SYNOPSIS | why would lohen need a choker, when you can just wrap your hand around his neck?
NOTE | wrote this in one sitting while at the laundry shop listening to this song lol, this is set before the expedition btw
1,334| WARNINGS: lohen.
“that looks a little too tight.”
lohen hums mindlessly, lifting his head up to look at you with an eyebrow raised in confusion. he was just about to let sleep invade his senses, but for you, he'd spend every waking moment drinking in your words.
you sit on your desk, seemingly still focused on writing your report. your hand flies across the pages in a speed that makes lohen almost wish it was him you were working on. a shame, really, that you chose to pour all your undivided attention into paperwork. being a captain must be hard, or an acting captain, in your position.
surely, adorno can still handle some paperwork without breaking a bone, right?
“what is?”
“that thing.” you spare him a look, and he musters the resistance to look pleased upon your divine gaze.
overdramatic and down bad, that he is.
“what thing?”
the sigh that escaped you brought a grin to his face, pushing his arm to sit up from the couch. “come on, don't leave a guy like me hanging. we both know your mind flows like the wind. i can't possibly guess what goes and what stays in your mind. hopefully, me.”
he considers it an achievement and pats himself on the back when you snort at his theatrics.
“that horrid thing around your neck.”
“the choker, you mean?” lohen plays with the aforementioned object, pinching the fabric between two fingers. evidently the fabric did not stretch at all when he pulled just a little, proving your earlier statement. “it's comfy!”
“in what way?” you quirk a brow in confusion. “i hardly believe being choked by a fabric no less can be described as comfortable.”
“i like to be a little breathless!” he chirps.
“masochistic thing you are.”
lohen laughs delightfully, now pushing himself to his height and approaching your desk with a pep to his step. a voice at the back of your mind screams at you; this was the consequences of speaking out loud! maybe you should've kept your mouth shut if you wanted to get your piled up work done by the end of the day, but it's too late for regrets–for the biggest regret of your life now sits his pretty little butt at the corner of your desk with an eager (evil) smile.
“you can feel around it if you want!”
what a freak, you thought.
although wrapping your dextrous fingers around his throat to shut him up does sound… appealing, for the lack of better words. there's probably a lot of better words for it, you just prefer to describe it that way, really.
and lohen has a lot of appealing traits, sadomasochism aside not included.
“just say you want me to choke the life out of you.”
“don't tease me with a good time, my captain!”
his pale complexion flushes at the thought and you shudder at what kind of imagery his mind is capable of creating. surely, his deadly creative brain can come up with a lot. his collection of poison will tell you so.
“you're a freak.”
“you like me freaky, admit it. my freaky brings color to your boring reality.” he lowers his upper body to your height, resting all his weight on an arm. “come on, you can give it a tug. i won't bite.”
he will, in every way possible, you're sure of it.
something comes to your mind, an idea that sounds so inappropriate for someone like the two of you, the acting captain and vice captain of the fifth company. before you can even stop yourself, your eyes glimpse at the offending fabric for a millisecond,. a mistake, for you suddenly feel the room become chilly. you immediately tear your gaze away, praying to the sevens that he wasn't paying attention and caught the way your eyes dilated for just a tiny bit.
you knew better though, he definitely saw through it.
“who is the world of fashion even thought of tailoring something that constricts normal human functions?” the hand you use to write resumes its work in an effort to ignore his intense stare. sharp eyes piercing the paper with stellar focus the same way your spear impaled the monster you fought a thousand times before.
but it was meaningless to try and divert your attention, when this menace literally thrives on whatever you give him.
a finger appears in your vision–the lack of urge to smack it away disappointed you, how weak have you become?–lifting your chin up so you are forced to look straight into mischievous teal-crimson eyes, twinkling with too much mirth.
lohen's not gonna let you get away with this at all, isn't he?
