#ganshin fan fiction

[thesparklingwriter]

his little songbird

"Your singing is a representation of you and how you feel..."

tags: pet names, fem!reader, established relationship, reader is the kind of person who's always singing under their breath, inspired by this ask from aine

ao3 link | taglist | masterlist | next

He himself is not much of a singer, but Zhongli’s beloved spends every waking minute humming some kind of melody—sometimes it’s a light hearted melody, other times it’s weighed down by sadness and pain. It’s one of the easiest ways for Zhongli to figure out how you’re feeling, especially on days when you don't feel like talking much. When he hears you break out a song from the opera he knows that he’s in for a long day.

But over the past few days, you’ve been singing less and less, and he has no clue why. The house is so much quieter when when your melodies aren’t permeating through every room and it seems somewhat incomplete. Once again, the house is silent when he returns home to you, and if it weren’t for the angry counting coming from the living room, he’d assume that you were out.

“I’m home,” he says, but you don’t respond, still counting angrily under your breath.

“Seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-six…” And then he hears the sound of metal hitting the ground, and he chuckles lightly to himself. You claim you like crocheting, but you always look like you might kill a man when you’re doing it—he worries that he might be the man in question.

“Li, you’re back,” you smile, finally acknowledging his presence. He smiles softly, pulling you into a hug and muttering something about the absurdity of your inability to count, earning him a swift glare and half-hearted slap on his arm. But of course, what else did he expect?

You fall into your usual afternoon rituals, making dinner together before settling down on the couch to eat it. If Zhongli had his way, you'd eat dinner at the dining table, but he couldn't truly pass up an opportunity to be snuggled up close to you, could he?

“Why are you staring at me like that?” you ask him, carefully shovelling a heaped spoonful of rice into your mouth.

“Can’t I look at my wife?”

“Not like that, you can’t. What’s wrong?”

Of course, when you ask him directly like that, he’d be a fool to not answer you. So he asks you the question that's been preying on his mind for the past few weeks—why have you suddenly stopped singing?

“I haven’t stopped singing,” You reply, confused by his words. You’d toned it back a bit after a colleague had a go at you at work, saying that your ‘incessant singing’ was grating and distracting. Obviously, you couldn't ignore a complaint like that, and realised that your singing may have been distracting for Zhongli too—sometimes he does work at home, and surely you trying to sing ungodly notes at two o'clock in the afternoon could be considered inconsiderate.

“Then why do I never seem to hear you anymore?”

“I thought maybe it was a little distracting for you, is all. You know, when you’re working or something.” You respond with a crooked smile. “I’m doing you a favour.”

“I didn’t ask for that particular favour,” He responds curtly. “In fact,” he continues, “your ‘favour’ has deprived me of one of my very fee earthly pleasures.”

Zhongli describing his your singing as one of his very few earthly pleasures makes you laugh. Looking around this living room alone, you can see at least 10 things he’s bought with the same excuse—to say he has few pleasures is an understatement at best.

You look at him, not quite believing his words and swallow a mouthful of food, letting silence descend between the two of you. Of course, you want to believe him, but you also run the risk of allowing yourself to become comfortable in you absent minded singing, and incurring the wrath of your colleague again. And as much as you refuse to bend to the will of others, it truly wasn't a nice experience.

“What’s bothering you, songbird?” Zhongli asks tenderly, resting his food in his lap and wrapping his free arm around you. “You know you can talk to me.”

You sigh. “I really don't want to have to have that discussion with her again. She wasn’t exactly…diplomatic with her phrasing and it really hurt. So maybe I’ll just put the singing on the back burner for a while.” You eat another scoop of rice, looking away from Zhongli. He humours you for a while, continuing to eat in silence while he thinks of the best way to console you. Of course, he likes hearing you sing, but at his core he likes how it gives you freedom to express yourself. What kind of husband would he be if he didn’t respect and appreciate that?

When you’re both finished eating, he finally speaks up. “You shouldn’t allow yourself to be stifled by others’ irrelevant opinions.” He says quietly, stroking your hair. “Your singing is a representation of you and how you feel, and you deserve to be able to express yourself freely.”

“You’re missing the point,” you sniffle.

“I am not.” Zhongli says, pulling you into a hug. “I am simply ignoring the opinions of those who are irrelevant. So sing, my little bird. Sing for all you’re worth.”

You laugh. “Let me guess, you’ll handle anyone who antagonises me?”

“That is a given,” He smiles. “I’ve been running out of people to unleash boulders on as of lately.”

“Please do not kill anyone because of this, Li. It’s truly not that serious.”

“Your happiness is a serious matter, yn.” Zhongli chuckles. “I shall try my best, but I make no promises.”

