Work Text:
Purgatory
如同炼狱
"What do you mean that wasn’t his real name!?"
Xiao felt like a fish cruelly left to twist in the air. He suffocated, squirming and wriggling, but unable to break free and slip back into lifegiving water. With every breath, he felt he was inhaling the void instead of air. No matter how deeply he gasped, no matter how hard he huffed, the tremendous pressure pushing down on his chest just wouldn’t go away, and every contraction of his ribs brought immense agony and pain. Pitch-black belts bound his special forces gear tight against his body, an armament of isolation and tenacity that only served to encage him as he fought for air. He could barely control his hands from shaking as he stared at Zhongli, who was sitting on the other side of the room.
"Zhongli! What the hell do you mean?!"
It only took two large strides for Ajax to cross the width of the room. Leaning over the small tea table that Zhongli was sitting next to, he roughly grabbed the collar of Zhongli's shirt and pulled the older man's face over. The Snezhnayan's expression was twisted in anger, his young face full of grotesque lines as he positively growled at Zhongli.
Xiao would have joined Ajax if he could.
Zhongli only looked on at Ajax's raging anger, and allowed the younger man to clutch his collar and rattle his head.
"Ajax, Xiao, I'm speaking the truth. His name… was not Venti."
"Why didn't you tell anyone about this till now?!" Ajax's loud yelling was making Xiao's ears ring painfully, a cascade of white noise that he had to shake his head to dispel. "And now… now it's too late!"
"I'm sorry. I had promised him that I would never tell anybody about this, especially Xiao. Xiao…" Zhongli tried his best to turn his head, his collar held as it was by Ajax. "I'm sorry."
"You idiot. What's the use of saying sorry now?" Ajax shoved the older man back and Zhongli collided hard against the back of his wooden chair. The Snezhnayan's hands were balled into fists, and dark veins bulged angrily under his pale skin. "Venti is already… he's already…"
Xiao turned his neck and thought he heard the bones in his spine creak. He narrowed his eyes at the few design sketches resting under a small box on the table he was sitting next to.
"Zhongli…" Ajax was still talking, his voice cracking with emotion, "why didn't you tell us earlier that this wasn't his real name? We could still have gotten his real name out of him back then…"
"Zhongli." Xiao opened his mouth. His own voice was terribly hoarse even to his own ears, a stark contrast to the impassioned sounds Ajax was making. "What was his real name?"
"I do not know." Zhongli shook his head. "He never told me his real name."
"Then," Xiao pressed, almost chocking on the dryness of his throat, "who was the person with the name 'Venti Barbatos'?"
"A wartime poet, who our Venti befriended when they joined the army as new recruits." Zhongli answered evenly. "The two became best friends after saving each other's lives. Our Venti probably started using that person's name ever since the poet died on the battlefield. Since that time, the Venti we knew has never mentioned his own name to anyone and never talked about his past. Perhaps no one in the army nowadays is aware of this secret, apart from me."
"Is that so?"
There seemed to be even less air around Xiao now. His head felt dizzy. Maybe there were thousands of miniature bubbles currently bursting in his veins. If he listened closely, he could swear that his blood was literally boiling and frothing in his carotid artery, the sound of oxygen sublimating into gas roaring in his ears as he processed Zhongli's words.
The name that he had devoted untold numbers of thoughts to, that he had called out during his long nights of despair, that had brought him a final sliver of hope — it was a lie.
The person whom he had loved so much, who had brought meaning to his life, who he had sworn to never forget — hadn’t told him the truth.
Why hadn’t Venti told Xiao his real name? Why had he only told Zhongli?
Why — why — why did he become someone else?!
And who was this Venti Barbatos to the "Venti" they knew?
"Xiao." Zhongli started to talk again in a cautious tone. "I hope you can understand. Venti must have had a reason for this. No matter what his real name was, he will always be our dearly missed friend and your irreplaceable lover. His name won't change what he meant to us. I'm sorry I didn't tell you this sooner."
Venti had known that he was Xiao's only light and salvation. And yet, he had still decided not to show his true self to Xiao, even at the end.
"It's okay." Xiao coughed. His throat was parched and almost cracking. Ajax passed him a glass of water with a concerned look. Xiao sipped at it, but didn't feel it alleviated his thirst at all. Perhaps his dehydration was from a completely different source. "I get it. You stuck to your contract with him. Seeing you now, he must be happy about your decision."
"… seeing me now?" Zhongli frowned a little, a look of confusion on his face.
"Yes…" Xiao coughed again. He could almost taste the iron tang of blood. "He once said he must witness how people would design his gravestone. So, I brought him here today. He has been here all this time."
Zhongli's expression changed for real for the first time today. His cor lapis eyes widened, and his gaze darted all over the room in concern. Ajax, too, stood straighter and scanned the room in alarm. The Snezhnayan's blue eyes soon settled on the design sketches lying close to Xiao's hands.
So, everything Venti left for Xiao was fake, huh? A fake name. A fake family history. A background that didn't even pass the checks of the defence HR department. Xiao had originally thought it was because of the privacy regulations surrounding members of the special forces. But no, Venti had simply discarded everything in his life when he took on this name. He had become someone else.
Ajax's eyes zeroed in on the small, elegantly carved box used as a paperweight, resting harmlessly on top of the design sketches.
"I see that 'Master Childe' still has sharp eyes." Xiao's throat pushed out a raspy sound, a sorry mimic of a chuckle. "Yes, he would definitely have wanted to see his gravestone, to figure out just how his name would be carved. That was why I brought him here today. Little did I know, even the name about to go onto the tomb wasn't his own."
Just how much of "Venti" was real? And how much had taken from his dead friend? Even though Xiao had offered his entire being in exchange for Venti’s love, he was unable to gain the other man's final, most intimate trust.
"Xiao." Zhongli seemed to be genuinely terrified. He blinked incessantly, and blood seemed to drain from his face. What a sight. The leader of the most elite special forces squad on the continent had never demonstrated fear like this. "Unburied urns containing the ashes of the dead need to stay undisturbed on an altar. You are from Liyue and should know this tradition as well as I do. What you are doing right now is supremely disrespectful to the dead —"
Ha! Didn't what Venti did to Xiao also an act of supreme disrespect from beyond death?
Xiao barked out a laugh. He didn't care about the disrespect anymore. If Venti really couldn't rest in peace because of Xiao's actions and decided to haunt him as a ghost, then maybe Xiao would be able to interrogate Venti on why the dead man decided to take this secret into the grave.
He stood up and walked towards the door, his legs stiff as if they were made of lead.
"Xiao! Where are you going? D-don't do anything stupid!"
Ajax was calling out after him anxiously.
"I'm going out for some fresh air."
He replied in a low voice without even turning around.
"Because honestly, the air in this room…"
… was starting to smell like Purgatory.
[FIN]