Space Hums

“Go!” You chuckle, pushing at his waist, telling him if he left any later, he’ll come back later too and would probably miss having dinner with you. He gives a lopsided smile, one that was especially reserved for you, and finally leaves.

Maybe he should’ve listened.

Maybe being home 10 minutes earlier or maybe even 5, would have changed the outcome of things.

“Diluc,” Jean was there, along with Kaeya. 

Jean’s face had always been readable. It was always easy to tell if she felt tired, or if she was deep in thought. So, Diluc saw it almost immediately.

That was pity in her eyes.

Diluc doesn’t ask anything. 

The maids are outside, looking panic-stricken and dazed. Kaeya doesn’t meet his eyes. 

Diluc bolts toward the mansion door, only to be stopped by Adelinde. “Young master, I--I’m sorry. It all happened too fast, they took Y/N and--”

The red-head stops in his tracks. He slowly turns toward Adelinde, his brows furrowed, eyes confused. “Who--” then his eyes dart towards Kaeya and Jean, they should know better than Adelinde. “Who and where? Tell me, now,”

“The Fatui,” Kaeya is the one who answers, finally lifting his head up from his pondering and meeting eye to eye with his brother. “...but they could be anywhere by now--”

“Why didn’t you call for me sooner?!”

“Diluc, you were up in Dragonspine. It would’ve been impossible to track down your exact whereabouts. We used that manpower to track down where they might’ve taken Y/N instead,” Jean, ever the voice of reason. 

“And have you figured it out?” Diluc countered. There was silence for a moment, giving him the answer he needed. He barked out a sarcastic puff of laughter. “As expected.” and he turned to walk off, away from the mansion.

When asked where he was going, he answered: “I’m not going to sit around here waiting,”

He didn’t sleep that night. Nor the next. The only sleep he got was on his desk, bent over a map that he had marked with countless of red dots. Places that he might have missed. 

Whenever he realized that he was sleeping, he’d bolt up and continue working. 

Days turned into a week and there were moments where he felt himself crumbling.

I don’t understand, I kissed you that morning.

With his eyes closed, he rests his forehead on his hand. Remembering the last time he saw you.

We were supposed to have dinner together.

How could everything have changed so fast? He asks himself. It was a quick trip to Dragonspine, just like any other day and yet, he’d suddenly been deprived of the warmth he always had at night. 

Gone were the mornings where you whispered “Hey there bedhead” while lightly tugging on strands of his untied hair. 

Gone were the moments where he would drape an arm around your chair, leaning over to give you a quick kiss on the lips.

Gone were the countless times he tenderly smiled at the way you discussed something you were passionate about.

Y/N, I feel like I’m dying.

The pulling, stretching, squeezing feeling is back in his chest. He digs the palms of his hands over his eyes, teeth grit. He feels the wave of frustration start to crash over him and the waves also drown him in sorrow. 

“Y/N,” it’s as if the shaky whisper of your name on his lips pushes him. Even saying your name hurt, and his eyes finally prickle with discouraged tears, yet, he doesn’t let go fully, a painful lump in his throat preventing him from tipping over the edge. 

He doesn’t know where you are. 

Doesn’t know when he’ll see you next. 

Doesn’t know if you’re alright. 

It was past midnight when there was furious knocking on the mansion door. It doesn’t wake him, yet again slumped over his study. The maids answered. Jean is there with you in tow, wrapped snugly in a beige, wooly blanket. She quickly passed you off to the maids, telling them that it was late, and she’d come again tomorrow to discuss a report with Diluc.

When Diluc was alerted, he almost fell scrambling down the stairs. He stops at the foot of them, eyes wide and awe struck, unsure if he was yet again dreaming up this reunion. 

“...You’re here,” he whispers, still frozen on the spot, afraid that if he moved he would wake up from this dream. 

You saunter towards him, wrapping the blanket around you tightly and just let yourself fall into his arms. 

