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The first thing that was established when they started this was very simple: It was not a relationship. A relationship needs a lot of things like being stable, something that they learned long ago that they can’t be. Partners wasn’t a good term either. To be partners is to make statement, to hold hands in public and do all the other cliches that partners do. They can’t be friends with benefits because first, they would need something to benefit from, and second, they’re too close to be friends yet somehow, they are not exactly far away from strangers.
Wriothesley and Furina are not in a relationship. They aren’t partners or some kind of friends with benefits or anything like that.
But they are definitely... something.
They didn’t sat one day and decided they would be this nameless thing with “no strings attached” that clearly has too many strings attached but neither of them are willing to admit. It was simply mutually understood between them over time. They can’t be anything. Not right now. Not even in a near future. It’s better to stay with a nameless tag than having an official one just to break later on, the raw truth is that they’re not ready for having each other. Well, that’s expected when you can’t even handle yourself.
Sigewinnie once said they were “emotionally constipated”, bold words for a melusine Wriothesley answered back, even though he knew it was true. They knew. Everybody knew how they were. Navia in the other hand, joked around that a “secret third thing” was a much better term for them. But was it true? In Furina’s opinion, first of all they would need to be a secret. And that’s impossible when your friends circle includes less than ten people, including aquatic companions that you made for yourself only, you were emotionally constipated and had a terrible mouth that speaks too much sometimes. Furina really really needs to shut up sometimes. Maybe she should learn with Wriothesley who is too much quiet all the time.
Actually, that’s not true. He is not all too quiet but sometimes Furina feels like he talks too much without saying anything. He tells stories from the fortress, tell some jokes, teases and smiles and oh how Furina hates when he smiles like that when talking with a look like he understands everything and all. It also doesn’t help that it makes Furina’s ears go red in a instant. Wriothesley talks about a lot of things. Wriothesley himself wasn’t one of those things. There’s nothing good to tell about himself if anything Furina could look up at the fortress reports and see for herself. He said that once when Furina insisted too much on that matter. She doesn’t judge or at least she doesn’t fight for it because at the end of the day Furina is a hypocrite. She never tells anything about her too. But she had no reason to do that at all! Everything about her is public information at this point, her favorite plays, her most hated food, what’s her shoe size, everything! Furina de Fontaine, the mighty Hydro Archon, is public information. Furina, the just Furina, with no titles or items associate with her name, is not. And that’s a really big deal for Wriothesley apparently. As selfless as it may sound Furina doesn’t really cares about that. What was the Hydro Archon and what was Furina blurred together a long time ago and Furina never cared to distinguish those two, not after 500 years. If she lied about herself no one would bat an eye, no one would notice, no one cared to look through her cracks. Just Furina wasn’t a interesting character to the audience.
Unfortunately Wriothesley does all the things listed above and finds just Furina a very appealing character. He never trusted the gods, he has some respect and all but for Archon’s sake he built a giant ship because while everyone else believed the so called Hydro Archon could save them all from the prophecy he thought it wasn’t enough. The Duke of Meropide never bothered to worship a god. Instead he choose to worship a human full of flaws and complicated emotions that didn’t even have a place to live on her name because he thought it was a brilliant idea even though he has so many people around him in a better state than her, specially people that didn’t have a inexplicable fear of mirrors or got extremely anxious when the tide rises just a little bit. But even after all those arguments, even after Furina telling him is not, definitely, by any means possible worth it, is his choice, not hers. If he choose the worst option available in all Teyvat that is his problem not hers.
And when he notices that he made the worst decision of his life Furina is gonna look at him and finally say “I told you”. She already promised she won’t be mad or sad when he leaves because he will and she’s quite convicted about that. She’s been waiting for that moment for quite some time now. Actually it’s been more time than she imagined because now she’s having hopes and she should not be doing that no, no, no, she was already mentally prepared for that moment, she was waiting for that moment. Whatever this is was not in her plans, not in the script, and Furina followed a damn script for years and years and how is she supposed to deal with things like this being so unpredictable!?
The worst part of all is that this wasn’t in Wriothesley’s plan either.
The Duke is a very mysterious person according to the Steambird, he doesn’t make public appearances or give any kind of interview, always working behind the curtains never in the spotlight and for the vast majority of Fontaine, maybe 99% of the surface population, he’s just this mysterious figure that runs the Fortress 24/7. That 99% used to include Furina at some point. But it’s not the case anymore! She knows things about him now! She knows his age of course, where he spends most of his time, what type of tea he’s more fond of, what kind of milk he enjoys the most on his coffee, his hobbies... She also knows he was pled guilty to murder when he was 14 years old which is not exactly the type of information that you need to be reminded all the time. But the people in the Fortress love to remind her of that. A lot. Unlike the surface, the convicts can talk all day about the Duke, the merciless Duke who went from being guilty of murder to being an administrator of Meropide. They tell unbelievable stories of how he got the title of Duke, things like how he deceived the surface and got control over the Fortress overnight or maybe that killed the old administrator in a big revolt or so much bullshit that Furina firmly believes that half of the people sent here were involved in either fraud or defamation. Wriothesley has no skeletons in his closet, his closet is as empty as Furina’s room in her so called new “home”. There was no big revolts or a big fight between him and the old administrator. There was a talk and a deal, nothing else.
