Archive of Our Own

I.

Clorinde does not get involved in matters of the heart.

It’s a personal policy, cultivated over years of watching fools make idiots of themselves in the name of love and lust and “lingering glances” that were anything but subtle. She has drawn her line in the sand firmly, and from behind it, she watches as the rest of Fontaine stumbles around in something between courtship and calamity.

She does not intervene. She merely watches. And sometimes she takes notes. Professionally.

Because as a Champion Duelist, one must be aware of every potential threat. And emotional incompetence, in her experience, is a public safety hazard.

Take, for example, the current state of the Opera Epiclese courtroom, which has transformed—without warning or explanation—into the set of a romantic stage play being performed by two men who are absolutely convinced they are being subtle.

Wriothesley is seated in the audience, not because he’s required to attend the proceedings, but because he “just happened to be in the neighborhood” and “thought he’d stop by.” These are, of course, lies. He is in full uniform. There is ink on his knuckles. He has not left the Fortress of Meropide in at least thirty-six hours. There is a mild coffee stain on his lapel. The man is exhausted and practically vibrating with tension—Clorinde can see it—and yet, he’s sitting in the fourth row like he has nowhere better to be, legs spread in the posture of a man who owns the floor and knows it.

Neuvillette has not looked at him once.

Neuvillette has looked at him seven times.

It is a performance worthy of the opera.

Clorinde does not intend to count. But she has always been good at measuring tension, at watching where eyes flicker and settle and linger. The Iudex has, so far, allowed his gaze to sweep the room a full seven times—and each time, it lands on the exact same figure, framed between a pair of golden columns, lounging like a wolf in silk gloves.

Wriothesley is doing something terrible with a pen. He’s twirling it between his fingers like he means to impress the court stenographer, who has seen far worse and barely reacts. Clorinde watches the corner of Neuvillette’s mouth twitch, only just. It’s a shift so minute that a lesser observer would miss it.

Clorinde is not a lesser observer.

The tension is growing steadily louder than the evidence.

And that’s when Navia leans over and whispers, “Do you think he knows?”

Clorinde doesn’t bother asking who. There is only one viable subject of such an inquiry, and he’s currently presiding over a case involving stolen harp strings while actively pretending he cannot hear Wriothesley humming under his breath.

“I believe,” Clorinde replies, her voice soft and neutral, “that he would rather die than admit it.”

Navia stifles a giggle behind her gloves. “That’s not a no.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

Because here’s the thing: it’s so obvious.

Neuvillette is not a man prone to affection. He is distant, composed, unreadable, and professional in all things. He has never shown the faintest inclination toward favoritism in court, in council, or in casual conversation. The man is as objective as the law itself, as silent as rain before it falls, as composed as a mountain wrapped in mist.

And yet—and yet—

He listens when Wriothesley speaks. He pauses.

He has no need to. Wriothesley’s commentary is rarely relevant. He rambles. He jokes. He makes light of bureaucracy in ways that would earn any other citizen a reprimand. But Neuvillette listens—not just listens, but lingers on the sound of it. He stands just a little too still. His hands go quiet on the documents. His lashes lower, his shoulders ease, the air around him shifts.

He does not smile. But something softens.

Wriothesley calls him “Neuv.”

Clorinde had not believed her own ears, the first time it happened. She had assumed—logically—that it was a nickname earned in private, used in error, a slip of the tongue with consequences. But no—Wriothesley does it every time, and Neuvillette never corrects him. He barely even blinks.

If Navia tried it, Clorinde suspects she would be issued a citation for breach of decorum.

If Clorinde tried it, she might be exiled.

But Wriothesley does it freely, without consequence. Neuvillette lets it pass. Worse—he responds to it.

Today, Clorinde watches Wriothesley lean forward on the bench, one hand lazily draped over the seat in front of him, and murmur, “Bit of a stretch, don’t you think?” just as a particularly flamboyant witness claims to have been attacked by a harp-playing specter in a musical duel.

Neuvillette should object. Should redirect. Should at least glance at the bailiff with reprimand in his gaze.