The dam breaks right then and there, his arms shooting up to wrap around you. “Y/N,” he mumbles. “Y/N...” he dips his face into the crook of your neck, relief and fear shaking his body like never before. Again and again he said your name, like it would give back the lost time. Like it would mend his broken heart.

You apologized for worrying him, yet your voice cracked the same way as his did. 

After briefly freshening up, he whisks the two of you away into the privacy of his bedroom. It’d been a while since he was last in there. He wanted to ask what happened, where they kept you, how you were found, but his priority had always been your safety. 

“Did they hurt you? Touched you? Anything?” His fingers were still gentle as it glides around all of you. Your cheeks, your chin, your neck, your arms. He had to be sure. He had to make sure. 

When he found nothing and you confirmed that nothing bad had happened, he fell into bed with you. “Promise me you’ll tell me everything tomorrow,” he encased you in his arms, fear still raw in his veins that someone would come and take you again. 

He would figure it out with you tomorrow. 

For now, he wanted his sanity back. For tonight, he wanted to heal that hole in his chest. For forever, he would never let anyone take you away from him again.

“I love you, Y/N. I’d rather perish than be apart,”

Xiao

He felt it before it even happened. A strange feeling at the back of his neck, a weird shiver up his spine. His instincts told him something was wrong, but he couldn’t exactly pinpoint what it was. He genuinely thought it had just been the weight of his karmic debt pressing down on him.

It didn’t bother him as much as it did before, knowing that you were capable of assuaging his stress levels and responsibilities. He sighs as he leans on the wall of the rooftop, closing his eyes to just think about the greeting kiss he knows you’re going to press on his cheek. Just the thought of it makes his shoulders relax, like the tight muscles on his back just dissolves like cotton candy. 

He’ll never say it out loud, neither would he admit to it, but he can’t wait. He needed to see you today.

Except, you didn’t come. 

He waited an extra hour more before retiring for the day, perhaps you got caught up with work in Liyue Harbor. 

The next morning, he was more irritable than usual. He couldn’t hide his disappointment. Come nightfall, he was perturbed and visibly uncomfortable that you hadn’t visited again. His karmic debt pooling out of him, wisps of black appearing beneath his feet. He opted to check on you first thing in the morning.

Xiao had been to your house before. Twice, possibly thrice, but it was enough to keep it in his memory. There, it’s as if the whole world didn’t matter. Just you and him, mostly you showing him mundane things. Like making coffee, or cooking a dish. He’d always just stay silent and listen, watching as you carefully leveled a teaspoon of coffee powder. Everything he experienced when he was with you, was ten times more rewarding.

The smell of the coffee. The way how a simple task could look so good when you did it. They way you turned your head towards him and asked if he wanted to try some. 

He arrived at your door to knock and get no answer, but on the second knock, the door slipped open, telling him that it hadn’t been locked in the first place.

That’s when he felt it. The same, creeping sensation up his back and along his spine, spreading as a shiver through his body.

Why would your door be open?

He welcomes himself in, and saw the familiar sight. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. Everything seemed as it is. Except that you were nowhere to be found. Not in the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom, not in your bed. 

No.

Xiao could feel the intense sense of dread making its way to his veins. He checked once again in every room, and ended up stopping in your bedroom. Your bed wasn’t made. All your things were still in your drawers and cupboards.

 You didn’t go anywhere.

Someone had taken you.

Xiao’s anger shoots up all over his body. His fists clench on his sides and he tries to gather whatever information he could from what he saw. Any elemental residue, any leftover presence. None. Mostly because he had waited too long.

I should’ve checked sooner...!

He turned around, polearm appearing in his hand, and in a sudden impulse let out a frustrated roar while making a wide cut across your wall. A line appeared on the concrete, but your wooden door was not spared and it was easily cut into two.

“Ghhr,” He grits his teeth as he tries to rein his anger in. Black wisps intensifying, crawling up his legs, then his arms. Reaching upwards, consuming him--

‘Xiao, you’ll always have me, and I’ll always have you, right?’

