#i can't tell if this one is even good i just love writing dream psychodelics

[rhine-gold-archive]

I love your sub headcanons so much, do you have anything for Xiao?

Xiao x Gn! Reader

Warnings: not safe for work, but this one turned out much softer than usual. Sub\dom!reader undertones are still kinda there, but give it a try even if you’re not into this dynamic. First time, handjob, anal sex, mentions of voeyrism (kinda? briefly through the dream), I’m gonna say “cock”, but it stands for strap too, it’s just awkward to keep specifying. 

Wordcount: 4,3k

A\N: I was not sure if I knew what to do for Xiao, but then I remembered that one of his themes is dreamwalking and that’s legit my JAM. It turned out less smutty and more of a psychosexual character study, but I’m still quite fond of it. It’s pretty cheesy, but you know what, Xiao deserves a break. There will be some filth under the cut still. Shoutout to “Nothing to no one” by Gin Wigmore and Placebo’s “Protege Moi” for carrying me through this one.

Xiao is curt and intense to the point of coming off as rude, but never more harsh to anyone but himself. Longing for connection, but consciously denying it himself time after time, severity done like a mask to hide the broken, bleeding bones of gentleness, no time for “trifling human matters”, but enough to return a stolen doll to a little girl. Who the fuck do you think you’re fooling, babe.

And it’s not like he doesn’t know what he wants, oh no, he does, he just won’t admit it even under torture

Friendship lvl3: “Desire? Ha. Do not judge adepti by your mortal ideals. I have no desire.”

Friendship lvl5: “Hiding? I'm hiding nothing. I just won't speak of desire to others. Do mortals not have a rule about spoken wishes never coming true? Hm? What do you mean that's not the same?”

So you admit it, you just fucking lied at lvl3 when you said you “have no desire”?? You just gonna casually go from “Foolish mortal, I have no desires unlike you” to “Of course, I have desires, I want them so badly I won’t even speak them out loud for the fear of jinxing them.” yeah, no, that checks out, SURE.

In Xiao’s world, you don’t communicate what you want, you bottle that shit up and hide it deep inside, and you don’t even admit this bottle exists, let alone tell anyone what’s inside. You don’t believe these wishes will ever come true and you don’t think you deserve it, but because deep down you know you are a weak, corrupted creature, you still hope against all hopes and despise yourself for this foolishness. 

Speaking of which, Xiao collects reasons for self-hatred like it’s his ascension material.

Like, “My only worth is as a weapon, so normal people should not interact with me because I only bring corruption and I am good for nothing outside of bloodshed”

This prickly pride of being a skillful weapon is a double-edged sword of discarding himself as being useless for anything but battle.

Like you have their little training course interaction with Ganyu during her story quest, which btw she receives positively and is grateful for his help, and Xiao’s line about it is:

“You believe a Yaksha who knows nothing more than how to massacre countless souls and emerge unscathed is a suitable mentor for such an individual?”

… babe, can you chill for like, three seconds? You made a defense mini game with like 20 slimes for her, it’s not gonna turn a cocogoat into a cold-blooded killer,

And this dismissal of self-worth outside of combat ties in nicely with bottling up a volatile mix of yearning, loneliness, frustration, despair and innate sensitivity that couldn’t be dulled down even by centuries of self-hatred and pain, and only letting it all out in an incandescent rage in battle, which leads to

“I only feel alive when fighting, which means I’m a monster who only thrives on bloodlust,” despite like, refusing himself all positive stimuli 

“Thriving on bloodlust” somehow not contradicted by the fact that he yearns for beauty and hates this miserable existence so much that he’s legit jumping at the first opportunity to go out in the blaze of glory if it even has a chance to be helpful to other people, and could only be stopped by his dad's Zhongli’s intervention and all off his new friend group going “we’re would be really sad if you died”

Then he’s like “ok i’ll keep on living i guess :\”

(i’m still so salty that they didn’t let Itto talk at all, his story quest speech about sacrifice being an easy and cowardly way out to discard responsibility that doesn’t fix root problems fits Xiao’s situation SO WELL argh) 

Yeah no, all other yakshas talked about wanting peace and his own namecard describes dreaming of peace and donning the mask to dance instead of killing, but yakshas are inherently bloodthirsty species, so there’s no hope for him, that checks out, sure.  

