “Do not speak.”
Teleporting with a gravely injured mortal was dangerous. Xiao did it anyway.
The world reassembled itself in a rush of wind and vertigo, Wangshu Inn’s familiar wooden beams snapping into place as Xiao materialized inside an empty room. The sudden stillness was jarring after the violence of the ruins. He staggered a half-step—not from exhaustion, but from the dead weight in his arms.
Aether barely stirred.
Xiao laid him down on the bed with a care so deliberate it bordered on reverence. Only then did he allow himself to truly look. The blood loss was worse than he had thought—far worse. The fabric of Aether’s clothes was soaked through, clinging darkly to his skin, and beneath it the wound pulsed with a faint, unnatural glow. Xiao’s breath caught. That color did not belong to any ordinary injury. It was wrong—too deep, too cold.
Abyssal residue.
His fingers hovered uselessly for a moment before he forced them to move. He stripped away the ruined fabric, cleaned the wound as best he could, but the corruption resisted him, clinging like rot beneath the skin. Anemo dispersed surface traces easily enough, yet no matter how carefully he worked, something remained—threaded through Aether’s body, sinking inward.
“This is my fault,” Xiao murmured, the words tasting bitter. He pressed fresh bandages into place and channeled more power, more than he should have, ignoring the way karmic debt stirred restlessly in his chest. “You should not have been there.”
Aether did not answer.
It worsened by nightfall.
At first, Xiao thought the shivering was from shock. He added blankets, adjusted the room’s temperature with a controlled current of wind, stayed close. But the tremors did not fade. They deepened, growing violent enough to shake the bed, teeth chattering uncontrollably as Aether’s skin burned beneath Xiao’s touch.
Fever.
Aether drifted in and out of consciousness, breath shallow, brow slick with sweat. His hands clawed weakly at the sheets as if fighting something unseen. Every so often, he would mutter incoherently—fragments of words that made no sense, names tangled with pain.
“No—don’t—Xiao—”
Xiao froze every time.
He cooled Aether’s skin, wiped his forehead, coaxed bitter medicine between his lips when he could get him to swallow. Still, the fever climbed. The corruption spread faintly beneath the skin, dark veins spidering outward from the wound, reacting violently to Xiao’s proximity—almost as if it recognized him. Abyss calls to karma.
The realization made his hands still.
He stepped back.
He should not be here.
That truth settled into him with brutal clarity. Xiao had lived centuries knowing one thing above all others: those who remained close to him suffered. His karmic debt poisoned everything it touched. Mortals grew sick. Allies fell. Friends—what few he had ever allowed himself—were lost one by one.
Aether was no exception.
Xiao retreated to the far side of the room, forcing distance between them, forcing himself to stay away no matter how violently every instinct screamed otherwise. He stood rigid, hands clenched at his sides, listening to Aether’s labored breathing, the occasional pained whimper slipping free despite the Traveler’s unconsciousness.
This was proof, was it not?
Proof that caring led only to ruin.
Yet when Aether cried out again—sharp, broken, frightened—Xiao moved without thinking.
He was back at the bedside in an instant, one hand gripping the sheets, the other hovering just above Aether’s shoulder, trembling. “I am here,” he said softly, the words torn from him before he could stop them. “You are not alone.”
Aether’s fingers latched weakly onto his wrist.
Xiao inhaled sharply.
“I should not care,” he whispered, more to himself than to the fevered mortal before him. “You will only suffer because of me.”
And yet—he stayed.
The second night was worse.
The fever peaked, leaving Aether delirious. His body rejected rest, muscles tensing painfully as abyssal energy surged and receded in cruel waves. Xiao barely left the bedside, catching him when he thrashed, holding him still despite the danger, murmuring reassurances he did not remember ever learning how to say.
“You will live,” he told him again and again. “I will not allow this to take you.”
The corruption reacted violently to Xiao’s touch, burning against his palm, feeding on his karmic residue like a starving thing. Pain lanced through Xiao’s arm, sharp and familiar—and he welcomed it. Pain was nothing. Pain was deserved.
If it meant Aether lived, he would endure far worse.
When the fever finally broke, it did so abruptly. Aether collapsed into deep, exhausted sleep, breathing slow and steady at last. The dark veins beneath his skin receded, leaving him pale and fragile but alive.
Xiao remained seated long after dawn.
He stared at Aether’s peaceful face, the steady rise and fall of his chest, and felt something inside him fracture quietly.
