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Xiao is running on a short fuse as is today. So when he has to leave the room, Albedo understands.
He gives Venti, who had been spewing something about, "we're all in this together!" a derisive look.
"What?" Venti's head tilts, all sorrow and big crocodile eyes.
Albedo reaches out, holding Venti's head between his hands. "Venti. He's sick. He got bad news. He is not in a good mood."
Venti rolls his eyes. "Yeah, but it's not really 'bad' news. It's not that bad! We were expecting a lot worse."
"Venti!" Albedo, of all people, does not normally snap. Venti quiets down, sheepish if not cowed.
"Okay, think of it this way. You have a car. Your car's pistons-"
"Modern cars don't-"
"-Don't!" Albedo puts a finger up, intimidatingly close to Venti's eye, though he doesn't realize.
Venti pipes down again.
"It has a- fuck-" Albedo lets go with one hand, flipping through his phone for a concerningly long amount of time.
"The transmission is blown."
"Xiao is trans?!"
Albedo gives Venti a very long warning look, his blue eyes sparkling with imaginated murders. Like a Friday The 13th kill. Jason VS Venti in a bunny costume (He's imagining the video game, just to be super uper duper clear.)
"Okay. Sorry. I was just gonna add him to the club." Venti pulls a flag out of his pants and waves it a little.
Albedo has So many, so many questions. A multitude of them in fact. But he just swallows that down for later. "I'm making a case study of you, but right now, I am your teacher."
"Isn't 'professor' more polite, no, formal of a term?"
Albedo's jaw clenches. "I am giving you a formal ADHD diagnosis, and I am not even a fucking medical doctor."
"You could be though! You have the glare down."
Albedo rolls his eyes.
"Actually no, nurses are the ones who need glares. You need-"
Albedo just clamps his hand over Venti's mouth, very lightly. "Shut up, Venti."
"Okay."
Albedo moves back, focusing again. He again takes a long-ass time on his phone. So long, in fact, that Venti's mind moves around the mountains of Liyue, imagining him and Xiao in some interesting poses from some book he read, over to the nightclubs of Liyue's City, imagining he and Albedo taking shots because he's curious about a drunk Albedo sketching nightlife, over to Mondstadt's prettiest flower fields.
"Spark plugs," Albedo finally said.
Venti, from where he's reclined in a chair on a mountain of stuffed animals, gives him a bit of a look that he already pieced together. Xiao sick - analogy - Xiao is a car now - Spark plugs are the "sick" part of the car.
"Okay," Albedo says, understanding that one look. "The spark plug misfires. It's burning out. But the car is still running for the time being."
Venti squints. "Right. But spark plugs are easy to fix."
"Yes!" That's Albedo's point, sort-of. He sits down. "But not this time. A normal, healthy car could get new spark plugs. But this car has old metal, and it won't fuse back together if you try to get everything together again. And the way it's set up, shut up I don't know anything about cars-"
"I know," Venti says placidly, humoring this.
"The way it's set up," Albedo says, talking with his hands, "is that if you try to go in there, and fix the spark plugs now, then the oil will start leaking. So instead, you jerryrig it."
"Who's jerry?"
" 'Jerryrig' is a term for get it to work long enough to get to work."
"Got it. Or in Xiao's case, his boyfriend's arms."
"Yeah."
Albedo nods slowly, then sighs.
"So you slip some wires in there, clean out the rusty parts, keep the sparkplug running. But now you know, that at some point, those sparkplugs are going to fail. Misfire, die entirely, you don't know. And you are Fully aware that when they do, you will have to replace them."
"Right," Venti says, nodding slowly.
"And that's the issue. Because we don't currently have the technology for safe spark plug replacement. Meaning it's incredibly difficult, hard for the car to survive, and expensive. And only a few lucky cars get the replacement, and they usually have tiny bicycles (children) and generational wealth and pearly white teeth on their social media posts." Albedo gives Venti a pointed look.
Venti, whose "generational wealth" dried up at some point in his own medical costs, looks away. "Did you know poisoning costs a hell of a lot of money to undo when you have to travel countries?"
"I never guessed." Albedo sighs.
"I can see why he's upset," Venti says quietly, in a lower voice, completely changing the mood. The sun outside wanes down, shadowing the room into greys though it's already a mostly rainy day.
Venti's fingers trace over his flag, as he sighs. "It's like knowing your barn is going to catch on fire, and having absolutely nothing you can do about it."
"No, there's things that can be done," Albedo says.
Venti nods slowly. "Right. Remove the hay, remove all fun, never function as a barn again."
"No, no. You can put water around the barn, all set and useful. You can keep drenching it. Suppressing the possibilities of fire and heat."
Venti stares at him, nodding slowly. Meds, he's got it. "But then the wood of the barn molds."
Albedo shrugs. "Less likely to die from that. You have to go in and scrape it off, or use chemicals to get rid of the mold. But it's a lot safer."
"Antibiotics, got it," Venti mutters, sighing to himself.
"So there are things that can be done."
"Then it's not so bad!" Venti suddenly sits up, forcing a smile. Trying to be optimistic.
Albedo grabs his stubborn little face again, pulling him close so he can glare at the man. "And not to mention, a lot of those treatments can't be found here. The mechanics here don't know what they're doing. And the electrical wires to scrape the spark plugs, or keep them running, cost 4 times what I make in a fucking year."
Venti swallows, pouting. "Got it." Maybe he just likes his face being held like that.
