Chapter Text
Ayato is swirling his fourth wine glass of the night when his eyes latch onto someone across the room with the intensity of a hawk.
“Hm. Blue ponytail, eyepatch, low neckline.” He takes a sip and crosses his knee over the other. “And a dashing red haired bartender. Who knew Mondstadt cultivated so many handsome men?”
Thoma gulps at the look in his eyes. The Commissioner drinks often, with the parties hosted by refined business owners laden with alcohol. So his tolerance level isn’t all that bad. But a tipsy Ayato is a dangerous Ayato, and this Ayato is a footstep away from drunk.
When Thoma looks up, eyepatch man is watching them-specifically Ayato. He seems to notice something he likes and abandons the rowdy drunkards at his table in favor of strutting towards them. He stops by smoothly sliding into one of the bar stools, facing Ayato with a suave smile. Something stews in the pit of Thoma’s stomach.
“You aren’t from around here, are you?” He puts his elbow on the bar counter, sliding his chin on his palm. “I think I would have remembered such a beauty.”
“Just visiting.” Ayato lifts his glass to his lips and looks at the man above the rim. He’s basically setting up a welcome sign to be hit on.
The feeling in his gut turns increasingly annoyed as they make conversation. Thoma feels like leaping forward and snatching away the hand sitting on Ayato’s knee, Ayato laughing behind his wine glass and not making a move to put an end to the coy touches.
The man-Thoma refuses to address him as “Kaeya”-brushes against Ayato’s arm, his knee, his shoulder, his thigh at one point (Thoma almost attacks him at that one), and only scoots his seat closer by the minute. Ayato’s glass is half empty and unforgotten as he continues to drink. Thoma should stop him.
He doesn’t.
Instead he wanders off to the back of the bar, listening and applauding Venti’s performance (about how love makes people blind) with the small crowd. He takes the time to play a game of cards with some others, chuckling along with the group when he runs out of the wooden chips they’re using for betting currency. They tell him to keep his mora and come back to play anytime.
Aether appears for a bit with Paimon, and seems surprised when Thoma greets him with a smile that feels pasted onto his face. He waves off Aether’s questions about Ayato and explains he’s already settled into the bar’s atmosphere.
Who would he be if he stopped him from having fun? He’d been working so hard for his entire life, it’s nice to see him let loose for once. (Thoma ignores the fact that it isn’t nice at all, in this case.)
He has a conversation with a man named Quinn about detecting the quality of various fruits, and encourages a disappointed bard to keep up his passion. By the time he’s made it back to the bar, Ayato and his ponytail guy are gone.
There’s a flash of panic as he stops in his tracks. Concern, the thought that he was kidnapped, or he was drunkenly wooed to a room, or willingly accompanied his flirt to a room (Thoma shoves that thought away immediately). Maybe he wandered out of the tavern, or he’s lost in the crowd, or he’s in the crowd with a stranger-
Then Thoma turns around and looks up, to the less crowded second floor, and sees Ayato sitting sideways on a small couch with his legs on eyepatch man’s lap, laughing and apparently uncaring of the hand at his waist.
The simmering worry boils into outright anger, buzzing in his head and leading him up to an empty seat at the bar (the one Kaeya was sitting on earlier), where he collapses and calls for the bartender. There’s only one at the moment, the fiery redhead Ayato commented on before.
“Something powerful, please.” He folds his arms on the counter, ignoring the tacky feeling as he plunks his head down.
The bartender eyes him carefully, like he’s an injured animal ready to pounce. Fortunately for him, Thoma feels made of iron heavy with desolation. Unmoving.
“A Death After Noon, for the soulless patron at my counter.”
Thoma stares at the glass as it fizzes, sluggishly sitting up to analyze it from a different angle. Finally, he picks it up and brings it to his mouth.
Only to spit it out and look at it accusingly, like it’s personally offended him by reminding him he doesn’t drink alcohol for a reason. It’s as if the drink itself is taunting him, dancing around like a tanuki and pointing over his shoulder to the second floor. He resists the urge to turn around, settling for slumping and staring at the wall miserably.
“I figured that would happen,” a voice comments. “You don’t like alcohol?”
“I have terrible tolerance.”
The bartender turns away, taking the glass with him faster than Thoma can force himself to down it. “Then drinking seems like a terrible escape from whatever’s bothering you.”