He does not. He lets his head tilt just slightly to the side. His eyes flick, just for a moment, to the fourth row. And then he breathes, soft and long, and says—

“Objection sustained.”

The entire court stares.

Wriothesley grins.

Clorinde does not move. She feels Navia grip her sleeve tightly, but she remains perfectly composed.

“He sustained his objection,” Navia hisses. “He wasn’t even part of the trial.”

Clorinde nods, slow and grim. “This is what happens when you allow wolves into the courtroom.”

“Do you think they’re—?”

“No,” Clorinde says flatly. “If they were, he wouldn’t look like he’s dying every time Wriothesley does something charming.”

“...You think he’s charming?”

Clorinde lifts a brow. “Not my word choice.”

Navia leans in further. “Do you think he’s in denial?”

Clorinde does not answer. She watches the way Neuvillette’s hand flexes on the gavel. She watches the slow breath he takes. She watches the way his eyes flicker to the fourth row again and then away as if burned. Then she watches him announce a recess and descend from the bench with a little too much haste, cloak flaring behind him like a curtain on a stormy stage.

Wriothesley is already standing.

Clorinde watches them meet just outside the arch. Watches the brief pause. The quiet lean toward one another. The way Neuvillette looks up at him—up, not down—and says something low that Clorinde cannot hear.

Wriothesley’s answering laugh echoes like a challenge.

Neuvillette’s hand flinches, just slightly, as if considering the air between them.

Then he turns on his heel and walks away.

Wriothesley stays behind, grinning like a man who knows the tides will turn.

Navia sighs, dreamy. “That’s so romantic.”

“It’s a disaster,” Clorinde corrects.

“But it’s beautiful.”

Clorinde allows, with reluctance, that perhaps it is. But she still refuses to get involved.

Until the moment Neuvillette returns to court, flustered, rain pooling at the edge of his cloak—and denies, with the smooth authority of the law itself, that he has any favorites.

“I treat all parties equally,” he says, voice calm, eyes glacial, hands folded in front of him like he has not just emerged from a private conversation with the man who calls him Neuv.

Navia kicks her under the bench. Clorinde does not react. But she does, just for a moment, roll her eyes so hard they nearly fall out of her head.

It is going to be a long year.

II.

Sigewinne considers herself a neutral party in all matters of romance, courtship, favoritism, and public displays of affection—except in the very specific cases when she doesn’t.

Which is to say: she is entirely neutral in theory. In practice, she is biased, invested, and wildly nosy. But only because she’s a professional.

After all, her job is to monitor health, wellness, stress levels, caffeine intake, chronic injuries, and emotional suppression so intense it might lead to a cardiac episode in the middle of a trial. All of these fall under her jurisdiction.

And unfortunately for her, all of these are currently skyrocketing in one (1) very tall, very repressy Iudex.

The signs are all there. She’s been tracking them. She’s made charts.

Exhibit A: Neuvillette’s average blink rate during meetings with ordinary Fontaine citizens sits at a healthy 10–12 per minute. When Wriothesley enters the room, that number drops to 2. Two.

Exhibit B: There are measurable fluctuations in precipitation every time Wriothesley so much as tilts his head at the Iudex in that flirty, self-satisfied, I-know-you-know way he does that makes half the court want to drown him and the other half want to climb him like a tree. (Sigewinne belongs firmly to the third half: the one that wants to document it with colored pens.)

Exhibit C: Sigewinne has logged, with adorable seasonal sticker tabs, the number of times Neuvillette has responded to a question in Wriothesley’s presence by making a small, private noise of protest before sighing and saying, “I suppose… yes.” The number is seventeen. Seventeen is not neutral. Seventeen is he’s wearing a cravat to impress someone and it’s not working because he keeps sweating through it.

Sigewinne has also begun calculating the average distance Neuvillette stands from others in conversation. His personal bubble is large. Intimidating. Something sacred and storm-wreathed. With Wriothesley, that distance shrinks to 1.7 meters. Sometimes 1.3. One time—Sigewinne checks her notes, heart fluttering fondly—it was 0.5.

