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The moment Xiao felt the presence of Aether, he appeared at the balcony of Wangshu Inn where he resides. Much to his dismay, Aether was not there with the tiny creature and it was late at night— Could they be sleeping at the inn?
Knowing the place was already less crowded, Xiao went downstairs to see that Verr was cleaning the front desk. The girl greeted him with a smile.
“Hello. How are you?” she asked, it had been a while since the last time she saw the adeptus walk down the stairs.
“Good. Is Aether here?” he asked, looking around the place.
“Oh, the traveler? He’s in the kitchen.” she pointed her finger downstairs where the kitchen was before sighing. “He looked really tired just now. Though, this morning he told me that he was just out to pick some flowers. I don’t know what happened.” she said worriedly.
Xiao thanked her for the information before peeking to the kitchen— Aether was at the corner table, head on his hands, fast asleep. A basket of qingxin flowers were on the table—a lot of them.
As Xiao approached the boy, he couldn’t help but notice that his gloves were removed and were put aside, showing off Aether’s delicate fingers that were hurt.
“What have you been doing?” he whispered under his breath and heaved a sigh, grabbing a bandage from Verr before going back down to treat his hand as gently as possible. He placed Aether’s hands down when he finished bandaging them up. Xiao heard a sound of something sparkling, knowing it was Paimon. She was awake, apparently.
“Oh, thank you for treating him.” Paimon whispered, not wanting to wake Aether up and sat on the table near Aether’s hand.
“What were you guys doing? What are these flowers for?” Xiao asked, bringing the basket closer and looked at all the qingxin flowers.
Paimon shrugged, “Aether suddenly said that we need qingxin flowers. So, he climbed mountains from mountains for these. There are only 3 on each peak…” Paimon sighed and patted Aether’s hand as if he was the kid. “It might be for you, though. You know, some herbs.” she continued, resting her head on Aether’s arm.
Xiao blinked, “For me?”
“Yeah. Last time you got hurt, Qiqi treated you with qingxin flowers so he thought it’d be best if he was prepared, too.” she said and started to close her eyes.
Xiao gulped quickly, looking back and forth to the bunch of flowers and Aether’s hand- All of that to treat Xiao if he were being careless. He hummed softly, “It’s late. Get some rest. I’ll leave now.” he said after folding Aether’s gloves.
“Wait.” Paimon called and looked at Xiao. “You should kiss it.” she teased with a grin as she pointed at Aether’s hands.
“What?”
“Kiss it!” she said again, putting her fists on her waist. “It’ll heal faster if someone kissed it.” she said, knowing well it didn’t work like that, but Xiao sighed in defeat, taking Aether’s hand carefully and kissed each of his bruised knuckles and bandaged fingers. It was a nice sight for Paimon- someone cared for her best friend as well.
“There. Good night.” Xiao looked away to hide his blush, but it was useless, Paimon had already seen it.
“Good night, Xiao.”
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“I told you not to do something stupid…” Aether sighed loudly and wrapped the bandage around Xiao’s arm after treating it with qingxin flowers. He was glad he had collected it beforehand. When Aether went back to Mondstadt, Xiao always did something reckless, thinking that he could get away from Aether scolding him.
Good thing Aether found him when he was doing the stupid thing.
“The abyss mages were annoying.” he said and huffed a little.
Aether chuckled, “Still. There were 5 of them there.” he sighed and cut off the excess of the bandage. He put his aid kit back in his inventory along with the flower herbs.
“Fine, sorry.” Xiao inhaled deeply before he could finally rest his back since he couldn’t when Aether was treating him.
“Didn’t the abyss mage burn your back? Don’t press on it too much, yet.” Aether warned as he closed his bag and let Paimon hide it again. He stood up from his spot and ruffled Xiao’s hair. “I need to leave soon for Liyue Harbor. Childe’s waiting for me.” he said.
Xiao clicked his tongue when he heard the other man’s name, “What for?” he asked.
Aether hummed, “I’m not sure. He just told me to meet him at the bank all of a sudden. Who knows, he might give me free mora!” he giggled.
Xiao sulked, “Fine… But, um…” he looked down at his feet then at Aether, “Kiss it.”
Aether blinked in confusion, “What?”
“Kiss it where it hurts” Xiao said, looking away in embarrassment and tapping his fingers to his thighs.
Aether was surprised the adeptus could say something like that. He turned to Paimon who quickly hid from both of their fazes. The blond male sighed whilst smiling, kneeling down to take Xiao’s arm and kissed it. Xiao could feel his heart beating faster after each kiss on the bruises.
When Aether was done, he looked at Xiao who looked feverish with the red and warm cheeks. “Want me to kiss your back too?” he smirked, knowing well it hurt there as well.
Imagine a cartoon character whose head literally exploded? Yeah, that was what Xiao was feeling at that time, covering his mouth with his hand and nodding slightly. “Please.” he said quietly before hiding his face.
And here I thought you’re not expressive. Aether laughed softly and shifted his place as Xiao did too. Aether started kissing where it actually hurt. Gentle kisses were something Xiao never expected to crave from a human. Not to mention, from an outlander.
But, Aether’s kisses were not just gentle, but also heartwarming for Xiao. The blond male’s finger started tracing around the burn mark before his lips kissed his back out of the mark, making Xiao flinch and straightened his back all of a sudden, giving a look to Aether. “Hey-!”
“Done!” Aether cut him off and stood up quickly, dragging Paimon by his hand as he made sure Xiao didn’t see that Aether was just as red as Xiao was. “Gotta go, bye!” he said and ran out from the inn.
“I’m-” Xiao sighed loudly and waved his hands at Aether.
Maybe he was indeed, in love.