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I.
The air was thick with steam. It was thoroughly, ruinously humid—every molecule of the Fortress of Meropide’s training sector was damp with condensation, sweat, and the stubborn insistence of an overworked heat regulation system. Neuvillette regretted many things in his long life, but this? This might have climbed the list. Why he had agreed to conduct a joint inspection here, in this of all quarters, was a question best reserved for an internal tribunal once his lungs stopped feeling like they were drowning in hot soup.
Wriothesley, on the other hand, looked unbothered. Worse: he looked smug. Shirt sleeves rolled up, gloves off, one of those sweat-darkened towels slung around the back of his neck like he was an off-duty lumberjack instead of the administrator of the most formidable penitentiary in Fontaine. His hair was damp in a manner that suggested he either just stepped out of a bath or into a romance novel. Possibly both. Neuvillette found this offensive. Categorically. Existentially. Biblically.
And Wriothesley was talking. About protocols. Or renovations. Or weight distribution in the eastern wing—Neuvillette was trying to listen, truly—but there was a bead of water rolling from the hollow of his throat to the dip of his collarbone, and Neuvillette was thinking about rivers instead. Thinking, traitorously, about where the water goes.
Wriothesley waved a hand. “So if we reroute the stair access, that should ease the patrol traffic. You agree?”
“I—yes. That would be… appropriate,” Neuvillette said, proud of himself for maintaining syntax. Less proud of how his gaze lingers a moment too long.
Wriothesley caught it. Of course he did. “You alright, Neuvillette? You look flushed.”
The audacity of him. The criminal, criminal awareness in that tone. Neuvillette’s spine went ramrod straight, and he drew on centuries of juridical gravitas to deliver a response with all the solemnity of a final verdict.
“I am perfectly well, Your Grace.”
It was, categorically, the wrong thing to say.
Wriothesley blinked.
Neuvillette froze.
The silence that followed was dense with implication. Dense with amusement, dawning awareness, and the unbearable weight of shared oxygen in a too-warm corridor that smells like metal and body heat and something Neuvillette will absolutely not name.
“‘Your Grace,’ huh?” Wriothesley repeated, voice dipped in something too close to a grin. “That’s new.”
“It is your title,” Neuvillette replied, straightening his coat unnecessarily. “A formal honorific is not—”
“Not required,” Wriothesley finished for him, stepping closer. Not too close, but not far enough. “You usually just call me ‘Wriothesley.’ Or ‘Administrator.’ Or that one time—what was it—‘incorrigible nuisance’?”
“That was in the context of a disciplinary review.”
“Still accurate.”
Neuvillette exhaled through his nose, slowly, as if that will somehow filter the sheer amount of Wriothesley in the air. “I meant no implication. It was merely a slip of protocol.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Wriothesley said lightly. He leaned against the railing with the confidence of a man who knows his arms look good crossed like that. “Sounds kind of nice, actually. Say it again?”
Neuvillette did not indulge him. Neuvillette did not, in fact, say anything at all, because if he opened his mouth again he was concerned the steam in the air would solidify into something unspeakable. Or worse, he would start reciting hydrological data to distract himself from the sudden, violent need to memorize the exact shape of Wriothesley’s smirk. That, or bite it off his face. Both were bad.
Wriothesley tilted his head, watching him. His voice dropped into something softer. Not teasing now—just quiet. Curious. “Hey. You really okay?”
The shift was worse. Infinitely worse. Neuvillette could endure flirtation, even thinly veiled. He could not, however, withstand concern. Gentle concern, offered like a towel or a cup of tea or a place to rest.
“I am simply unused to the climate,” he said, forcing calm into his voice. “It is… oppressive.”
Wriothesley smiled, not like a man who’s won anything, but like a man who’s been granted permission to care. “Yeah. This place gets like that. Hang tight, I’ll grab us something cold from the supply station. You wait here, alright?”
And before Neuvillette could say anything foolish like no or stay or don’t smile at me like I hung the moon and left the keys to the tide on your nightstand, Wriothesley was gone.
Neuvillette leaned back against the wall, closed his eyes, and whispered to the humidity, “I am in so much trouble.”
Somewhere far below, water rushed through the pipes like they were laughing at him.
