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“Here, birdie, birdie!” Venti sings, whistling, before raising his flute to his lips. The finch sitting on one of the upper branches of the recently-built Wangshu Inn’s branches cocks its head, surveying him with a single, shiny eye.
“Lord Barbatos—”
Venti ignores the faint complaint, though not without the slightest twinge of guilt. Xiao’s complaints—the genuine ones—are rather easy to ignore. For such a stern guy, he’s kind of a pushover. He’s hesitant to voice dissent to Venti, probably for the same reason that he still calls him Lord Barbatos, and won’t stand his ground if Venti tramples over his words.
(Unless they’re about Morax, of course. Perhaps there are other subjects that touch Xiao to vehemence, too, but Venti is less inclined to poke and prod at something as sensitive as the other Yakshas than he is at the old blockhead. Morax can do with some humbling, if he’s still willing to turn down good wine when Venti visits.)
He’s standoffish enough to the Qixing spies that have founded the inn, of course, avoiding human contact in a way that borders on rude. Amusingly, Venti doubts the snub is even deliberate—but that’s mortals. Everything is different with mortals.
For the most part, Venti has been very, very careful not to trample over Xiao’s words. Xiao trusts wholly and deeply, but it somehow feels fragile regardless—perhaps because Xiao seems like the type of person who will commit to his trust once he has established it, and will resign himself to being stepped over should it be broken.
It’s just… in this particular case, he’s doing this for Xiao’s own good, okay? Sometimes a little word-trampling is for the best, when the words in question are inevitably going to be something like, ‘Woe betide me, I can’t have good things.’
Xiao deserves good things! Like a cute little bird perched on his finger. He seems like a person who hasn’t gotten much gentleness in his life, and if they’re going to be friends, Venti is going to fix his little habit of never reaching out for what might comfort him. He can hardly stick around much, after all, and it’s pretty depressing to think that Xiao will just stay sad and lonely any time Venti’s not there.
So: the flute. There’s a finch up in the branches that overhang the roof they are both settled on, with bright emerald feathers that remind Venti of Xiao’s own coloration. In the right light, Xiao’s hair gleams an iridescent teal—it’s very pretty and also very bird-like. Venti thinks it would look quite nice with a little bird making a mess out of it, tugging on the strands. Also, there’s a cat farther up in the shady branches that Venti’s seen around the inn before, also watching the finch, and Venti feels like saving the poor bird from impending feline death is a public service.
“Lord Barbatos, this isn’t…” Xiao tries again, and his teeth click closed, cutting him off, when the bird flutters off the branch and to the edge of the roof.
It ruffles its feathers, puffing up into an adorable little ball as it hops tentatively between the spokes edging the roof. Xiao looks like if he had feathers, they would be similarly ruffled. His legs pull up to his chest as if to put a barrier between him and the bird, and he slowly scoots farther up the roof—not so far that his knee isn’t still pressed to Venti’s shoulder, though.
Venti keeps playing. Xiao’s eyes keep darting between him and the bird, wide, pupils dilated. He looks…
Well, everyone gets a little nervous with new experiences, don’t they? It’s hardly Xiao’s fault that most animals normally won’t come near him. And no, Cloud Retainer doesn’t count. Any bird both big and homicidal enough to eat Venti in his true form is disqualified from the category of ‘adorable woodland creatures,’ thank you very much.
Venti tries not to smile around the flute—it really makes it harder to play—and watches Xiao twitch in surprise as the finch hops even closer to the two of them. There’s a bit of awe in his gaze, Venti thinks, hidden behind the anxiety. It looks something like hope, and Venti so dearly wants to nurture it—
The bird chirps, loud and repeated, breaking through the lovely swell of Venti’s music. He winces, and plays louder to cover up the discordant noise.
“Lord Barbatos—”
The bird flutters forward, hopping momentarily into the air and aiming to land right on top of Xiao’s bent knee.
Except Xiao flinches.