© 2023, thesparklingwriter. please do not copy, edit, repost, or translate.

notes: hey hi hai hello :3 its me i'm back and ready to fill your lives with zhongli over and over again but this time i'm going to be more organised and you're all going to have a great time of it hehe. anyway big thanks to aine who very kindly sponsored this post with her zhongli brainrot ask (seriously what would i do without you)

taglist: @ainescribe @thelonelyarchon @aixaingela @medusuu

#[🦜]—sponsored by aine #tswzhongliflufftober #zhongli #genshin impact #zhongli fluff #genshin fluff #zhongli x reader #fanfiction #zhongli fanfic #zhongli flufftober #flufftober #genshin impact fluff #genshin impact fan fiction #ganshin fan fiction #genshin zhongli #zhongli genshin x reader #zhongli genshin impact #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader

[thesparklingwriter]

a technological affair

" And thus, his email was lost to the grips of hackers."

tags: modern au, pet names, gn!reader (use of wife), established relationship, zhongli cannot use a phone for the life of him, reader is an Apple enjoyer,

ao3 link | taglist | masterlist | next

As far as you’re concerned, Zhongli is the closest thing to perfection a man could ever be. Except for one very minor detail. He cannot, for the life of him, use a phone.

Which could be blamed on his 30,000 year old android, with a screen that barely functions and a cracked camera, and you really can't let him go out like that. So one day, as an advance on your anniversary gift for him, you decide to welcome him to the wonderful world of the iPhone.

“What’s this?” Zhongli says, opening the box carefully. “What have I done to warrant such a gift?” he holds the phone in his hands as if it’s a baby chick—you bought him one of the bigger phones, knowing his hands are large, and even still he could do with something bigger.

“You dropped your phone in the toilet and I can’t allow you to continue using it. You have to understand.” You grin. “So I got you a new one that actually works and when you tap the screen, it actually registers it.”

Zhongli looks at you with gratitude but also an inkling of confusion. What’s he going to do with this fancy, characterless lump of metal that he couldn't do with his old phone? “I appreciate this, my love, I really do. But I don’t know if this is going to be as good of an idea as you think it is.”

You scoff, pulling him into a hug. “Zhongli, I would like to actually hear my husband when I call him. I would like to understand the texts he sends to me. And I would also like to send him pictures of cute cats on Instagram.”

And of course, Zhongli couldn’t possibly deny you anything you ask of him, so he agrees to try to navigate this new phone with as much positivity and faith as he can possibly muster.

In the few weeks since you bought him the phone, he has managed to:

(1) Lock himself out of it. For a whole week. You asked him how he managed to do that and he didn’t seem too sure as to what he’d done. So you asked him if you could know his password and promised only to use it in situations like this. (And promptly cried when you realised his password was your birthday.)

(2) Get his email hacked. He’d approached you with excitement, saying: “Dear, look. I got an email saying I’ve won a Macbook.” To which you replied: “You can barely use your phone, we might need to leave the macbook on the back burner for a while. Who sent the email?”. The email was sent by [email protected] and contained a link, which Zhongli had happily pressed. And thus, his email was lost to the grips of hackers.

(3) Find the dictation and voice note feature, which is great. He gives you encyclopaedic updates to his day, which you read or listen to with genuine enthusiasm. This was what you bought him the phone for at the end of the day, right? The extra chance to connect with your husband?

(4) Get into the habit of sending you pictures of things that make him happy or that remind him of you. Which is essentially the same thing as far as he is concerned. You’ve also got used to sending them back.

(5) Make an Instagram account. He’s not great at it, but with some guidance, he manages to post some of the pictures he sends you.

(6) Accidentally message the group chat (you, Xiao, Ganyu, Madame Ping and some others use it to invite each other to dignified tea parties and movie marathons) his shopping list. The shopping list included all the things he was getting for you as part of your anniversary gift, so Xiao had to teach him how to delete the message so you wouldn’t see it.

But by the time your next anniversary comes around, he’s actually really good with it—he can use instagram better than you can (though he read the terms and conditions from start to finish and became very careful about how he uses it), orders things from amazon at least three times a week, and has a facebook group for fellow birdwatchers with about two hundred people in it.

Yes, he has all of his icons and text at the largest size possible, and yes, he refuses to use TikTok and favours Instagram reels, but when he’s on work trips or you’re visiting friends elsewhere in the world, it’s nice to be able to video call him and not feel as distant as you used to.

“I think this phone might have been the best gift you’ve ever gotten me, dearest.” he says one night, after discovering the kindle app, where he can find all the classic novels he loves so much without having to clear out bookshelf space.

You sit in bed together, simply talking about your respective days, both your phones banished to charge in another room. Of course, being able to use a phone doesn’t mean that you should at all times—the phone banishment rule had initially just existed for you, but the rules had to accommodate the new technical whiz in the house.

“What about the gift that is me?” you counter, nuzzling into his chest gleefully. He kisses you deeply, a smile on his lips as he pulls away.

“Nothing on this earth is better than the gift that is you.”

“Not even your group of birdwatchers?”

“I did get to see a wonderful example of a nearly extinct sparrow with beautiful colouring last week,” he teases. “But no, they could never be better than my beloved.”

© 2023, thesparklingwriter. please do not copy, edit, repost, or translate.

notes: you all have cael to thank for this hilarious prompt idea. this is why you should always make friends with people on tumblr they always slay.

taglist: @medusuu @aixaingela @thelonelyarchon @ainescribe

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