So to summarize, despite how direct Xiao seems at first glance, interacting with him is actually a complex navigation between things he says out loud that he knows are not true, things he says that he can’t admit to himself are not true due to self-loathing, and just general tsundere bullshit. You’ll need a LOT of patience.

Like, does he want to be accepted and loved? Desperately. Will he accept someone trying to do so straightforwardly? Absolutely the fuck not. 

If you try to straight up compliment him, he’d be like “L+ratio+you foolish mortal + You think a killer who devoured countless souls can be cute? + you have bad taste actually + that's disrespectful to the ways of the adepti”

Echoing being unable to voice his desires, Xiao can only accept warmth in indirect, stolen moments, half-glances, throwaway remarks, because connection feels too fragile to be named directly. And remember, spoken wishes never come true

The rituals are *very* intricate

You’re not just walking on eggshells around him, the eggshells are aggressively throwing themselves under your feet and biting at your ankle to make you crush them, so he can be like “see? I don’t deserve love anyway, i was right to hate myself”  

like one comedy article said, “It’s good if a man is skittish and terrified of affection, like a beautiful horse that appears on the edge of a frozen lake one day and you have to tame it by bringing it a handful of food every day until it slowly comes to learn your scent (but with sex)”

That’s Xiao in a nutshell, but you’re bringing seeds to a bird-feeder and the bird has chronic pain and is scared to hurt you

Here’s the thing though. You’ll know he’s yours when he starts showing interest in your perspective on everyday things. He’s curious by nature, but never lets himself wonder, unless he’s sure beyond the doubt that his participation is wanted. 

“Xiao: I have no intention of getting close to the lives of mortals.

 Xiao: But I know that you often enter and leave the city, walking amidst the crowd.

 Xiao: The stories of these times, or their joys... If I don't experience such things myself, it'll be hard to understand your thoughts.

So... you're doing this for me?

 Xiao: Yes, to understand you.

 Xiao: I had a feeling that it would be difficult, but after having such thoughts, I can't simply sit back and do nothing.”

He’s inquisitive and quick thinking, but very socially awkward and prone to hiding his true desires. So even before asking you to include him, he starts scouting your dreams.

It’s nothing invasive like devouring dreams or dragging projections into the real world. Just catching brief, fleeting glimpses,carefully pressed against the soap bubble of your dream. Even in short flashes, it helps to see things from your point of view.

…and sometimes, rarely, he catches images of how you see him, so bewilderingly different from what he’s used to, not the corruption-ridden creature with ugly lines of the fanged mask etched onto his face and blood staining his hands, but instead…

Sharp turn of his head when you call out his name, and the sun illuminates him from behind, brilliant halo shining through the messy dark hair, and he can’t even recognize himself in this memory, golden-eyed and gorgeous, so he bundles up this vision, hides it deep inside among other unattainable, undeserved, unspoken wishes. 

It’s self-indulgent, a bit pathetic for the adeptus, but ultimately harmless, like a weakness for the almond tofu. A spark of sweetness to get him through the misery of his everyday life.

Until one night he catches a dream where you’re fucking him.

It throws him off balance so hard, he flees immediately, not just from the dreamspace, but teleporting to an isolated mountain peak.

But the image is seared into his retinas nonetheless.

It’s because he’s offended, he tries to tell himself. How extremely disrespectful. As if an adeptus like himself, who has no interest in the foolishness of mortal desires, would want to be sprawled under you, dizzy with pleasure, held and kissed and caressed, like he’s the most beautiful and wanted thing in the world, like touching him brings joy, like…

He has to teleport again, but it doesn’t help. Horrified, he realizes he’s aroused.

It’s a tough couple of weeks for the both of you.

He’s even more sullen and jumpy than normally, and when you ask him if everything’s okay and if there’s anything you can do to help, he gets a panicked look of a deer in headlights and vanishes.

You decide it’s probably some yaksha angst and it’s better to give him some space

You don’t remember your dream, and even if you did, you wouldn’t think much of it.

He can’t stop thinking about it. It resurfaces, uncalled, in the most inopportune moments, no matter how hard he tries to push it down. The obscene view of himself, arms over the head, parted lips, back arched and legs spread wide with you between them. 

He didn’t stay long enough to catch more, but even this is enough to drive him up the walls, sometimes literally, to make him want something he can’t properly name. He was used to tolerating the constant gnawing pain of the corruption, but this needy ache is maddening, fading and reappearing when least expected to throw him off kilter.