They were arguing about taxation. It was magical.

It’s the same every time: Wriothesley invades Neuvillette’s space like he’s lived there all his life, elbows on the desk, voice warm and low and full of implications he will never, ever explain. Neuvillette, in return, looks vaguely affronted by the laws of physics but makes no effort to move away. None. Not even a polite lean.

And when Wriothesley eventually pushes up from the desk and leans in closer, face unreasonably near, lips parted like he’s about to make some casual, flirty comment about the new flavor of tea in the Meropide commissary or the fact that Neuvillette has ink on his wrist—

Neuvillette blinks. Stares. And says, without emotion:

“I do not have favorites.”

It’s always at that exact moment that Sigewinne’s notes become illegible due to water damage. Because that’s when the rain starts. Again.

She doesn’t even try to hide it anymore.

She is documenting this descent into denial like the menace she is.

Today, however, her research enters a new and vital phase: direct observation under mild sedation.

This is not her fault.

Wriothesley showed up to her infirmary this morning with a split lip, a broken knuckle, a suspiciously smug expression, and a willingness to make her favorite herbal tea in exchange for a discreet patch-up. He also had a complaint.

“Doc,” he said, reclining like a man who’d never known a day of shame in his life, “I think Neuvillette’s mad at me.”

Sigewinne nearly dropped her clipboard. “Is this a romantic emergency or an administrative one?”

Wriothesley blinked. “...Those are options?”

“Yes,” she said solemnly, “and I will treat either, but you need to specify.”

Wriothesley considered this. “Administrative. Probably.”

She didn’t believe him for a second, but she handed him a cookie and continued the exam. Five minutes later, he was still rambling. “—and I was going to file the report on time, really, but then this rookie got into a fistfight with a crab or something—don’t ask, it’s Meropide—and by the time I got to it, Neuvillette had already sent a letter asking if I had ‘forgotten the concept of legal punctuality’ or whatever.”

Sigewinne hummed. “How many exclamation points?”

“None.”

“Oh no,” she whispered.

“Right?”

And then, because fate has a cruel sense of humor, the door opened and he walked in.

Neuvillette. Perfect posture. Ice-white hair. That aura of controlled devastation.

And the moment he saw Wriothesley, something shifted. It was like a weather front changing—pressure and tension and the faint scent of ozone.

Sigewinne, who was actively charting stress responses on her sticker graph, watched the lines spike.

“Ah,” Neuvillette said, not looking at Sigewinne. “I see you are in good hands.”

Wriothesley grinned. “Always.”

Sigewinne squeaked. Neuvillette’s eye twitched.

“I came,” the Iudex said coolly, “to deliver a reminder regarding the quarterly reports.”

“Oh?” Wriothesley said, completely unfazed. “And not because you missed me?”

Neuvillette blinked. The temperature in the room dropped two degrees. He stepped forward, very slowly, and placed the envelope directly on Wriothesley’s chest.

“I do not,” he said, “have favorites.”

Then he turned and left. The door clicked softly behind him.

Wriothesley looked at her, absolutely beaming. “You think he does?”

Sigewinne stared. “You think he doesn’t?”

“I mean,” Wriothesley drawled, stretching his arms behind his head, “he says he doesn’t.”

Sigewinne’s face flattened. “He’s also said you’re a menace, an irritation, a violation of appropriate spatial etiquette, and—let me check my notebook—‘a smirk with fists.’ And yet you’re the only person allowed to call him Neuv.”

“Am I?” he said, like a bastard. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“You’re his favorite,” she said, as if it were obvious. “You’ve been his favorite since the day you teased him about how the scales in his office are probably symbolic of something emotionally repressed and he didn’t exile you.”

Wriothesley snorted. “He did threaten to have me tried for slander.”

“Yes. And then he brought you tea.”

Wriothesley didn’t deny it. But he did say, with a laugh that made her suspicious, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Sigewinne made a note in her logbook:
Subject W still in denial. May be contagious. Prepare antidote: 3ccs of reality. Possibly administered via public confession or aggressive cuddling.

