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Among the many things that the world mustn’t know about Xiao, there’s the fact that he’s a tactile person.
Physical touch isn’t something that he gets or gives very easily, however much he craves it. It’s in spite of how much he wants that he keeps himself from taking.
People don’t expect him to be tactile in the way he wants to be, and so despite how much he craves a hand over his own or an arm around his shoulders, he never knows how to ask for it. He never knows how to tell them, when they’re pulling each other into their embrace, that he’d like to be part of it too. He never knows how to tell them, when they’re holding each other’s hands and swinging them while they walk, he’d like to be part of it too.
He has gotten used to it; standing an uncomfortable distance away, watching as they indulge in each other’s long-desired warmth, savouring it in a way that he will never be a part of, nor truly understand.
Sometimes, he thinks it’s better this way, because touch is one of the dangerous things in the world that he shouldn’t crave. Touch is the very weapon that destroyed his spirit and with it, many others. The merciless touch of an unsheathed blade, the brutal touch of a chain—they’ve killed him. Someday, they will again. Even rebirth may never be merciful enough to free him from these memories that have become a part of his unmended soul, yet he yearns for another kind of touch that will teach him that it’s not entirely bad.
He doesn’t deserve to yearn for it in the way that he does, but he can’t help it. And he tries not to ask, he doesn’t know how to, but he wishes someone would.
But oh, the way Ganyu’s fingers will linger when she’s tying ropes around Shenhe’s body; the way Yunjin will sink her chin into the nape of Xinyan’s neck after an emotional performance, surrendering herself to her gentle love; the way Hu Tao will wrap her arms around Xiangling’s waist when she’s chopping vegetables in the morning, playing with the tassel around her waist band; even the way Ningguang’s hands will slowly tighten around the fist of fabric in her hands when she pulls Beidou closer.
It’s gotten worse with time and with the more he watches the way that everyone else seems so comfortable with touching each other, with holding each other, with brushing skin to skin. It’s as though everyone but him was born with the knowledge on how to ask for touch, how to be comfortable with it, how to earn it, and he’s the only one who didn’t. Instead, he’s stuck in this forever of starving.
By the time he’s nearing the end of another century, he learns he hasn’t stopped wanting it any less than he did before. And, much to his chagrin, he learns there will never be a time when he doesn’t want the trust that comes with being touched, or the care and love and tenderness that comes with a caress of fingers to cheeks.
Xiao wants it. He wants it so badly, that when someone does touch him, however briefly, it feels like fire on his skin. It starts with a tickle, then a fire ignites from an ember gone astray and it burns every inch of his body till his entire capacity to feel has been occupied by the desire for more. He wants to hold, and be held. He wants to be wrapped in someone’s arms, bury his head in their neck and their hair, and memorise the way their scent travels around his body. He wants, and he wants, and he wants, even if he knows he can’t have any of it.
He craves it as bad as anything, as hard as anything, as much as anything else he has ever wanted. He craves for it like his lungs crave air, like it’s a necessity. He craves for it like the qingxins crave light, like it’s a need. He craves for it like butterflies with nectar, like plants with rain, like the mountains, and valleys, and wind, everything in the world exists for something, someone else—
He thinks about Venti, in the way he touches him and doesn’t. Sometimes, he sits with his legs pulled into his chest, tilting ever so slowly until the gentle weight of his head can be felt against Xiao’s shoulder, but he pulls away before he can be asked to stay. Sometimes, they walk and there’s a distance between them that they both want to close, but Xiao looks down at their hands, wonders if his own are too calloused and doesn’t dare to reach for something that’s not his to hold. Sometimes, Venti leans up to his face when he’s drunk, because he likes to tease from a proximity that’s impossible to ignore, and Xiao thinks about pulling his stupid face into a kiss. Sometimes, Venti sits on the branch of a tree, swinging his legs and swaying with the wind, and Xiao thinks, let me catch you and I’ll never let you go.
His thoughts often remain that way—unspoken.
It hurts him, he knows, and he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t know how to. So he waits, and hopes that someone will notice him looking, aching, and wanting nothing more than the comfort that comes with a sincere hug; the you’ll be alright because I’m here, and you’re not alone because I’ll be with you every step of the way that comes with being held in someone else’s arms.