“i insist, my dear captain.”
the sound of a thread snapping broke your composure.
try as you might, you knew you wouldn't back down in a fight when it comes to lohen. perhaps he had forgotten that you were as conniving as he is? and possibly more than he is? there was no one who could match his energy other than you, despite the obvious difference in your attitudes. you wouldn't let your vice captain get the upper hand, when you are the one in charge of things. it has been a while since you've reminded him who has the authority between your ranks.
perhaps, you can treat this as a warrant for discipline.
“since you're giving me your utmost permission, vice captain lohen.”
lohen felt the frisson course through his nerves when your voice toned deeper. he's over the moon when your wonderful hand raises itself to his neck, thrilled to the bone he can feel his whole body shake with anticipation.
it's hot, too hot, just the sight of your hand near his skin got him excited. it rivals the adrenaline he gets when he's about to engage in a fight. it shows in the way his cheeks flushed uncontrollably and a small gasp involuntarily escaped from the back of his throat when your skin touched his–almost sounding like a whimper.
except, you didn't just tug at the fabric around his neck.
lohen jolted when he felt your fingers wrap around his neck, pushing the palm against the bulge of his adam's apple and applying pressure around the base of his neck. when you're certain you've got a good grip around him, you tug him lower with no restraint, never mind the strength you were currently applying around his neck. your lips are near touching, and he swears the only oxygen he needs is the one coming out from your mouth.
he can handle a little squeeze, won't he?
“fuck.”
the word slipped out like honey from his curved lips, eyes blown wide.
“i think you could handle something more, hm, tighter, yes?”
he's feeling light headed and it wasn't even just from the way you squeezed your lovely fingers around his neck. you were staring at him like a predator, sharp eyes filled with so much more than you've ever expressed before. you've never been this carefree (sexy) and, archons, he is loving every second of it. he can stay like this all day. after all, every breath he breathes is for you.
“we should include underwater training in our program next, yes? you're breathless, a little too soon for my liking.”
you sound too casual in such an untimely position, like you don't have your fingers wrapped around him like a tool. lohen struggles to nod against your grip when your fingers press against a particular spot at the side of his neck. a loud whimper echoed across the office. he couldn't care less for underwater training, when he can just have your hand just like this.
“yes, captain.”
the sound was throaty, rough, and all that is not his usual confident voice.
“good, we will discuss it further once i'm done with you.”
“huh?”
if he wasn't relying his weight on your desk, he would be on his knees right now at the sight of your sinister smile.
SORRY ik i've already brought this song up before but it just reminds me sm of quieter x cheerier chars and ships + selfships... GOSH TT just all the xiaoships + shenjed + gumico and gumiships + ryegumo but reverse + cherjiro + dottcest but both ways HAHA + kaeyaships even if he seems outgoing and social + dilucships oh my god + alhaithamships + clorindeships + CYNOSHIPS GOSH + kinichships + KUJOU WAH + rosaria oh my GOSH rosaria (╥﹏╥) + DAN HENG WAH + !!!!!!! So Many. i cannot stop listening to this song TAT!!
Turns out the only way I can make soft Lohen work in my writing is by making him very unsettled/concerned
Warning(s): Suicide Ideation, Character Death (But Not Really), Unreliable Narrator, Mild Lohen SQ Spoilers, I think this is all
You wake up from a nightmare.
Throat dry, chest heavy, world spinning, shirt sticky.
91, 92, 93, you count.
Your chest hurts. Phantom pains from a wound that doesn't exist. Didn't exist yet. Will never exist.
The bathroom is where you find yourself, shirt torn open.
You stare at your chest. It is uninjured, pristine and new. As you expected, as it should be.
You still get into the bathtub anyways, soap and water at hand. And you scrub. Scrub it red, scrub it raw, till skin is threatening to give out to flesh and your fingers dig into your ribs so hard you could almost tear them off.
A familiar hand settles firmly on your wrist, stopping you. "Darling?" You almost jump in place, suddenly all too aware of how hot the water burns against your skin. Your lower garments sticking to your legs.
You pretend to not hear the question that comes after, or maybe you actually don't. It doesn't matter; you don't want to answer, you will not answer. It is not important. Nothing is.
He then looks at you, really looks at you, before sighing, voice intentionally a little milder. "Let me help you."
