A bigger, better latter day

Thinking about a modern reincarnation AU where only one of them has re-entered into reincarnation while the other has lived on endlessly, and the old traditions of Liyue are long gone, with Lantern Rite rebranded into some shitty modern festival.

do you remember

Ah yes, when you thought your Xiao & Qiqi slice of life fic is rated General Audiences with Canon-Typical Angst for Xiao

i’m looking for a fic and i haven’t been able to find it on ao3 yet. its xiao/zhongli. set right after perilous trail arc, bottom xiao, they have a dom/sub sex thing going on. basically zhongli thinks xiao tried to kill himself on purpose and gets upset and is like let me leave this situation before i say something i don’t mean and xiao being xiao trys to? or maybe he doesn’t idk explain his side. but anyways they separate for a while. xiao sits in the rain and is emo bc he thinks zhongli hates him and basically has abandoned him. zhongli meets lumine she basically corrects the misunderstanding and he finds xiao. they fuck but zhongli makes xiao tell him exactly what happened in the chasm while he fucks him

One of the biggest appeals of shipping Xiao with anyone in my book is delving into how him being category 7 level weapongender would impact his relationships. Like here’s a guy abusively conditioned to deeply internalize the idea he’s nothing but a tool/weapon who exists to be wielded/suffer on the behalf of other people. He is also ultimately a gentle soul and has a deeper capacity for care and affection than he would ever let himself believe bc doing so would require him to acknowledge he’s a person.

Like i think Xiao would heavily subscribe to the “if you live for someone you’re prepared to to die” grindset in any situation where watching Zhongli mow down the God of Dreams and go “um well sure I don’t mind being your boss if you want to pledge loyalty to me” activated forbidden gay emotions within him that he then proceeded to experience catholic guilt over for the next 5,000 years