He flinches, and darkness rears up around him. An acrid miasma, cutting to even breathe in the presence of, enough to steal even Venti’s breath away for the scarce moment when it first takes him off-guard. His music sputters out as he coughs, hand flying to his throat—
Xiao makes a cut off sound, hand clutching at his head as he presses his forehead into his knees.
—and the bird falls to the dusty blue tile of the roof, dead.
Silence rings loudly in Venti’s ears. Or rather, the tinnitus does, as well as the faint sound of his own cough. A moment later, the barometric pressure ceases to be quite so oppressive, and the pitchy ring making his eyes water fades along with it.
“Xiao?” Venti asks, hoarse. The bird’s little body is rolling down to the edge of the roof, until it catches on one of the supports and tumbles to a stop.
Xiao muffles a groan behind his teeth, palm still pressed into the space between his brows, and lifts his head.
“Lord Barbatos,” he says, just the slightest bit slurred. “My apologies. Are you—well?”
“I’m sorry,” Venti says, and presses the back of his hand to his mouth. It looks awkwardly like a gesture of sympathy, but—he’s just trying not to throw up. “I’m so sorry.”
Xiao grabs his wrist, tugging his hand away so that he can look Venti over. It’s the first time Xiao has actually reached out to willingly touch Venti. He tolerates touch just fine—well, okay, he’s not particularly graceful about it, but no matter how he twitches when Venti slings an arm around his shoulders, he leans into Venti’s presence like a cecilia in the wind, so clearly he’s not opposed to it. But he rarely reaches out himself.
He doesn’t stay touching Venti for very long, though. A thorough glance over Venti’s shell-shocked face, and Xiao is releasing him, backing away several paces to lean against the great trunk of the Wangshu Inn’s tree.
“I’m sorry,” Venti repeats, listening to his voice as if he’s hearing an actor recite lines in a play. “I didn’t… you were trying to warn me. I didn’t think that would happen.”
Xiao looks away. His eyes snag on the bird’s corpse, and pass over it to stare into the distance. Whatever hope Venti had seen in them before…
“There is nothing to forgive,” Xiao says quietly. “It is how things are. I simply…” He pauses for a long moment, unmoving. “Why did you use the flute? I thought you played the lyre.”
The attempt at a subject change is painfully transparent. But more painful is Xiao’s quiet resignation. He truly believes what he is saying, and Venti can’t tell if it’s because he’s turned the blame for this situation inwards, or if he simply thinks this is how things are meant to be, for him.
Either way, it just pours more guilt onto Venti’s own shoulders.
“Well,” Venti says softly, swallowing. “In my experience, that’s the best way to coax a little bird closer.”
Xiao’s gaze cuts over to him, silent.
“They like birdsong,” Venti adds. “The flute is the closest I have to that. Hopefully I haven’t ruined that for them, now.”
Xiao’s eyes go lidded as he looks down at the still, stiffened corpse laying on the edge of the rooftop. “It’s dead,” he mutters. “I doubt it cares anymore.”
“... The flute is hardly my favorite of instruments anyways,” Venti says slowly, chewing on his lip. “At least with a lyre I can sneak a drink every once in a while.”
Xiao has nothing to say to that. Venti swallows.
“This is my fault,” he whispers. “I truly am sorry, Xiao. I shouldn’t have ignored you when you were trying to say something.”
That, of all things, earns him Xiao’s full attention, and the adeptus leans forward onto his knees to reach for Venti before he catches himself, staying just out of reach.
“No,” Xiao says, voice roughened by the blackened wisps of miasma that occasionally escape with his breath. “Lord Barbatos, the fault is only my own. This is merely a part of my duty, and… I don’t typically let it affect others unduly. I am sorry for souring your music and company with such darkness.”
Venti stares at him.
“I need a drink,” he decides.
As they leave, the cat descends from the branches to jump into the shadows at something fluttering that Venti can’t quite see.
Venti gets very, very drunk. So drunk, in fact, that Xiao ends up having to drag him up to bed.
