Archive of Our Own ^beta

Bennett sat down on the stairs leading up to the Favonius Cathedral with a sigh, trying to calm himself down.

He knew that his fears were irrational. He knew that Lumine had a ton of people from all over Teyvat on her team, and that he really shouldn’t look too deep into not getting asked to go adventuring with her for a few days. Maybe she just didn’t need pyro users at the moment, which would explain why Xiangling and Xinyan had also been benched for the time being. 

But even with that reasoning, he still felt an uncomfortable and worried feeling in his chest. Maybe Lumine had finally realized that he was nothing more than a burden to the team, and had finally decided to replace him for someone else. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. He’s surprised that he lasted this long, to be honest— with just how amazing Lumine and her teammates were, it felt strange that she asked him to go with her on adventures so often. Maybe it was just to pity him, a voice in the back of his mind suggested.

He fidgeted with one of the many bandages wrapped around his legs in an attempt to calm himself. The wound that the bandage was covering had almost definitely healed by now— it had been nearly a week and the injury itself had been fairly minuscule— but he couldn’t take it off. Not when Razor was the one to wrap it up, anyway. Razor was… a lot of things, but first and foremost they were protective. No matter how small and insignificant an injury was, they always made sure to take care of it immediately. They always made sure that a wound was one hundred percent healed before taking any bandages off, and became slightly disappointed if Bennett took them off himself. As embarrassing as it could be at times, Bennett really appreciated this trait of theirs. It made him feel worthwhile, especially when he didn’t exactly take the best care of himself.

Oh great, his mind had wandered off to Razor again. He sighed once more. When wasn’t he thinking about Razor, really? It didn’t seem like he could go an hour without thinking about the Wolvendom resident and their long, fluffy hair that had no right to be as soft as it was, or the way they curled up into a ball when they slept because that’s how their wolf family slept, or their rare but heart melting smile, or—

Yep, there he goes again. Bennett held his face in his hands.

Of course he’d end up with a hopeless crush on someone that wasn’t even fully human. Of course . 

Did they even know what romance was? He wasn’t even sure. Probably, but the longer he convinced himself that they didn’t the longer he had an excuse to keep his feelings to himself.

Maybe it was a good thing that they had gone adventuring with Lumine today, he thought absentmindedly. At least that meant that they wouldn’t be here to see him sulking like this, and at least he wouldn’t have to worry about spontaneously combusting the instant Razor asked him what was wrong with those caring red eyes.

You’d think that was a joke, but with his luck Bennett wouldn’t even be surprised if that was what was written on his death certificate. 

“Bennett? What’s wrong, you look upset.” A familiar voice filled Bennet’s ears as Xiangling suddenly dashed up to him, her face full of concern. He’d been so focused on indulging in his worries that he’d completely forgotten that Xiangling was staying in Mondstadt with him for the day, as well as that they were supposed to meet up at the Cathedral after she finished eating. Whoops.

“Oh, hi Xiangling!” He stood up and brushed the dust off of his legs in an effort to look more put together. “I’m fine, don’t worry.” That wasn’t entirely a lie— Xiangling’s presence alone was enough to make him feel a lot better. Maybe he was too easily distracted, or maybe Xiangling just had a calming aura to her, he wasn’t sure. 

“You sure? You don’t look fine.” Bennett could practically feel the doubt from her gaze pierce through his soul.

“I’m alright, I swear! I was just… thinking about stuff, I guess.” Xiangling still didn’t look like she believed him, but it didn’t look like she was going to press any further. That was pretty rare for Xiangling— most of the time she would dig as far as she possibly could into something before the other party forced her to stop— but Bennett wasn’t going to complain about that. 

“Okay but like… are you sure that you’re sure that you’re fine? Did Klee light you on fire again or something?” Scratch that, apparently it was incapable for Xingaling to stop talking about something she was invested in. Bennett decided to just give in and tell her the truth, partially because he had nothing to lose and partially because he knew that there was no point in trying to hide anything from Xiangling.

“Alright, you got me. I’m just a bit worried. I feel like I’m not good enough for Lumine’s group and I’m scared that she’s going to get rid of me, you know?” He paused for a few seconds, timidly staring down at the stairs beneath him, then hurriedly added, “It’s, uh, kind of dumb. Sorry about that.” His eyes stayed fixated on the pale gray of the cathedral stairs, waiting for any sort of response, when Xiangling suddenly grabbed his head and lifted it up.

“Hey, that’s not dumb at all!” She grabbed his hand and squeezed it gently. “But Lumi’s definitely not gonna replace you, you’re great!” Xiangling gave him a reassuring smile, and he immediately felt ten times better. There was something about her that always seemed to make anyone in her presence feel better, and Bennett was incredibly grateful for it. “Do you wanna go eat something at Good Hunter to get your mind off of it?”

“Yeah, that sounds great! Tha— wait, didn't you just eat there?”

“Hey, it’s not my fault Mondstadt food is so good!” She pouted defensively. “I never knew their fisherman's toast tasted so good! And ooh, the grilled fish here is so different from the ones in Liyue. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but-”

“Xiangling,” Bennett tried cutting her off, but it seemed that she was stuck in her own world.

“-it just tastes different. I think it might be the seasonings. Oh, and speaking of seasonings-“

“ Xiangling,” he tried yet again, but his words fell upon deaf ears.

“-the pepper they use here sucks compared to the stuff in Liyue. I don’t like bashing cooking ingredients but it barely tastes like pepper! It tastes like black salt and it totally messes with the flavor of the fish! But ooh, the-”

“ Xiangling,” he raised his voice slightly, and finally she seemed to come back to her senses.

“Oh, I’m sorry! Talking about new foods is always so exciting. Anyway, what were we talking about…?” She paused for a few seconds, then answered her own question. “Oh, right! We were going to go somewhere to cheer you up.” He thought about declining for a brief moment, not wanting to waste Xiangling’s time over his meaningless sulking, before he shook the idea out of his head. It was impossible for him to turn down a good meal, especially with a close friend by his side.

Besides, with the way she was already intently staring at the restaurant off in the distance, Bennett assumed that she was planning on going back there already. She squeezed his hand once more and, without warning, started sprinting off towards the restaurant. He could feel the confused stares of the people scattered about, but he decided not to pay them any mind. They were there in record time, mostly due to her sprinting as though her life depended on it. 

“You gotta–” he paused, took a deep breath, and then continued. “–warn me the next time you do that.” Xiangling, who somehow didn’t look at all tired from what had just happened, quickly apologized.

“Oh, right, sorry! I kinda forgot to, whoops…” she trailed off as she nervously scratched the back of her head. “Well, at least we’re here now. Ooh, what to get… the fried eggs look good, but so do the signature Mondstadt hashbrowns. Ugh, I just can’t decide…” And just like that, Xiangling was off in her own world again. Bennett didn’t really mind, though. Seeing her happy like this was enough. 

“I’ll take one Mondstadt hashbrown, please,” she spoke up after about a minute or so. “And what would you like?” 

“I’ll take a chicken-mushroom skewer, please.” You could never go wrong with the Good Hunter chicken-mushroom skewers. He should probably try something different, given just how often he ordered them, but he just couldn’t resist. 

“And will that be for here or to go?” Sara asked them. “By the way, it might take a bit for the two of you to get your orders. We’ve been pretty busy today. I hope you understand.”

“Oh, that’s no problem!” Xiangling said with a smile. “I totally get it. We’re always backed up on weekends where it’s nice outside. But for here, please.” Sara nodded, told them the total that Bennett probably should have remembered, then told them that they could pay when their food arrived in exchange for the long wait. That was probably for the best, given that he had nowhere near enough mora on him.

“I’ve heard so many great things about the hash browns served here, have you ever had one of them?” Xiangling asked him as they walked over to the nearest empty table and sat down.

“Oh yeah, I love them! They’re really great, but I prefer the ones Razor makes. They’re shaped like puppy paws and everything, it’s adorable.” …And there he goes thinking about Razor again. Bennett only wished to be able to get a coherent sentence about them out of his mouth without getting internally flustered, but apparently even that was too much to ask. This time he couldn’t even blame it on his luck, this was his own fault.

“Woah, Razor can cook? I didn’t think really they’d be able to with the whole, y’know, wolf thing.” Bennett silently hoped that this didn’t mean she was going to try and teach Razor her cooking methods. While a lot of her dishes were amazing, he’s pretty sure he would rather die than have two separate people try forcing him to eat concoctions made out of slime and whoknows what else.