He alternates from watching over your dreams intently to being unable to even glance at them, but on the nights when he does look, there’s nothing similar.

Which is good. It means you were not serious about it, it was just a fluke. Minds of mortals are notoriously fickle, especially in the dream state, and can produce all sorts of ridiculous fantasies and ideas that mean nothing.

Of course it meant nothing, who would seriously see a weapon for eons steeped in blood and corruption as a lover?  What pleasure could you expect from someone whose very nature and purpose is slaughter? It could only lead to disappointment. Repulsion, even. It’d be preposterous to even think about it.

Which is why it’s outrageous that he *is* still thinking about it.

But now it’s been a few weeks and the pulsing want dulled down, lost a terrifying thrill of possibility of being reciprocated, and is almost ready to become another weak, shameful yearning, bottled up and shoved into a dark corner. 

And then his heart jumps into his throat when he sees you dreaming of Wangshu Inn’s balcony drowned in moonlight, and he’s in your arms as you’re sitting by one of tables, he’s straddling your thighs, your mouth and hands wandering over his naked chest and collarbones.

The half-drowsed ember of desire roars back in thrice the force, and feverishly, he thinks of an idea. What if he took place of his own image? Then he could learn what it feels like. He could finally stop wondering what would happen and just get over this maddening sickness. And you won’t even notice the switch. You’ll probably end up unsatisfied because he would not be able to give you the pleasure you expected, but it’s all a fleeting, momentary dream for you anyway, not worthy of remembering in the morning.

He spent centuries hunting dreams, but never tried to become a part of them, so he doesn’t realize a simple truth: a dream cannot be entered without being shared equally.

The first thing that changes in your dream when he becomes a part of it is actually the sky, but you don’t notice it because the responsive, pliant body in your arms suddenly becomes woodenly tense. At the same time, your awareness deepens, dream becoming almost lucid, as you gain control over yourself, but not surroundings. 

What confuses you even more is a barrage of strange emotions coming down at you out of nowhere: anxiety on the verge of panic, fearful anticipation, needy, smoldering fervor of desire. 

You look up at Xiao’s face to see him looking almost severe if not for the heavy blush and refusal to meet your eyes, breath held nervously, and realize in an instant - this is actually him, not the figment of your imagination, it’s his thoughts and emotions you can now glimpse like he usually does with others when dreamwalking.  

And also, that if you even try to acknowledge this, he’ll bolt to the other end of the world, so you don’t say anything.

It’s tempting to claim his mouth, but he’s too petrified, his jaw clenched tightly. Instead, you trail the line of kisses down his throat and feel the sharp pang of his relief at supposedly not being discovered. 

You caress him slowly, carefully, moving tenderly over his arched neck, sharp curves of the collarbones, chest that rises fast and feverishly in shaky breathes, taste nervous flare of his pulse in the deliciously delicate hollow of his throat, until the warm pleasure spreads under his skin, melts frozen rigidness into a different kind of tension, a taut bowstring, drawn tightly, trembling at every touch. 

When you nuzzle at the underside of his jaw, he moves his head abruptly and presses his mouth against yours, tense because he wants this so badly, but doesn’t know what to do with himself, an awkward angle and all teeth. But you take your time, slide your fingers into his hair and tilt his head, kiss his lips until he finally relaxes and opens up. When you slide your tongue against his, he makes the tiniest noise, barely audible tremble caught in his throat.

He was worried about how inexperienced he is, but when he’s too lost in the kiss, desire takes care of this easily. Without realizing, he’s arching in your arms, grinding against your legs. When you slide your hands lower, over his stomach, hips, stroke his thighs, he moans into your mouth and opens his knees wider, thrusts against you, already hard.

You slide your hand into his pants and close your fingers over his cock and he shudders, breaks the kiss, realizing what you are doing, what he was doing, how easily he’s losing control, his wild yellow eyes wide and uncertain.

“It’s okay,” you tell him softly. “Everything is going to be okay. Let me take care of you, baby.”

He catches your affection, shared through the dream, and the narrow vertical slits in his eyes widen, blackness flaring up against gold. With a short, shuddering draw of the breath, he relents, leans into you to nuzzle at your cheek. You can feel his blush heating up against your skin, flutter of the eyelashes. 