He’s been dealing with his inability to express himself with tolerance. He remembers every instance that they’ve come close to touching—the many times that he and Venti’s hands have brushed, and he stiffened up, the many times that they’ve bumped shoulders when they’re running or strolling or lying down, and he wished he could crawl out of the moment, the many times that their backs touched against each other when it was them against the world, and he felt a traitorous heat in his stomach.
He can want touch as much as he wants anything else, but he can’t muster the courage to face the vulnerability that comes with admitting he wants to be touched.
He doesn’t plan on trying.
───────
Wanting to be touched comes as an inevitable part of Xiao’s everyday.
When he’s with Venti on the roof of Wangshu Inn, he looks over his shoulder at the way the moon illuminates his face with a kind glow, and he wonders if he has desired anything so much. He looks at their hands that are only centimetres apart, and he wonders if it would be so bad if their fingers were intertwined. But he knows, and he knows with utmost certainty, that if he Venti him like this, with the reflection of the moon in his eyes and heart itching at the base of his throat, they’d lose everything.
Which is why it comes with uncertainty when their touches aren’t so sporadic anymore.
Xiao tries to bear it. It’s okay, most of the time, and he thinks he’s doing okay, because most people don’t try to push it when it comes to him. But he can feel it—
When they sleep next to each other.
When they wake up next to each other.
When they’re lying on the grass, and Venti curls into his body.
When they make it out of a fight, and there’s that awkward tension when they look at each other because they can’t hug, or hold, or high-five each other in celebration, so they smile.
When the weather’s sunny and Venti invites him to dance.
He’s not okay. He doesn’t think he ever will be, when it comes to Venti.
───────
And he isn’t.
They’re on his bed when another limit is crossed.
It’s dark, they’re closer to the morning than they are to night, and they’re not asleep. They’ve been doing this more often than not lately, lying beside each other and never actually sleeping. It’s becoming a problem, because they wake up in the morning like they didn’t spend the night thinking about how much they wanted to touch each other—and they pretend.
They’ll sleep during the day, risk the awful feeling of lethargy sticking around through their week, but they’ll still lie with each other knowing they won’t get a wink of sleep.
And in the mornings, when they wake up next to each other, they look at each other with that desperation to run away from everything that’s right there, and they pretend it isn’t.
But tonight isn’t like most nights. Venti starts pushing the line again. Starts pulling and tensing when Xiao pushes back. Starts hovering for a minute longer, challenging the limit. Starts resting his hands where he knows the faintest of movements would make them touch. Starts running them over the wall between them, searching for cracks to carve an entrance in the shape of his heart. Starts holding his gaze even when Xiao turns away, even if he doesn’t look back, because he’s happy enough just looking.
He does it like this: they’re on a very small, very cramped bed in the inn and Xiao can feel the nudge of a hand against his waist. He’s been staring at the ceiling since they fell into bed, conscious of the little distance between them which refuses to close. He notices, from the corner of his eye, Venti who’s also lying on his back, trying to keep himself from squirming too much.
Xiao can hear the steady rhythm of Venti’s deep breaths, and the sound of it tells him that he’s about to drift off to sleep. He’s grateful for it, because he thinks, without being so conscious of the eyes that are boring into him, he might be able to sleep too. He waits, lying stiff in bed until he catches the sound of the first snore. He waits for Venti to roll onto his hip and turn away from him, but he doesn’t.
Instead, he yawns, then rolls over to face him. He crosses one line.
He inches deeper into the bed, closing the space between them. Then, another.
Those few inches soon condense into none as Xiao grapples with the unfamiliar warmth of another body being pressed against his own. And another after that.
He stifles a distressed sound when an arm drapes over his body, catching him off guard. He clenches his fists by his sides, and the same heat he tried to kill with cold water comes burning from the same ash that it was when it was extinguished. He doesn’t know if this is too much or not nearly enough, but as he’s lying there in Venti’s arms, he thinks he might either die right now or live forever.
He can’t feel his lungs anymore, except the soreness at the base of his chest that he can’t figure out. He can’t feel his arms, or his legs, or anything but the overwhelming need to be touched that comes with a fire that no longer knows taming. Xiao closes his eyes and lets out a shaky breath, overtly conscious of the way Venti’s warm breath is tickling his exposed collar bones, and the way his fingers are playing a dangerous game with how close they’re placed to his waistband.
