Chapter Text
From the very moment that Xiao opened his eyes he already knew that he was in a dream. Or, more accurately, a nightmare.
Let it be said that while he was no stranger to nightmares, – if anything, he was rather intimately familiar with them – Xiao wasn’t expecting to be faced with himself…flying? And are those wings he’s seeing in his peripheral vision??
Xiao watched, stunned, as his dream self flew over vast expanses of mountains, the wind caressing his face and whistling into his ears.
He continues flying for a while and soon realises that he’s…enjoying it. The activity was rather calming, and also quite peaceful in his opinion.
He closes his eyes, letting himself bask in his dream, knowing the chances that he will get such a dream again anytime soon are extremely slim.
Doing that was a mistake, he discovers near instantly.
The very moment he closed his eyes, he could hear shrieks of terror assaulting his ears, forcing him to clasp his hands to his ears. He could smell blood everywhere around him. Could taste the metallic coppery taste in his mouth– he could feel it, he could feel the blood trickling down his arm, oharchonstherewasbloodeverywhere-
Xiao opened his eyes, and the scenery he sees before him is nothing like the one before. What were once landscapes upon landscapes of astoundingly tall mountains before him now lay broken pieces of weapons long abandoned or forgotten about, scattered everywhere amidst the desolate, barren piece of land he found himself standing on.
He has a feeling that he knows, knows what he’s holding in his hand, knows from the feeling of slick, sticky fluid that can only be blood trickling down his arm, dripping onto the land and tainting it further. He knows, without looking, that he was standing right in the middle of a pool of blood that was gradually growing bigger and bigger.
He doesn’t want to look, already knows what he will see if he does. He doesn’t want his suspicions confirmed. But still, some kind of…force, of some sort, compels him to, makes him look. Xiao tries to fight back, tries to keep his eyes shut tight, but he can’t, and he ends up staring down into a puddle of dark, crimson red blood.
Oh archons, he can see his reflection in the puddle. He thinks he’s going to be sick. The face staring back at him seems to be devoid of all life, seems to be nothing but a ragdoll, a puppet to be puppeteered, a servant awaiting orders from its master.
‘Stop’ he thinks. ‘Make it stop. I want this nightmare to be over. Make it stop. Make itstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmaKEITSTOPMAKEITSTO-’
Xiao opens his eyes again, another plea for this nightmare to end dying on the tip of his tongue. He tries to look around, but finds that he’s completely unable to move at all; he’s been chained to the floor, his arms folded together behind his back, his wings completely wrapped up in thick, heavy chains that make them slump downwards. He was forced to kneel on the rough, rocky ground, his knees groaning in protest as they got cut into from all angles by the unforgiving ground.
Just as he thought that was bad enough, a brand new, unimaginable level of pain made itself known. All Xiao could feel was the searing hot pain as someone tore his wings off his back. Agonizingly slowly.
What was probably just seconds felt like entire lifetimes to Xiao as he could barely see anything beyond the blinding, white-hot pain. He couldn’t take it anymore. Make it stop. He couldn’t do this. MAKEITSTOP.
And then, Xiao s c r e a m e d.
Xiao shot upwards, eyes flying wide open as he let out a gasp. He could feel his heart pounding hard against his chest, could feel it in his throat, trying to escape. But there was no escape anywhere, everywhere he looked it was just more and more blood. It was everywhere. He couldn’t escape it. There was no esca-
Xiao curled his fingers inwards, letting his nails dig into his palms and leave behind crescent-shaped dents. He knew it was just a nightmare, that it wasn’t real, that none of it was real, but it felt so real.
He tried to regain control of his breathing, but couldn’t. He curled his nails even deeper inwards, unknowingly breaking skin and causing himself to bleed.
Xiao froze as he once again felt the warm, sticky fluid of blood on his hands. ‘No, no no no no nonono. It- Wasn’t it just a dream? I-It was just a dream, wasn’t it?’ he thought, getting more worked up by the second.