Albedo knows, and sighs in frustration. "So now Xiao has to pay to get somewhere else, to try treatments that are new, to try his best. And he has to apply for someone else to pay for it, someone who quite frankly would benefit more from him dying, because then they'd make more money than if he lives. And mind you, those people don't even need money! They have food, they're fat, they're happy, they have multiple houses, university educations, people to translate for them."
"Then what do they need?" Venti asks in a small voice. He knew about all of this, to a degree, but having it spelled out is making him think of Xiao. Beautiful, sweet Xiao, his laugh, his life, Xiao fading-
"Another fucking house in Aruba, apparently," Albedo snaps, with no small amount of vitriol. He lets go of Venti's face, turning away to pace the room.
Venti is left with his thoughts for a moment. A house in Aruba with Xiao buried underneath. "They don't need a house?"
Albedo sighs, his back turned. He pinches the bridge of his nose, looking like some old Renaissance painting of a man turning away from the sight of an execution, unable to stop the falling axe. "No, they don't, Venti. Their needs are all met. And letting a person suffer, or die sooner, or life through that pain without proper help, is more important."
"Then what do we do?"
"We just beg," Albedo says, sighing softly. "We keep hoping we find a mechanic that works with us. We try our best. And then if we do, we hope that they can magically convince the money gods to hand over their sustenance to us."
"And if they don't?"
Something in Albedo's eyes burns. But there is no stopping everything now. Xiao's already sick. The people who could help, won't. Modern day Mondstadt might be trying it's best, but it's only one place.
He sighs softly. "Then I don't know, Venti. I don't have a clue."
Venti is quiet for a long time, then. The room turns to shades of orange and grey. Then seeps into grey and black, the grey taking over where the orange once was.
"Then he dies," Venti says softly.
"No. It might not ever progress past this point," Albedo says. His back is still turned, his hands braced on the desk he's in front of.
"But it might," Venti says.
"It probably will. Would you drive with broken spark plugs, or just change them?"
"In YOUR analogy?!"
"No."
"Oh. In real life? I'd change them. Well, no, that's not true. I'd drive them, forget to change them, burn out in a country road where they don't like gay people, call you to save me, and try to ask masculine."
This is so hilarious Albedo has to turn around to see him. "Please, give me your most masculine voice."
Venti tries lowering his, frowning as he does just from the effort of a lower register. "Behold, tis me, Diogenes, a man."
Albedo quirks a smile. "I see."
"Shut up, I know how I sound."
Albedo giggles softly, sitting on the desk. He sighs, crossing his arms.
Xiao comes back in then, with tea for everyone. He hands it off to Venti first, then to Albedo. Their hands linger for a moment on the cup, as he looks into Rubedo's eyes intently. The jig is up. "That was a good analogy," Xiao says softly. His eyes pool with something. Gratitude. Fear.
"Thank you," Rubedo says softly as he takes the cup.
Remorse. Pain. Hope.
"Hope really is cruel," Rubedo adds on, because now they all are, and it's all they can do, and it hurts.
"Yeah." Xiao sighs. "I don't know whether to plan for retirement, or blow all my funds."
"Blow 'em!" Venti cheers, arms above his head. Pieces of tea (thank god it's iced with no ice) land on his cheek and knee, colored orange. Rubedo quirks a little smile. Xiao wipes it off of Venti with a handkerchief.
"Wait," Rubedo says softly, more about the money plans than the clean up. Xiao licks the tea with his tongue in defiance, and Rubedo wonders at his twin's friends. He frowns, amused. "You should save your money. You might need it."
"Can't pay for the medical stuff anyways," Xiao quips, sounding more and more like Venti everyday.
Rubedo lets out an amused sound, nodding slowly, because Xiao is right. "I see," he says, but his voice betrays his distaste. Not for Xiao's statement, but for the situation.
"It's true," Xiao says, reminding him.
Rubedo swallows hard, struggling to hold every emotion down. "I mean more, for things you really want."
"Can't afford a vacation. Not if I were healthy, and definitely not while sick."
"We could move!" Venti offers, all excited.
"We would lose our healthcare," Xiao explains. "Funnily enough, other countries actually also hate sick people."
"Great." Venti looks away, pouting as he sips his tea.
"My options are save for an ending I might not get, while missing out on even more right now," Xiao explains. "Or spend whatever I care about now."
"I should tell you to save," Venti says, shrugging. "But what's the point in dying with money in the bank?"
"Cute sentiment, but impractical," Xiao says.
"I know."
"I should tell you to save," Rubedo says, crossing his arms. "But with your meager income, I don't see the point either."
"So what's his options?" Venti looks up at Rubedo, not trusting his own personal money sense.
Rubedo shrugs. "Hope your health stabilizes enough for you to earn more and save. Or marry rich." His gaze lowers onto Venti, who looks sheepish.
Xiao leans over Venti. "I really need your music career to take off."
Venti giggles softly, looking away, his cheeks rosy.
"Well, at least now he has motivation," Rubedo says, nodding slowly. He heads out of the room to go for a walk, sighing softly. It's not the best plan he has. But it's the only one he's got.
Xiao looks down at Venti, brow furrowing slightly. "Who the hell was that?"
"Rubedo. Albedo's twin clone."
"He has a clone?"
"Gold's kind-of fucked up."
"And he's alive."
"Somehow, yes. I assume he was artifically inseminated, but I didn't ask."
Xiao points to the flag. "And where did that come from?"
"My pants," Venti says softly.
Xiao just sighs, amused, and smiles a tiny bit, and that's all the hope Venti needed in the world.