He wants to fight again, to keep living as he has been—then he smells the scent of apples in his hair, intertwined with the faint scent of flowers on his own, and he thinks about giving in. Succumbing; he hasn’t done that in a while. Somehow, it feels a little less like giving up and more like—
Venti shifts again, and this time, he curls his fingers around the curve of Xiao’s waist. He muffles a groan by turning his head away, entirely embarrassed by the fact that he hits so perfectly in his grasp; like the final piece to a puzzle that went a long time waiting to be solved. He inches closer, as if he wasn’t close enough, and presses his body so close, their bodies could easily be mistaken as one in the dark. He can feel the heat at the base of his throat, and the layer of sweat collecting on his forehead.
It’s not a bad feeling. Not really.
Maybe it’s because he isn’t used to it. More than he isn’t used to Venti’s touch, he isn’t used to acceptance; acknowledging that he, too, is allowed to yearn. He has spent his entire life fighting, from something, for someone, that being handled so delicately by the same person who watched him bathe in blood makes him wonder that he’s not all that broken.
It’s overwhelming, because there’s never been a time before now, when he felt like the entire world was lying in his grasp. He might crumble beneath the touch of Venti’s nimble fingers and become the air that he breathes, or he might do much worse. He’s still tense under the weight he’s far from accustomed to, terrified of breathing too quickly or shifting too much, or breaking them out of the reverie of this moment.
He doesn’t want to ruin this.
He wants this to stay, for him to stay, but he’s suddenly made aware of the rapid beating in his heart, the adrenaline coursing through his veins and he panics—
“Venti,” he heaves out with his next breath, deeply terrified of what they’ve become in a matter of seconds. His eyes are shut and he can feel tears at the corners of his eyes. He’s not uncomfortable—no, never. But he’s scared, and he doesn’t know what will become of him if they stay like this any longer. He hears a hum, and with a shaky breath, he repeats, “Venti.”
Venti wakes, if he’d been sleeping at all. He shifts ever so slightly, not intending to pull away until he notices the unsteady rhythm of Xiao’s breaths. He pushes himself up, holding himself in that stance with only his elbow supporting him, and the lethargic look on his face dissolves into one of concern. “Xiao,” he calls back, his voice thin from fatigue. He’s worried now, because it has finally dawned on him that a blurred line is a line nonetheless, and he has pushed it too far. He pulls back, steps back, goes so much further.
“Xiao—” he calls out, then stops himself. “I hurt you?
“No,” Xiao whispers, placing his arm over his eyes, damp with tears. “You didn’t.”
Venti’s voice deepens, softens, till it’s no heavier than a feather. He’s seated up now, back straightened and legs folded, mildly disoriented. He rubs his eyes, but refuses to take them off Xiao, as though searching deeply for a reason as to why he’s never enough. “Then, why?”
He doesn’t dare say more.
“We can’t do this,” Xiao confesses, turning his head away to avoid eye contact. He still feels it all over—the fire that left a trail of yearning in its wake. He’s scared, but he doesn’t know what of, because he’s with Venti, who won’t run if he lets out an unsteady breath, or accidentally nudges him somewhere in his sleep. But he’s fighting against demons that don’t exist, and it’s ruining everything he has right now. “We can’t,” he says again, softer, but this second time feels more like a plea to himself.
Venti doesn’t respond. He doesn’t so much as make a sound.
Xiao looks at him, because for a moment, the silence scares him. He hasn’t been scared of many things in his life, the same way he isn’t prone to feeling. But it seems with Venti, he isn’t as invulnerable as he would like to be. His gaze softens when he looks at the complete stiffness in the way that Venti frowns at his hands, mouth clamped shut like he’s fighting back words.
Xiao’s eyes flicker between his jaded eyes, then the calluses on his pale hands, then back to his dimly illuminated face. His hand relaxes against the mattress as he feels the dying urge to reach out to him and kiss the frown off his face, but every muscle in his body holds him back from closing a gap that will only widen from here. He wants to hold him, oh, he really does, but he can’t bring himself to reach across the chasm that’ll only hurt either of them to cross.
