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She was out on a bounty mission. It wasn’t abnormal for Keqing to deal with local threats in the area if no one else was available. The request showed it was Ruin Hunter this time. Not the easiest foe for a sword wielder to take down, but Keqing would find a way. She always did.
Or so Xiao thought.
While Keqing held her own well, as she always did before gaining the upper hand, this time she became overwhelmed when it began to attack her with missiles. She fell backwards onto the ground and struggled to get up. With her immobilized, the Ruin Hunter returned to the ground and locked onto its target, pulling back its drill-like arm.
Xiao could save her. Could easily save her. It would take only a second to be within reach and bring her to safety. Yet he couldn’t move. His arms and legs were bound by chains. He looked behind him to break them, only to find that the chains were not attached to anything, yet he still could not free himself. He strained himself trying to break free, but he could not move forward no matter how hard he tried.
“MOVE!” he shouted at her. “Get out of the way!”
Yet Keqing only stared in terror, frozen with fear, as the Ruin Hunter flew towards her and drove her into the ground. It seemed like slow motion when it finally pulled back, the arm drenched in her blood.
~
Xiao’s eyes flew open, met with the darkness of the familiar bedroom. His eyes scanned the room, as if trying to confirm that he was really where he thought he was. The owner of said bedroom, Keqing, shifted slightly behind him, sealing his worry. Xiao sighed, his eyes heavy.
As an Adeptus, Xiao rarely slept. He did not need to sleep, nor did he care for it. The reason being that he was constantly tormented with nightmares every time he tried. For as far back as he could remember in the span of over two thousand years, he had never once had a peaceful night’s rest. As such, he became accustomed to simply not sleep. What was the point if he would only be kept awake with nightmares?
When he was on his own, this wasn’t an issue. He rested every so often at Wangshu Inn when he needed it, but full-on sleep was almost unheard of for him. Now that he lived with Keqing, he attempted to get in the practice of “sleeping”. Not only was it rather pointless for him to wander her house while she slept, unless he had business to attend to, he preferred to stay with her when he could. Most of his nights were spent awake, with him choosing to watch Keqing sleep. Holding her in his arms and soothing her until she drifted to slumber. He rarely got to see her so peaceful and stress free. While it may sound unusual to most, it was not a bother to him.
Keqing however, would always tell him that she felt guilty. Even though he told her about his nightmares and explained that he didn’t need to sleep, she would rather he rest than occupy his mind with her all night. She also didn’t want him to give in to the suffering that nightmares brought him. The only way he could face them was by, well, sleeping.
What Keqing didn’t know was that, in truth, nightmares had long lost their hold on Xiao. He had seen every manner of his own death so many times during the last two thousand years that it no longer phased him. The constant screams of those he’d killed, the weight of his karma torturing him; all of it was the norm for him. These nightmares might as well be normal dreams for him.
However, a new variety of torment had recently begun to regain their hold on him.
In these, the subject was not himself, but Keqing.
It was a dream he wasn’t as familiar with, but it was starting to increase in frequency. Xiao watching Keqing being engulfed by flames. He heard her screaming; the sound could have made him vomit. The flames burned, but her body wouldn’t be consumed. It was slow, agonizing, suffering. Xiao couldn’t bear it. He wanted it to end.
It seemed his mind would decide when it got to end. After what felt like ages, a figure appeared behind Keqing. A Fatui Agent, dagger in hand, aimed at her head. She turned to face her attacker as he raised his arm. Xiao squeezed his eyes shut. It did nothing, as he still saw when the weapon penetrated her skull.
~
Again, Xiao jolted awake in the same room, same bed. The room was silent. He lay still. He waited 5 seconds. 10 seconds. 15 seconds. 20 seconds. 25 seconds…
At the 28th second, he finally heard Keqing shift in bed beside him and the breath he didn’t know he was holding escaped through his nose. When Xiao had these nightmares, he would sometimes wake up so shaken, that he could not bring himself to turn and look beside him in fear that Keqing would not be there. Still, she always was.
The nightmares that plagued Xiao’s mind varied. When it was not Keqing’s death, it was her suffering. She was in indescribable pain, mentally and physically scarred, suffering personal anguish, all of her dreams ripped away from her. No matter the case, Xiao was powerless to do anything about it. He could only watch, was forced to watch. He had seen her neck snapped, seen her drowned, poisoned, blinded, crippled. He saw her depressed, hopeless, void of any emotion. He saw it over and over and over, each dream feeling longer than the last. Unlike visions of his own death, which he gradually grew apathetic to, he could never shake the lingering pain of these nightmares.