“Yeah! They’re surprisingly really good at it, even better than me.” Bennett’s cooking was about as good as Xingqiu's handwriting, so it wasn’t much of a compliment that Razor’s cooking was superior. Bennett tended to either burn or undercook everything he tried to make. He wasn’t sure how much of it was his luck and how much of it was simply him being bad at cooking, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“Woah, really? I might have to teach them some of my recipes sometime.” Before he had the chance to process that information and beg her to reconsider, his attention was snatched away by a group of four familiar faces walking through the Mondstadt front gate. 

“Ooh, it’s Lumi’s group! And she looks like she has a bunch of stuff, too!” Sure enough, Lumine and the rest of the group she’d brought with her seemed to be carrying a ton of really cool looking treasure. He couldn’t see it all due to the distance between them, but Xingqiu and Chongyun were holding some new and fancy looking swords, Lumine was carrying a handful of what looked to be remnants of various monsters, and Razor was carrying a decently sized crate. Woah, this was way more stuff than they ever got when he was there! Xiangling waved at the group and they all came running over, with the exception of Lumine and Paimon who went to go talk to Kathryne instead. 

“Woah, this is super cool!” Xiangling grabbed one of the swords out of Chongyun’s hands. There was a vague plea from Xingqiu to be more careful with it, but Bennett was more focused on Razor, who had come running up to him excitedly.

“Oh, hi! How was it? Did’ya find anything cool?” Obviously they found something cool, seeing as how there were three people admiring a massive fancy looking sword less than a foot away from him, but he decided to ask anyway.

Razor nodded. “Found many weapons. Lumine very happy.” Razor gave a very slight smile and Archons, Bennett was pretty sure his heart stopped beating. It was a somewhat rare sight— in fact, he’d yet to see them give anything more than a very subtle grin— but that didn’t stop his heart from going haywire every time it happened.

With his luck, it was going to keel over and die from a heart attack before he even had the chance to ask Razor out. 

Not that he’d ever have the confidence, anyway. So he supposed it didn’t really matter.

“Aw, I’m glad!” His eyes curiously glanced down to the box in Razor’s hands. “What’s in the box though?” Razor silently opened the wooden crate in front of them, revealing a decently sized stash of various foods and cooking ingredients, plus a few things only someone like Xiangling would classify as food. This box contained everything from slime condensate to ham, and it was honestly impressive that they’d managed to get all of this in one trip.

“Hunting for green things is fun. Easier than hunting animals.” Yeah, that would check out. You didn’t really have to kill plants. “Don’t see much use for plants, but Lumine says they’re good for cooking.” He took a quick glance at Xiangling, waiting for her to go on an excited tangent about cooking like she usually did whenever the topic came up, but it looked like she was preoccupied.

“Guysss,” she pleaded. “Let’s not—”

“Your library book has been overdue for how long???” Xingqiu sounded genuinely offended, and Bennett would have laughed if he wasn’t aware of how seriously he treated books. “Dear Chongyun, I’m afraid I can no longer associate with you.” Xingqiu sounded a bit too genuine about that, and it looked like poor Chongyun was taking him seriously. Bennett really didn’t want to watch this argument unfold even further, so he decided to leave this matter for Chongyun and Xiangling to handle.

He scooted a bit further away from them, just to be safe.

Now where were they…? Oh, right.

“That’s a lot of food, I can’t believe you managed to get all of that in just a few hours! Maybe we could try cooking something together sometime, I think that would be fun.” He’d still probably end up with something going horribly wrong in the cooking process, but at least Razor would be there with him to make it better. They were one of the few people that didn’t really mind his bad luck. Bennett wasn’t quite sure as to why— maybe wolves didn’t really have luck as a concept, or maybe they really were naive enough to put up with him. Either way, he didn’t mind in the slightest.

“Good idea. Bennett good cook, knows more than Razor.” That was… certainly arguable, but he was thankful for the compliment nonetheless. Cooking with Razor sounded fun if not chaotic, and he was actually starting to look forward to it.

“Aw, thanks, but I’m really not that good of a cook. I might end up accidentally setting something on fire, you know.” Bennett nervously scratched the back of his head. 

“That’s a lie. Bennett good cook, knows how to make good fried eggs. And meat, Bennett cooks meat very good.” Oh archons, he was pretty sure that was the nicest thing anyone has ever said about him. He opened his mouth to say… something to thank Razor for their words, only to be silenced by Paimon yelling out from a distance.

Probably for the best. He’d never been the best at accepting compliments.

“We don’t have all day you guys! Paimon’s schedule is very tight, you know!” With a distinct mumble of ‘I doubt that,’ Xingqiu and Chongyun gathered their treasure and ran off in the direction of the traveler, leaving only Razor.

“See you soon. Lumine says we have important thing to do. She said  it will take while.” Razor waved at him, something that Lisa had recently taught him was a traditional human way of saying goodbye, and also ran off after Lumine and Paimon. It was a bit too late that Bennett realized that Razor had left their box of cooking ingredients there, as the group had already run off to god knows where by the time he noticed. Oh well, he’d probably be seeing Razor again this evening. He could just hold onto it until then.

“Soooo… whenareyougonnaconfess?” Xiangling asked him as soon as Razor left, giving him absolutely zero context.

“When am I gonna… huh?” It took about thirty seconds for Bennett to have any idea as to what she meant, and another thirty seconds for him to silently pray that she didn’t mean what he thought he did.

“Yknow, when are you gonna confess to Razor?” She looked at him as if this was a completely normal question to ask. “It’s getting painful to watch, you’re approaching Xingqiu and Chongyun levels of obvious. And that’s really saying something because like… have you looked at them?” Wow, way to rub salt in the wound. But that aside, was it really that obvious? I mean, even Razor had caught on to the fact that there was something going on between Xingqiu and Chongyun, and they only had a barebones grasp on human culture. Bennett stared blankly into space for a few seconds as he considered his options. He could lie and say that his feelings for Razor were completely platonic, but there’s no way she would believe that. Hell, if it was Xingqiu and Chongyun levels of obvious then there was no point in even denying it.

But it’s not like he could just admit it either, because she wanted him to confess. Bennett would quite literally rather dig himself a hole and die in it than confess to Razor. Did they even truly understand what romance was? And even if they did, why would they ever have feelings for Bennett? Why would anyone ever have feelings for him, let alone someone as kind and sweet and protective as Razor? What if they didn’t know what romantic love felt like and overestimated their feelings for him and that would just be awkward and horrible and what if—

“Helloo? Earth to Bennett? Did I make you uncomfortable or something? I’m sorry,” Xiangling mumbled the last part of her sentence, seeming genuinely apologetic. “I’ve just been waiting so long to help two of my friends get together, since Xingqiu won’t let me.”…That wasn’t very surprising. 

“Ah no, you didn’t make me uncomfy or anything!” He reassured “I was just–”

“Oh okay good!” She abruptly ut him off. “So when are you gonna confess?” She was staring at him like a puppy, her hands grabbing the ends of the table excitedly. It was nice to see his friend so happy, but Bennett wished she was happy about literally anything else.

“I, uh, wasn’t planning on it…?” He phrased his statement like a question, knowing full well that she was’t going to accept that as an answer. “I mean like, they’re a wolf, kind of. Do they even know what romance is?”

“Mhm, I saw Lisa explaining it to him a couple weeks ago. It was really funny to watch, you should’ve been there.” Dammit, there went his first excuse. 

“Okayyy well… what if they think that romantic love is a boy girl thing?” Bennett sounded even less sure of himself this time, because even he realized that this was a flimsy reason at best. “I wouldn’t wanna have to explain all of that, heh.” He was sweating bullets by this point, grasping at straws to find any possible loophole out of this conversation.

“Lisa is the one who explained it to them, they definitely know what gay people are. Also they’ve figured out that they’re not a boy or a girl, I’m pretty sure they can figure that out.” …Fair point. In his desperation to find an excuse not to do this, he’d somehow managed to forget that. Whoops. “We both know that they’re smart enough for this, Benny. You’re looking for an excuse, aren’t you?” Bennett couldn’t quite read the expression on her face, and worry pooped in his stomach.

“Well, I, uh.”

“Obviously I don’t wanna force this on you or anything but like… you should totally go for it.” Xiangling had a certain look in her eyes as she said that— a certain look that seemed suspiciously similar to the look she gave when she was trying to find someone to try eating her newest concoction. 