He had tried to stay distant. Tried to be the weapon, the guardian, the thing untouched by attachment.
He had failed.
Xiao reached out, just barely brushing his fingers against Aether’s hand. “This weakness will be my undoing,” he said quietly.
But he did not let go.
Aether woke to the sound of wind.
Not the sharp, screaming gusts of battle, nor the violent rush of teleportation—but something gentle. A steady current brushing through open air, cool and clean, carrying the faint scent of grass and distant water. His eyes fluttered open, vision hazy, the world softened around the edges as if wrapped in gauze.
For a long moment, he simply breathed.
Each inhale still ached, but the pain was distant now—muted, manageable. The crushing weight that had filled his chest, the cold wrongness crawling beneath his skin, was gone. In its place was exhaustion, deep and bone-heavy, but survivable.
He turned his head slowly.
Xiao sat beside the bed.
He was rigid, as if carved from stone, shoulders squared and unmoving, golden eyes fixed somewhere far beyond the window. Dark shadows lined his expression, deeper than any Aether had seen before. He looked… older. Worn. As though he had not allowed himself rest even once since Aether had fallen ill.
“Xiao,” Aether murmured.
The name alone snapped the adeptus back into the room. His head turned sharply, eyes widening just a fraction before he schooled his expression into something carefully neutral.
“You’re awake,” Xiao said. “Do not move.”
Aether smiled weakly. “Bossy.”
Xiao did not return the smile. He rose at once, checking Aether’s temperature, his breathing, the faintly scarred skin where the wound had been. His touch was light—too light—like he feared leaving fingerprints might hurt. When he finished, he stepped back again, increasing the distance between them as if it were deliberate.
“The abyssal contamination has receded,” Xiao said, voice low. “Your body is recovering. You will require rest for several days.”
Aether watched him carefully. The way Xiao stood just out of reach. The way his gaze refused to linger.
“You didn’t leave,” Aether said softly.
Xiao stiffened. “It would have been… irresponsible.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Silence stretched.
Xiao’s fingers curled into his sleeves. “You nearly died,” he said finally. The words were flat, but something beneath them trembled. “The infection worsened because of my presence. Karmic debt draws corruption. If I had kept my distance—”
“Xiao,” Aether interrupted gently. The adeptus flinched.
Aether shifted, wincing, then reached out anyway. His hand brushed Xiao’s wrist—warm, solid, alive.
Xiao froze completely.
“That wasn’t your fault,” Aether said. “You saved me.”
Xiao’s jaw clenched. “I should not have cared as much as I did.”
Aether frowned. “Why?”
The question lingered between them, simple and devastating.
Xiao looked away, eyes tightening. “Because everyone I care for suffers. Because my existence poisons what comes too close. I have lived long enough to know this pattern.” His voice dropped, stripped of sharpness. “Watching you burn with abyssal corruption… I thought I was witnessing the consequences of my weakness.”
Aether’s chest ached—not from the wound, but from the weight of those words.
“You stayed up for days, didn’t you?”
Aether asked quietly.
Xiao did not answer.
“You thought I was going to die.”
A pause. Then, barely audible: “Yes.”
Aether squeezed his wrist gently. “That scared you.”
Xiao inhaled sharply. “Fear is a liability.”
“No,” Aether said, firm but kind. “It’s proof you care.”
Xiao turned then, golden eyes sharp with something dangerously close to grief. “I cared too much,” he said. “I watched the fever worsen. I felt the corruption react to me. I believed—truly believed—that I was killing you simply by staying.”
“And you stayed anyway,” Aether said softly.
Xiao’s breath hitched.
Aether shifted closer, ignoring the protest of his body. He rested his forehead lightly against Xiao’s arm, grounding himself in the warmth there.
“I’ve liked you for a long time,” Aether said simply.
Xiao went utterly still.
“I didn’t say anything because you already carry so much,” Aether continued, voice gentle, unpressured. “But you don’t get to decide that you’re a curse and walk away from me.”
“You deserve better,” Xiao whispered.
Aether looked up at him, eyes bright but steady. “I deserve you—not disappearing on me because you’re scared you’ll hurt me.”
Xiao’s control fractured then, just slightly. His hand lifted, hesitated, then settled against Aether’s shoulder, careful, protective.
“I was afraid,” he admitted. “Afraid that if you died, it would be because I allowed myself to want something.”
Aether smiled softly. “Then want me anyway.”
Outside, the wind stirred—quiet, steady, alive. Xiao did not pull away.