He was especially frustrated at how helpless Keqing appeared in some of his nightmares, feeling he was foolish for having fallen victim to them. Keqing was no damsel. She was not one who needed saving, who would freeze in the midst of battle so easily. Of course it wasn’t real, Xiao always scolded himself when he awoke from such dreams. Because even in the middle of a dream that Xiao was certain was not real, he would still do everything in his power to save her. He would never allow himself to simply stand by. Yet he would fail every time, wake up shaken every time. The demons in his mind were making a mockery of him, and he allowed himself to be used.
The next time Xiao opened his eyes, he found himself walking through Cuijue Slope, a hoard of Geovishap Hatchlings running towards him. He prepared to summon his spear, but they ran past him as if he wasn’t there, something lavender colored in a couple of their clamped jaws. Following their trail, Xiao came across Keqing’s mangled corpse, still gripping her sword. He could only stare at the sight before him for what felt like minutes before he approached her. Xiao knelt down and lifted her body, cradling it in his arms, hugging it close to his chest. He noticed she had been partially consumed. He pulled back to look at her face, but his vision became blurred. Water began to fall on her face, but Xiao didn’t feel any rain.
~
Again, Xiao woke up, feeling wetness in his eyes that remained from the dream. He felt Keqing breathing against the back of his neck, having rolled over in her sleep, and was again relieved. He lay on his back and briefly brushed the back of his hand over her arm. It was intact, of course. This was another dream Xiao had often, and he still had to check to make sure she was unharmed. Again, Xiao sighed and tried to go back to sleep, wondering how many more nightmares would plague his mind before morning.
In truth, while Xiao hated to see repeated images of his beloved’s demise, he had already accepted the possibility of her death in any such fashion. Keqing was not a simple businesswoman, she was also a fighter. If she had to die in battle, she would do it, and Xiao knew this. He would not stand by and just let it happen, but it was something Xiao had been able to come to terms with as he grew to understand the Yuheng more and more. But these were not nearly the worst of the nightmares Xiao suffered.
This time, Xiao opened his eyes to an almost barren space that he didn’t recognize. He didn’t know where he was, or if he was even anywhere at all. He stood up and looked around, but didn’t find much of anything to indicate a location he was familiar with. It was an empty void. He started to wander aimlessly, until he saw a figure ahead of him. He recognized it as Keqing and ran over to her. When she heard his footsteps, she turned around to look at him. Before he could speak, he noticed a confused look in her eyes.
“Who are you?”
Xiao’s stomach dropped, almost wishing he’d misheard her. Wondering if he could alter his own dream into believing that he’d certainly misheard her. He looked down at himself, but he was still the same. Nothing had changed that would make him unrecognizable. And it was surely Keqing before him.
It’s me. He heard himself say, but she gave no indication of having heard it.
“Who are you?” she asked again.
Xiao tried to reach for her. She didn’t recoil in fear or discomfort, but the look in her eyes was one he was not used to.
“I’m sorry…I don’t know you.” She said, looking puzzled.
Xiao could not speak. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He tried to grab her hand, but there was no form to her body. It was as if she was a spirit that he could not touch no matter how hard he tried. He became angry with his hands. She was right there, why was he powerless to hold her?
He pleaded with his mouth to speak. With his arms to catch her. With her to remember him. But nothing happened. Keqing stayed in front of him, as if she knew him. As if waiting to feel his hands hold her face, take her in his arms, and yet her words were like a blade cutting through his flesh. Her eyes looked at him as if he was a stranger.
“I’m sorry…I have to go…” she said.
Keqing turned away from him and began to leave. Xiao tried to follow her, but his legs felt heavier with each step he took. She got further and further away from him until she stopped when a tall figure appeared before her. The figure extended their hand towards her and she took it. He heard her laughing, happily, only it sounded mockingly in his ears. As if they were laughing at him. Keqing walked hand-in-hand with the figure until Xiao could no longer see either of them, and could only hear their laughter. It was no longer the sweet laugher Xiao loved to hear, it sounded disgusting to him. He could not hear anything else, the sound got louder and louder and louder, until it became overwhelming like a storm. It became harder to breathe as Xiao uselessly covered his ears, drowning in the sound of that sickening laughter, tears drenching his face despite him not remembering crying. The noise overtook Xiao and he felt himself lose consciousness.
~
Xiao shot up in a cold sweat, breathing heavily. He felt himself shaking and his vision was cloudy. He gripped the bedsheets in his hands, almost tearing them.
Indeed, these were the types of nightmares that tormented Xiao the most. He could perhaps bring himself to accept Keqing’s death. But he could not handle the thought of her leaving him. The notion of Keqing being alive but not at his side terrified him. He had let himself become too attached to be able to imagine that reality. That, he thought, was worse than death.