You start stroking his cock slowly, holding him with your other arm, whisper sweet reasurings into his ears, understanding how hard it is for him to show vulnerability, even under the supposed disguise. 

His hips start moving again, now in rhythm with your hand, and you quicken the pace. Suddenly, you realize he’s naked except for the gloves, because the dream lets things happen easier, removes inconveniences, requiring nothing but mutual intent. You can’t help but smirk, press a wet kiss to the side of his jaw and twist your hand over the head of his cock. He lets out a stifled gasp, his tip throbs and starts leaking in your palm. He lifts his arms as if to grasp at your shoulders, but stops before he can touch you, lets them drop. 

But you notice that something is wrong with his hands - the gloves are a part of him, darkness etched painfully into his flesh, and instead of the slender fingers you know he actually has, his hands end in ugly sharp claws, covered in splotches of dried blood. Your heart breaks a little when you realize this is how he sees himself, this is what he thinks his touch would feel like. But you cannot argue directly, can’t say that it’s not true without breaking a fragile silence between you, acknowledging that it’s actually him.  

So instead you catch his chin in your free hand. “Hey, look at me.”

He meets your eyes, his own hazy, feverish with need, but he looks at you intensely. “You are so good,” you tell him quietly, holding his gaze even as his eyes widen, your hand over his cock moving faster and faster. “You are so beautiful, baby. I wouldn’t want anyone else in the world here instead of you.” 

He cries out, sharp and surprised, almost pained with helplessness, like a hawk shot in the air midflight, and comes undone. When he unravels in your arms, his old, half-forgotten, buried dreams spill out too. 

So when he falls back, tugging you with him, he lands not on wooden planks of Wangshu Inn’s balcony, but on the soft cover of tangled lush grass. Tall green stalks meet over your head, as if trying to protect, hide a secret from the world.

A strange word from the ancient, dead language surfaces in your mind, a word that meant “sea of wind” - a name of vast grasslands that once covered these plains, endless green waves that rolled under the breeze from horizon to horizon. 

His body is pale under you, dappled in moonlight that manages to get through the hover of softly wavering grass. Flickering light of the fireflies, green and lemony-yellow, doesn’t illuminate anything, but only makes the dark emerald shadows deeper in-between the narrow stalks where they move. But his golden eyes are very bright, still quietly shocked, searching, never leaving your face like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he looks away.  

You smile, lean down to catch his mouth, and he kisses you with abandon, still awkward, but with sweetness that neither you nor him knew he was capable of. The air smells faintly of warm earth, fresh grass and bittersweet Qingxin flowers. The moments stretch for eternity like only dreams allow for, full moon halting in the dark starry skies above. 

He wants more, but he doesn’t know how to ask for it, doesn’t have the words. But in this state of bewildered, warm haziness, drunk of both lust and certainty of your desire, his shame evaporates. He remembers the first dream he saw, the image that haunted him for weeks, and recreates it - arms thrown over head, arched back and spread legs.

Except he looks infinitely better, countless details that the fantasy could not account for, - breathless, tangled in green shadows and silver moonlight, lithe and wiry-muscled, heavy flush of his cheeks contrasted to the eager, glowing gold eyes, arm flexing under tattoo as he clutches at the grass to keep himself still, subtle tremble of his open thighs, hard, pulsing cock, leaking on the tense stomach, already stained with cum.

In the waking world, you’d spend considerable time preparing him, given how inexperienced and sensitive he is. Even without that consideration, another time you’d want to go teasingly slowly, make him writhe on your fingers, plead for mercy.

But right now, in these stolen moonlit moments it feels too ugent, too desperate, and the fever of a dream lets you skip the steps, sweep right into sliding into him. This time he arches under you not for show, silent gasp and widened eyes.

You pause, letting him adjust to the feeling of your cock inside of him, ravish him with kisses in the meanwhile, feel him squirm, overwhelmed and gratified by both sensations and your hunger for him. When he finally bucks his hips against you, you start moving, first carefully, then turning to the hard, firm pace, and it runs through him, echoes in choked grunts and feverish drum of the heart. The dream bends to this steady beat, light of the fireflies pulsing in tact, and somehow he’s both on the grass beneath you and rising up, in the same rhythm, sharp cyclical thrusts upwards.