Bennett had a sneaking suspicion that she wasn’t going to let this go easily.

“I appreciate you trying to help, but there’s really no point. They won’t like me back anyway, so I’m just setting myself up for failure.” He was surprised that she had even let him finish his sentence before cutting him off. Usually Xiangling didn’t have any tolerance for his self-deprecating tendencies, and would shower him with compliments before he could even finish his thought.

“No, shut up.” For once, he didn't mind being told to shut up. “You’re, like, amazing dude! You two are already so close, it's clear that they really like you.”

“Really, you think so?” The way Xiangling spoke was as if her words were objective fact, but she still felt unconvinced.

“Duh! I think you’re, like, their favorite human. They probably like you back!” He truly doubted that, but he didn’t want to bring the mood down with his negative self-talk. Not that he even really had the chance to, because not even a second passed before Xiangling offered a smug, “So nowwww are you gonna do it?”

“Uh… sure?” He forced the words out of his mouth hesitantly, before he had the chance to second guess himself and chicken out. He felt his face heat up with the realization of what he’d just agreed to. 

Why had he said that?

“Wait, really? I didn’t expect you to actually agree, I’m excited.” That wasn’t exactly reassuring. Bennett tried to calm himself. There was still time. It’s not like he’d agreed to confess any time soon. 

“Sooo…” the way Xiangling spoke gave him the feeling that she had another idea. An idea that he wasn’t going to like. “There’s still a few hours before Lumi’s group gets back. That’s a perfect amount of time to prepare a super awesome confession!” And there it was.

“ No ,” he spat out immediately. No, not in a million years, never. A few hours was nowhere near enough to plan out something like this. For a normal person, sure, but for Bennett? He would have to find the perfect spot where nothing could fall on or crumble underneath them, he’d have to quadruple check that there were no monsters nearby, he’d have to stop by a Statue of the Seven and pray to Barbados that no harm came to Razor, the list went on. And that was just all of the physical dangers. Mentally? Archons, he didn’t think he’d ever be mentally ready to confess to Razor.

“Aww, alright.” Xiangling made a slight pouty face, then continued. “Let me know whenever you’re ready, though. I’d love to help out any way I can.” Wait, that was it? She had just let it go that easily? Bennett hated to admit it, but he felt… disappointed. Almost as if he’d wanted to be forced to confess, just to get it over with. 

“Wait,” apparently he’d piqued Xiangling’s interest with just one word, and she stared at him excitedly. “Do you really think a few hours is gonna be enough to prepare? I mean, with my luck and all…” he trailed off, the rest of his sentence being self explanatory. 

“Yeah, of course! We can work together to make sure it’s all perfect!! Wouldn’t you feel better if you just got it over with, anyway?” She took a deep breath, and then continued in a less excited tone. “But really, if you don’t want to then that’s okay. Don’t feel forced into anything.”

Bennett closed his eyes, unable to believe that he was actually about to agree to this.

“No, I think you’re right. Let’s do it.” Xiangling made an excited squealing noise, drawing the attention of the other patrons of Good Hunter.

“Are you sure?” Her eyes were nearly sparkling with excitement, and Bennett felt that she was more happy about this than he was. “Like are you sure you’re sure?” He forced himself to nod, and her eyes lit up even brighter.

“Woohoo!! Okay, do you have any ideas?” It didn’t take long for him to realize that no, he had no idea how he wanted to do this. The reality of the situation hit him like a brick, and he wanted to crawl into a hole and hide.

Even in the worst case scenario, it’s not like Razor would stop being his friend, right? They weren’t raised with human customs in mind, and probably wouldn’t even consider that an option. …Right?

He was still terrified, regardless. He couldn’t lose Razor, he just couldn’t. He’d rather live with an unrequited crush for the rest of his life then risk it all with a confession and— Why had he agreed to do this?

Bennett tried to quiet his thoughts.

It’s not like any of that mattered now, anyway— he’d already agreed to this, and there was no way Xiangling was going to let him back down now. 

“I, uh…” he paused for a second to think, then continued. “Guess I could ask my Dads for help?” Usually they were the first people he went to after Razor when he was struggling with something like this, but he doubted that they’d be much help with this particular problem.

“Aren’t they all, like, 80 years old? And single?” 

“Well, yeah, but—” 

“Ooh, I know!” She suddenly declared. Bennett hoped she’d have a better idea than he did. “We could make a cake!” She squealed with excitement. “I asked Xinyan out like that and it went really well! Plus we should have most of the ingredients right here!” She pointed at the box Razor had left at the table.

Wait, that was actually a really good idea. Recently he’d been trying to show Razor a bit more of what humans like to eat, and desserts like that had actually ended up as some of their favorite foods. Even if everything went to shit, at least they would have something sweet to enjoy.

“Yeah, that sounds perfect!” Xiangling quickly started rummaging through the box of ingredients to get a sense of what they were starting with. 

“Uhh, is there anything Razor likes in particular? Like a certain vegetable or flavor or something?” It was only then that the realization hit him. He was baking a cake with Xiangling . 

“Well, they like meat… and potatoes,” Bennett almost regretted saying that, because that almost certainly meant that Xiangling was going to try making some sort of meat-cake abomination. His fears were confirmed as she gave him a certain look, one that had a sort of terrifying excitement to it. A look that said ‘I am about to make a horrible concoction that is barely considered edible.’ “Buttt I don’t think that would work well with a cake. Because, like, y’know, it’s a cake,” he added with the hopes that she would save her experimental amalgamations for another day.

“Oh don’t worry, we can make it work!” Oh no. It seemed that he’d opened Pandora’s box. Razor would definitely enjoy a meat and potato cake, but Bennett was more concerned about what other things she would wind up putting into it. A meat cake was acceptable, albeit a bit strange sounding, but it was Xiangling he was talking about. Meat and potatoes would quickly turn into slime condensate and Windwheel Asters and oh, he felt sick even thinking about it. “Hm… we could mash the meat into a cake tray to get the shape, and for the frosting we could mash up some potatoes! Ooh, and for the sprinkles we could use–” she rambled on, the devilish inflection to her tone only becoming more apparent.

Oh no. 

“Xiangling-”

“-little bits of the mint leaves they collected! Oh, and maybe instead of sugar we could try using slime condensa-”

“ Xiangling,” he raised his voice slightly, causing her to snap out of her little trance. “No meat cake. Please.” As much as Razor would probably enjoy a meat cake, that didn’t assure that the meat cake would actually be edible. A lot of Xiangling’s more experimental dishes tasted… interesting to say the least, and that’s not really the impression he wanted to leave on Razor.

“Aww, fine. Is there anything else they like?”

“Um…” this was embarrassing, he really should know this. Razor was his best friend! He racked his brain for memories of what they liked to eat. “Oh! They had a slice of red velvet cake at Good Hunter a few weeks ago and liked it, maybe we could try making that?” The way they smiled as they ate that cake slice still hadn’t left Bennett’s mind. Seeing Razor as happy as they were that day made his heart do backflips in his chest.

He decided that if he ever died from a heart attack, he’d blame it on Razor’s smile.

“That sounds perfect! Those are always really fun to make. I think we have about three hours until Razor and everyone else get finished with what they’re doing, so that should definitely be enough time to finish everything. We should probably get going now though, just to make sure we have time to gather up everything that we don’t have.” She took Bennett’s hand in her own, and started walking off to the Mondstadt gates.

“Wait, what about the food we ordered?” That should’ve been the last thing on his mind right now, but he really didn’t want to disappoint Sara.

“Oh, right, I forgot about that. Uhhh, it’ll still be there when we get back, right?” Before he had the chance to explain how that was almost definitely a horrible idea, Xiangling had already started speed walking to the city gates. She sat down, took the wooden box out of her arms, and started rummaging through it once more.

“Okayy, so we have, uh…” Xiangling trailed off as she searched through every ingredient in the box. “Milk, and, uh, that’s it.” Bennett didn’t even want to know how Razor got that in the wild. “Maybe if you weren’t so insistent on making such a boring cake then we could use some of the ingredients in here,” she pouted.

“I’d prefer a boring cake over a cake that’s going to give Razor food poisoning.” Xiangling made a noise that was a mix of a laugh and a sigh, and he continued, “But that’s not too much of a setback, I think Good Hunter sells a bunch of ingredients. We could try going back there.”

“We can’t just buy the ingredients! This has to be special, gathering them organically makes everything taste so much better,” Xiangling reasoned. If she wasn’t one of the best cooks in all of Teyvat then Bennett would have refused, but she was so amazing that he was convinced she could make it work.