You hate it. Hate how he softens his voice to calm you down. Hate how concerned his expression is, so unlike his unhinged smiles and bloodlust filled eyes. Hate how he looks at you like you are a wounded animal that he is trying to calm down. But what you hate the most gotta be the fact that it is working.
The shower ends fast; a little too fast than you would've liked, you were not there for the rest of it, only vaguely aware of the fabric on your lower body being peeled off before everything turned into a blur.
He drags you back to bed, arm planted firmly around your waist, holding you close to himself, probably so you don't escape and pull another concerning stunt, not that you were planning to— you didn't plan the first one either. Your unsalvagable shirt replaced by one of his own. You didn't pay attention at first, but from the feel of the fabric it's your favorite of his.
He doesn't close his eyes, refuses to if you don't sleep first, his lips settling on the top of your head every once in a while for a sweet peck. Maybe to tell you that he is there for you. You don't know, he stopped talking when you made it obvious that you are purposefully ignoring him the first few times.
"Lohen?"
His attention is instantly on you, he tries to not show it, but he is frantic, nervous and uneasy. Those were the first words you spoke since you woke up, the first words he heard from you since he found you in the bathroom looking two seconds away from clawing out your lungs.
"Mhm?"
"I love you." You pause, then continue in a smaller voice. "... I forgive you."
He doesn't understand what he needs your forgiveness for but he is glad to have it. You are already chockingly close, he pulls you closer anyways, impossibly closer. His lips settling on your head again.
"I love you too." He whispers into your hair, soft and gentle and scared and everything that he isn't supposed to be.
You fall asleep eventually, you don't know if he ever follows after.
—
The events of the next day are exactly the same as you remember.
When you try to get out of your shared bed, your husband's grip tightens on your waist. "Where?"
You don't answer, back to silence, it forces him to get up.
He insists you take a bath with him even thought you just took one. You know it's for him to keep watch on you, and you feel his eyes on your body as you try to tend to yourself, looking for signs, is your guess. You want to laugh.
Breakfast comes, you are not allowed near the counter, nor near any of the utensils. He hand feeds you, playfull and jolly and full of childish whimsy in a way the both of you know is fake as fuck.
He does not trust you with yourself. Hypocrite. You want to yell at him.
When you try to separate yourself from him to do your own thing for the rest of the day, he insists you stick to him. You don't fight it. You are done fighting it.
You meet the traveler. You contemplate telling them about the poison your husband keeps injecting himself with. Then you shut up.
The old man greets you, same as always. He pulls you aside, pats your back and thanks you for staying by Lohen's side despite his less than pleasant attitude. You do the polite back and forth, vaguely aware of your husband's eyes drilling holes on your back.
You are dragged with the rest of the group to the testing grounds, where the witch magic thing they were trying to power is, you remember this exact momemt. The fear that gripped you the first time when it happend, the cold embrace of death as warmth seeped out of your body as fast as your blood was.
You feel nothing of it now as he, once again, gets out of control and aims for your heart. You do not try running away, it proved useless.
All you do is watch as consciousness returns to his clouded eyes, immediately widening with fear as he kneels to hug your body.
..... modern wanderer...... excuse me while I leave this on your doorstep and scuttle away......
I drew the sketch like over a year ago and left it and I came back a few times to colour and render but it never worked out till like last time for some reason something clicked and then i locked tf in for the background yipeeeee.
hiiii your xiao content is so sweet ❤️ i love him sm
sorry to #intrude but could i maybe request xiao comforting an EXTREMELY stressed reader? life’s been kicking my ass i need him. tysm ❤️
lantern light, low burning
xiao x reader
content: hurt/comfort
notes: so im actually so horrible im so sorry?? i dont know how tumblr works so im seeing this literally like a full year late.... i get u tho im also incredibly stressed rn so uh hopefully this is still okay sob
masterlist
The exhaustion does not arrive like a wave tonight—it arrives like sediment, the slow accumulation of a hundred small disturbances settling at the bottom of something that used to hold itself together. You've been at the desk for hours, the candle burned low enough that wax has pooled and hardened in uneven rings, and at some point you simply stop. Stop reading, stop writing, stop pretending the words on the page mean anything coherent. You let your forehead drop against your folded arms and stay there, breathing in the smell of old parchment and melted wax, feeling the specific exhaustion of someone who has been performing competence for so long they've forgotten what the alternative feels like.