She spent the rest of the day handing out vitamin packets to the guards while trying to find a new sticker for “these idiots are in love and everyone can tell except them.”

The only one that came close was a little cartoon thundercloud with hearts instead of lightning bolts.

She used three.

And then she made a new graph titled:
“Projected Timeline of Emotional Realization (W x N)”
X-Axis: Days Until Someone Snaps
Y-Axis: Witnesses Present When They Finally Kiss

As of now, the prediction skews dangerously close to “on the courtroom steps, in front of at least seven journalists, and one confused Melusine reporter holding a plushie mic.”

Sigewinne cannot wait.

In the meantime, though, she continues recording data. Rain levels. Sighs per minute. Favorite tea selections. Gaze frequency. Repression density. Proximity thresholds. Use of pet names. New necklines in court robes. Healing rates of love-inflicted wounds.

It’s all part of the job.

She's not nosy. She's a medical professional.

And these two are a public health situation waiting to happen.

III.

Freminet does not think he is particularly good with people. He is good with machines. With the slow precision of metal pressed into order. With copper joints and winding gears and things that click into place when treated gently enough. He is good at watching, good at breathing slowly underwater, good at recognizing when pressure builds to dangerous levels just before a valve bursts.

It is, in many ways, exactly like watching people.

Only messier.

And louder.

And harder to fix.

So he doesn’t often try. He watches. Quietly. Thoughtfully. Like a diver waiting for a current to shift.

Which is how he ends up sitting, very carefully, on a very ornate bench in the upper halls of the Opera Epiclese, watching as the Iudex of Fontaine flinches—barely, almost imperceptibly—as the administrator of the Fortress of Meropide says something that makes absolutely no sense but sounds like affection disguised as annoyance.

Wriothesley leans against a marble column like he’s made of smoke and charm. He’s not even trying to be professional. He says things like, “So you do miss me when I don’t write” and “What would Fontaine’s justice system do without my reports arriving a week late and slightly coffee-stained?” and “Neuv, you wound me. That was almost a glare.”

Neuvillette replies, as always, in a tone that could sink ships. “You are not a special case, Duke. I hold all citizens to the same standards.”

But he says it softer than he means to. Always.

He says it like a man speaking through a rain-streaked window. Distant, wet around the edges. And never—never—like someone who actually believes it.

Freminet doesn’t breathe too loudly. He tries not to disturb the strange tension curling around the room like deep-sea kelp: swaying, tangled, alive with unseen things. He knows this feeling. The pressure that builds before a storm. The waiting. The longing in the water.

He watches the way Neuvillette’s eyes drop—not to the floor, but to Wriothesley’s hands. Calloused. Steady. Always moving, even when he’s being still. Wriothesley makes motion look like rest. Like a tide that never pulls too far away.

Freminet knows, distantly, that this is none of his business.

He’s only here to deliver a sealed letter on behalf of the Maison Gardiennage. A simple courier task. In and out. No reason to linger.

But he sits anyway. Because he can feel the pressure mounting. The way the silence between them is full. Saturated. Like the air in his helmet before a dive—humid and close and waiting to be broken.

He thinks about water a lot. About pressure. About things that shift beneath the surface. People are the same. People can smile and still be drowning. People can float above things that are too heavy to name.

He wonders, not for the first time, if Neuvillette ever feels dry. Ever feels light. Or if he is always full of weight that never quite sinks or rises, but lingers somewhere in the middle, suspended like silt.

Wriothesley shifts again, arms folding across his chest. He says something that Freminet doesn’t catch—but whatever it is, it makes Neuvillette go very, very still.

For a heartbeat, no one breathes.

Then Neuvillette turns his face slightly away—just slightly, as though the words had reached a place inside him that wasn’t ready to be seen.

“I do not have favorites,” he says quietly, like it’s a truth he’s used to repeating even when it fits worse each time.

Freminet sees Wriothesley’s jaw move, just a little. He doesn’t call him on it. Doesn’t argue.