“Alright,” he agreed. Even Xiangling seemed a bit surprised that he accepted the idea so quickly. “No slimes though, please. At least not in the batter– I’m still recovering from the last dessert you made.” The dessert in question had been a bowl of rice pudding made out of cryo slime condensate and crushed up hilichurl horns. It had been the worst thing he’d ever eaten by far, and that was saying something considering his own cooking skills.

“Oh c’mon, it wasn’t that bad! You just don’t have refined enough tastes for my delicious creations,” Xiangling said, half jokingly. “But we should probably start looking for the stuff now so that we’re not late. I think we should start with the eggs, those are pretty easy to get. There’s a ton of bird nests around Mondstadt.” That shouldn’t be too hard, he’d seen hundreds of bird eggs during his adventures. He wondered idly if that type of egg would even work in a cake, but he decided not to question it. Xiangling was one of the best chefs in all of Teyvat, of course she knew what she was doing. She took his hand and started speed walking towards a few trees outside of the Mondstadt gates, thankfully not sprinting as she’d done earlier. They looked around for a few minutes as they tried to find a tree with a bird’s nest resting on its branches, but were unsuccessful. Of course the one time he actually needed those eggs was the one time he couldn’t find them. They continued searching around for an embarrassingly long time, until they finally came across a particularly tall tree with a bird's nest sitting on top of it.

“Finally! I could’ve sworn that these things were easier to find,” Xiangling sighed with relief as she stared up at the nest. “So, uh, how are we going to get it down? I mean I could probably go grab Gouba and send him up to get them, but he’d probably just set them on fire, heh.” Climbing the tree was pretty much a non-option at this point— if something was tall enough that not even Xiangling rushed to climb it, then it was way too high to even consider climbing. 

“Hm.. maybe we could try shaking the tree? Or I guess we could just try to find a smaller tree or someth–” Bennett was unceremoniously cut off as a gust of wind suddenly picked up, moving the bird’s nest off of the branch it was sitting on and directly onto his head. Everything went black for a few seconds as he stumbled backwards, eventually landing on the ground.

“Woah, are you alright?” Once Bennett’s vision had cleared he noticed Xiangling crouching down next to him, her face filled with worry.

“Ah I’m fine, this stuff happens a lot. At least I didn’t get any egg on me, heh.” He turned around to look for the remains of the bird's nest, but it seemed like Xiangling was already ahead of him.

“Woah look, the eggs aren’t cracked! We can totally still use these!” He looked at the nest in her hands and sure enough, a majority the eggs were somehow still completely intact. “I guess your luck isn’t so bad after all. I mean, at least we don’t have to risk our lives climbing this tree to get them.” Woah, this must’ve been his lucky day! Sure the world was still spinning around him and his head hurt like hell, but at least the eggs were still usable. 

“Next we need to find a few Sweet Flowers so I can make them into sugar. They’re pretty common, so it should be easy to find some. Hopefully.” Bennett had a sneaking suspicion that this wasn’t going to be anything close to easy, with a combination of his horrible luck and the way Xiangling didn’t sound too sure of herself, but he decided to push that thought to the side. Besides, the longer this took the longer he got to hang out with Xiangling.

…And the longer he got to procrastinate on confessing to Razor.

The two of them started to wander around Mondstadt while making small talk, trying not to wander off too far from the city. They knew each other well, and they both knew that if they went too far into the wilderness that they were going to get completely distracted. Ten minutes passed, then fifteen, then twenty, and they were still without any Sweet Flowers. 

“…And then she like, held my hand and I was like omg and she was like woah and then she smiled at me and I think my soul left my body,” Xiangling happily rambled about her girlfriend as they walked through the forest. “She has a concert soon, you should totally come! It’ll be so fun with you there.” Xiangling turned to him and smiled.

“That sounds fun, I can’t wait! When is it?” Xinyan’s concerts were always a blast to go to, especially when he had friends to go with. Her music was so catchy that it was always stuck in his head for weeks after a concert, which was just a testament to how amazing her work was.

Plus, she always gave out free tickets to her friends. That was definitely a positive, considering just how low he was running on mora.

“Oh, it’s Sunday at the— ooh, look!” She cut herself off as they stared into a field full of Sweet Flowers resting right next to a cliff. There were several dozen of them, way more than they needed, and they all looked fresh.

...This was almost too lucky, especially after he had just narrowly avoided being covered in egg.

Before he had the chance to wonder how this step was going to go horribly wrong, he noticed Xingqiu and Chongyun sitting on the edge of the cliff next to each other. Before either of them had the chance to go say hi or grab a handful of flowers, Xingqiu nervously grabbed onto Chongyun’s hand.

Oh.

“Oh my gods, are they finally…?” Xiangling asked as the both of them took cover behind a tree to see what was happening. It was probably weird for them to be doing this, but he didn’t want to ruin the moment by running up and grabbing flowers from next to them.

…Or that’s what he’d say if he was asked, anyway. The truth was that he was a bit too invested in Xingqiu and Chongyun’s totally-not-relationship, and wanted to know if this was truly what he thought it was.

“Mondstadt’s topography is beautiful, is it not?” Xingqiu asked the boy next to him and— yep, this was definitely what he thought it was. Finally, after months and months of them very obviously pining for each other, they were going to confess. Xingqiu’s eyes were nearly sparkling, and he hoped everything went well. He turned to Xiangling to see her reaction, and she looked like she was a wolf about to pounce on its prey.

“Ah yeah, I guess so. So what did you call me here for? We should really get back to Lumine and Razor…” Okay, now it felt really wrong to be eavesdropping like this. This was definitely supposed to be a private conversation, and he didn’t want to intrude on their privacy. 

“Hey, what are you doing?” Xiangling whisper-yelled at him as he started to sneak away from the tree they were hiding behind and towards the sweet flowers.

“I don’t wanna intrude or anything so I was just gonna grab the flowers and leave. We could always just ask them later.” He was just as invested as she was, but he didn’t want to risk his luck ruining their confession. They were just here for the flowers, and he didn't want to mess up this important moment just because he felt like eavesdropping.

“You can’t just leave ! He’s totally about to confess, I’ve been waiting for this for months!” She pleaded and, alright, he supposed stay for a little while longer. It was definitely an invasion of their privacy, but he’d be lying if he said that he wasn’t morbidly curious too. He started to say something to Xiangling, but quickly silenced himself as Xingqiu started to speak again. 

“You’re so impatient, Yun.” Xingqiu twirled a strand of hair around his finger, then sighed. “But yes, there is something important I need to tell you.” Oh boy, here it was. Xiangling looked like a rabid dog by this point, her eyes going wide with excitement.

“Oh my god, he’s actually doing it! Hehe, Xinyan’s gonna owe me twenty thousand mora!” 

“You… made a bet on this?” He wasn’t even that surprised— it sounded like a very Xiangling thing to do. She even didn’t have the chance to answer him, as she was more focused on the situation unfolding in front of them.

“Chongyun, you’re my best friend. But, I—” and then, because Bennett cannot have nice things, a small object fell from the tree they were standing under and hit him directly on the head. This wouldn’t have been a problem if said object hadn’t made him let out a surprised yelp loud enough for Xingqiu and Chongyun to hear.

Uh oh.

The two of them turned around abruptly and oh god, Xingqiu looked like he was going to murder them both. Bennett didn’t really blame him, but it was still a terrifying look.

“Oh, hi! What are you two doing here?” Chongyun asked the both of them with a slight smile, somehow not noticing the fact that Xingqiu was about to confess his feelings to him, nor the fact that he looked like he was about to stab the two of them.

“Oh, uh… we just needed to grab some Sweet Flowers! Right Xiangling?” Right, the flowers. Would it be insensitive to go and grab them now? He turned around to find Xiangling, but It looked like she was already one step ahead of him, as she’d sprinted into the field to grab the flowers that they needed. She came back in record time, and the two of them ran away from the scene as quickly as they possibly could. They ran off to… somewhere , and eventually collapsed as they lost their breath.

“Xin-” she started, but was interrupted by a mini coughing fit. “Xingqiu is definitely going to kill us. Like, we’re totally dead.” Xiangling sighed, standing up from the ground she’d been laying on. “At least we got the flowers though, this’ll definitely be enough.” She gestured towards the dozen or so flowers she’d hurriedly picked from the field. 