And that’s why Wriothesley fails to make sense to Furina, if the stories about him seems totally disconnected from reality so it’s the real Duke. Everyone believes that the Duke of Meropide is this cold, ruthless person, but the truth is Wriothesley is, sometimes, a little bit soft at the edges, sometimes way to blunt and honest, but never in a mean way, not with Furina, never with her, because he cares, because he wants her to know that he’s honest about them. But one thing the convicts say it’s true: he’s very lonely. And that also doesn’t make sense to Furina because he chose to be lonely. Furina spend all her life pushing people away because she had to, it was the only way to keep them safe but Wriothesley… Wriothesley had the chance of being free after finishing his sentence, the chance of going out and live everything Furina ever wanted to do. But he decided to live in this cage by his own free will, a polished silver cage isolated from everything else, but a cage nonetheless. It prevents anyone from entering and everything inside from leaving. So why does he let her enter in this god’s forsaken cage thinking that maybe she will have a chance of understanding him just to be shut down almost immediately? What is the use of this if Wriothesley doesn’t talk and Furina is too afraid to push and now they’re two birds who didn’t learn how to fly properly stuck in the same cage?
Wriothesley told her to leave once, that he didn’t want to be the reason why a free bird like Furina, free from any weight at her back, was stuck in a cage with him. He said he wouldn’t push her away, and he didn’t, he simply let she stay even when is clear as a day that Wriothesley has no plans of leaving this cage. But she could leave. It won’t matter anyway. Instead of waiting for the day that Wriothesley will finally realize that letting her stay was a mistake, when he finally notices that this could never work, she could just do the job, end this right through it’s core and just push him away like she did with everyone else because that’s the right thing that she should be doing, to save their time, and avoid all the messy feeling that may come in the future. That is the right thing to do. Not breaking down in the middle of the her insufferable small kitchen for the nth time in the last months while making tea with Wriothesley just because of what? Being sad because they’re not in a relationship or something? She chose this anyways, it’s only the consequence of her actions.
Wriothesley and Furina don’t know how to talk, they don’t how to deal with the fact that they’re indeed very emotionally constipated and feelings are too much because everything is too much for them. Wriothesley is used to the silence of his own office, of treating his scars and pains alone, of dealing with himself and no one else, even if he fails spectacularly at that, even when he would let the scars and pains root rather than taking one glimpse at them, even if the silence of his own office is way too much way too often, he’s used to that. Furina is used to no one questioning her because she was the Archon of Fontaine of course she knows what’s the right thing to do. Why would an Archon need help? Why would an Archon not being fine all the time? She’s used to pushing all the screams and cries at the back of her throat, opening a smile and pretending, pretending and pretending because she’s used to it. Maybe they don’t know how to break old habits and maybe those are too hard to break sometimes and it’s all too complicated and messy and maybe they should just end this already.
But they don’t do that. They never do. Instead they stay together just like any other time. While Furina breaks down for no apparent reason. Wriothesley stays, he comforts her, runs his hand on her back, and surprisingly it works. He makes her go to the sofa, drink the tea that it’s already cold by now, and it works for some damn reason that Furina can’t explain why but it just makes her want to cry more. At some point her sadness backs down and anger takes place. How can he break her and put her back in one piece all at same time and think that it’s fine? How dare him pretend just for this moment that they’re okay and not a monstrous disaster ready to explode at any moment? Furina wants to be angry, she wants them to fight and scream and tell all the things they keep inside. But Wriothesley and Furina don’t fight because fighting means saying all their feelings out loud and none of them are ready to do that. So there are no shouts or screams, just the silence of Furina’s small living room in this miserable small house, a house that is too small for all their complicated emotions. The anger subsides as quick as it came and now she’s leaning into his embrace like always.
One of the few things that Wriothesley and Furina knows how to do it’s comfort each other, surprisingly well Furina would admit. Wriothesley knows exactly how to touch her, how to make her worries go away, how to make a small smile appear on her lips. The things is, they’re not exactly physically intimate, hugs and touches are as rare as Wriothesley visiting the surface. But Wriothesley visits Furina twice a week, so hugs and touches can’t be called exactly rare. They happen, sometimes , maybe if the stars align correctly they will kiss and she will stay on his embrace for more than a fleeting minute and if the universe allows they will talk just a little bit about feelings. Wriothesley and Furina don’t talk, they just do what they want. If Wriothesley let’s his scars and pains root away Furina will storm into his office, take him by the hand and take care of him herself. If Furina pretends to smile and all Wriothesley will break through her façade and make her face truth, even if it pains her too much he will be there and won’t let her go by any means.
And if Furina breaks down for the nth time, there won’t be anything among the lines “everything is okay”. He will only ask if Furina has an extra towel, take a shower, dress into his night clothes that were long “forgotten” at Furina’s place and they will make macaroni for dinner, probably try a new sauce and hope it doesn’t taste awful. After that he will force her to sit down at the bathtub and let him take care of her hair even if Furina insist that she can deal with it alone. Wriothesley will run his hands softly through her hair like he always does and then, after all the bathtub cliches, he will carry her, against her will, and make them lay down on her tiny bed that definitely wasn’t made for two adults to sleep on. At the end, they will hug each other and maybe, if Furina’s feels brave enough, she will say the tiniest “I love you” she can muster, hoping Wriothesley won’t hear it this time. But he will, he always does. Furina feels his laugh rumbling through his chest, his lips kissing her hair and his voice repeating the same thing a thousand times until Furina falls sleep.
Wriothesley and Furina are not in a relationship. They aren’t partners or some kind of friends with benefits. But they are a thing. One complicated , full of entangled emotions and things they aren’t ready to deal with or speak about it. But if the stars and the universe align, if the Archons and Celestia have some mercy upon them, and maybe if their combined efforts at the kitchen don’t result in the most awful macaroni sauce ever made, maybe they’ll work together for now.