TURBULENT / XIAOVEN

eight

authors note: im not even gonna lie i had soooo much fun writing this but some of yall might get mad w whats in this chapter LMFAOO but uhhhh enjoy it, it's honestly my fav chapter so far so yeah! also i watched batman recently so that might affect the way xiao acts in this (also sidenote: robert pattinson please hmu i am free everyday pleajeee jeksjvjv please sir i will do anythinf i can cook and clean i will do anyting you please my beloved PLEASE JSUT A CHANCE PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEE) 

ok. enjoy.

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zhongli doesn't have any words to describe how he was feeling but if he did have one- it would definitely be shocked.

it's not that he didn't expect that xiao would be alive, no, he knew for sure that xiao would be one to fight his way through this whole situation no matter how bad it got but dear god, he didn't think xiao would be doing this well.

zhongli doesn't think that in a oh i thought he would've been worse kind of way, it's just that nearly every other person who was alive during this usually were crouched out in shitty houses and stores that were broken to the point where the building could probably collapse on them any minute and only very few lived well. somehow xiao was one of the few that was living and existing well in this apocalypse.

it's not that he expected very little of xiao- it's just that that was the way nearly everyone was living.

zhongli is still shocked when xiao shows him around the small inn and with such a small amount of people somehow they have everything in order which zhongli would think takes more than six people to do but he thought wrong, apparently. after showing him the inn, xiao begins to introduce him to everyone but most don't say much to him other than a quick hello and a clarification asking if he's really xiao's brother and the answer is always yes. the only different interaction he had was with a man who seemed to be the same age as xiao but somehow he felt more childish and younger than his brother.

the man stares at zhongli for what feels like a lifetime before he asks him, "have we met before? you seem familiar."

zhongli tilts his head as he stares at the young man who stares zhongli up and down examining him, "i believe this is our first time meeting."

"hm, must just be me then." the boy says and zhongli thinks that is the end of the conversation as he watches the man walk away. that is until the man quickly turns around, "unless! random question and i'm just curious, have you ever tutored middle schoolers in mondstadt?"

"oh?" zhongli asks. he'll admit this now- no, he hadn't. infact, he's never even stepped foot in mondstadt. he's stayed his whole life in liyue and that's the way he'd like to keep it, thank you very much but something about this situation just seems ridiculous so he wants to play around with it just for shits and giggles, honestly.

"i have, why do you ask?" zhongli plays around and as soon as those words leave his mouth he can feel both xiao's and the other man's eyes on him. xiao knows for a fact that no, he never has. but xiao only knows what happened before he went "missing" and not what happened after so he could be telling the truth for that matter.

he can see the man in front of him gasp slightly as he jumps on his heels, "really? just wondering but y'know have you ever tutored for this middle school that was near stormterrors lair? it's like this kind of this small school but you know-" he rambles slightly and zhongli huffs as he scratches behind his ear before he replies but xiao quickly cuts him off,