He just says, softer this time, “Sure. You don’t.”

And then the silence between them goes sharp. Like the edge of a coral reef. Beautiful, but dangerous if you brush against it the wrong way.

Freminet tucks his delivery under one arm and stands up.

He doesn’t say anything. But he walks down the hall the long way, just so he doesn’t have to disturb whatever it is they’re not saying to each other.

He thinks, maybe, there are kinds of drowning that don’t look like drowning.

Some people drown in oceans.

Others drown in the space between almost and maybe.

When he gets back to the Maison Gardiennage, Lyney asks why he looks like he’s been swimming through someone else’s heartbreak.

Freminet says nothing.

But later, he draws it out on the side of a blueprint for a clockwork seagull: two figures, one made of clouds and quiet things, one made of laughter and bone and scar tissue, orbiting each other like moons.

He draws them standing in water up to their knees.

He draws them not noticing.

And then he sighs, erases it, and starts over. Because someday, they’ll realize.

And when they do, he hopes they look at each other like the surface of the sea looking up at the sky: full of reflections, and light, and the knowledge that even when they’re apart, they were always meant to meet.

IV.

Furina is going to throw herself into the Primordial Sea. And not because she’s being overdramatic.

(She is, of course, being overdramatic. But that’s her prerogative as an Archon, a celebrity, and a long-suffering connoisseur of romantic incompetence.)

No, the real reason she is currently pacing across the opera’s upper terrace in glittering heels and a fury that could rival divine judgment is simple:

Those two IDIOTS are still NOT KISSING.

She has waited. She has suffered. She has endured seasons, scandals, storms, and seven entire public incidents involving veiled longing and tea-stained court documents. And still—still—Neuvillette and Wriothesley remain locked in a spiraling ballet of denial so powerful it’s begun to disrupt the natural order.

She has charts. She has witnesses. She has seen Neuvillette smile. SMILE, with his whole face, at a man who once broke into court just to say, “Sorry I’m late, the paperwork fell in love with my coffee cup and I didn’t have the heart to separate them.”

She has seen Wriothesley defend Neuvillette’s rulings with a kind of lazy, wolfish loyalty that sounds like “I guess the Iudex knows best” but means “Say that about him again and I’ll shatter your jaw in twelve precise places.”

And through it all—through it all—they continue to claim:

“I do not have favorites.”

Furina has had ENOUGH.

“I am going to scream,” she declares to no one in particular, flinging her arms wide as if the moon itself might descend and offer her sympathy. “I am going to SCREAM until the entire nation of Fontaine is FLOODED and DROWNED in the COWARDICE of its most powerful men!”

The Melusine security guard standing three feet away claps politely.

“Don’t patronize me, Dandeliette. I know a slow-burn when I see one. And this—THIS—is an eternal simmer. A low-boil of restraint and emotionally repressed flirting!”

Dandeliette offers her a snack.

Furina takes it, obviously. She’s not unreasonable. But she does continue pacing, chewing furiously.

Earlier today—mere hours ago!—she bore witness to yet another crime against public romance: Wriothesley had arrived to the courtroom in a tailored coat with lapels that looked like they’d been pressed by longing itself.

He had leaned over Neuvillette’s shoulder—leaned—to “deliver some files,” and Furina, being the omniscient deity she is, had immediately noticed the way Neuvillette’s breath hitched. Hitched, like a heroine in a tragic opera just before she realizes she’s in love with the man she thought was her enemy.

And then—AND THEN—Neuvillette had turned his head, so slowly it looked like he was turning toward fate, and said in the softest voice known to mortals:

“...You smell like bergamot today.”

Bergamot. BERGAMOT.

What kind of cursed Victorian poetry nonsense was that?!

Did Wriothesley say “Thank you”?

No.

He said, “You’d know. I think you might be addicted.”

And Furina had levitated out of her chair with the sheer force of secondhand sexual tension.

Did they kiss?

NO.