“Yeah, good thinking. I never would’ve been fast enough to grab those. I feel bad for messing up his confession, though.” Bennett supposed it wouldn’t matter all that much whether Razor accepted his confession or not, because after all of that Xingqiu was going to kill him within a week. He’s super rich, right? It’d be easy for him to send a hitman after him or something. He better start writing his will now.

“Don’t worry, it’s not your fault. Besides, he probably would’ve chickened out of it anyway. He acts all cool but he gets so flustered when it comes to Chongyun, it’s honestly adorable,” She mused. That wasn’t exactly something Bennett expected from Xingqiu of all people, but the more he thought about it the more it fit him. He only hoped that he would have another opportunity to confess to Chongyun without being interrupted by his bad luck.

“But anyway, the next thing we need to gather is wheat so we can make flour. Usually there’s some around Springvale, right?” He never paid that much attention to plants and such while adventuring, but that sounded about right/

“Uh, yeah! I think so.” he decided to trust Xiangling’s instincts. She was the best chef around, so if there was anyone he’d trust to know the location of cooking ingredients it’d be her.

“Alright, cool! I think we’re pretty close to there.” Xiangling hurriedly grabbed the Sweet Flowers from off of the ground and put them in the wooden container along with the rest of the ingredients they’d gathered so far, then looked over at Bennett with a smile. “It’s been forever since I’ve been able to go and get ingredients myself, usually everything is already in the restaurant. This is so much fun!” He never knew that something this simple would be so exciting to Xiangling, but he understood where she was coming from. There was something much more fun about adventuring when he wasn’t tied to a commission, and that was only amplified by the fact that he had Xiangling here with him. The two of them took off running in the direction of Springvale, which proved to be a bad idea almost immediately. Either Springvale was further away than they expected it to be or they really needed to work on their sprinting skills, because both of them were completely exhausted by the time they reached the small town. 

“How is Mondstadt so huge?” Xiangling asked between coughs. “I could’ve sworn it was way smaller than this.”

“You’re from Liyue, everything feels small compared to there..” She shrugged in acknowledgment and started looking around their area for the wheat they needed. Somehow, even despite his of luck, they managed to find an entire wheat field in seconds. 

He silently wondered how this was going to go wrong. Maybe it was poisoned or something, that sounded about right.

He decided to cling onto the tiny hope he had that the wheat was in fact not poisoned, and gathered up a bit of it with Xiangling. Once they had gathered what seemed to be enough, they stepped back and added it to the wooden box. It felt easy, almost too easy, and Bennett exercised great caution into his next few motions. Growing up with his luck had taught him to always be cautious if things seemed to be going a bit too well.

“Alright, I think that’s everything we need for the cake itself. I carry a bunch of smaller stuff with me in my bag so I don’t need to worry about that. The last thing we need to do before we start making the cake is to get the slime condensate for the icing.” Oh, right. He’d completely forgotten that he’d agreed to let her do whatever she wanted with the icing. Oh well, at least the actual cake part of the cake would be edible.

“Is there, like, any difference in taste between slimes? Does it matter what kind of condensate we get?” He asked her. The taste of different types of slimes had been something Bennett never thought he’d have to ask about, but he supposed there was a first time for everything.

“Oh yeah, totally! Pyro slimes are spicy, dendro and anemo slimes are sweet, hydro slimes are, uh, wet…? They don’t really taste like much. Geo slimes just taste like rocks so we probably shouldn’t use those. Cryo slimes are cold and kinda taste like ice cream, and electro slimes are salty and kinda crunchy. I think cryo slimes would work best for this but I’ll leave it up to you to decide, cuz it’s your confession and all.” Even just the reminder that he was going to have to confess to Razor once this cake was baked was enough to make Bennett nervous. The ingredient gathering quest they’d been on had been enough to distract him, but he was getting closer and closer to actually having to confess.

What if they said no? What if they didn’t understand what he was asking? What if they, like, howled at him or something?

No, he couldn’t doubt himself now. He had to at least wait until the cake was fully baked. Then he could panic about Razor declining his confession. 

“Um… I think cryo slimes would work well. No one wants to eat a salty cake.” Xiangling gave him a look as if to disagree with that statement, but said nothing on the matter. A salty cake seemed like one of Xiangling’s less horrifying creations, now that he thought about it.

“Yeah, that’ll probably work best. There should be some cryo slimes by, uhhh…?” She trailed off, taking a not so subtle glance at Bennett to ask for help.

“I think there’s some by Starfell Lake?” He wasn’t entirely sure if that was correct— Bennett tended to avoid fighting slimes if he was being honest. Not because they were difficult to fight or anything, but because they looked so stupidly cute that he felt bad for hurting them. He would absolutely never admit this though, mostly because his friends had difficulty keeping their mouths shut and the information would find its way to Razor somehow. 

And if Razor found out that he avoided fighting slimes because he thought they were cute? He was probably going to get kicked off of his own adventure team.

“That sounds close enough, hopefully you’re right.” And with that, they set off in the direction of Starfell Lake. The walk was nice and peaceful; a stark contrast to the frantic running they’d done previously. They still had more than enough time, so they could afford to walk at a slower pace. After a while of walking, (and Xiangling stopping to pick every flower she saw) they finally arrived at the lake. The two of them looked around for a few minutes, only finding anemo slimes and tons of Windwheel Asters, until Bennett’s eyes locked with those of an abnormally large cryo slime.

“Ooh, there it is! It’s huge too, this’ll definitely give us enough condensate!” Bennett stood idle for a few seconds, waiting for Xiangling to pull out her polearm, but no action was taken.

“Uh… are you gonna kill it? I left my polearm back in Mondstadt and I think it’s a little cruel to punch the poor thing to death.” Oh no. Bennett looked down at the sword in his sheath, then over at the cryo slime in front of him.

Oh no.

He closed his eyes and swung his sword at the slime. His pyro vision made it melt fairly quickly.

Poor thing.

“It dropped just enough condensate for us to frost the cake! Now all we have to do is process the ingredients ‘n actually make the cake.” Xiangling muttered something to herself about the best way to make the cake, and then continued. “We just need to find a stove or campfire or something.” She paused for a second, then got an idea. “There’s one next to Good Hunter, right? That’ll work.” Bennett was about to agree with her, but then he remembered what had happened before Xiangling had dragged him out of Mondstadt.

“Wait, didn’t we just kind of… leave our food there? I don’t think Sara will be too happy with us,” he attempted to reason.

“Technically , we ran before we got our food, so it doesn’t count. It’s not dining and dashing, it’s just kind of… dashing, I guess.” Before he had the chance to ask how she’d feel if someone had ordered food at her restraunt and then just ran away, there was already a hand intertwined with his.

“C’monnn, we at least gotta try! Razor’s probably already done with their mission stuff, you don’t want to keep them waiting, do you? Plus, didn't she say something about it taking a while or something?” Xiangling was looking at him with those stupid puppy dog eyes, and he couldn’t find it in himself to argue.

And besides, even if he wanted to, he was pretty sure that it was impossible to break through the overly tight grip she had on his hand. 

“Alright, I guess you’re right. But if she asks us to pay for anything, that’s on you.” Xiangling made a reluctant grumble of agreement before she started sprinting back towards Mondstadt city. Thankfully she’d ran at a somewhat normal pace this time, and he was mostly able to feel his lungs by the time they got there.

“Saraaaa!” She called out excitedly as soon as they reached the Mondstadt gate. “Can we use your stove thingie? It’s important.” Bennett braced himself for Sara to start going off on them for up and leaving for… an hour? Two? Three? How long had they even been gone? But instead he was met with two plates being set on the counter.

“Please forgive me, there was a mix-up in the kitchen and it caused a huge delay. I can offer you your food free of charge to make up for it being this late.” Sara seemed a bit more apologetic than the situation warrentend, but Xiangling was quick to reassure her. 

“Nono, don’t worry! We actually just got back to Mondstadt! We thought you were gonna be mad at us .” The two had a quick conversation about how frustrating it could be when running behind schedule with orders, then shared a laugh.

“But of course you can use our outdoor oven. We aren’t supposed to use it for actual orders since it’s a different model from the ones we have inside.” That would explain why he’d never actually seen any Good Hunter employees using that oven. Interesting. “I also have a few utensils you can borrow, if you’d like.” Xiangling’s eyes lit up with happiness as she excitedly grabbed the tools Sara had gestured to.