Later, much later, when Wriothesley returned with two bottles of chilled electrolyte solution and the easy cadence of someone who just gave a prisoner advice about arm form during pushups, Neuvillette took the drink, pressed the bottle to his temple like it might cure his affliction, and thanked him in the only language he had left.
“Thank you… Your Grace.”
Wriothesley coughed into his drink. Choked. Then grinned like the sun finally remembered how to burn. “You keep calling me that and I’m gonna think you’re sweet on me.”
“Then I shall endeavor to cease,” Neuvillette replied, turning away.
He didn’t see the way Wriothesley watched him go.
But the smile didn’t leave his face for the rest of the day.
II.
It began, as many of Wriothesley’s worst days did, with someone else starting a brawl. Not just someone, but a newly transferred inmate with far too much bravado and far too little sense. A former debt collector, one who apparently didn’t understand that the Fortress of Meropide was not a tavern, nor a boxing ring, nor a performance arena for his pitiful masculinity.
He took one look at Wriothesley overseeing the new intake and thought, That guy? The guy with the polite tone and the nice coat?—and made the fatal error of believing that Wriothesley was soft.
And Wriothesley, being Wriothesley, tried.
He gave the man three chances. A warning. A gesture of peace. An offer of coffee, for some reason, which only makes the idiot angrier.
Then the idiot swung.
And everything after that was blur and noise and metal on stone—except not from Wriothesley, not at first. The idiot was tackled mid-swing by one of the guards, someone yelled about security procedures, and Wriothesley didn’t even get to so much as flex before he was being surrounded by panicked staff and incoming reinforcements and, worst of all, a deeply scandalized voice from behind him:
“Your Grace!”
It cut through the chaos like a siren.
Neuvillette stood at the entrance to the courtyard, coat flared behind him like the wings of a reprimand. He was breathing hard. Whether from exertion or emotion, Wriothesley could not tell, but it made his vision tilt slightly to the left.
Neuvillette stalked forward. Stalks. Like the storm before the judgment. Like—
“You were meant to be observing intake,” Neuvillette said tightly. “Not getting punched in the face.”
“I wasn’t punched,” Wriothesley said, perhaps a little more smugly than the situation warrants. “I was about to—”
“I am aware of what you were about to do,” Neuvillette cut in, stepping closer. Too close. Far, far too close for public decency and Wriothesley’s sanity. “You cannot keep inserting yourself into every situation with your fists. You are not a frontline officer. You are the warden. And furthermore—”
“‘Your Grace,’ huh,” the idiot on the ground muttered, nose probably broken, “what is he, your boyfriend?”
Several things happened at once.
One: Wriothesley’s jaw tightened.
Two: every single guard within earshot made the same strained noise that falls somewhere between oh no and please don’t fire me for witnessing this.
Three: Neuvillette, Chief Justice of Fontaine, oldest soul in the land, Judge of Tides and Tempests, went very, very still.
Wriothesley had fought beasts and storms and bureaucrats. He had held this fortress in his palm and bled into its stone until it knew his name. But he had never—never—seen Neuvillette look like that.
Cold.
Utterly cold.
He knelt.
Kneels.
To the idiot on the floor, who had the sudden good sense to stop breathing.
Neuvillette’s voice was quiet. Deadly. “I am not his boyfriend.”
A pause. A cruel sliver of mercy.
“Though,” he added, tone still glacial, “if I were, I would not tolerate your disrespect.”
The courtyard had never been so silent.
Wriothesley did not breathe. He was too busy spontaneously combusting.
Neuvillette stood and brushed imaginary dust from his knees. He turned to Wriothesley and, with the air of someone determined to double down on a mistake, said again, “Your Grace. I must insist. The security procedures are not optional. If you refuse to follow protocol, I will submit an official reprimand.”
“You wouldn’t,” Wriothesley said, nearly croaking.
“I would.”
“I’d have to sign it myself.”
“I would take great pleasure in watching you do so.”
Wriothesley swallowed a laugh. His entire body was humming. His entire soul was—he didn’t even know. Singing? Panicking? Writing a love poem to the fact that Neuvillette knelt for him and threatened violence in the same breath?