Did they hold hands, confess their feelings, or at the VERY LEAST schedule a steamy professional disagreement in the privacy of Neuvillette’s extremely over-symbolic office?

NO.

Instead, Neuvillette had blinked like he’d just committed an emotional war crime and said—

“Please refrain from unscheduled scent-based commentary during proceedings.”

And then—because the gods hate her—he’d added:

“I do not have favorites.”

Furina had SCREECHED. Silently. Internally. But with the kind of passion that causes volcanic eruptions on other continents.

Because he does. He does and everyone knows it. Every assistant. Every clerk. Every bird on the roof of the opera house. The clouds know. The weather itself knows. The Raiden Shogun would know, and she’s an introvert with a murder complex.

Wriothesley is Neuvillette’s favorite. And Neuvillette is Wriothesley’s everything, whether he knows it or not.

And Furina—sparkling, glittering, beloved Furina—is being denied the epic romance she deserves to witness.

So now she’s here, on the terrace, rehearsing how she will intervene.

“Option one,” she mutters, ticking it off with her finger. “Declare a national emergency that can only be solved by True Love’s First Kiss. Not legally binding, but emotionally devastating. Excellent potential for drama.”

Dandeliette tilts her head in interest.

“Option two: lock them in a gondola during the Waterblessing Festival with only one bottle of champagne and a court transcript labeled ‘Confessions of a Repressed Iudex.’”

Dandeliette nods enthusiastically.

“Option three: fake my own death and demand that they both officiate my state funeral. With poetry readings, lingering hand touches, and matching mourning outfits.”

Dandeliette frowns. Too much?

Too much.

Furina slumps against the balcony. “Why must they torment me so?”

And yet—

And yet, when she looks back through the arched windows, she sees them still standing close. Not quite touching. Not quite moving. But so utterly attuned to each other that it aches.

Neuvillette is saying something about weather patterns and city infrastructure.

Wriothesley is listening. Not just listening, but watching him with a softness that doesn’t match his sharp smile.

Furina exhales.

“If they don’t kiss by the end of this season,” she says gravely, “I’m giving Sigewinne full authority to tranquilize them and duct-tape their mouths together.”

Dandeliette claps again.

Furina accepts her fate.

V.

Childe didn’t mean to get involved.

Actually, correction—Childe didn’t even mean to be here. In Fontaine. Again. Drenched to the knees in aristocratic rainfall and bureaucracy and something that smells suspiciously like unresolved sexual tension.

But here he is.

He came for a simple check-in. A little diplomatic visit. Just a touch of light espionage. Maybe steal a few croissants, punch a couple guys. Say hi to the Melusines. Normal things.

He’s not even supposed to be here, technically. His schedule is packed with important Fatui duties, like: making sure Arlecchino doesn’t kill anyone too important, figuring out if he’s supposed to care about whatever Dottore’s latest science experiment is, and doing the bare minimum to maintain plausible deniability in diplomatic meetings that mostly involve smiling like a knife.

But Fontaine is pretty this time of year.

And Wriothesley sent him a very polite letter that said something like, “If you’re ever in the area, do consider visiting the Fortress again. The prison wine is better now.”

Which, in Wriothesley-speak, is basically begging.

So naturally, Childe had packed a bag, ignored three direct orders from the Tsaritsa, and arrived in Fontaine just in time to watch the most painfully slow-burn romance of all time actively disintegrate before his eyes.

And not in the fun way.

Not in the oh no, we were enemies but now we’re fighting on the same side and our swords touched and maybe also our hearts kind of way.

No.

This is worse.

What he did not come for is whatever the hell is going on between Mr. Judiciary Raincloud and Punch First, Flirt Later.

And by going on, he means not going on. Because somehow, someway, two of the most intimidating, powerful men in Fontaine have managed to trap themselves in a perfectly preserved state of aching, lingering almost.

It’s been a full week. A week of courtroom visits, policy meetings, coffee breaks, awkward hallway run-ins, and more almost-touching than a slow-burn romance novel wrapped in a funeral veil.

Childe’s losing his mind.

Today’s incident takes the cake.