“Woah! These are the fancy ones! And you’re letting me just borrow these?” Sara nodded. It was probably bad that Bennett didn’t even recognize a few of them— they looked more like torture devices to him than cooking utensils— but he decided not to say anything. The two of them offered their thanks to her, and walked over to the oven with the box of ingredients, their plates of food, and the newly acquired cooking utensils. 

“Alright, it looks like we’ve got everything,” Xiangling said as she opened the box and started rummaging through it. “Good, because I’m pretty sure you’d kill me if we had to leave again.”

“Yeah, probably,” he said with a laugh. Xiangling pulled out all of the ingredients that were a result of their scavenging and not Razor’s, plus the milk they’d gotten earlier, and started to mix together a few things. 

“Do you maybe want to mix together the slime condensate so it’s smooth enough for frosting? I got the rest of it, cakes are super easy to make.” Bennett was surprised that she even had the ability to speak right now; usually she got so focused on her cooking that she shut out the rest of the world. 

“Um, sure! Do I just, like, mix it up in one of these bowls?” Bennett, admittedly, knew embarrassingly little about cooking. He could make a few basic dishes if it came down to it, but he was nowhere near the skill level of even someone like Razor.

Razor . He wondered how they were doing right now. He really hoped that they would enjoy their cake and— oh gods he was going to have to confess soon, wasn’t he? He felt his heart rate speed up a bit as he desperately tried to push the thought to the back of his mind. If he ignored the problem for long enough it would go away! Probably!

“Yeah, you just kinda mix it up. It doesn’t need to be super precise or anything, slime condensate is pretty easy to—” Xiangling paused mid sentence, tilting her head and giving Bennett a vaguely mischievous grin “Aww, are you blushing? Are you thinking about Razor?” Bennett was pretty sure that a part of his soul left his body at that moment in mortification. “I can’t wait for you two to start dating, you’ll be so cute! Then you can finally stop teasing me for being all mushy with Xinyan.” The way she immediately assumed that Razor was going to accept his confession did make him feel slightly better about everything, although not by very much. A small voice in the back of his head told him that it was only because Xiangling was often overly positive about everything, and not that she actually believed him. 

Whatever, that wasn’t what was important right now. If he didn’t put his entire mind and body into stirring the slime condensate together then it was somehow going to explode, given his luck. 

“I’ll take your stunned silence as a yes,” she giggled to herself and turned her focus back to her cooking. Bennett, with excruciatingly carefulness, finished mixing up the slime condensate frosting as he waited for Xiangling to finish up. Surprisingly enough, it didn’t result in some ungodly catastrophe. It didn’t necessarily look great either, but at least it hadn’t exploded.

“Allllright, now it’s just gotta cook!”  Bennett reflexively scooted away from the oven, just in case. He didn’t know if her finishing basically the entire cake in the same amount of time it took him to stir the frosting said more about her cooking skills or his lack thereof. 

“Thank you for all of this,” he said with a sigh. “I never would’ve been able to do all of this on my own.”

“You don’t need to apologize!” Xiangling said with her classic adorable smile. No wonder she’d gotten a pyro vision— her smile alone could melt through ice. “Besides, you’re paying me back with your confession.” Right. That. 

“Oh. I, uh, guess you’re right.” Bennett looked down at the ground, pretending to be very interested in the cracks in the sidewalk in a desperate attempt to avoid eye contact. 

“So how’re you thinking of doing it, if you don’t mind me asking?” Archons, he hadn’t even thought about that. He supposed that the easiest thing to do was to just walk up to them and mumble out some sort of cheesy confession, but even that had about a billion ways it could go wrong. Razor could take it platonically or as a joke, he could stumble over his words and, with his luck, end up saying something hurtful. Or archons forbid he were to just start sobbing and not be able to get any words out.

“How did you ask out Xinyan?” He ended up asking to deflect the question. 

“Well, I just kinda handed her the cake I made l was like ‘Hey, I like you! Do you wanna go out with me?’ It was actually a lot less scary than I was expecting it to be.” Her wording made it sound a lot simpler than it was. “I’m sure you can do it! I believe in you.” The thought of ‘but what if they say no,’ was still prominently in the back of Bennett’s head, but he chose not to say anything. He didn’t want Xiangling to be forced to comfort him. He could confront his fears on his own. The oven soon made a noise to indicate that the cake was done cooking, and Xiangling gently took it out and set it on the counter. The two of them slathered on the frosting once the cake was cool enough, and they looked over their work.

It was certainly an amazing looking cake alright. The condensate frosting did make it look a little off-putting, but it was still a delicious looking red velvet cake. He carefully grabbed it out of the oven and placed it in the wooden crate of ingredients. It probably wasn’t the safest way to store it, but oh well.

“Mm, it looks so good!” Xiangling looked like her mouth was going to water. “I’m sure Razor will love it!” 

“Yeah, I’m sure they will.” The cake was done. That meant that there was only one step left to this plan.

Uh oh.

Well, whatever. What were the odds that Razor was even going to be back anytime soon? The sun hadn’t even fully set yet, so surely he could at least put this off for another hour or s–

As if the world itself hated him, a familiar party of four walked through the Mondstadt gates. 

Of course. He’d forgotten that he was Bennett .

“Ah, they're here!” Xiangling practically yelled. Bennett was thankful that they were far enough away from the gates for Lumine’s party not to hear them, but he was a lot more focused on trying to calm his anxieties.

“RAZOR!!!!” Xiangling yelled once they had gotten a little closer. Bennett felt his legs wobble underneath him. Her yells clearly drew the attention of the wolf, who’s eyes locked with hers immediately. Thankfully for Bennett’s sanity, they didn’t come running towards them and instead kept walking with Lumine’s group. 

“Woah, hey, you alright?” Xiangling whispered in stark contrast to her earlier loud tone. “You look like you’re about to like, throw up or something.” Bennett decided to ignore the fact that he very well might do that, and instead focused on trying to formulate a coherent sentence.

“Nervous.” Was the only thing that came out. At least it was better than the alternative of passing out.

“Yeah, yeah, I understand.” Xiangling’s honey eyes were filled with their typical compassion, but it meant even more than usual in this situation. “You don’t have to confess if you don’t want to. I’m not gonna, like, hold you hostage or anything.” The offer sounded extremely appealing, but he had to stop himself. He’d have to waste this stupid cake they’d ruined a confession to make, firstly. But more importantly, he’d have to keep mindlessly crushing on Razor for the foreseeable future. The thought of getting rejected made him want to hide in a domain and never come back, but the thought of never admitting his crush and always feeling like his heart was going to explode whenever they were in the room was even worse somehow. He had to do this, whether he was ready or not.

“No, that’s fine. I’ll just have to get this over with. I think I’ll be okay.” That last sentence was probably the biggest lie he’d ever told, but he was hoping that he’d believe it if he said it enough times. Fake it ‘till you make it, right? 

“Woah, really? That’s like, all mature and stuff, I’m proud of you!!” He didn’t really feel ‘all mature and stuff,’ but he appreciated the compliment regardless.

“Thank you. For, um, everything. Seriously.” He wished his appreciation could’ve come out in a more serious manner, but he was afraid that the willpower required to speak properly right now would cause his legs to give out. 

“It’s no problem, I’m glad I helped you!” She grinned, and it made Bennett feel that just maybe everything would be alright. “Can you handle yourself from here? I wanna go meet up with Xinyan, we’ve got a lot to talk about. Also I wanna leave before Xingqiu has the chance to kill me.” 

“Yeah, I’ll be alright from here. Tell Xinyan I said hi, okay?” Xiangling grinned, possibly the brightest she ever had, and ran off in the opposite direction of the gates. 

There was only one thing left to do now. 

This was it. He could do it. 

“Wow, we’re running into you a lot today,” Chongyun idly commented as they walked up. Xingqiu gave him a murderous stare, but he didn’t care in the moment. He was here for Razor, who quickly walked up to the rest of the group. 

“Razor!!” He tried forcing himself to sound excited as opposed to absolutely terrified, but he ended up sounding as nervous as he felt. Razor cocked their head, confused.

“Is Bennett hurt?” Ah jeez, was he being that obvious already? Razor’s instinctive reaction to anything being out of the ordinary was to assume that he was hurt, so he must’ve already been clearly not well. There was such a kind worry in their voice that it was almost painful; Did he really deserve someone caring for him like that?

Bennett shook his head. He couldn’t think about that right now.

