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The Iudex of Fontaine is not, as one would expect, an early riser.
While he enjoys the fresh chill of morning, he also enjoys the warmth and comfort of a well-tended nest. Especially on mornings after harrowing nights, when trials ran long and tedious from arguments of little merit, or when the agenda of the day had been a bit more hefty than usual.
It is a Tuesday, and already Neuvillette wishes it is a Saturday morning, when the Palais and the Opera Epiclese do not operate.
He would still go into office, knowing himself capable of still getting work done, but he would have the luxury of going in late, and would be free from any official meetings with dignitaries and aristocrats.
However, it is, unfortunately, a Tuesday, and he has little time to dawdle.
As the sun begins to peak over the horizon, he knows he must rise with it, but…
Must he?
The warm body next to him stirs. A voice, thick with sleep, greets him.
“Good morning.”
A pair of lips press against his cheekbone, and he presses back. It is more brief than he’d like, as Wriothesley gets up from bed shortly after that, leaving a cold spot to Neuvillette’s side.
Neuvillette, for all intents and purposes, is awake. However, he keeps his eyes closed because he knows the minute he tries to open them, they will sting with the sourness of interrupted sleep—an unnatural awakening born of duty and responsibility.
Given his nature, he’d love to sleep for weeks, if not months. Especially during the winters…
Before Wriothesley, he would’ve forced himself to get up regardless.
Now…
Footsteps approach the bed, and a warm, slightly moist hand takes his face in a gentle hold.
A lukewarm cloth slides over his eyes, caressing the area of his nose bridge before wiping carefully. The heat chases the sourness away, and when the cloth tenderly cups his cheeks, he opens his eyes to Wriothesley’s smile.
It’s soft and warm, just like the towel on his face.
“There you are,” Wriothesley says, sneaking a kiss on Neuvillette’s forehead. “Be right back. I’ll go start the bath.”
Neuvillette hums contentedly as Wriothesley leaves for the bathroom again.
The pipes gurgle a bit as the water is turned on, and the boiler with it. The surge of hydro that splashes into the tub is another way to wake up Neuvillette, being as sensitive to the element as he is. He enjoys the way the elemental energy sounds as it fills, thickening its tune from a tinny splash to a small roar of a waterfall.
When Wriothesley returns a second time, he opens the window before wordlessly taking a seat behind Neuvillette, brush and ribbon in his possession.
Neuvillette lets Wriothesley at his back, closing his eyes as he hears the first rustling tug of his hair more than he feels it.
He remembers when Wriothesley first asked to brush his hair. It had come as a surprise—he had always done his own hair, and the rare few times that the melusines or Furina had done it, it had been done out of their own amusement.
He does not phrase it as a negative connotation, nor is it something that he begrudges them, as he finds joy in allowing them such liberties.
The melusines care for him, of that he has no doubt. And although his relationship with Furina is now tentative, their five hundred years together is not to be taken lightly.
He’s sure that if he asked, they would do it without a complaint. With equal amounts of joy, even.
But he would never ask them. That’s just not him. If they take initiative to ask, then he would enjoy their services, but otherwise, he can take care of himself.
He had assumed, when Wriothesley first asked, that the warden had been the same—curious to touch, curious to marvel at the length of Neuvillette’s hair. Maybe even curious about his horns.
Once he gets bored, he will let Neuvillette do it himself again.
But Wriothesley does not braid it or put flowers and shells in his hair. Wriothesley does not play with it, does not give him accessories that Wriothesley would like to see on him.
Instead, Wriothesley asks him how to care for his hair. How does he do it on a normal day? How does it prefer it? What products does he use? What accessories would he, Neuvillette, like?
He doesn’t know why that makes his chest swell, but it’s a lovely feeling.
So he teaches Wriothesley.
Due to the length, tangles easily form if brushed from scalp to the tips. He always starts from the bottom, two to four inches at a time, before working his way up. Slow and steady wins the race, too fast of a pace, and frustration begets a disaster.
Wriothesley had been so cautious that first time, hands trembling, fingers ghosting the skin of Neuvillette’s neck, faint as a dragonfly’s landing. He asked about Neuvillette horns, just to know if he should avoid them, and when Neuvillette had expressed that yes, he would like them to be untouched, Wriothesley had brushed around them, despite how difficult it must’ve been.
Neuvillette himself cannot avoid brushing his horns sometimes, but the touch of the self and the touch of another, Neuvillette has learned, is very different.
Neuvillette did not doubt Wriothesley for a second, even before this devout-esque show of care, because Wriothesley had always had a gentle soul. Too troubled by the lack of sunlight to raise a pet despite his loneliness, too tied to Meropide and his duties despite his desire for sun…
Neuvillette does not want to delude himself, but he likes to think he has a fraction of Wriothesley’s regard in the same way as animals and the fortress, what with the sort of soothing attention that Wriothesley gives him.
To his surprise, Wriothesley asks again the next morning, and the morning after that, and every morning following, until Neuvillette almost can’t remember the struggle of tying his hair, one strand always curving out in a loop because tying the ends of his hair from the front means that when he tosses it back, the strands aren’t all tied at the same point.
That loop is gone now, because Wriothesley ties it perfectly.
One morning after the next, Wriothesley had turned a luxury into a routine.
So Neuvillette had to ask one day if it was fun for Wriothesley to do what he did.
Wriothesley had paused in his brushing for a moment, confused at the question. His answer, however, was what made Neuvillette confused in turn.
“Fun is one way to put it. Except I enjoy it because you relax into a puddle when I do it, and I love seeing you relaxed.”
It takes a few more mornings after that for it to dawn on Neuvillette; Wriothesley loves him.
Is it not customary for lovers to love one another?
But in what ways does one show love? Is it not this, then?
The gentle kisses good morning. The smell of a fresh towel, its warmth on his face. The sound of a running bath prepared for him.
Wriothesley eventually reaches to the top of his head, and brushes his hair from scalp to tip in one smooth pass. When all the tresses are uniformly brushed, not a single strand out of place, Wriothesley plaits the bottom twice, before tying the velveteen ribbon.
The sun has begun to turn the sky its usual azure blue, its light less fractured, less orange, more yellow. Outside, the city also slowly awakens. Shops open for breakfast, the smell of bread and coffee wafting in.
Wriothesley sets the brush aside.
“All done. The water should be cool now. I’ll go pick up some breakfast for us, okay?”
Neuvillette grabs Wriothesley’s wrist before he goes too far away, pulling him down for a kiss on the lips.
“Good morning,” he finally returns, but it sounds a lot like ‘I love you’ instead.
Wriothesley smiles as bright as the sun. “Good morning,” he repeats, because it was, indeed, a good morning.