He should respond with something cool. Something witty. But his mouth was dry and his brain was soup and Neuvillette was still looking at him, waiting for a response, stern and elegant and—gods above—concerned, under it all.
So instead of saying something dignified, Wriothesley muttered, “That’s twice now.”
Neuvillette blinked. “What?”
“You called me ‘Your Grace’ again.”
Neuvillette’s mouth opens. Then closed. Then opened again. He looked momentarily like a fish and Wriothesley briefly entertained the idea of telling Sigewinne. She would love that.
“I—it is—your official title,” Neuvillette stammered.
“So you’ve said,” Wriothesley grinned, stepping into his space now, the tension between them pulling taut like a string across a violin. “Still. Twice now. Kind of a habit.”
Neuvillette recovered fast. That glint returned to his eye—the one that said I see your nonsense and raise you judicial fury.
“I suppose it is preferable to ‘Wrio.’”
“I never said you couldn’t use pet names.”
“I will file a restraining order.”
“I’ll laminate it.”
Neuvillette exhaled sharply through his nose, turned on his heel, and stalked away toward the administrative wing, coat snapping behind him.
Wriothesley watched him go. Watched the line of his shoulders, the set of his jaw. Watched the way his hand hovers just a moment too long over the railing before descending the stairs. Like maybe—just maybe—he hadn’t meant to sound as jealous as he had.
“‘Boyfriend,’ huh,” Wriothesley said under his breath, watching Neuvillette vanish around a corner.
And then, quieter: “I’d kneel for you too, y’know.”
No one heard it but the pipes.
III.
The third time Neuvillette called Wriothesley “Your Grace,” it happened in the middle of a press conference.
It was supposed to be a standard, uneventful judicial announcement—a perfectly punctual affair concerning three minor ordinances, two overhauled penal protocols, and one updated clause in the Fortress of Meropide's rehabilitation programming (something about fewer shock collars, more library hours). Furina had insisted on a public broadcast, naturally, because nothing thrilled her more than the sound of her own voice echoing through ornate microphones and bouncing off the frothy domes of the Opera Epiclese like waves off the hull of a drowning courtroom.
“It’s not a show,” Neuvillette had said flatly that morning.
“It’s always a show, darling,” Furina had chirped, already halfway through her third outfit change.
And to be fair—it was going according to script. For the first twenty minutes.
Until he walked in.
Wriothesley. He was late and unapologetic about it. And casual in a way that sent half the assistants scrambling for sedatives and the other half quietly sighing like they were in the third act of a romantic opera.
He was wearing his coat—his usual one, lined with fur and barely fastened, sleeves pushed up to his elbows like a man who’d gotten into a brawl with both decorum and sleeves and won. There was a smudge of ink on his left thumb. A faint red mark on his neck. He looked, in short, like someone who had been inconveniently detained by real life and had only just remembered that the Chief Justice of Fontaine might care.
He strolled in like he owned the place.
He smiled like he knew it.
Furina, already mid-sentence about reformation incentives for formerly incarcerated criminals, stopped speaking.
Mid-word.
“—and of course we believe in supporting recidivism prevention through the distribution of regulated pastry privileges and—”
Pause.
Blink.
“Wriothesley?” she said.
He raised a hand in a lazy wave. “Don’t mind me.”
“Oh, darling,” she purred, delighted, “I would love to mind you—publicly, if possible—except you’re criminally tardy, and we’re on-air. Also, that shirt is insultingly tight.”
“It’s laundry day,” Wriothesley said with a grin that made someone in the front row drop their clipboard.
Neuvillette did not sigh.
He breathed very deeply. Once. Through his nose.
“Let us return to the matter at hand,” he said. “The audience would prefer that we not prolong today’s proceedings.”
“But he looks so contrite,” Furina said with a gleam in her eye. “Doesn’t he, Neuvillette? Look at him! Like a dog caught stealing sweets!”
Neuvillette did not look at him.
He did not look at him with extreme effort. But the thing about avoiding looking at Wriothesley was that he could still hear him. Especially when Wriothesley walked up beside him, placed one (criminally warm) hand on the edge of the table, and leaned down just enough to murmur:
“You look like you haven’t slept.”
Neuvillette did not flinch.
“I have slept,” he said, eyes still forward.
“Not well, though. You’ve got that wrinkle between your brows.”