“Nono, I’m not hurt!! I just wanna, uh, show you something?” In all his nervousness leading up to the event, he hadn’t actually prepared how he was going to do this. He couldn’t just hand it to them right here, it had to be special. Although he had absolutely no clue how to make it special, he knew he had to do something. Razor gave him a nod, and Bennett had become fluent enough in their nonverbal speech over the past few months to know that they were ready to follow him. He took a deep breath in and out, and started walking towards the Mondstadt gates. To where , exactly, he was uncertain, but he had an strange feeling that he’d figure it out. 

“Hey, Bennett?” Lumine called out to him in a whisper. He turned to face her. “Good luck.” She winked at him and oh archons , how Xiangling tell everyone that fast? He assumed it was her, anyway, but he didn’t have the energy to get angry about it now. He offered her a shy, “Thanks,” and continued walking.

——

Bennett had always hated silence. Silence was awkward. Silence was everyone staring at him because he’d screwed something up again. Silence was the unsaid complaints of ‘Oh, not Bennett again! Everything always goes wrong when he’s around.’ He often found himself speaking too loudly or rambling on and on about whatever crossed his mind just to fill the void. After all, people getting annoyed at him for talking too much was better than him breaking down under the deafening sound of nothingness. Everyone was going to hate him soon enough anyway, so he saw no issue with speeding up the process by oversharing. 

But silence with Razor was different. Silence with Razor was relaxing. Silence with Razor was wondering what they were thinking about in the moment without a hint of self-doubt or worry. Silence with Razor was the unspoken whispers of ‘Hey, hey, it’s alright. Just breathe’ of tending to wounds by a campfire. 

He wasn’t sure why. The obvious reasoning was that, obviously, he was in love. But these feelings had persisted well before he’d ever come to the realization that he had feelings for them. Maybe it was because they seemed to enjoy silence just as much as he hated it, or maybe Razor was just special. Yeah, that was probably it. 

So, when not a word was uttered when walking through the Mondstadt wilderness, Bennett didn’t feel uncomfortable. The opposite, actually. He had room to think, to calm himself down. 

He could never thank Razor enough. He wanted to just blurt out his feelings right then and there, but he forced himself to wait. This confession had to be just as special as they were, after all.

“Where are we going?” They asked, understandably, after walking for a while. There wasn’t a hint of malice or annoyance in their voice, and it was instead filled with curiosity. 

“Uhh… it’s a surprise! I can’t just tell you now or it’ll ruin it.” Razor didn’t say anything else on the matter, which he was very thankful for. He wasn’t technically lying about his reasoning— it was just that it’d be a surprise for the both of them. The two of them continued walking further and further into the Mondstadt wilderness, and Bennett could feel his heart pounding in his chest even further. He simultaneously wanted to both throw out the words “I love you,” right then and there, and to lead Razor around in circles until they got tired and left. He forced himself to take the middle ground and to keep walking to… wherever it was he was going. The comforting silence actually gave him the chance to think about where it was he was leading Razor to, thankfully. He could take them to Stormterror’s Lair as a memory of their first major victory with Lumine, but this was about them and not her. Besides, there were way too many enemies left in that area for it to make a good confession site. Maybe he could take Razor to Starsnatch Cliff instead? That sounded like a good idea… except for the fact that his luck would probably make one of them plummet straight off of it. Plus, he’d already been walking in the opposite direction of there anyway, and he didn't want to make Razor impatient. 

Gah, where else was there!? He couldn’t just do this next to some random Hilichurl camp, but where else could he possibly go? Was there anywhere else in Mondstadt that was meaningful to either of them?

…Oh. 

The idea hit him like a brick. (and for once there was no actual brick also hitting him.) He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of this sooner, it was perfect! And if his memory of Mondstadt served him right, they should be almost there.

“Alright, do you mind closing your eyes? Here, take my hand.” Before he had the chance to add any ramblings about ‘No it’s totally fine if you don’t want to do it i totally get it if you don’t trust me like that it’s totally fine I get it,’ Razor had already intertwined a hand with his. He felt his face heat up an embarrassing amount as he interlocked their fingers together and led them uphill. 

There really was no going back now.

Bennett led them up to the perfect spot, a cliff overlooking the area, and took a deep breath in and out. He set the box with the cake on the ground, and opened it up with his spare hand. He realized a little too late that he probably should’ve brought some sort of utensils to eat it with, but Razor always preferred to eat with their hands anyway. It looked just as delicious as everything Xiangling made, but he couldn’t help but feel something was missing. 

He led Razor a few steps further, and grabbed a handful of Wolfhook berries from a nearby bush. He carefully used his sword to cut the spikes off of them, then placed them on top of the cake. He wasn’t sure if Wolfhooks even went well with cake, and Xiangling might’ve been screaming at him from wherever she was right now, but he’d seen Razor eat raw meat before, they’d survive. 

“Alright, you can open your eyes now.” A rush of anxiety and ‘what-ifs’ immediately flooded through Bennett as the two of them sat down. What if Wolvendom brought back harmful memories they didn’t want to think about right now? What if his bad luck caused something to happen to them? What if they didn’t like the cake because it wasn’t meat? What if-

“Home.” They spoke quietly, voice barely above a whisper. There was more thoughtfulness put into a single word than Bennett thought was possible. They turned to look at him, then noticed the cake in their hands.

“Uh, me and Xiangling made it. It’s for you.” There was so much adrenaline running through his body that it was a miracle he’d managed to speak coherently. He handed over the cake with shaking hands, and Razor cocked their head.

“For me?” Bennett gave a nervous nod. There was a look of ‘Why?’ on their face that thankfully remained unsaid. They picked up a chunk of the cake with their hands in classic Razor fashion and took a bite. “Very good. Thank you.” They gave a rare slight smile and— oh archons they were smiling at him! It was so rare for Razor to smile, or show any facial expression that wasn’t neutral, really, that Bennett almost felt like he was going to cry.

It was only moments later, when he felt a hand gently touching his, that he realized he was crying.

“Are you okay?” They sounded so worried, panicked, even, that Bennett felt a twinge of guilt for making them believe he was injured. He considered brushing it off with a smile and a hurried “I’m fine!” like he usually did, but he knew there wouldn’t be much of a point. Razor was smarter than people gave them credit for, and there was no way they’d believe that nothing was wrong.

The only problem was that now he’d actually have to tell them what was wrong. The worried tears fell faster as Razor’s bright red eyes stared into his with concern. The only sound around them was the soft chirping of the surrounding crystalflies, and seconds seemed to pass by like minutes. Despite everything, somehow he felt that it would all be okay.

He had apparently taken too long trying to get his brain and his mouth to coordinate any meaningful phrase, and Razor had already reached for a nearby leaf to patch the nonexistent wound with.

“No, Razor, I’m not hurt, I—” that was about as much as he could manage before going silent again. This was even more difficult than he’d imagined, and he wasn’t sure how. 

“Then why crying?” They asked before he could finish his statement, their tone curious and worried. They were so sweet, he didn’t deserve them.

“Well, uh,” He took a deep breath in and out. It wasn’t so much to calm himself down as it was to get him to stop crying for long enough to speak. “Y-You know how Lisa and Jean are a lot closer than normal friends are?” He wanted to smack himself immediately after speaking; of course they knew that, everyone did. Razor seemed a little confused, but still answered regardless.

“Mhm. They’re special Lupical.” That almost made him start crying harder; ‘Special Lupical’ was about the sweetest thing he’d ever heard. 

“We call it something different but yeah, basically.” 

“What does that do with you crying?”

“W-Well.” He sniffled and took another deep breath. This was it, there was truly no going back now. He looked into Razor’s eyes for a brief second before deciding that his heart would melt straight out of his chest if he made eye contact for much longer. Even through the tears, he could see just how concerned Razor was for him, and he felt his heart backflip. “I, uh. I care about you a lot, Razor. It’s… different from the way I feel with other friends. I’ve never felt this strongly about anyone before. You make me feel so stupidly happy , it’s hard to even think straight when you’re with me sometimes.” Razor stared at them, but he couldn’t quite make out the expression through the tears. Either way, good or bad, he had to finish this. “The cake, taking you here, all of it was so I could ask you if you wanted to be… more than friends?” He did it. Finally, it was over with. Razor would probably hate him and he’d most likely lost his best friend, but at least it was done. They stayed eerily silent for a while after his words were spoken, which was impressive with just how little they spoke in the first place. He’d really screwed up now, hadn’t he. It didn’t take long for the silence to creep into the mocking, unbearable type he was used to, and he decided to cave in. “I’m sorry.” Was all he could manage, hands shaking and tears falling faster than ever. He stood up to leave before he made everything even worse, but Razor spoke up.