He’s seated in a meeting about cross-border extradition protocols, mostly because Scaramouche dared him to sit through it without falling asleep. He’s already regretting the decision. Neuvillette is at the head of the long mahogany table, posture too perfect, voice like rainfall on glass. Every word he says sounds like he’s sentencing the entire room to feel inadequate.

Wriothesley is late.

Of course.

He waltzes in twelve minutes after the hour with a stack of signed documents and a smile that says I know you missed me. He takes the seat beside Neuvillette like it’s always been his.

And Neuvillette—oh, Neuvillette—doesn’t so much as blink. But his hand clenches around his pen.

Childe sees it. He sees it.

Wriothesley leans closer. Close enough to murmur something. Probably something harmless. Something idiotic. Something like “You smell like ink and frustration today, Neuv,” because Childe knows his type, and Wriothesley has the exact vibe of a man who flirts like a wolf circling a noble elk with daddy issues.

And Neuvillette says nothing. His shoulders stay taut. His fingers twitch. He breathes out just a little too long.

Childe bites back a laugh.

These two are worse than the Fatui.

When the meeting breaks, Childe lingers in the hallway, purely out of boredom, which is how he witnesses the next act in this completely ridiculous opera.

Neuvillette exits first, clipboard in hand, coat impeccable, face unreadable. Regal as ever. And then—and then—Wriothesley steps in front of him, blocking the path like a smirking boulder in a very expensive coat.

“Neuv,” he says, low and intimate and suffering from success, “you free later?”

“Doubtful,” Neuvillette says, like he didn’t pause for a fraction of a second too long.

Wriothesley tilts his head. “Pity. I was hoping you might want to take a walk. It’s raining.”

“It’s always raining,” Neuvillette replies.

Childe watches him not move. Watches the millimeter shift of his shoes, the faint furrow between his brows, the crack in the statue.

“You like it when it rains,” Wriothesley says.

There’s silence.

Neuvillette stares at him. And Childe, who has absolutely no right to feel like he’s intruding, feels like he’s intruding.

“I like many things,” Neuvillette finally says. “That doesn’t make them special.”

Wriothesley grins like he’s heard something entirely different.

And then—AND THEN—Neuvillette lifts his chin and adds:

“I do not have favorites.”

Childe nearly blacks out from the force of his eye-roll.

He has had enough. These two are living in a tragic 18th-century melodrama penned by someone who only knows how to write longing gazes and repressed monologues. They are ruining Childe’s trip. His croissants have gone soggy from the sheer weight of unsaid confessions dripping out of the air.

Later that evening, Childe finds himself seated in a Fontainian café, glaring at a tart.

Navia plops down beside him. “You okay?”

“No,” Childe says. “Your government officials are flirting through municipal paperwork.”

Navia nods solemnly. “It’s been like this for years.”

“How do you stand it?”

“Denial,” she says brightly. “Also champagne.”

Childe groans. “I’m this close to locking them in a room and screaming until one of them makes a move.”

Sigewinne appears out of nowhere and slaps down a notebook titled “Emergency Romantic Intervention Protocol — Draft 42.”

“You’d be surprised how often we get to that point,” she says cheerfully.

Childe flips through it. “Why are there diagrams?”

“Science,” she replies.

Back at his lodgings, Childe writes a letter to Zhongli. It reads:

Dear xiangsheng,
I’ve found something worse than us.
It’s two men who would rather die than admit they’re in love.
Pray for me.

He doodles a tiny Neuvillette with thunderclouds for hair and a tiny Wriothesley biting his own lip like an idiot.

And maybe, maybe, he also doodles a tiny Childe banging their heads together like dolls. Because someone has to do something. And if they still aren’t kissing by the end of the month, Childe is throwing them both into a decorative courtroom fountain and yelling, “NOW KISS.”

For the good of the nation.

+1.

It begins, officially, with a headline:

BREAKING: DUKE OF MEROPIDE EMERGES FROM OPERA EPICLESE LOOKING “STAGGERINGLY RAVISHED,” SAYS BAFFLED REPORTER.