“It was a last resort. I can’t exactly leave him here…”
“Him?” Thoma waits as the man prepares a drink for another customer. He comes back with a sparkling drink topped with thin apple slices.
“My… friend.” He eyes the new glass warily. His confidant pushes it towards him.
“It’s cider. Non-alcoholic.” He wipes the counter with a rag and dumps it in the sink before continuing. “You don’t want him to be your friend, do you?”
He says it more like a statement than a question, and Thoma tenses unconsciously. He picks up the bubbly cider and sips it in place of a reply.
“I’m Diluc, by the way. The man your ‘friend’ wandered off with is like this with everyone,” he continues. “I can promise he won’t try to seduce him into a bed.”
Thoma sighs dejectedly, slouching again and tilting his drink at an angle to accommodate. “Even if that’s true, I can’t promise my guy won’t try to seduce him.” Diluc takes out some empty glasses and studies at him with a funny look. “What?”
“I don’t think he will,” he says decisively, picking up a shaker. “Why are you not saying anything to him?”
“I don’t want to ruin anything for him, y’know? He’s worked hard his entire life and has a lot of pressure. People might judge him because of me.” He traces the rim of his mostly-empty glass. “Even if that doesn’t happen, I don’t want to be selfish… He could do much better than me.”
“So you aren’t even considering he returns your feelings?”
“Why would he?” Thoma fires back. He melts back onto the counter. Diluc considers him with a tight-lipped expression.
“You’re a miserable wreck, you know that?” He aggressively shakes the silver container. “You can’t decide what’s best for him.”
He doesn’t get a reply until he’s finished pouring multiple cocktails.
“What if he doesn’t like me?” Thoma mutters woefully. “I work for him, I’m friends with his sister, and I’m one of the few people he can confide in. It could ruin everything.”
Diluc sighs and moves the cider so he can speak without having to raise his voice. “Look, I can’t make you do anything. But you just rambled your love problems to a complete stranger about a guy you’re clearly infatuated with.“ Thoma has the grace to redden. “You’re either going to implode or fess up and find out he might like you back. Up to you.” He pulls away and turns to grab a bottle of beer from a shelf. “Just don’t be an idiot and waste away. Also, everything’s on the house. Don’t thank me.”
He walks off, grabbing a few tankards on his way. Thoma is staring at the back of his uniform when there’s a tap on his shoulder and he turns to see an embarrassed, eyepatch-wearing face.
“Hey-You’re Thoma, right? Your friend here can really drink, he might beat out some native Mondstadters.” Kaeya laughs sheepishly. “Sorry-I know I kinda dragged him away from you all night. And then I got him wasted. But he’s been batting me away and asking for a Thoma, and I assume he means you, unless you have a name twin somewhere.” He points behind himself. “I’ll pay for his drinks, it was my fault this happened anyway.”
Thoma blinks. So the guy’s a decent person after all, going out of his way to find Thoma and not tricking an innocent intoxicated man elsewhere. Though that doesn’t mean he isn’t confused, because why would Ayato be asking for him?
“Thank you?” The man looks immeasurably relieved.
“Great, great. Sorry again, he’s up there-refused to follow-told me to bring you to him,” he says haltingly. “Cya.”
Thoma makes his way upstairs , still processing what just happened. And he immediately regrets letting Ayato anywhere near Angel’s Share, because he’s half tackled the moment he takes his foot off the top step.
Kaeya was right, the man really can hold his alcohol. As expected from someone who regularly works his way through pure alcohol during a celebration, all without divulging information or ruining his image. Still, that doesn’t mean a full bottle of the finest dandelion wine Mondstadt has to offer, leaving the side of him that cares about appearances replaced with a single minded focus.
Thoma tips backwards onto the couch, barely manages to push himself up before he’s stopped. A very, very drunk Ayato plants himself on Thoma’s lap and leans down to bury his head against his shoulder.
Thoma freezes.
“Was waiting.” Thoma evaporates, explodes, melts, and dies in succession when Ayato shifts unthinkably closer. This must be an imposter. There is no way, absolutely no way this is the refined Yashiro Commissioner of Inazuma. Thoma’s back is supported by the armrest and his hands flutter uncertainly above Ayato’s back.
“A-Ayato?” He stutters when a hand comes up to grasp his shoulder.