“Stay. Please.” It wasn’t often that they used formalities like that, so it was clear that something was off. In a good way or a bad way, though, he wasn’t sure. “I feel the same. I think.” Bennett almost choked on his tears. There was no way that he’d just heard what he thought he did. Absolutely no way. Maybe he’d fallen asleep earlier and this was him dreaming. Yeah, that sounded about right. He didn’t believe that even a second that Razor, sweet, caring, perfect Razor, could ever have feelings for him . Nope, this wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be. Bennett became too stunned to speak, and they continued. “Talking is hard, but I will try. Bennett is… special. Don’t fully understand it. Makes me feel different from other Lupical. Happy, but not in the way I’m used to. Better.” The longer Razor spoke, the more sure Bennett was that he was dreaming. It felt impossible that this was happening, that his luck hadn’t screwed him over for the first time in his life. But with the way Razor was looking at him, a look of introspection and nervousness that he didn’t think he’d ever seen on them before, he realized that he was awake. That this was real, and that Razor had felt the same way all along. 

If sixteen years of awful luck is what it took for him to have this moment, it was all worth it. 

“Woah. That’s all, uh, wow. Okay.” He wanted to slap himself again. Really? That’s what he had to say? His brain wasn’t working well enough to come up with anything better, though, and it didn’t seem like it would start any time soon. It was a miracle that he was still alive, with how fast his heart was beating. “This is… actually happening. I, uh… okay!! You really— Y’know what, I’m gonna stop talking before I ruin this.” He blinked to shake the tears away, and Razor shook their head.

“I like hearing you talk.” That was something he didn’t hear very often. Not many people liked hearing him talk. He always went on for too long or spoke too quickly, and always had to pretend not to notice the snickers behind his back or the annoyed looks on people’s faces whenever he forgot to put energy into speaking ‘normally.’ Until now, Fischl and Xiangling had been the only two people to tell him that they didn’t mind that. But with Xiangling speaking just as excitedly as he did, and Fischl being…Well, Fischl, it wasn’t too surprising. Hearing that from someone as quiet as Razor made him feel special, like he wasn’t just an annoying burden everyone tolerated for the sake of pity. Granted, everything about Razor made him feel special, but those words still made his heart light up more than usual.

“T-Thank you. That, uh, means a lot.” He was still stuttering and stumbling over his words, but how could he not? Razor felt the same way! He still couldn’t quite believe it. And just as Bennett thought he couldn’t possibly feel any more flustered, Razor reached to grab his hand. They looked so cute , nervous and smiling and archons was that a blush??? His face must’ve been about the color of his vision right now, but he couldn’t find it in him to care. “I like hearing you talk too.”

“But I’m not very good at it.” Bennett interlocked their fingers.

“Well, neither am I. Just more we have in common.” The two sat in silence for a while, the good Razor silence that he didn’t mind, watching the sky above them. The stars were beautiful, and the moon was bright and full. Somehow, this night had gone perfectly. Nothing ever went perfectly for Bennett; nothing ever went well, even, and it all still felt unreal. Was this what it felt like to be someone with normal luck? He didn’t mind this at all. 

After a while, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Razor was staring at him. He turned to face them and plastered on a giant grin. He probably looked stupid, but who cared? Razor looked absolutely beautiful in the moonlight, so much so that he felt his heart beat even faster than it already was. He raised a hand to ruffle through their hair, and it turned out that Klee was right about how soft it was. It was comparable to a wolf’s fur, and Bennett regretted not having the guts to feel it sooner. As Razor leaned into his touch with the brightest smile he’d ever seen from them, Bennett felt that this night couldn’t possibly get any better. 

And that’s when Razor leaned in and kissed his cheek. 

“Wh— Oh. ” Was all he could manage. He’d thought that he couldn’t possibly get more shocked today, but he’d apparently been wrong. His heart was on fire, his ears were pounding, and he couldn’t move his mouth to say anything as hard as he tried. His theory from earlier that maybe this was all a really good dream came back, because there was no way that had just happened.

“Sorry!” Razor immediately pulled back, an apologetic look in their eyes. Bennett’s hand absentmindedly reached up to the spot where Razor had kissed him. He grinned even harder than he had before. “Was told that’s how humans do it. Was it wrong?”

“Nono, that’s right! I just, uh, wasn’t expecting it.” He was surprised that he’d even managed to force those words out of his mouth, with how poor his mouth to brain connection was right now. It felt like Razor was the one doing all the talking today, which was definitely a first. “T-Thank you, really.” Bennett felt that he never would’ve been confident enough to do that himself, even with the confirmation that Razor felt the same. There were too many variables involved, and his general nervousness around them didn’t exactly help matters. But now he didn’t need to worry about that, because Razor had kissed him first! 

Archons, Razor had kissed him. Kissed. Him. Kissed Him.

“So Lumine was right.” Razor said with a nod. He barely managed to process the words coming out of their mouth with how out of it he still was, but something caught his interest.

“Lumine?” He asked curiously. 

“I asked Lumine for help. She helped me figure out human romance things so I didn’t mess it up with you. That’s why she didn’t take you adventuring for a while. Sorry.” That would explain why she randomly wished him luck, though he wasn’t sure how she knew he was going to confess. Outlander’s intuition, he guessed. More importantly, he now had an explanation for why she’d kicked him off the team for a few weeks. She didn’t think he was weak at all, she was just helping Razor confess to him. He repeated those last words in his mind until he truly believed them. All this time Razor had been planning on confessing to him. It didn’t feel right, but none of tonight had. Everything thus far has felt like a long, amazing dream, so Bennett had no trouble believing that Razor was also planning to confess their feelings.

It was then that Bennett felt his heart sink slightly. Things had been going a little too well, and he was worried that something catastrophic was about to happen. He’d never been this lucky before, and it clearly couldn’t last forever.

The part of the cliff that his hand had been resting on crumbled off into the forest below.

Yep, there it was.

“Hey, we should probably move before—” He didn't even have time to finish his sentence before a large part of the cliff crumbled beneath them. He hurriedly ran backwards, grabbing Razor’s hand and pushing them along with him. Thankfully they both appeared to be safe, though Bennett was still worried that he’d either already caused or was close to harming Razor.

“Are you alright?” He asked immediately, scanning the person next to him up and down to look for any signs of injury. Razor was tough, and he probably didn’t need to worry like he was, but Bennett felt that it was his turn to be protective for a change. They offered a reassuring nod, and Bennett mumbled an apology under his breath.

“Not your fault.” Razor replied, and he appreciated the reassurance. Not many people responded that way after his luck caused harm to them— most people tended to either give him a disappointed sigh or straight-up yell at him. It’s not like he expected anything less from Razor, though. They had always been special, so of course they’d reassure him.

“Do you maybe wanna get out of here? I don’t wanna risk any more of this cliff falling, heh.” He racked his brain for ideas on where to stay for the night, and then his eyes lit up. “Do you wanna come stay with my Dads for the night? They’d love to meet you!” He hadn’t seen them much today, anyway— they were probably worried about him. He’d be absolutely mortified when one of them inevitably put together that Razor was the person he’d been excitedly telling them about for months now, but it’d be worth it for them to meet. Razor gave another nod, more excited this time, and the two of them stood up together. He grabbed the cake that had somehow managed to survive the cliff situation, realizing that he and Xiangling had never gotten the chance to taste test it. Hopefully she’d like his additions. He used his free hand to interlock he and Razor’s fingers together, for once feeling completely confident in his actions. Razor loved him, why should he feel nervous? He smiled, feeling a blush rise to his cheeks. 

“Look.” Razor pointed up to the sky, and the two of them saw a shooting star shoot past them. It was bright and absolutely gorgeous, and Bennett felt one more tear roll down his cheeks as he watched it glide past.

“Tonight has been perfect, thank you.” He wasn’t sure whether he was talking to Razor or Barbados, but it didn’t really matter. Razor chose not to answer, instead opting for a quiet “I love you,” and pulling him in for a kiss.

———

Two girls held hands in Liyue Harbor.

“Do you think everything went okay?” Xinyan asked her girlfriend with a tinge of worry in her voice. “Nothing ever goes right for him, poor guy.”

Suddenly a star shot past them, glistening in the moonlight.

Xiangling smiled. 

“I have a strange feeling that everything went perfectly.”