Suddenly, sky spills all around you, the lights of stars mingling with the fireflies in between the narrow grass stalks, and golden wings of the wind that takes you upward beat in the rhythm of your movement. The sky around you is too vast and sharp, the depth and freedom you’ve never seen before, and you realize this is what it feels like to taste the joy of a creature born to soar.

He’s too lost in the pleasure, looking up at you, the sky opening up for him with every thrust, every lunge. He can’t remember the last time when he took flight just for the joy of it, when he looked up instead of down to track the enemies and come crashing in a flurry of broken spears. All these centuries of being sure he was made for violence, and suddenly it sheds off him like dust, all this time thinking he can only feel alive during battle, and now his body sings so easily, so naturally, and it sings of wind and starlight, not of rage and blood. 

When he reaches the peak of the ascent, time slows down for a weightless, breathless moment, a precipice after which he usually turns flight into a controlled, violent plunge. Instead, with a quiet, helpless moan, he closes his eyes and lets himself fall.

Stars burn under his eyelids, ancient, forgotten constellations flaring up, mixing with the current ones, until it’s impossible to tell them apart, entangled like your bodies in the soft grass that was destroyed centuries ago, a new celestial atlas that exists only for the two of you.

Even as he curls against you after, soft and sweet, you can feel bitter, ashen current staining the dream: he thinks this is the only time he gets to feel happy. And in the moment, it seems absolutely ludicrous to keep the pretense of not knowing that it’s him and let him wallow in his angst.

“Xiao,” you tell him quietly, gently stroking sharp knobs of his spine, “it’s okay. You can be mine. The world is not going to end.”

He freezes for a second, his eyes going wide in panic, and then vanishes abruptly. Dream shatters into a thousand shards, and you wake up with a gasp.

You give him a few days to process and then, on the moonlit Wangshu’s balcony after all the guests have left, you quietly call his name.

He appears on the other side of the balcony, arms crossed, looking sullen and severe, which could look intimidating if you didn’t know him and if not for a little detail.

“You don’t have to stand that far, I can still see that you’re blushing.”

 He scowls. “What do you want?”

“I thought we should talk about what happened.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. It was foolish. For both of us.”

“Talk for yourself.”

“No, it was extremely foolish for you too,” he says with sudden, agitated passion. “You knew what I am, I’ve told you from the start to keep your distance. I’ve never asked you to… I’ve warned you to treat me as a weapon, and…”

“Oh, don’t give me that crap again! I’ve tasted your sky. I know the violence is not your only nature.”

He chokes on his breath, looks away, then says quietly.

“It may not be, but it is the only thing I’m proficient with. So what does it matter what was once my nature? There are many others, more suitable for you to…”

“Well, that’s not for you to decide. You don’t get to tell me who I want. You can only choose for yourself.”

He glances at you very quickly and looks away again with a quiet “Hmph,” but you can tell how torn and unsure of what to do he is.

“Xiao,” you say softly, reaching out to him. “Come here.”

He looks at you for a long moment and then vanishes. You curse under your breath and flop down on a chair in frustration. But then suddenly the air smells sharply of ozone and in a flurry of teal and black, Xiao appears on top of you.

He looks incredibly irritated and refuses to meet your eyes, but he’s straddling you, so you grin and grip his hips. His hand instinctively moves to cover yours, but he stops himself before he can touch you. This time you don’t have to pretend you don’t notice.

You catch his hand and gently pull off the tight-fitting black glove. He finally looks at you, surprised. 

“What are you doing?”

“Hm?” you fake innocence, because two can play the ‘not acknowledging true subtext of the actions’ game. “I don’t know what your plans were when you landed on top of me, but sex generally requires undressing.”

He frowns in confusion, then freezes when you bring his hand to your mouth. His pale fingers are long and bony, and you hold his gaze while pointedly kissing each angular knuckle. It only fully hits him when you turn his hand and press your lips to his scarred palm, then move them down to the tender skin of his wrist.

He doesn’t say anything, but his narrow pupils widen in an instant, and when you kiss him, you can feel his hands slowly, hesitantly sliding over your shoulders.

#xiao #genshin impact smut #genshin smut #xiao x reader #sub xiao #rhine writes filth #genshin impact #in my defense of not remembering he had a dream theming #hoyo were too much of cowards to put us INTO a dream #i can't tell if this one is even good i just love writing dream psychodelics