“‘M sorry ‘bout leaving you.” Holy Archons give me strength, Thoma internally prays, reflexively wrapping his arms around Ayato when he starts to slip a bit. (No, Thoma doesn't think about how his waist is ridiculously small. Not at all. That would be silly. It’s the couch that’s small. That’s all.) “Thought you wouldn’t care.”
“Why would you think that?” Thoma questions, sounding mildly offended. He’s suddenly grateful that he isn’t drunk. Otherwise he wouldn’t be able to remember this one in a lifetime occurance, Ayato hiding his face and slurring his words. This is going in a buried mental scrapbook of exactly what he needs to get over.
“Can’t tell,” Ayato muses against his neck. “Would be mad, later.”
To think he was jealous (Thoma hates the word) of Kaeya earlier. Ayato’s full weight is on him, with his clinginess and drunken insistence on not letting Thoma move. Thoma feels seconds away from a heart attack. He shouldn’t even be doing this, basically taking advantage of his lord’s intoxicated state. He’s a terrible person. And they’re in public. How is he ever going to face Ayato again after this. Archons, strike him down-
“Shut up,” a grumpy voice says. “You’re thinking too loud again.”
“Sorry..?”
Ayato shuffles more, so one of his legs is curled under Thoma’s and his hair tickles his nose. Thoma’s hands skate upwards from the small of Ayato’s back to between his shoulder blades, gently keeping him in place.
“Careful,” he warns. “You’re going to fall if you keep moving around like that.”
Ayato makes a quiet noise. “Then you’ll catch me.”
Thoma’s breath leaves him at the sheer confidence in Ayato’s voice, as if he genuinely believes it. There’s no hesitation, not a hint of uncertainty or door propped open for argument.
“You don’t know that,” Thoma argues back anyway. He gets an elbow to the chest when Ayato props himself up to look at him challengingly, pale face flushed pink. He’s using the irritated glare he gives specifically to people who oppose him. Thoma feels overwhelmed.
“But I do. You’re always there when I need you ‘nd stuff.” He pokes Thoma’s forehead, still glaring. “Probably couldn’t function without you. Always there for me.”
Thoma belatedly notices how they’re laying, with Ayato’s front against his chest and their legs tangled together, his hands resting on Ayato’s spine. It’s intimate, a tiny voice in his head whispers. The lines of their bodies are pressed together, less than an inch of space between them as Thoma inhales the sharp smell of lingering alcohol and fainter one that’s just Ayato.
Thoma watches Ayato’s pretty blush spread down to his neck and how he looks away when he doesn’t get a response. He abruptly notices Ayato is pouting, his bottom lip slightly out and the color of cherry blossoms.
(He kind of wants to bite it.)
Ayato makes a sound like a disgruntled cat when Thoma hastily sits up, bending his body at what has to be an uncomfortable angle as Thoma sweeps himself off the couch. The man obligingly turns on his side at Thoma’s soft request, eyes half-lidded. Thoma slides an arm under his knees and moves the other higher on his back, pausing for a second to adjust before lifting him.
“Are you comfortable?” he asks quietly.
In lieu of answering, Ayato rests his head in the crook of Thoma’s neck, nose brushing the skin. Thoma can feel his face burning as he cautiously makes his way down the stairs, holding Ayato close to him and winding his way through the thinned crowd. He nearly drops Ayato when he’s intercepted at the door.
“Hey there, Tomatoes!” The green bard-reduced blob laughs merrily, patting Thoma’s back with his free hand. “You’re both bright red, and it kinda suits your names! I’m genius, I know.” He takes a swig of his drink. “Have a good night, both of you! Tell Ayato we should have a drinking contest next time we meet!””
They make it out of the tavern with no more trouble, minus fixing Ayato’s arm so it isn’t hanging down awkwardly. He seems completely knocked out, eyes closed and lips barely parted as his chest rises and falls.
They make it to the inn they’re staying at in a short time, and Ayato snaps awake, albeit groggy, when he’s placed onto the sheets. Thoma wordlessly helps him out of his corset and boots, untying the knots with skilled dexterity and putting them on a dresser. He’s drawing away when his wrist is caught by a loose grip and he pauses.
“Stay.”
Thoma doesn’t need any more convincing, changing into his night clothes before sliding into the bed, letting Ayato tuck himself close as he drifts off to sleep.
He can handle wasting away, if only for Ayato’s sake.