He was still breathing heavily when he felt a pair of arms wrap around him and ease him to lay back down, facing away from her. She had responded too quickly to have just been asleep. Xiao mentally cursed himself as he started to return back to reality. He must have woken Keqing up when he was still dreaming. She whispered “shh”s into his ear to calm down his breathing.
“Nightmares again?”
Xiao didn’t reply, she already knew the answer anyway. He didn’t need her to pity him for his nightmares, he was simply fixated with her presence at the moment and nothing more.
She’s here...she’s still here…
Keqing responded to his silence by sliding her arms down and tightening her hold around the Yaksha’s waist. He felt one of her hands move up to stroke his hair.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Xiao never enjoyed telling her about any of his nightmares regarding her. Not because he necessarily thought they would upset her (specifically the ones about her dying), but because he hated reliving them. He knew what she would say. It was just a nightmare. I’m fine. You’re fine. Nothing bad is going to happen, okay? He knew that. He felt foolish getting so worked up over a nightmare and waking her up on top of it. His karma knew where to hit him, knew where it would hurt the most. How pathetic he must be, to be so attached to her that he woke up in a panic at the thought of her leaving.
Amidst his own thoughts, he heard soft humming from Keqing vibrating on the back of his neck. Xiao hated that his nightmares shook him so much that it took time away from Keqing’s own rest. Not only that, but she was staying awake to see him in such a…pathetic state.
Xiao was surprised at what he heard next, which was Keqing singing softly. He didn’t know what song she was singing, (not that he knew too many mortal songs anyway) but he was too distracted by the fact that she was singing to even bother thinking about anything else.
Xiao had never heard Keqing sing, he’d never even imagined what she would sound like singing. She was no local street performer, but her voice was still soft and melodic. Better than anything he could have envisioned.
Her voice was quiet, as if he was still asleep and she didn’t want to wake him up. He could tell she wasn’t the most confident about her singing but was shaking her nerves for his sake. Little did she realize Xiao was completely captivated, wishing each second that she continued would not be the last. A moment ago, his heart was racing in fear at the thought of Keqing leaving him. Now it was racing at the sweetness in her voice next to his ear. The way her hands felt, one stroking his hair, the other wrapped around his waist, holding him as close to her as she could. The way she treated him, a bloodstained, killing machine, as if he was something delicate, only made his heart pound harder in his chest. He could not possibly adore her more.
When Keqing finished the song, Xiao was able to take a few moments to gather himself. The nightmare having long faded from his mind. Xiao wished he could be selfish for once and ask her to continue. He didn’t care what she sang, only that she did sing. But he knew he couldn’t keep her awake for too much longer, he didn’t want her to be tired because of him. Now that he’d heard it once, he could repeat it in his mind all night if he wanted to.
“Are you feeling better?” she asked after a few minutes of silence.
Xiao swallowed, not knowing what to say. He felt…eons better…than he had when he woke up moments ago. Yet he didn’t know what to say. He lamented the fact that he didn’t have the words to describe how he felt at that moment, how to tell Keqing how much he was enamored by her singing, how much he appreciated her for comforting him. Even if he did have the words, he’d probably still fail to verbalize them the way he wanted. He instead took Keqing’s hand in his own and slowly brought it to his chest, right over his still pounding heart. He ordinarily wouldn’t be quite so willing to let Keqing know the effects she had on him, but he also didn’t want her to think her efforts at calming him meant nothing. He pressed her hand close to his chest and held it there.
Keqing didn’t say anything but Xiao felt her lips press against his shoulder and slowly form a smile against his skin. She pressed closer to his back.
“If it helps, I’ll sing again if you wake up once more...only if you want me to.” Keqing said, and then, as if she was reading his mind, “You aren’t a burden to me, Xiao. I don’t mind losing some sleep if it’s for you. No amount of sleep is more important than your well-being.”
At her words, Xiao felt her own heart beating against him, increasing in speed, almost as fast as his own. He turned his head ever-so-slightly in her direction without fully turning to face her. She let out a shy laugh, knowing he could feel it. He felt his face flush slightly. What he wouldn’t give to see her face right now if they weren’t both so tired.
“’m serious, y’know?” Keqing said, the tiredness obvious in her voice, as she brought her other arm down to link around Xiao’s waist. “Wake me up…if y’need me…I don’t mind…”
As she slowly drifted back to sleep, breathing softly against the back of his neck, Xiao brought her hand up to his lips and kissed it before closing his eyes as well.
“Thank you.”