xiao is a bottom [ Reupload ]

Induratize

Lumine x xiao

Credits--> ahajkunless
*smut*

Summary:
Lumine usually appears to him at night, a streak of white and gold against the encroaching darkness. Large, cold eyes drink in the sight of his unclothed body hidden beneath the sheets, unspoken words commanding him to bare himself for her. Sometimes she summons him - name like a spell on her lips.

Obedient, little adeptus, she calls him.

Love, he yearns to call her.

-

Despite the grounds for its establishment, Xiao rarely passes Wangshu Inn to rest.

The towering ginkgo tree is an ever-present temptation, a solace in which he can subdue his sorrows in the melody of his bamboo flute or a plate of almond tofu. Or sit in a snapshot in time, quietly contemplating the world and drawing peace from some dark corner of his soul. Time crawls right past him.

There's little he can do to prevent its passage. He's left to watch mortals drift to and from the open entrance, passing stories lip-to-lip and changing their clothing and mannerisms each time they return. The sun chases the moon around and around the horizon. Golden leaves hang suspended in the air with the season's change.

Amidst Liyue's fluctuations, a traveller from another world crosses the inn's path. Then his.

If one were to ask, Xiao wouldn't be able to pinpoint what has made him desire her so strongly. Perhaps when Rex Lapis died, he was in need of a new master. Perhaps it was the sweetness in which she treated him on his birthday, or the absence of pity when she looked at him - like something that was not unfixable, but could stand to be broken in some more.

From the first touch, he was hers. And now, he's helpless to the reprieve she grants him from karma and agony.

With a call of his name carried by the single string of fate, or perhaps simply by tendrils of wind-chill, he is permitted, for once, the luxury of placidity. He makes use of the inn's empty room located at its apex, far away from the eyes and ears of intrusive humans. With the traveller's arrival in Liyue, he finds newfound purpose for such conveniences.

Reasonably, he should feel guilt as he recounts the deeds committed within its confines. Shame, in fact. But how can he? What comes to pass is only per course of nature: a helpless prey devoured by a predator; an object made valuable by the use of its owner; a filthy creature defiling the kindness he was gifted by his lord.

Some nights he spends in genuine use of the amenities provided to him. A luxurious bath, a delicious plate of almond tofu and a warm, comfortable bed. On nights like this, he prepares in hopes that she will visit.

Having retrieved a bottle of oil to place at his bedside, he leaves the window half-open and tidies around the small cot. Once his room looks less like its decaying in abandonment he strips completely bare, leaving his clothes in a neat pile in the corner of the room before soaking his weary body in a bath of rose-water and Qingxin petals - luxury he usually does not afford himself.

He doesn't do this for himself.

She's on his mind as he dries with a gust of anemo and slips between silk sheets. The smooth caress is almost akin to her hands. The way he can't help but sigh and relent to their softness is a woeful imitation of what she does to him.

His veins pulse. He's strung so tight in anticipation it's a surprise sleep comes at all.

***

When he wakes, it's to distant calls of night-birds in dark ambience, and the sound of his own moans.