He can tell it makes Xiao deeply uncomfortable. He feels Xiao’s presence during his entire soiree at the inn’s grand opening, a long evening of music and laughter and liberal libations. The Guardian Yaksha sits in the distance, watching—ensuring nothing more goes wrong with Venti, he supposes, and feeling out his new duty of protecting these mortals in particular. His eyes gleam in the dark, a matching yellow pair to that of the bird-harassing inn cat that spends the evening stoically curled up on balcony railing of what Venti is pretty sure is Xiao’s dedicated room, even if Xiao spends almost no time resting there.
He disappears two or three times, and his presence is darker for several minutes after his return each time. Whether Xiao is having another episode in those moments, or is simply off fulfilling his duty, Venti doesn’t know. After enough drinks, he finds he doesn’t much care.
(The cat disappears during those times, too, but Venti can clearly see that it’s to nick some scraps from dancers’ tables. By the time Xiao returns, it is always back at its fence post, licking one cream-colored paw with a posh delicateness that should be reserved for less objectionable and allergy-inducing animals.)
It’s nice being drunk. It lets him care less about a lot of things. For example, the way that Xiao’s shoulders curl in when he finally makes his way into the crowd of friendly strangers to pick up Venti, who’s finally managed to consume enough alcohol that he’s sliding off his stool and can’t properly pluck his lyre strings anymore (which is a lot of alcohol—he’s really going to have to figure out what to do about his tab, given this is the land of contracts and not the land of making really big eyes at the current Ragnvindr head of house in the hopes that she’ll let Venti off). It also lets him care less about the way Xiao keeps his eyes trained on the ground. It does not, unfortunately, distract him from how warm Xiao’s chest is when Venti leans his cheek against it, nor how firm his arms are.
“You,” Venti tells Xiao, “have really nice arms.”
“They serve me well enough,” Xiao replies as he settles Venti into the untouched bed the inn has provided him.
The cat pounces off of the railing in a single, calculated leap, and sails through the window to land neatly on the pillow by Venti’s face.
Xiao flinches back violently. Venti flails back while clutching his nose in an extremely sobering panic, even more violently.
The cat, unruffled, stares at both of them as they freeze.
“... It’s not…” Venti starts after a long moment, looking back and forth between Xiao and the cat. Xiao’s aura is dark tonight after a night full of fighting, but the cat seems untouched. “Xiao! Xiao, try petting it!”
Xiao does not do something as outwardly emotional as panic, but there is a certain tightness to the corners of his wide eyes that Venti, in his drunken wisdom, discerns to be communicating something to the tune of: “I am definitely panicking. Please help.”
The cat takes a step towards Venti.
Venti panics harder.
“Xiao!” he yelps, scrambling back over the bedding. “Xiao, seriously, please take it!”
Xiao grabs the cat.
There is a moment of stillness, awkwardly silent as Venti realizes that both he and Xiao are holding their breath. The black miasma of dark karma swirls around the room as usual. The cat meows, looking vaguely ruffled.
Venti lets out his breath, sighing. “I knew cats were secretly demonic.”
Xiao has the gall to look faintly offended. “I have slain every demon in the vicinity of the inn tonight to prevent disruptions to your celebration with the humans.”
“Meow,” says the cat before Venti can blurt out ‘my celebration?’, and wriggles slightly. Xiao adjusts his grip so that he is no longer clutching it under the front paws like some kind of stretched-out pelt, and lets it settle itself more comfortably into his arms. Venti shuffles away slightly.
Xiao stretches out a single finger, worrying an incisor at his lip, and slowly pets it down the bridge of the cat’s nose. It flicks an ear and bumps its head forward, head-butting his knuckles for more pets. Because Venti is listening very closely, he hears the way Xiao’s breath catches just slightly.