“I always have that wrinkle.”
“Only when Furina’s talking too much or when I’m around. I’m honored to be part of such an exclusive club.”
Neuvillette turned to look at him then.
It was a mistake.
Wriothesley’s face was close. Too close. The lighting was flattering. The smirk was smug. And something beneath it—gentler, warmer, steadier—was worse.
“You have flour on your collar,” Neuvillette said stiffly.
“Oh?” Wriothesley glanced down. “Must’ve been from the new bakery kid. She got nervous and threw a whole bag at me. Said I was too ‘duke-y.’”
“Too duke-y.”
“Yeah. Like, radiating authority or something. You’d get it.”
Neuvillette turned away.
Rain began to patter lightly on the windows behind them.
“Your Grace,” he said, the words sharp and final like a sentence delivered, “if you intend to remain, I expect you to refrain from derailing the proceedings.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Every head in the room turned toward them. Even Furina looked stunned, like someone had just slapped a croissant out of her hand.
Neuvillette blinked.
Wriothesley blinked.
The cameraman zoomed in.
“…What did you just call me?” Wriothesley asked, blinking once more, as if replaying it in his head just to make sure he hadn’t dreamt it up out of sheer auditory thirst.
“I—” Neuvillette began, and immediately regretted beginning.
Because Furina, ever the opportunist, had latched on.
“Oh ho HO,” she said, clapping her hands like a delighted dolphin. “Your Grace, is it? I thought we reserved that sort of tone for sentencing statements, not for scandalous late arrivals wearing discount shirts!”
“It is his title,” Neuvillette said, sounding very much like someone who wanted the sea to swallow him whole.
“Sure it is,” Furina said. “And when I call Wriothesley Your Grace, it’s because I’m fantasizing about him ordering me to my knees. You, however—”
“Furina,” Neuvillette said, dangerously calm, “we are still on air.”
“Better! Fontaine deserves transparency!”
The audience, thoroughly invested now, erupted into murmurs. Somewhere in the back row, someone was fanning themselves with a docket.
Wriothesley, for his part, looked halfway between flustered and very, very intrigued.
“I like it,” he said.
“Like what?”
“‘Your Grace.’ When you say it.”
“It means nothing,” Neuvillette snapped, a little too fast. “It’s simply protocol.”
“You say it like it means something.”
Neuvillette opened his mouth.
No words came out.
Furina looked like she was physically vibrating with glee.
“Well, Fontaine,” she cooed, leaning into the camera, “you heard it here first. The Iudex has a type. And apparently it involves late dukes with flour allergies.”
Wriothesley, to his eternal shame, winked at the camera.
Neuvillette, to his eternal shame, felt his knees wobble.
The press conference ended early.
Officially, due to "unexpected weather conditions" and "technical interference."
Unofficially, due to Neuvillette storming out and dragging half the atmosphere with him.
Wriothesley followed him outside.
“You’re blushing again,” he said.
“I am not,” Neuvillette said.
“It’s raining indoors again.”
“That is unrelated.”
“You only rain indoors when you're flustered.”
“Your Grace,” Neuvillette said through gritted teeth, “if you do not cease this line of inquiry—”
“You’ll what?” Wriothesley leaned in, grinning. “Sentence me to another conversation where you call me Your Grace in that voice?”
“I have a perfectly neutral tone—”
“You don’t.”
“You are insufferable—”
“And yet you keep talking to me.”
Neuvillette inhaled. Exhaled. Did not combust.
And said, because he could not help himself, in the softest voice the rain had ever carried:
“Your Grace.”
Wriothesley blinked.
Then, softly:
“Yeah?”
Neuvillette closed his eyes.
“…Never mind.”
IV.
It happened because of a hat. Not just any hat, of course. That would be too easy. No, this hat was an abomination. A crime against fashion, fabric, and basic geometry. And yet, it sat—proudly, horrifically—atop Wriothesley’s head like it belongs there. Like he belongs to it.
Neuvillette was speechless.
This was rare.
This was terrifying.