Navia reads it first. Chokes on her tea. Screams into a cushion. Immediately screenshots it and sends it to everyone.

Sigewinne receives the image mid-surgery. She laughs so hard she drops a scalpel. Luckily it misses the patient.

Clorinde is the last to see it, because she’s been watching it happen live. From the gallery. With her arms crossed. Looking like she’s solving a homicide.

“I knew it,” she says aloud, to no one. “Finally.”

Inside the courtroom, there is chaos.

The legal proceedings had just ended when the Iudex—the impeccable, stoic, terrifyingly composed Iudex—paused midsentence, closed his eyes, and whispered—

“Enough.”

Then he left. Simply left.

Walked down from the bench like a man possessed by truth, or madness, or something he could no longer drown beneath court robes and duty.

Wriothesley had looked up, surprised for a split second—then followed. No hesitation. Like a moon caught in gravity.

No one stopped them.

They’re not entirely sure what happened behind the ornate doors of Neuvillette’s office. But they heard it.

At first: silence. Rain tapping glass. A muffled voice.

Then—

Bang.

The sound of something slamming against a desk. Or maybe someone.

The rain pours.

Then—more quietly—
A laugh.
A gasp.
A sound that does not belong in a courtroom.

Someone outside drops their pen. Someone else whispers, “I knew it,” in a voice that trembles with vindication.

A Melusine faints.

Sigewinne rehydrates her.

When the doors open again, they are changed. Not dramatically. Not obviously. But unmistakably.

Neuvillette emerges first. His hair is mussed. His collar is open. His expression—

His expression is devotion disguised as serenity.

And Wriothesley follows close behind, tie loosened, lip bruised, shirt askew, looking like a man who has just won an argument with God and decided to keep Him.

They say nothing. But they walk like gravity has shifted. Like something has aligned. Like yes, this is what we’ve been orbiting toward all this time.

And Neuvillette—Neuvillette, who once said, “I do not have favorites” with the weight of law behind it—reaches out as they pass the stunned assembly…

…and brushes Wriothesley’s knuckles.

It is more intimate than any kiss.

The rain slows. Barely.

The courtroom doesn’t breathe.

And Wriothesley—smiling like a man with the sun in his hands—leans down, murmurs something in Neuvillette’s ear, and then—

He kisses his temple. Chaste. Reverent. Claiming.

Neuvillette closes his eyes like the sea has finally reached the shore.

Afterward, Fontaine is never the same.

There’s a plague of rainbows. Public fountains overflow with flower petals and broken shoes, offerings from people who wept through the flood and danced anyway. Meropide prisoners start winning poetry contests.

The Court of Fontaine has to issue an official statement, which reads simply:

“The Iudex would like to clarify that while he does not believe in favorites, he does believe in deep personal regard expressed physically and legally within the bounds of courtship and constitutional decency.”

Which is code for: yes, it’s him. Yes, it’s Wriothesley. Yes, we all knew. Please stop mailing us handwritten sonnets.

Childe, of course, forwards the statement to Zhongli with a caption that reads: “Fontaine finally got their power couple. It’s disgusting. I love it.”

Zhongli sends back his well-wishes and a 35 page treatise on Liyuen courtship rituals.

They do not hide it. Not anymore.

They don’t have to.

Wriothesley walks into court with Neuvillette’s coat draped over his arm. Neuvillette walks out of Meropide with Wriothesley’s scarf knotted around his neck.

They share tea. Share documents. Share silences. Share glances that would level cities if not properly restrained.

Sometimes, Wriothesley comes to court just to watch. He never speaks. He just looks. Like Neuvillette is the entire story and he’s reading it again and again for the parts he missed. And Neuvillette lets him.

Lets himself be looked at.

Lets himself be known.

The rain becomes gentler. Not gone—but softer. A hush, not a sob. A kiss, not a scream.

Fontaine breathes.

And somewhere, on a balcony overlooking the harbor, Furina throws a bouquet into the wind and yells, “FINALLY! I WIN!”