Venti knows he’s losing control, not badly but just enough so that everything is going to shit.

Another
one of the many reasons building up his head about why Xiao left. Well, he left but—

—the window is broken he recognises.

Smoke is steaming in and polluting their apartment in thick smog and Diluc is prying him away from
where the impact first started. It’s all a mess in his mind again. Like his wine pooling and steaming
beside the table leg. He lets Diluc pull them out. Everything is loud, colourful, which is not weird
considering the flames and the fact that he’s sobering up. In more ways than one.

Guilt is a bitch.

“Hurry up.” Diluc drags him out as loose shrapnel hits them in waves. They come back for nothing, not
like they had anything of worth. Most of the damage is the smoke infesting the stairs, drowning the area
in an invasive and relentless smoke. Swallowing the small foyer of the apartment complex in plumes of
grey.

“Are you okay?” Diluc grits out, alert and on edge, the grip on his arm is beyond pleasant and Venti
moves out of it, nodding numbly. There's minimal damage but the flames are large and burning and
Venti has a bad feeling.

The damage was minimal here but it's too close nagging at his flimsy memories of the walk home from
the alchemy office, and now Venti has a bad feeling he tries crush like the smoke dispersing into the
contaminated Liyue air.

He pulls into his leg pant, finding it empty. Empty? His switchblade is always in that pocket. Fuck, he
didn't return it. Who knew Mr. Cop was also a thief, Venti smiles nervously and makes the very informed
decision of dashing into the night to confirm his suspicions or to prevent them.

Ever faster, Diluc grabs his arm, gesture somewhat desperate. “Where are you headed?”

“I have to save him.” he pants, fear permeating through his words in a dizzying rush Diluc catches. He
nods and releases his hold; they both know the feeling and Venti gives a small nod at the grace.

He can save still Xiao—

He runs to the fire, fast.

He runs to what he thinks is the plaza if Liyue has one he doesn’t know, Xiao would. Since Diluc is an
introverted shit, so he did most of the exploring between them, and Venti feels only partly sorry for
leaving the red head behind.

Venti hates this shitty feeling crawling beneath his skin tingling like the remainder that his switchblade is
gone with Xiao. The fire continues, a concentrated roaring red the closer Venti gets to the epicentre. He
squints a little at the heat continuously pushing apart the crowd, dense and packet as people scream
and clamour for loved ones, a sentiment that only heightens his panic.
He glances around frantically, Xiao is nowhere to be found within the masses, and Venti does little to
calm his nerves. Pushing and kicking at this point as the waves part for him and he’s luckier than the
other unfortunate souls that can't get through to the smouldering alchemy wards.

It’s nowhere as clean cut as it was, and he remembers Xiao mentioning that Sucrose should still be here.
Shes a workaholic, she lied about Mondstadt about Carmen Dei

Venti stares up at the roasting building, the fire eating away at the twelfth floor viciously and his heart
sinks, he needs to confirm it. He needs to end this again.

He gulps thickly and runs to the staircase, hat covering his mouth as he scales the burning building. Venti
feels the sharp smoke clog and jam in his throat as the debris falls like heavy rain he dashes through fast.
The fire is hot and burning but nothing compared to the building anxiety as he passes another floor.

First, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh,

Eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth—

The outside lobby is reduced to burning ashes, not that he cares. It revives the afternoon he left. He can
change that if he can save Xiao. The door is like a challenge as sparks build and zap before Venti
pummels through, though Xiao’s shirt torn and burning as he sees the man.

Surrounded by the flames on the messy office’s floor.

Blood pooling at his chest.

Venti runs there unwrapping his chest and crawling to the floor, pressing his hat to his face so hard it
feels that he might suffocate. The fire licks at his heels but he’s numb to it.

The cop can’t be dead.

The cop’s eyes are a beaten bronze as he rapidly places a hand to his wrist waiting for a pulse—

For the any sign that he’s alive.

Xiao is alive.

It’s faint, barely there but Venti clings to it. Pulling off Xiao’s shirt to press to the gash slicing his face,
above his eyebrow amplified by the sickly sheen of sweat on his forehead Venti wipes away.

He loops his hands under the cop’s legs and neck and mutters a curse before he strips some of the shirt's
fabric and wraps it crudely across their faces now shooting down the stairs before a burning piece of
organic matter hits his shoulder. It ripples across him instantaneously and Venti feels like the pain could
kill him with the intensity alone but combined with the fucking fire. He holds Xiao tightly and let’s a
strangled scream out as he tries to push them both out of the hell scope.

Huddling him close and rushing down the blocked treacherous stairs is one of the things Venti never
wants to do again. Not willingly at least.

When they get out the air is fresh and sweet and Venti collapses into the gentle arms of the concrete.

-
Kaeya scratches and pulls at his lighter, its blue and scratched at the edges and the gas is reaching the
end of his life, cupping the thing gives life to a small flickering flame and Kaeya debates the whole
process. He's lighting his cigarette outside a BBQ outlet placed close to the alchemy office.

It’s late but his hands are quivering, and he needs a hit. He takes a long drag, watching the smoke mingle
in the air is somewhat therapeutic before the deafening screech of a sirens interrupts it. He drops the
cigarette and crushes it under his heel, his dress shoes run down but he stalks into the street with a
callous expression.

There was fire in the alchemy department and his cigarette is the only thing keeping him from running
inside himself.

He thinks of the lack of texts, night shift, albedo always was an overachiever with his work. He stands
sucking a grounding breath preventing himself from spiralling for the second times. There are two times
in Kaeya's life where he has failed to be there for the people he loves, and he wasn't keen on adding to
that record. He nods to the blockade of police cars and the smouldering flames of the alchemy building.

Anytime they’d come out with Albedo. Anytime soon.

Kaeya rushes in, watching with a terse expression the processing horror in his fellow co-worker's faces
with a blank expression. He sees Xiao, hurt with a gash at his side with another man—presumably the
thief from the bar on a painful heap on the floor before directing some medical professionals.

He could meet them with Albedo.

The place is a smouldering safety hazard he runs through easily, dragging up memories of the endless
corners and identical rooms after being tour guided around by a thoroughly excited Albedo. He pushes
down the bile clawing up his throat in effort to get there faster.

To get to him faster. He’s late. So late.

He reaches the 13th floor, unlucky but he wasn’t supersticious opting to kick it open with a force. Hand
placed over his gun, half expecting a smiling Albedo.

It’s empty and Kaeya thinks nothing could hurt more than hope.

Kaeya sees a red plaque card and stoops over the familiar lab he’s seen Albedo tense upon, filled with
beakers and jars reduced to a charred surface. He stiffens, dropping it to the floor paralysed with
something he can’t place.

Kaeya runs down the broken staircase with a lethal glint in his eye.

Anytime soon, he reminds himself.

Venti pov

-
Kaeya pov

Venti pov meanwhile

Sucrose had poured the gasoline, lit the match and started the fire on her department. She did it. It’s a
fact as bright as the flames eating away at her life’s work, as evident as the peeling petals of her sweet
flowers and the rotting Sunettias on her worktable.

She could have stopped this; she’s thinking. Safely located outside the burning building, in the car she
never uses. The fire has already climbed across Liyue Harbour and there’s no other way, not that she’d
know. She would have been killed either way. It's another trial by fire and she wants to be burned,
falling from the stars like the day Mondstadt fell. Like the blood-stained feathers on her hip, they were
always present, she’s only just realised them.

Sucrose has failed at her one task. She let them get to Mr. Albedo, the one person she was adamant on
protecting. Living a double life saved the alchemical world but would the world save Mr. Albedo? She
couldn’t trust herself to complete that either. Shes looked over her shoulder too many times. So she set
the fire for them, she stabbed Mr. Xiao for them.

And now they’ve taken Mr. Albedo, but now she knows them.

Sucrose knows Mr. Xiao couldn't stop this, neither could the other man that came with him. Mr. Albedo
has been taken by Durin, and Sucrose let them. Sucrose thinks of Timaeus, of a bright, happy Mondstadt
and a childhood cut too short.

She isn't going to end this, but she could help the people who could. The people who had a right to be in
Mr. Albedo’s life and end Durin’s. So, Mr. Xiao won't die today, not by her hands. She closes her eyes,
watery and baked with the smoke crashing into her eyelids and the cold, clammy hands.

She could help the right side for once. Greed isn't going to hold her back; she's ended that with the
purging of her life.

Her life ends tonight. But Mr. Albedo’s won’t.

She welcomes Kaeya’s presence with her unloaded gun, she keeps up the act after all.