It began, innocently enough (all crimes against good sense did), on a quiet afternoon following a tribunal hearing where Wriothesley had, allegedly, behaved. He had not punched anyone. He had not argued with the press. He had not challenged the court stenographer to a wrestling match in the name of "handwriting supremacy." In fact, he had sat there for three whole hours with his hands folded and his mouth shut and only interrupted once to make a wry observation about one of the defense’s rhetorical strategies. Neuvillette had almost been proud.
So when Wriothesley invites him for tea afterward—not at the Fortress, but at a tiny corner shop near the Opera Epiclese—Neuvillette said yes.
A mistake.
The first mistake of many.
The teahouse was warm and sunlit. The windows were fogged gently with the chill of early spring. The chairs were mismatched in the charming way that suggests intentional chaos, and the proprietor greeted Wriothesley like a friend.
And then—
Then.
Then Wriothesley took off his coat.
And put on a hat.
Neuvillette stared.
It was unclear whether Wriothesley was aware of the full magnitude of his actions. The hat was crocheted. The hat was powder blue. The hat was shaped vaguely like a cat. It had ears. Ears.
Wriothesley was speaking casually. About tea blends. About gardenias. About a inmate who drew him a picture last week in the Fortress rec room that he’s still trying to figure out how to hang without causing a scandal.
Neuvillette did not hear any of it.
Because Wriothesley was wearing a powder blue cat-ear hat and Neuvillette’s brain had gone offline in protest.
Wriothesley finally noticed his silence.
“You okay?”
Neuvillette opened his mouth. Closed it.
Wriothesley tilted his head. The hat tilted with him. The ears drooped slightly.
Neuvillette’s hand twitched.
“You are,” Neuvillette said slowly, voice thinner than usual, “wearing… a hat.”
Wriothesley grinned. “Sigewinne made it. Said it was good for circulation. Something about warmth retention. And mental health. And making people smile. I kind of tuned out after she shoved it on my head.”
“It had ears.”
“Yeah.” Wriothesley shrugged, as if this was a point in the hat’s favor. “She thought they were cute.”
Neuvillette continued to stare.
The waitress came and took their order. Wriothesley thanked her. Neuvillette did not register her presence. He was having an out-of-body experience.
“I see,” he said finally. “And you chose to wear this in public.”
Wriothesley hummed. “Well, not at the hearing. That would be unprofessional. But here? With you? Sure.”
That should be a throwaway line. An offhanded comment.
But Neuvillette, like the fool he was, made the mistake of parsing it.
With you.
As in: you were someone I trusted.
As in: you were someone I wanted to make smile.
As in: I would look like a fool on purpose, if it meant seeing you laugh.
Neuvillette looked down at his teacup. His reflection stared back at him: wide-eyed, disoriented, deeply, irreversibly in love with a man wearing a cat-ear hat.
“Your Grace,” he said softly.
The moment the words leave his mouth, he realized what he’s done.
Wriothesley, of course, did not miss it.
“Fourth time,” he said, smiling into his tea.
Neuvillette’s spoon clinked against porcelain. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.”
“It is your official title.”
“You’re staring at me like I’ve committed a crime against nature.”
“You have.”
“And yet you’re still calling me ‘Your Grace.’” Wriothesley leaned forward slightly, resting his chin on one hand. The hat’s ears drooped again. Somehow, heartbreakingly, this did not make him less attractive. “You know, I think you like me.”
Neuvillette stared at the wall behind him. He considered pressing his forehead to it and staying there until the masonry erodes around him in sympathy.
“You are insufferable,” he mutters.
“You keep showing up.”
“I am not here for you. I am here for the tea.”
“Oh? So if I took off, you wouldn’t miss me?”
“…That is not what I said.”
“Then what are you saying, Neuvillette?”
Neuvillette looked at him. Really looked. At the man who could command an entire fortress and wear a hat with floppy ears. At the man who held respect and rebellion in equal hands. At the man who was waiting—not teasing, not pushing, just waiting—for him to offer something real.
“I am saying,” Neuvillette replied, each word careful as a raindrop on glass, “that I am still adjusting to the possibility of… warmth.”
Wriothesley’s eyes softened. The smile he offered was not a grin, this time. It was not cocky. It was not teasing.
It was soft. It was kind. It was everything Neuvillette had never let himself have.
“Well,” Wriothesley said, nudging the sugar jar toward him, “you’re welcome to adjust here. As long as you need.”