He gasps, pulling himself out of the sea of darkness, remembering your voice and the promise you made to each other. He breathes out shakily, closing his eyes to calm his nerves. 

You would have called. 

You would have called if something was wrong, and it only meant that whoever took you, came in the dark of night. 

He thought about how you might have felt, thought about whether or not you struggled. His thoughts started spiraling again, downward, onto the depths of the possibility that you might not even be alive anymore. 

No.

He stopped himself again, yet his rage was all-consuming.

They’ll pay when I find them.

But it took days. 

Day after day of Xiao feeling as if his karmic debt was heavier than ever. That the weight on his shoulders intensified ever since you disappeared. That the world was against him. That he was meant to suffer and this was his punishment for being happy with you all that time. 

His temper was unquenchable, and by the second day, he took himself away from Wangshu Inn, irritated by the noises and the sounds that he usually didn’t mind.

He looked everywhere, even asking the assistance of Cloud Retainer, but Liyue was vast, and Teyvat even vaster. 

Where did you go?  

He felt the tendrils of darkness nearly eating him alive. Was that Death waving at him? A black cloak draped around Xiao’s shoulders. 

‘Xia--’

The darkness clears up almost immediately, like black clouds parting for a ray of sunlight. Xiao’s head shot up, eyes widened and he pushed himself up from the tree he was resting on. That was your voice. Cracked and sounding as if you hadn’t used it for days. 

Y/N, come on. 

He grips his polearm tight, eyes shutting in concentration. 

Just one more time. I’ll be there.

He waits only a few seconds more in bated breath.

‘Xiao!’

He pulls at the sound intensely, as if the utterance of his name was a string connecting the two of you. All he had to do was follow it. In the blink of an eye, he appears before you, and his arms stretch out to envelop you in a protective embrace. 

He swerves the two of you around, his one hand tight on your shoulder, grasping you against him. His other on his polearm, pointed at the perpetrators. 

Treasure Hoarders. 

And it doesn’t take Xiao long to realize that you were not the only one taken captive here. 

“Disgusting mortals...” Something about Xiao’s voice is ferocious, more so than usual. “If I could pass judgement on to you...” An intense wind knocks away everything and anything in the hidden treasure hoarder camp. Logs, tents, books, coins, bags all rolling on the ground, clanking against each other. 

The howl of the wind was loud in your ears. “Release everyone,” Xiao commands, and who were they to disobey someone who had obviously caused a God-like phenomenon? 

Then, your lover finally turns to you, pained expression on his face. The first thing he does is to lift your hand, pressing it against his cheek as he closed his eyes. He sighed almost pitifully, finally getting some semblance of his usual comfort back. 

“Tell me they didn’t hurt you... I may not be able to control myself if they did,” he whispers out and you assure him that everything’s fine...Except that you haven’t properly drank enough water or eaten food in days and that they kept everyone’s mouths and wrists bound for that long.

You hear a growl at his throat. Torturing you like that was just as good as hurting you, but you stop him from going away and taking care of the wrong-doers. “I just...want to go home, Xiao,”

Your pleading and exhausted voice was enough, and he somewhat agreed that he wanted you all to himself for the next few days. 

Just as quickly, you found yourself in your house and he made sure you drank plenty of water and ate before urging you to call a house doctor to do a check on you. 

He didn’t let you leave his sight even for a second, his paranoia still high and still on alert. 

When everything was in order, he finally settled into bed with you. His forehead pressing on your shoulder and letting you run your hands through his hair. 

This was it. This was the only thing he needed in this world.

“...You don’t know how much of a hold you have on me, Y/N,” he mumbles, feeling the familiar stroke of your fingers mending the tears in his soul caused by the past few days. 

Then, he tells you something that you thought he’d never even consider, ever the cautious person around others.

“I’ll stay here, from now on. Right beside you,”

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