“Will you ever tell me why?” he chokes back a sob, not a single ounce of his spirit left in the way he speaks. There’s no hint of the enthusiasm that’s so crucial to his character, and his voice is faltering like every wisp of hope he clung onto has slipped out of his hands. Xiao watches at the figure in front of him, slowly becoming less human as he curls forward and buries his face in his hands, overwhelmed with guilt. “Will you ever tell me why you keep running? Did I hurt you? I don’t want to.”
Oh, you could never hurt me, Xiao thinks softly and it’s like his entire chest splits to put his raw, beating heart on display. He sits up against the bed, reaching a hand out of a rare instinct to hold him. Nowhere that matters, but on his calf, where his fingers coil at the briefest of touches. And what he dawns on him next is what he has feared all his life—the horrible, horrible realisation that he has sunken too deep. “No,” he croaks out. “You didn’t.”
“Then, why?” Venti looks up at him, so defeated, and Xiao realises now that he’s been hurting too. “I’ve been trying so hard to be good to you, but every time I come one step closer, you move three steps backwards and I—I never understand why. Can you tell me, please, so I can stop trying?” he begs, yearning no less than Xiao.
“I don’t know,” Xiao tells him, his voice dim. His eyes flicker away. “It’s not like… I don’t want to.”
They lock eyes, and for a moment, he feels naked in Venti’s scrutiny. He considers looking away for a beat, even swallowing his words and pretending they were never said out loud, but a breath after that, Xiao finds himself pinned against the bed. His eyes widen briefly at the sight of Venti on top of him, his hands pressed to either side of his head. A tear that’s not his own falls on his face, and rolls down his cheek. “Then why do you keep pushing me away?” Venti asks, straddling his lips.
Xiao falters. “Because,” he starts. “I’ve never been good at asking.”
“Can I then?” Venti breathes against his lips. “Can I touch you?”
Xiao takes a deep, steadying breath. There’s something so intimate about it, the earnestness that comes as an inevitable result of falling apart. He looks into Venti’s eyes, dark with yearning and clouded with the intense desire to unravel him by the seams.
He fears what will become of him if he agrees, when he’s already rubble in Venti’s arms.
He learns, then, that destruction isn’t among his many fears if it’s in the hands of whom he loves.
A small smile curls onto his lips as he nods his head, threading his fingers with Venti’s. He tilts his head to the side, closing his eyes as a pair of lips pepper kisses along his exposed skin. He breathes unsteadily as the weight of another body sinks into his own, and the rapid beating of his heart matches that of the one which isn’t his. There’s a tickle beneath his skin that sounds like a prayer, fulfilled, and on comes the flame of desire that ignites him. Solace lies in the way he’s held—the way hands explore his body with so much care, the way lips ghost over his own in a silent expression of wanting, needing—
And somewhere amidst all that struggle, he finally hears his name.
Xiao, he hears in a voice softer than the wings of a crystal fly.
He finds, with the light tickle of hair against his forehead, the forever-memory of touch etched onto his skin, and the oasis in the echo of only one name in his mind, that he’s been waiting for this all his life.
They look into each other’s eyes, refusing to break apart for even a second. Venti kneads his hand into his shirt, ghosting over his lips in a manner that might almost be mockery. He runs his fingers along the curve of his ribs, breathing heavily against his bare skin. It feels almost like studying, scrutiny, with what care he explores Xiao’s body. They knead their fingers into each other’s palms, collapsing into an unsteady motion of loving.
Xiao exhales, his body quivering faintly beneath hands that etch new meaning in every strand of his soul. He indulges in the messy sensation of pushing and pulling, and falling apart, relearning what he once deeply believed to be dangerous. I found it, he celebrates a triumph, as he dissolves in his love’s grasp. The touch that feels good. He brushes his thumb against Venti’s cheek and with so much adoration, he pleads, “Can I hold you?”
And when Venti smiles at him, with entire universe shimmering in his eyes, Xiao learns it’s only with him that he manages to yearn for something right in front of him. Venti nods, and he clenches his jaw in a split second of contemplation—yet overwhelmed entirely by temptation, he pulls him into a kiss.
Oh, he sighs as he melts into his touch. So this is what it’s like to burn.