The way that Xiao looks down at the cat in his arms is…
Really, does he have to be so gentle and tender? Venti has seen cats get handled with all the grace of a sack of rice and not care a whit about it, yet here is Xiao, taking the moment so seriously and with with such stern determination that Venti could be convinced he’s handling the petals of an extinct original glaze lily and not a sharp-clawed furball. His pupils are big and round in the late night darkness, and his mouth goes to a shape that Venti imagines is probably very soft. He looks at the cat like…
Like he looked down at Venti, when he was carrying him to the bed.
Venti feels his cheeks flushing and glances down at his crossed legs, tying his fingers together as Xiao continues his enamored staring at the cat. Is he seriously getting jealous of a cat? Maybe it’s his allergies acting up and making him feel weird. It’s been an awfully long few minutes in such close to proximity to a cat, he’s quite surprised he hasn’t sneezes up a storm yet—
“Wait.” Venti frowns, scooting to the edge of the bed where Xiao stands. “Xiao. Xiao, that’s not a cat.”
Xiao and the cat turn to look at him with identical owlish gazes, blinking. Xiao looks back down at the cat. Xiao looks at Venti. Xiao raises a single eyebrow, successfully communicating a degree of exasperation that Venti finds offensive.
“I’m not sneezing,” Venti explains defensively. “My eyes aren’t watering! I can breathe clearly!”
“Those are all… good things,” Xiao says slowly, running a hand over the cat’s fluffy throat. The cat tilts its head back, baring more real estate for petting.
“I’m allergic to cats, Xiao,” Venti says patiently. “I’m not having an allergic reaction. Ergo, this is not a cat.”
“Ah.” Xiao chews on the inside of his cheek, visibly curling in around the cat. “Maybe you’re cured?”
“Are you sure it’s not a demon?”
Xiao sighs. “I’m sure. But if you’re worried, I can… get rid of it.”
The way his expression flattens as he says it is a wire that slides between Venti’s ribs, wrapping tightly around his heart and squeezing. Xiao doesn’t do anything as expressive as looking sad—no, he’s worse, because he clearly doesn’t want to upset Venti, but he’s also holding the cat like he’s never touched anything soft before in his entire life.
Maybe he hasn’t, Venti thinks. Not anything alive.
“Xiao,” Venti says, reaching out to grab Xiao’s sleeve. “Don’t get rid of the cat. Come here, silly.”
He tugs Xiao in, bullying him into sitting down on the bed. The cat settles into Xiao’s lap, and Xiao’s hands hover above it as he holds his breath, apparently too petrified of disturbing it to even breathe.
“If you’re not worried,” Venti says, “then I’m not, either. C’mon, pet him. You’ve been going out of your way to take care of me all day and night, you deserve some cuddles. Even if you’re getting them from a glorified mousetrap instead of the perfectly serviceable bard right next to you.”
“You’re drunk,” Xiao murmurs, but at least acquiesces to pet the cat again. Venti, feeling awfully sober as a god who hasn’t had a drink in about half an hour, sighs and leans his head against Xiao’s shoulder.
Still no sneezes. The cat rumbles warmly in Xiao’s lap, and Venti feels the gentle vibration of Xiao’s quiet answering him against his cheek. It’s nice. It’s peaceful. He can rest his eyes for just a moment.
When Venti next opens his eyes, it’s to the light of day filtering through the thin-woven cloth covering Xiao’s window. He’s laying back in the bed, a slight crick in his neck, and Xiao is splayed over his side, cold nose tucked into Venti’s throat and breath puffing gently over his collarbones. His arm is flung across Venti’s waist. His spiked pauldron is still on, just barely avoiding impaling Venti’s cheek.
Venti slowly wriggles his hand under Xiao’s side and hugs him closer, carefully turning him to angle the pauldron away from vulnerable skin. If this also puts him into the perfect position to press his lips to the crown of Xiao’s head—well, that’s his business and his business alone.
Venti yawns, and the morning breeze rustles the window cloth aside. For just a moment, he sees the cat outside—it sits translucent in the direct sunlight, and when Venti blinks, it disappears. The fluttering tune of a finch’s birdsong follows, but Venti cannot see a single bird.