This time, Xiao willingly looked down at his hands. This was reality, that much he was certain. He was just imagining the blood on his hands, right?
Wrong.
Xiao saw blood on his hands. There was blood on his hands. It was real. That nightmare was real. He’s taken people’s lives with these hands. Innocent people’s lives.
Xiao continued spiralling, unbeknownst to Kazuha stirring awake from across the room at the noise.
Kazuha woke up slowly. He blinked his eyes open, rubbing them a little. It was still quite dark, what had awoken him? He sat up and stretched a bit, yawning as he felt around for his phone.
He just found it when he heard it. Kazuha paused in his movements, listening intently.
Sure enough, he could make out someone hyperventilating. And considering his surroundings were still pitch-black, it must be Xiao.
Kazuha picked up his phone, wincing from the sudden intrusion of light from the device as he turned it on. He squinted at it and lowered the brightness to an acceptable level, before moving on to do the same with his phone’s flash and then turning it on.
He shone it in Xiao’s general direction. Now that he had some light, he could see Xiao’s figure sat up in his bed, hands clenched into tight fists and hugging his legs close to himself.
Kazuha felt his heart cry out to his roommate. He may not know what kinds of demons Xiao may be fighting in his mind, but he could, unfortunately, relate to the sight before him all too well.
“Xiao..?” Kazuha softly called out. He received no response from the other, indicating that he likely wasn’t heard. Kazuha got out of his bed, slowly, carefully, as though he were approaching a spooked small animal that’d been injured.
He was standing before Xiao’s trembling form, hands hovering above him in uncertainty. Xiao was just…staring at his hands, not seeming to be aware of anything else around him. Kazuha glanced down at them as well, and gasped.
“Xiao! Your hands are bleeding!” Kazuha quickly abandoned any tact he might have had and rushed to take Xiao’s hands in his own in order to examine his wounds more closely. This elicited a flinch out of the shorter boy, to whom Kazuha quickly apologised to.
Fortunately, that had also snapped Xiao out of that…trance-like state that he was in. Once Kazuha had determined that the wounds weren’t too serious and would close up on their own in a few hours’ time, he took out some plasters he usually carries around with him and put them onto Xiao’s palms. Kazuha decided to trust that Xiao wasn’t going to worsen his injuries, and left to grab a towel and soak it in water.
When he returned, Xiao hadn't so much as moved an inch from how he’d left him. He seemed to be deep in thought, and while Kazuha was worried (justifiably so), he wasn’t sure on what, exactly, he could do beyond helping Xiao clean up his injuries.
They stayed like that for a while, both mulling over their own thoughts in the silence. When Kazuha was done and moved to wash the towel before it could stain, Xiao finally spoke up, “Um. Thanks. For…this,” he said, not looking at Kazuha, “and…sorry for waking you up.”
Kazuha fiddled with the towel in his hands, not really looking at Xiao either, “Ah- it’s fine, really. Don’t worry about it…Um…hey, are you okay?” he asked tentatively, risking a glance up at Xiao.
“Oh- y-yeah. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“Oh, okay…Do you wanna talk about it?”
“No, not really…I don’t think I even know what that was, to be honest.”
“If you’re sure…” Kazuha drifted off mid-sentence, leaving the conversation to hang in the air. He went to rinse off the towel in the bathroom, and then left it out to dry before returning to their room.
He sat on his bed, looking down, “Well. Um…there’s still plenty of time left before dawn, so why don’t we both try to get back to sleep?”
“Yeah…okay. That sounds like a good idea to me.” Xiao replied.
And so, they both laid back down in their respective beds, neither really able to go back to sleep. One because of his concern for his roommate and friend, the other because he was still busy sorting through his thoughts, not entirely sure of what, exactly, just happened.
And more importantly, what that dream..? Nightmare..? Of his was, and why it felt so real.