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When glass breaks, it’s easier to throw the pieces away instead of trying to put it all back together. Diluc knows that. Diluc knows that firsthand, because he, too, broke once. Thoma doesn’t. Thoma doesn’t, because if he did, why would he try so hard to put Diluc back together, put him back with gentle touch and even gentler words?
Why, Diluc wants to ask, and he does ask. Because I love you, Thoma answers then, and Diluc first thinks of the vases he’d loved and broke and threw away, thinks of the self he’d loved and broke and threw away. (It’s difficult, at first, but when you’re hurt, it’s almost too easy to just throw away things to not get hurt any further. It’s far more difficult to fix things with bleeding fingers.) The second thing he thinks of: how can Thoma say he loves Diluc so easily yet so sincerely?
Kaeya tells him not to blow this off, and he asks, Blow what off?
“This thing with Thoma,” Kaeya says, downing a glass of Death After Noon. “The guy genuinely cares for you, so don’t blow this off,” he says again, before Diluc kicks him out of the tavern. Diluc tells him not to show his face to him ever again, but they both know he doesn’t mean it — he’d said words harsher than the weather at Dragonspine, but he’d never meant them, so Kaeya laughs it off and tells Diluc he’ll see him tomorrow. (They both know they will. They always do, even if Diluc says time and time again that he doesn’t want to.)
Jean says Thoma is the best thing to happen to him. Diluc agrees, though he doesn’t think he can say the same for himself — doesn’t think he can say he’s the best thing to happen to Thoma.
Of course you are, Thoma says later, much later, when Diluc finally gets out of his head and starts saying the things he needs, wants to say, and Thoma listens, like he always had. Also later, much more later: Diluc believes him.
For now, however, Diluc works on maintaining this, whatever this is that they have, works on not messing it up, because he’ll be damned if he does, and that’s when Diluc gets too much in his head again, because once he strives for perfection, everything else completely disappears from view.
It’s Klee who shows him it’s okay to make mistakes — to be imperfect and still be loved, still be cared for, although there is some hesitance, because Klee, she, is a child, so pure and whole, as opposed to Diluc, and comparing them two feels unfair.
(But then again, Klee is a kid who bombs lakes and blows up other bodies of water.)
Diluc says this all to Thoma, delirious with fever, too out of it to think before he speaks, and too out of it to stop himself right away.
“It’s okay to make mistakes,” Thoma says, wiping him with a wet towel to cool him off. (Which is quite ironic for two Pyro vision wielders — to cool off is not something they’d associate with themselves; there is only warmth, and the burn it brings.) “It’s okay to mess this up, or blow this off. We can always try again.”
“But what if we can’t,” Diluc moans, speaking out his worries when he usually wouldn’t.
Thoma answers, but Diluc doesn’t hear, doesn’t remember. What he does remember, though, is the soft press of lips on his temple, and a warmth that doesn’t burn him, but soothes him. It’s unfamiliar, but Diluc finds himself leaning into it.
Diluc is suddenly very sleepy.
“My eyes are heavy,” Diluc tells Thoma. “I’m going to,” he yawns, “take a nap…”
Thoma pulls the blanket up to his chest, pats his head. “You should,” he says. “Good night, Master Diluc,” and turns off the light.
“We will,” Thoma answers. “Or at the very least, I will. I will always, always try again.”