You don't hear the window. You never do.
But you feel the air change—a faint shift in pressure, the way a room responds to something ancient entering it—and when you lift your head he's already there, perched in the windowsill with one knee drawn up, watching you with that flat unreadable patience that used to unsettle you and now feels like the only steady thing in a week that hasn't given you anything to hold onto.
"You've been sitting like that for an hour," he says.
"Have I."
"You have."
"I didn't notice."
"I know," he says, and there's something underneath the words, some current of worry he won't name directly because naming it would mean acknowledging how closely he's been watching, how long he's been perched out there in the cold dark studying the shape of your exhaustion through glass before deciding to come inside.
He drops down from the sill without sound, the way he does everything, all that violent power folded into something quiet and contained, and crosses the room toward you. You expect him to sit across from you, the way he sometimes does when he's working through what to say. Instead he stops beside your chair, and after a moment of visible deliberation—Xiao does not do casual touch easily, every gesture considered before it's offered—his hand settles against the back of your neck, thumb pressing slow circles into muscle gone rigid with tension you hadn't realized you were carrying.
You make a small sound, something between relief and complaint, and let your eyes close.
"You're tense everywhere," he says, like an accusation.
"I'm aware."
"Your shoulders are by your ears."
"Xiao."
"I'm simply stating the facts."
But his hand doesn't stop. It moves with unexpected care along the line of your shoulder, pressing into the knots gathered there with the kind of precision that suggests he's catalogued the geography of your body's stress responses the way he's catalogued the terrain of every mountain pass he's ever guarded—thoroughly, instinctively, without ever admitting he's done so. You lean into the touch without deciding to, tilting your head until it rests against his forearm, and for a long moment neither of you says anything at all. The candle gutters. Somewhere outside, the wind moves through Liyue's eaves with a sound like something exhaling.
"I had a bad week," you finally say, because the silence has gone soft enough to hold the confession.
"I know."
"You don't have to keep saying you know things."
"I would say it less if it weren't true."
You laugh, a small broken thing, more exhale than sound, and he pauses his hand just long enough to register the sound before resuming, more careful now, as though your laughter were something fragile he didn't want to disturb.
"I don't even know how to explain it," you continue, eyes still closed, voice thinning toward something rawer than you intended. "Nothing went catastrophically wrong. It was just—everything, all at once, none of it large enough to justify how heavy it felt. Does that make sense?"
"It makes sense," he says, and there's something different in his voice now, something lower, older. "Grief doesn't always come from catastrophe. Sometimes it's accumulation. Small weights, stacked carefully enough that no single one seems worth mentioning, until you're carrying something unbearable made entirely of things that individually weren't."
You open your eyes and look up at him. He isn't looking at you—his gaze has drifted toward the window, toward the dark shapes of mountains he's spent six hundred years standing watch over, and you understand without him saying it that he isn't speaking hypothetically. Xiao knows weight. Xiao has spent centuries being weight, has measured his own existence in karmic debt accumulated one small necessary cruelty at a time, has carried more than anyone should ever be asked to carry without once setting it down.
"You'd know," you say quietly.
"I would," he agrees, and something tightens at the corner of his jaw before releasing. "Which is why I'm telling you—you don't have to wait until it's catastrophic to let someone help carry it."
You reach up and find his free hand where it rests against the back of your chair, fingers curling around his with the easy familiarity of centuries you don't yet have between you, though it feels, in moments like this, as though you might. His hand goes still beneath yours, the way it always does, some part of him still faintly disbelieving that you keep choosing to do this, to reach for him without hesitation, without flinching from what he is.
"Come here," he says, and it isn't a question.
He guides you up from the chair with a hand at your elbow, steady, certain, and leads you the short distance to the low cushions by the window where you sometimes sit together watching the lanterns drift over the harbor. He sits first, back against the wall, and after a moment's hesitation—because even now, after everything, some part of you still waits to be sure the invitation is real—you settle yourself against his chest, his arm coming around you with a careful, deliberate weight, as though he's still relearning, every time, how to hold something without breaking it.
His chin finds the top of your head. You feel more than hear the breath he releases.
"You smell like candle smoke and ink," he says, after a while, his voice low enough to feel like vibration against your skull more than sound.
"That's not exactly romantic."
"I wasn't trying to be romantic. I was making an observation."
"You're terrible at this."
"I'm aware," he says, and you can feel the ghost of something almost like amusement in the way his chest moves beneath your cheek. "You'll have to settle for honest instead."
You settle. You always settle, with him, into something that doesn't ask you to perform ease you don't feel, doesn't require you to narrate your exhaustion into something palatable. His fingers find the ends of your hair and begin, slowly, methodically, working through the small tangles there, the same patient focus he brings to sharpening Primordial Jade Winged-Spear, the same care he brings to everything fragile enough to require it.
"I keep thinking I should be handling all of this better," you admit, into the quiet. "Everyone else seems to manage."
"Everyone else is lying to you, or lying to themselves," he says, without hesitation. "There is no version of carrying weight that doesn't eventually bend something. I would know."
"That's not comforting."
"I'm not finished," he says, and his hand stills against your hair, settling instead at the curve of your shoulder, thumb tracing slow absent patterns against your collarbone. "What I mean is—bending isn't failure. I bent for six hundred years and I am still here. Still standing. Still capable of this." His arm tightens, fractionally, around you. "You are allowed to bend. You are not required to break simply because the weight is heavy."
You turn your face into his chest, breathing in the particular scent of him—something like mountain wind and old parchment and faintly, beneath it, the green tea he drinks too much of when he thinks no one's counting—and feel something in your chest finally, finally loosen. Not solved. Not fixed. Just loosened, the way a held breath finally releases, the way a clenched hand finally opens.
"Stay," you say, quiet, almost embarrassed by how much you need it.
"I wasn't planning on leaving," he says, immediate, certain, no hesitation at all in it. "I told you. You don't have to hold it all tonight. I'll keep watch over what's left."
"You say that like it's simple."
"It is simple," he says. "I've spent centuries standing guard over things infinitely less important than this. You, asking me to stay—that's not a burden, little one. That's the easiest thing anyone's asked of me in six hundred years."
The endearment lands somewhere soft and unguarded in you, and you feel your eyes go warm and stinging, the exhaustion of the week finally finding an exit it's been searching for since morning. You don't sob. It isn't dramatic. It's just a few tears, slow and silent, slipping free while his hand moves steady circles against your back, while his chin rests against your hair, while outside the lanterns continue their slow drift over a harbor that has stood for centuries and will likely stand for centuries more, indifferent and beautiful and entirely unbothered by the small private collapse happening in this room.
"I've got you," he says, once, quietly, into the dark.
And for the first time in days, you believe it enough to let yourself rest.
You don't know how long you stay like that—folded into him, his heartbeat slow and steady beneath your ear, the candle finally guttering out somewhere behind you and leaving the room lit only by moonlight and the faint glow of distant lanterns. Time moves strangely around Xiao. It always has. He exists slightly outside its usual current, six hundred years of accumulated patience giving him a stillness that makes minutes feel longer and somehow gentler, and you let yourself drift in that stillness without trying to measure it.
At some point his hand stops moving against your hair, not from inattention but from something quieter—you realize, when you finally tilt your head to look up at him, that he's simply watching you. Not with concern anymore, not entirely. Something softer than that. Something he doesn't often let surface, careful as he is about armor, about distance, about the centuries of instinct telling him that wanting things, keeping things, loving things, only ever ends in losing them.
"What?" you ask, voice rough with the remnants of crying.
"Nothing," he says, which is a lie, and you both know it's a lie, and for once he doesn't try particularly hard to make it convincing.
"Xiao."
"I'm only thinking that you look less like you're carrying the weight of Teyvat than you did an hour ago," he says finally, reluctant, like the admission costs him something. "I prefer you like this."
"Tear-stained and pathetic?"
"Soft," he corrects, with more conviction than the word seems to warrant from someone who uses so few of them. "You're allowed to be soft around me. I won't think less of you for it. I think—" he pauses, jaw tightening slightly, the particular discomfort of a man unused to articulating tenderness, "—I think it might be the only time I see you as you actually are, underneath everything you carry for everyone else."
You don't have a response for that. You're not sure one exists. So instead you simply press closer, tucking yourself more fully against him, and feel his arm tighten in response, an answer offered in pressure rather than words, which has always been more his language anyway.
The candle is gone now. The room exists in blue-grey moonlight, the lanterns of Liyue glowing faint and distant through the window, and somewhere in the stillness you feel your breathing finally even out, your shoulders finally drop from where they've lived by your ears for days, your mind finally quiet enough to simply exist in a body that is, for the first time in a long while, not bracing for the next demand.
"Thank you," you murmur, half-asleep already, the words slurring slightly with exhaustion finally allowed to be exhaustion instead of something to push through.
"You don't need to thank me for this," he says, low, almost rough. "Just rest. I'll still be here when you wake."
And he is. Through the slow turning of the night, through the lanterns burning down to embers and the moon shifting position across the floor, through whatever small movements you make in sleep that have him adjusting his arm without waking you—he stays, unmoving, immovable, a yaksha who has spent six centuries learning that vigilance over something this fragile, this human, this entirely undeserving of the violence the world keeps offering it, is not a burden at all.
Trying to use my colouring pencils more so here’s a mermay xiao ( a month late). I’m not entirely happy with it but I’ve reached a point where I think I should leave it be.
@iwasthewind @iratempestatis 👉👈 the promised but late mermay post
imagine, all the dates you've been going on suddenly cutting you off muttering a small and terrified "sorry uhh i...had something come up" or texting you 'sorry. can't come' or straight up shrieking and sprinting away at the sight of you on the road or in a bar, leaving you with your hand in mid–wave, standing awkwardly
lately you've been feeling like you're being followed. you'd turn around and find nothing. you feel like someone's looking at you through the window of your house, even seeing a shadow forming...but its just the tree and the breeze...
another time when you're on a date, and this douchebag doesn't wanna leave you alone and starts getting all handsy so you have to pry him off and dash towards your home while he whistles from behind for you
and the next day you wake up to a ring on your doorbell and a note stuck on the pavement...
'i don't agree with that annoying guy's ways'
now obviously a rational part of you was scared thinking who was this man? why does he know this? but honestly you were more relieved over the fact that that guy is not gonna disturb you
an idea strikes you that if he was the guy who's been stalking you without any action, why not put him to work? so you start leaving grocery list on the doorstep on a sticky note before leaving for work and then coming back to a bag full of even medicines you were out of on the kitchen counter
he is this close to becoming your maid. he brings you groceries, midnight snacks, meds, household supplies, sometimes even slipping some money inside the bag. but honestly you can't really complain couse you feel like you're becoming rich now that the 'mystery man' has been helping you...but it can't be that guy whom you've been seeing frequently these days right?
— dottore , NEUVILLETTE , FLINS , varka , NOYYYY , valeriy , CHILDEEEEE , LOHENNN YES , blade (both), ASHVEIL , phainon , toji , gojo , sukuna (i think he'll be the scary) lucifer , mammon (bro's broke how he do dat) , BARBATOS , JADE , FLOYD
note:: obviously pls don't go stalking people you like just talk to them and take a no like a champ. i don't condone this behaviour its satire.
V curious about!! Who the FIRST EVER character you selfshipped with was + who is the latest!! Please tell me in the rbs or comments bc I would really like to see if there is a pattern to be found <33
ellievsbear
origamiaround
stormborns
snowghoul
tangentwithtanner