Neuvillette added sugar to his tea. More than usual. Wriothesley noticed, but said nothing.
They drank in silence for a moment. The sun filtered through the window. The steam curled between them like something alive.
And Neuvillette thought, If he calls me anything but ‘Chief Justice,’ I think I’ll let him.
But he didn’t say it.
V.
It began with Furina’s fault.
As most Fontainean catastrophes did.
Because Furina had organized yet another diplomatic soirée under the pretense of “maintaining international relations” but in practice as an elaborate excuse to wear a seventeen-foot train and an even longer grievance list. Delegates from Liyue, Sumeru, and Mondstadt had been invited. Opera singers were flown in. There was a themed chocolate fountain.
And Neuvillette—reluctant, punctual, and already drenched despite the perfectly good ceiling—stood in the corner sipping something sparkly and blue that may have been juice or may have been finely fermented seafoam.
It was, in short, torture.
Which was when Wriothesley walked in.
Wearing a suit.
A tailored suit.
A crisp, dark, navy-blue, wolf-in-midnight-wool suit with a white shirt open just enough to suggest recklessness and sleeves rolled just enough to inspire impure thoughts. His hair was slicked back but already starting to curl loose at the temples. He wore cufflinks shaped like the Meropide crest and a half-smile that belonged in a wanted poster.
And worst of all?
He was smiling at someone else.
Some Liyue delegate that was laughing at something Wriothesley had just whispered. Their hand lingered too long on his forearm. Their eyes flicked to his lips.
Neuvillette felt something terrible and ancient swell in his chest.
Not a storm.
No.
A tidal wave.
The kind that ruins coasts.
He did not storm over.
He walked. Like judgment itself.
“Wriothesley,” he said.
Wriothesley turned.
Neuvillette did not look at the Liyue delegate. He looked only at the man who was now blinking at him like he hadn’t just committed emotional manslaughter.
“Neuvillette,” Wriothesley said, pleasantly. “You’re early.”
“I am on time,” Neuvillette said tightly. “You, however, seem to be very... occupied.”
The Liyue delegate looked between them, eyes sparkling. “Oh, am I interrupting?”
Wriothesley chuckled. “Not at all. We were just discussing shared sentencing reforms—”
“Fascinating,” Neuvillette interrupted. “Your Grace, might I borrow you for a moment?”
The Liyue delegate’s eyebrows raised. “Your Grace?”
“Oh,” Wriothesley said, blinking, “we’re doing that again.”
“Yes,” Neuvillette replied, already turning on his heel. “We are.”
Wriothesley followed—grinning, still slightly bewildered—and caught up three steps later.
“Was that necessary?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I was just talking.”
“You were flirting.”
“Oh?” Wriothesley said, voice dropping low. “Jealous?”
Neuvillette didn’t look at him.
“I am not in the habit of experiencing irrational emotions.”
“Jealousy is not always irrational.”
“Jealousy implies possession,” Neuvillette snapped, then immediately regretted it.
Wriothesley paused.
“So,” he said slowly, “you’re not jealous. But you do think I’m something to possess.”
Neuvillette stopped walking.
He turned.
There was rain in his eyes.
“I think you are reckless,” he said, voice low and tight. “I think you flirt like a man who’s never had to clean up after the messes you make. I think you walk into rooms and commandeer them, and that you have no idea how difficult it is to not—”
“Not what?”
Neuvillette exhaled.
“Not want.”
Wriothesley blinked.
Then, very softly:
“You called me ‘Your Grace’ in front of him.”
Neuvillette didn’t answer.
“That’s the title you use when you’re hiding,” Wriothesley said, stepping closer. “When you’re afraid saying my name might mean something.”
“It is your official title.”
“It’s a shield.”
“You are being ridiculous.”
“No,” Wriothesley said, suddenly serious. “You’re the one being ridiculous. You think calling me ‘Your Grace’ keeps you safe. But it doesn’t. Because I hear what you mean underneath it. Every time.”
Neuvillette said nothing.
Rain began to fall inside the ballroom.
Again.
“Wriothesley,” he said quietly.
Wriothesley inhaled sharply.
“That’s better,” he murmured. “Say it again.”
“No.”
“Say it without flinching.”
