Work Text:
Listen, Xiao was raised by Rex Lapis himself. Not from infancy, but it was close enough, as his only knowledge of sentience was because of his long service as a slave. Now, Xiao wasn’t stupid.
No, far from it, really. Xiao was a dumbass.
His crow brain saw those beautiful eyes and thought, “holy shit, that’s beautiful. Can we have it? Please?” And you know what?
Xiao went along with it. He kidnapped this random alchemist off of a local Liyue road, and now they are sharing Almond Tofu while the blond man eagerly lists an entire paragraph about flowers, of all things.
As of right now, Xiao can probably answer correctly if you ask him every known question about the Cecilia. Where it originated? No fucking clue, but he does know how to recite the words that someone else has said.
Especially if they’re pretty.
His crow brain still hasn’t understood that yes, kidnapping IS bad if you do it without permission, yknow. His tiny little “vigilant” yaksha brain is far, far more focused on the little glints of jade in the pretty alchemist’s eyes. Even more so, the small gestures as the man continues to explain his ideas to the clearly non-human person that kidnapped him for no fucking reason.
Xiao is down horrific. Dear god, if Hu Tao was even in his general presence she’d keel over because of the sheer restraint that it’s taking him to not just throw himself over the table and kiss the alchemist to shut him up. Perhaps it’s out of character, though.
Oh, fuck it. Who cares? This counts as a crackfic.
Probably.
For plot reasons, Zhongli is staying at Wangshu. For some goddamn reason, he decides that now is the perfect time to walk into the absolute shitshow called Xiao’s emotional trauma + karmic debt, yknow. The usual.
Zhongli very, very obviously raises an eyebrow. Usually, Xiao is dramatically bowing before him out of some misplaced respect for someone who can’t even tie shoe laces, but now? Now, Xiao is staring at this short ass blond version of Zhongli, and he is understandably confused.
Zhongli does a miniature kick flip with his fingerboard against the edge of their table, leaning down close enough to ask, “what’s wrong, son?”
Xiao proceeds to break the edge of the table underneath his white-knuckled grip. A gorilla grip, some would say.
Xiao squints REALLY fucking hard at zhongli, like so hard that he’s gonna need contacts in the next few seconds.
“Dijun, did you just make a deez Nuts joke?”
Zhongli wheezes, coughing up blood out of the sheer psychic damage that the question caused. That, and the knife still lodged underneath his fifth rib. Thanks, Childe.
Zhongli finally puts his fingerboard away, noticing that it’s been out for the entire 5 minutes that it’s taken me to write to this point. “No? When the hell did I mention ‘DN’?”
Albedo lurches forward, a manic glee in his eyes.
“What is DN,” he asks, with the ferocity of an extremely angry dog. Perhaps even a chihuahua.
Xiao goes wide-eyed, breath being punched out of his lungs at those mere words. It’s as if his worldview is shattered, deeply and unrecognizably torn apart underneath this emotional blow. It’s as though he will never feel good again.
His almond tofu drops to the ground, sliding out of his hands almost depressingly.
Zhongli’s face twists into an EXTREMELy smug expression. Almost more smug than that one smug fucking cat that keeps getting sent to me by my friends. Fuck you, you know who you are.
He takes a deep breath, almost to prepare for something unspeakable. Something unmentionable, horrific in every meaning of the words.
“Deez nuts, young one.”
Albedo melts into a pile of chalk. He’s been fucking obliterated, mondstadt is saved, I fucking guess. Xiao chokes on extremely sudden tears, like, Jesus Fuck dad, his eyes were PRETTY!! he had a CUTE smile.
was it necessary to fuck him up so hard with a deez nuts joke that he fucking melts? Chalk doesn’t melt, it literally does Not melt.
How the fuck did he do that? What??
Somewhere, probably working through the worst hangover of his life, venti feels shivers. Damn, shawty, them winds pissed.
Xiao finally regains enough courage to speak, lip wobbling as he stares at his chalk-covered almond tofu (still on the ground, he’s gonna eat it later)
“Zhongli-Dijun, Did you hear that Rex Lapis died of ligma?”
Zhongli closed his eyes like some old bitch. Particularly that one old bitch down the street that threw a water balloon at me because I pet her dog.
“Who’s Rex Lapis?”
Xiao’sLips curled smugly, catlike eyes narrowing.
“Ligma Balls.”
Zhongli evaporates, literally dying this time. Childe, somewhere, also dies because the little shithead probably made a blood pact or someht with Satan that required a soul bond or someth idk for zhongli’s nudes.
i Don’t fucking know where I was going with this, it was legit but then it turned into a shitpost