Work Text:
Fire was burning the trees down, the houses were ravaged, everything was collapsing and being pulled apart by the flames. People screamed for mercy, fleeing their homes and running as far as they could to escape the damages. Xiao stood among them, eyes widened, as he saw his whole world collapse under the weight of lies and sin.
Smoke ran rampant through the sky, it was hard to breathe. He began to slowly walk throughout the roads of Liyue, unable to help anyone, something was stopping him from doing so. A roof fell near him and shattered, wood and all, the debris hit multiple buildings. Water from the fountains completely evaporated.
Nobody was safe. Nobody was safe at all. The sky was bright orange, reflecting the flames scorching their way through everything and anything they could get their fiery hands on. Cars were crashing together, people were being run over or burnt to death.
He collapsed onto his knees, he was screaming in his mind to at least be able to help save them. He couldn’t do anything about it. Xiao watched as the city he aimed to protect, his home and his world, finally died and became piles of ash.
And then he woke up.
His heart was pounding, there was a ringing in his ears, he shot up in his bed, fingers tightly gripping onto the thin blanket. He was hyperventilating, trying to reel in his sense of reality before he completely blacked out and break something.
Xiao went for his phone and checked the time.
5:47 am.
“Shit.”
It would be too early to even call who he wanted to call, but he was on the verge of something. Giving in to his impulses, which was unusual for someone with self control like him, he looked through his contacts and pressed a name he knew amongst the other contacts.
It rang once. It rang twice. It rang three times before the person on the other end picked up. Kaeya’s voice was as cool as ice as he said, “hello? Xiao, is something wrong?”
How could he explain what was going on? He looked out of his window, Liyue wasn’t set ablaze, thank everything holy for that, but how could he explain what he had witnessed in a nightmare like that? It didn’t take long for Kaeya to realize it.
“Breathe. Just breathe. Whatever happened..it’s not happening, right?” Kaeya advised and Xiao was shaking as his free hand held the edge of the bedside table, “no..nothing’s happening right now. Liyue..Liyue was set ablaze, everything was burning and I couldn’t do anything!”
“It was a nightmare then, huh..? It’s going to be okay, Xiao, is Liyue on fire now?”
“No..”
“Then it was just a dream, something to trick you. You’re fine and Liyue’s fine. Understand that?” his voice was so calming to Xiao, who nodded and said, “I..I understand that..” it still felt like smoke was being pushed into his lungs, stripping him of his ability to breathe properly. Even over the phone, it was like Kaeya noticed that.
He said, “breathe in and out for me, Xiao. Just breathe, it’s all okay.”
Xiao began to count in his head, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve..
All he could do was count in his head alongside his breathing, he had to try and relax. Finally, he had calmed down enough for him to ask, “Kaeya..when will you visit? I don’t think I can..” his voice trailed off as he held his breath. He couldn’t say what he wanted to say now.
Kaeya sighed and went, “I’ll visit soon. In a month when Jean actually might let me go and not kill me for leaving. Don’t worry, I’ll come see you soon.”
“I’d..appreciate that very much.”
“I know you would. Are you okay now?”
“..yes, I think I am. Thank you..please get some rest, I’m sorry for waking you up,” Xiao kept his voice to a whisper. Kaeya actually laughed, “I should be telling you to get rest. It’s fine, don’t be afraid to call me again, yeah? Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
The call ended. Xiao looked out the window for a minute before getting up from his bed and putting on proper clothes and shoes, grabbing his phone, and hiding a knife within his jacket. He walked outside.
These nightmares full of blazes..they were becoming much more common. It all came from an incident when an agency blew up due to a malfunction of machinery and caught a half of its district around the agency on fire. So many people died that day, the incident made national news, and Xiao was one of the few trying to get people out in time.
However, he was also one of the ones brutally injured.
Running a hand over his arm, he knew where the burn scars were. Nobody had ever seen the scars except for Kaeya, who he had shown when he went back to Mondstadt for a while. His fears were cemented when he saw the district burn bright.
That agency was closed down and destroyed for another to take its place when they were rebuilding the district around it. Xiao watched the news about it when he was in the hospital for weeks on end due to his injuries, it was a paralyzing thing to see, something so ruined could be rebuilt with a cost.
Winds blew in. Xiao shivered.
When Kaeya visited, they were going to avoid that district. It brought on too many memories that he wanted to forget, to stay away from, he didn’t want to become one with the flames he hated. His breath hitched.
He couldn’t be thinking about that. He had to be stronger than that. Xiao could still remember the screams of the people as they tumbled out of the agency.
Pop, pop, pop, went the doors as they had crumbled and popped their screws. Then the machine exploded. Debris was everywhere. Flashes of the event cut through Xiao’s mind and he shook his head, clearing them away with a simple action.
The moon hung in the sky and Xiao looked up, he stopped walking down the street.
Count to twenty if you feel like you’re losing reality and losing yourself, he remembered that advice from Keqing, who was one of the few to acknowledge his issues.
Sometimes, Xiao didn’t feel real.
Sometimes, Xiao thought he had died even if he was alive.
He began to count in his head.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve..