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“When we marry,” Ayato says, matter-of-factly in all the conviction of an eighteen-year-old that’s seen none of the world and how it works. “Would you want to return to Mondstadt?”
“Excuse me?”
Thoma stops, mid-sweep as he stares back at Ayato, who has his palms on either side of his face. He’s looking out his open window, where he’s been blessed by the view of Thoma in his short-sleeved black shirt, sweeping the back of the estate.
“I’m asking you as a matter of practicality.”
Somewhere, the ink of Ayato’s calligraphy brush has dried, where he’s supposed to be doing his exercises. Thoma has grown up leaner, muscle fully developing to strain against his shirt that Ayato was sure fit generously last month. It’s a beautiful sight. Marriage naturally comes to mind.
“Fine, you don’t have to marry me.” Ayato concedes, though not exactly.
“We’re getting married?” Thoma says, as if Ayato’s late father had personally declared it in his last will and testament as an unconditional wish.
“Yes, obviously.”
Thoma shakes his head, but Ayato can see where he smiles. “Very funny, my lord.”
Ayato returns his smile, to himself. He only has himself to blame for not being convincing enough. Thoma, after all, had sworn his devotion to the clan since he took his father’s place as Commissioner only months ago. There’s a part of him that thinks this is just Ayato’s sense of humor returning.
Marriage proposals were hardly trauma responses, Ayato thinks.
“When you marry, then,” Ayato huffs. Seems like their marriage was off the table for now. “Would you stay here or go back to Mondstadt?”
“That seems like a tough question for you to ask so easily,” Thoma notes. “And for me to answer so casually.”
Ayato hums.
“Is this a test of some kind?” Thoma says, snapping his fingers. “You know that’s not very nice.”
“It’s a valid question,” Ayato says, in lieu of the word proposal.
“Do you question my loyalty?” Thoma tucks his hands over the broom, smiling almost sadly.
“If we married, you wouldn’t have to ask that,” Ayato says.
“You’ll have plenty of options, my lord,” Thoma laughs, as he continues sweeping again. “You won’t have to worry about all that yet, I promise you.”
At eighteen, Ayato wonders why Thoma’s views on marriage look too much like the noblemen that have walked in and out of their home, politics and intrigue in mind. He’s not quite sure what handbook Thoma has been reading or which elders he’s been listening to.
At eighteen, Ayato doesn’t want to marry for that. He’s long admired Thoma, of the City of Freedom, the way they love who they wish, refusing to be shackled by obligation.
When he looks at Thoma, he knows what it is. He understands the choice to love and finds it all embodied in him.
“When we marry,” Ayato sips at his tea, in the uncharacteristic exhaustion at twenty-two of going to bed shortly after dinnertime. “Would you still tend to me like this? Or is this but a courtship affair?”
“Making you tea?”
Ayato nods.
“Depends if you need it,” Thoma answers. “Besides, my lord, I was under the impression you were courting me.”
Ah, and there’s that smirk that’s been growing in nicely against Thoma’s striking bone structure, finding it in himself to rebut Ayato. Ayato’s seen it when he’s been pinned down by a practice staff at the dojo, or when Thoma acquires some ridiculously good discount at the marketplace.
Ayato’s been liking the boldness, despite the fact he’s been getting far too clever for Ayato. Too often now, it makes him feel like he has to keep up with the street smarts he’s garnered from traversing Inazuma while Ayato remains buried under piles of paperwork, a far less exciting part of leadership.
“Is it working?” Ayato asks.
“The way you just sit in bed and wait for me?” Thoma chuckles. “Yeah, you could say that.”
Ayato, like many times before, burns. An implication on how he falls limply and near pathetically on his futon by the time his last meeting ends, but oh, how his mind wanders.
Marriage, at their age, becomes an inside joke. One that Thoma initiates far too often. They were harmless whispers among the staff before they became acknowledgements from respected diplomats with how Thoma’s stepped up to the plate and proved himself every bit as competent and clever as Ayato.
“Doting husband” certainly was far more flattering than rival clans coining him as some “troublesome guard dog.”
“When we marry,” Thoma murmurs as he’s watching Ayato curl up under his blanket, catlike and in his own little world of thought. “You know you’d have to learn housekeeping too, right?”
“Now, why ever?” Ayato asks.
“I don’t wish to marry someone who’s incapable of something as simple as laundry,” Thoma points out, face so solemn Ayato isn’t quite sure just how serious he is. “Have you ever sewn anything, my lord?”
Ayato makes a displeased, tired noise. “I’ll learn for you, if that’s what you wish.”
The idea of Kamisato Ayato doing housework is an image that makes Thoma laugh good-naturedly, seeing his regal coat hunched over an embroidery hoop or unwashed dishes. Archons forbid, gardening. He welcomes the feeling of warmth. “And what is it that you ask of me?”
“Hm?”
Thoma takes a good look at Ayato, finding him with his eyes half open, meeting his own shining with affection.
Far too much on his lord’s mind. Far be it for Thoma to add to that.
He takes his leave, and slides the door shut.
They’ve got it all wrong, Thoma thinks, as Ayato surges against him in all the desperation that’s built up inside of him in the last ten years. Where they teetered from teasing of marrying one another made to meet disbelief, to the playfulness returned in earnest.
Now, they’re rutting against each other like teenagers that have finally slipped away.
Twenty-seven is too soon to think to lose Thoma in some way.
The silence in the Komore Teahouse deafens them both, but the sounds of rustling clothing and unashamed, labored breathing cuts through as a fragile comfort.
Ayato had been the first person to seek out Thoma the second he found refuge after the Vision Hunt Ceremony.
“I shouldn’t have let this happen,” Ayato chokes, as he holds Thoma’s face in his hands. None of his fear is reflected in Thoma’s eyes and he feels almost angry from it. Thoma deserves to feel rage, but instead he’s staring at Ayato, attempting to calm a tempest behind his eyes. “I’d sooner let myself die before they lay another hand on you.”
The ache in Thoma’s chest blooms, making him whimper as he captures Ayato’s lips again. To pacify him, possibly.
“I’ll send you back home,” Ayato insists, but how he holds onto Thoma says otherwise. As if he wouldn’t. As if he physically can’t. It’s the first empty promise Ayato makes that night. “I’ll arrange for a ship first thing in the morning where they won’t find you.”
“Ayato,” Thoma says firmly.
The look on Ayato’s face spells out what he’s been trying to say, in these points of scrambling for the power and influence that he likely now feels like it’s slipping through his fingers after seeing Thoma at the ceremony.
“My place is with you,” Thoma insists. “As it always has been.”
Ayato looks too volatile, like he could ramble on in the manic way he’d been or fall to his knees right in front of him. A look that acknowledges his failure, in attempting to scrub off an irremovable stain on his conscience.
“When we marry,” Thoma whispers, eyes urging to ground Ayato. “Don’t you think the trips would be impractical?”
Ayato stares.
“Would you not miss me, my lord?”
The title is not something Ayato hears often anymore when they’re alone, only ever in their official capacity, but when he does, Ayato feels like he’s the one who would fall at Thoma’s feet instead.
There’s a look in Ayato’s eyes that slowly, slowly yields to Thoma’s steady voice. “Perhaps you’ve yet to consider my fear of sailing.”
When Thoma smirks, it’s when his own mouth falls open.
“Your first instinct is to send me away?” Thoma says softly, pressing a kiss underneath his jaw, letting his mouth drag over the skin, feeling his heart beat too fast still. “I might almost be hurt if I didn’t see you in this state.”
“You should have listened to me all those years ago to go back,” Ayato says, but he’s grasping at straws for the sake of argument. For the sake of saying anything.
“I know, I know,” Thoma whispers. He knows what this is. Ayato refuses to be left stumped. Not by any highfalutin official, not by the love of his life. It’s what has kept him standing.
They’re both fighters after all.
“I’ll marry you,” Ayato says fiercely, the steadiest voice he’s had all night. “They can’t touch you that way.”
Thoma recognizes this tone. His Ayato’s back. “I’ll be hoping for many more reasons.”
Yet Thoma knows they can’t touch him, not how it matters. They never will, in the way Ayato has or could.