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He’s never held you this close before, when your wrists bend perpendicular to brace your palms against his chest; when your abdomens are pressed together, exhales blending, and when he can witness the trepidation and anticipation in your irises instead of keeping it tucked away as a figment of his nightmares.
There isn’t a single archon he worships, not even Morax. But to keep his imagination as far from reality as possible – the idea of you, writhing against his hold, as if he’s the personification of the abyss itself and you’re choking for untainted air, grasping for the sun – he’ll kneel at an altar, to whatever gods there are left in Celestia, and pray.
He’s hurt – killed – so many before. So many that the pummeling of his stomach has become customary at the thought, and throughout his prolonged life, has never faded. To think that you’d even tolerate being near him, and to grow closer to him despite how often he pushes away company, is incomprehensible.
And now, to realize that you are offering yourself up voluntarily to his hunger, his whim – in the most outlandish of worlds, Xiao would’ve never thought that someone would give themselves to a demon incarnate.
But do you really see him as one, if you whisper his name like spring caresses a withered tree and flourishes it with blossoms anew?
“Yes, I’m sure about this.”
You’re so warm in his embrace. As he rests his forehead on your shoulder, your fingers combing through his hair, Xiao recalls what he’s heard about feeding: Ganyu said that it’s like being electrocuted back to life. The rush of blood into the mouth burns, but it’s comforting, comparable to a mortal’s hot chocolate on an austere night, infinitely more satisfying than drinking it from a bag.
“But the best part … is intimacy.” Ganyu had hidden her face after uttering the last word, as if discussing something embarrassing. “You’re both vulnerable, yet believe in each other. Your partner trusts you with their body, not just their blood … it’s a very soothing feeling, Xiao.”
The adeptus’s grasp on your body loosens; his hands drop from your hips, and he pulls away briefly to once more study your face. You’ve wanted this for him – what Ganyu had described – and he’s wanted it too, for the longest time. The keenness on your face is as candid as the Liyue moon on a cloudless night.
He can only do what he can to make sure that your willingness isn’t misplaced.
Slowly, he draws you onto his lap, and you nestle your thighs on either sides of his hips. Xiao meets your eyes once more, searching for any signs of resignation – your last chance to back out – before you both commit.
And when you smile at him, the corners of your lips perking upwards before mouthing ‘it’s okay,’ he doesn’t know whether to exhale in relief or in confliction.
“Is there a spot you’d prefer?” Your query prompts him to blink a few times. His topaz gaze flits towards your hand – your wrist – and noticing his attention, you raise it just below his eye-level.
He mumbles his appreciation so lowly that you don’t hear it at first, but he takes care to repeat himself when he holds your hand in his own; he can smell the pheromones radiating from around your neck, and especially from the wrist that he holds so close to his mouth. They dance in his senses, and in his cynical mindset, taunt his thirst. In his gums, his teeth begin to throb, and he consciously has to regulate his breathing as to not frighten you.
“Hold onto me,” Xiao requests, parting his lips. “Tell me the moment it hurts.”
And before he binds himself to you, he prays.
The familiar sensation of breaking skin reawakens the traumatizing pounding in his stomach, and Xiao screws his eyes shut. Black out, push out, that feeling, it will be all right – but it’s so hard to believe when you forcefully stifle your whimpers to accommodate his feelings. He knows that you’re too conscious about his past, that you want this moment to be for him, and have in turn molded it around his sensitivities. Your clutch on his shoulder with your spare hand tightens briefly, before you rub circles into his skin with your thumb.
You’re too good to him.
With the flat of his tongue, Xiao massages the skin that’s bared to his mouth, gingerly suckling on your flesh as your blood leaks from the punctures. As it seeps onto his taste buds, he rapidly concludes that you taste undeniably better than when your plasma is extracted and stored into a bag. You taste like how summer feels: enveloping him in warmth, with a nightfall that buzzes with the light of fireflies – soft, somehow, with the barest hint of saccharine.
It’s – fuck, you taste so good, and Xiao can’t help but groan into your skin.
Your thighs have reflexively tightened around his waist, the alien sensation of being drank from stirring something within you that you can’t describe. Xiao undergoes a similar feeling, and absorbing you has nearly replaced the lurching in his abdomen. He opens one of his eyes to gather your state: your eyes are closed as well, eyelids barely squeezed together, but your lips are parted as if the hints of another noise threaten to breach.
His fangs dislodge from your wrist, although his mouth remains attached. For the next few moments, Xiao studies your expressions as he drinks, witnessing as your breathing evens out as he establishes a gradual, sensual pace, and tenderly presses his tongue against the punctures. You sigh like you’re content despite your contrasting positions – is he making you feel good, too?
He draws away slightly, dislodging his fangs from you, allowing his vampiric biology to mend the incisions, yet his lips still hover over the blooming hickey from his ministrations. Your eyes flutter open at the lost sensation, and Xiao waits patiently for your response. Still willing, you nod, and the adeptus presses small kisses onto your skin, trailing them up to the bend of your elbow.
His voice is more stable when he speaks this time. “Are you all right?”
Another nod, and you breathe, “yes.” This situation is as new to him as it is to you, and your cheeks are cutely flushed. Although you seem to be considering something . . .
Xiao practically chokes when you avert your gaze and tilt your neck into his view, exposing your untouched throat.
“You can if you want.” Your admission is inhumanly quiet. From the slight waver in your words, it takes him less than a second to realize that you’re shy, that you feel as if you’re being presumptuous to assume that he’d want to feed from your neck. No, of course he does – but this is the first time he’s considered that you would let him. Xiao is so taken aback by your proposition that he’s speechless, and it’s only the hitch of disappointment in your breathing that snaps him out of his dumbfounded stupor.
His hands find themselves on your shoulders, steering your gaze back to his. Quizzically, although still reticent, you regard him and are astonished to realize that his mouth is agape. Xiao, the stoic adeptus, rendered tongue-tied by a mortal. The mere notion that he’d be at a loss for words is absurd – but did you step too far?
Xiao is swifter than you when it comes to who speaks next, finally regaining his voice. Although, it’s no where near as self-assured as usual. “You’re not bluffing? At all?”
A moment passes. you know what you want. “No, I’m not.”
The yaksha blinks, rapidly, as if to mimic the pace of his flashing thoughts. You notice that specks of your blood linger in the corner of his mouth.
“I don’t know if you’re the fool, or I am.” Xiao gives a short, self-deprecating exhale that could be a scoff. He presses his lips together, the familiar pulse in his gums returning. When his eyes meet yours for the last, conflicted time, he wonders what you see in him that’s worth keeping.
As you embrace each other, his tongue reacquaints itself with the flavor of your skin, trailing up from the bone of your shoulder to where it meets your neck. You shiver into his hold at the wet sensation; Xiao’s palm cradles the back of your head affectionately, twining into your hair as his gaze locks onto your unmarred neck.
Like skirting through fallen leaves, his fangs graze over the flesh he marked with his tongue. Another exhale from you, but this time, it isn’t a breath.
When he hears his name from you – so tender, fond, and accepting – he shuns the gods in Celestia and makes a sanctuary in your arms.