Neuvillette looked at him.
Looked at him like a tide looked at a shipwreck and wondered if it could carry it home.
Then—
“Wriothesley.”
He said it like a promise.
Wriothesley smiled.
“Thank you,” he said.
And kissed him.
Right there.
In the middle of the diplomatic soirée. Under the chandeliers. In front of the seafoam and the stars.
And Furina, somewhere behind them, shrieked, “I knew it! I KNEW IT!! Someone give me a gavel and a camera, I want this documented for history!”
Neuvillette didn’t care.
Because Wriothesley’s mouth was warm, and his hands were steady, and the rain was gentle this time—more mist than downpour. A confession in droplets.
“Your Grace,” Neuvillette whispered against his lips.
“Hmm?”
“This is wildly inappropriate.”
Wriothesley laughed.
“So are you.”
+1.
It was raining.
(Not that this was new. But this time, it wasn’t because Neuvillette was upset, or flustered, or privately reeling from the sight of Wriothesley leaning on a wall with his arms crossed like a Renaissance painting that had done too many pushups.)
No—this was different.
This was the kind of rain that fell slowly. Gently. The kind of rain that lingered on rooftops like a sigh and slipped down windows like the last lines of a love letter.
It was the kind of rain that asked for silence.
And it was the kind of morning where Neuvillette woke up first.
---
He lay there in bed—barefoot, bare-chested, bare-faced—and stared at the man beside him.
Wriothesley slept like someone who’d never had to be afraid. Arms thrown overhead. Face tilted into the pillow. Hair an unruly halo. Mouth parted just slightly, like he was in the middle of dreaming something sweet, or stupid, or both.
He looked soft. Not the kind of soft that could be mistaken for weakness.
The kind of soft that broke you open.
The kind of soft that made you want to stay.
Neuvillette stared at him for a long time. Longer than was necessary. Longer than was dignified. And when Wriothesley stirred—stretching, blinking blearily—Neuvillette did not look away.
“Mornin’,” Wriothesley said, voice thick with sleep. “You’re staring.”
“Yes.”
“Should I be flattered or worried?”
“Flattered,” Neuvillette said. “But also a little worried.”
“Oh?”
“Because I think I’m going to say something dangerous.”
Wriothesley rolled onto his side. “How dangerous?”
Neuvillette looked at him and smiled. Small.
“The kind of dangerous you deserve.”
Wriothesley raised an eyebrow. “Is this a threat?”
“No,” Neuvillette said softly. “It’s a truth.”
A pause. The rain whispered.
Wriothesley waited.
And Neuvillette inhaled—slow, steady, like it hurt—and said:
“Beloved.”
Wriothesley froze completely.
Like someone had pulled the air out of the room and left only that word.
He blinked once. Twice.
“I’m sorry—what?”
“I said,” Neuvillette repeated, with more courage this time, “Beloved.”
Beloved.
Like something sacred. Something chosen.
Wriothesley sat up. His breath stuttered.
“Say it again.”
“No.”
“Say it again.”
“You’ll make fun of me.”
“I swear I won’t.”
“You absolutely will.”
“Not this time.”
Neuvillette eyed him.
Wriothesley leaned in. Soft and open.
Brave in the way men were only brave when they were terrified.
Neuvillette touched his face and brushed a lock of hair from his eyes.
And whispered—
“Beloved.”
Wriothesley exhaled like he’d been drowning for years and only just broke the surface.
“…You mean it.”
“I do.”
“You’ve never said that before.”
“I’ve wanted to,” Neuvillette said, voice cracking at the edges, “but it always came out wrong. It always came out too small. Like it didn’t cover enough of what you are. So I used something else because it felt safer. Because it let me want you at a distance.”
Wriothesley was quiet. Too quiet.
Until—
He pulled Neuvillette into his arms and held him. Tight.
“I like ‘Your Grace,’” he murmured into Neuvillette’s shoulder. “But I think I like this more.”
Neuvillette laughed. Just once. Just barely.
“Do you?”
“I like being loved.”
“You’re a menace.”
“You love me.”
“Tragically.”
“Say it again.”
“No.”
“Please?”
“…Beloved.”
Wriothesley kissed him like a verdict.
And the rain outside stopped just for a moment.