Work Text:
The first problem was the teacups.
Wriothesley had merely suggested they “get something warm,” because “Fontaine’s weather is being extra dramatic today,” and because “you’ve been glaring at the clouds like they personally offended you.” To which Neuvillette had blinked once, nodded solemnly, and responded with all the nuance of a man invited to a high-level diplomatic summit rather than what Wriothesley had intended to be “casual, platonic, not-weird-at-all tea.”
Which was fine. Except it wasn’t.
Because what actually happened was this:
Wriothesley, hair still damp from the sea mist and a little windblown in a way that made half the Court’s clerks fan themselves aggressively, met Neuvillette by the fountain plaza with the air of a man who had definitely not agonized over his coat selection for twenty minutes.
“You made it,” he said, smiling like it didn’t matter. (It did. He’d checked the time twenty-three times. Clocks were beginning to file complaints.)
“Of course,” said Neuvillette, completely unaware that the phrase “I made it” had different connotations when one was attending a romantic outing. He had also brought a stack of legal documents in case this meeting included review of court procedure, which it decidedly did not.
“Thought we’d try that new place with the upside-down chandelier and the drinks that sparkle. My informants say the cake glows,” Wriothesley said.
“Are your informants reliable?” Neuvillette asked.
“They’re five old ladies who run a knitting circle in the Fortress and know everything. So, yes.”
“Excellent. I admire reliable intelligence.”
Neuvillette said this with the utter gravity of a man discussing international espionage. He was also wearing gloves. For tea.
It was then that Navia, observing from her nearby bench while pretending to feed pigeons (she wasn’t, they were just there for moral support), sent a single, desperate message to Sigewinne via vision-powered communicator:
They don’t know it’s a date.
Emergency protocols must be enacted. Operation: “Make Them Touch” is a go.
The café in question was called “Le Tranquille Torrent,” which sounded like a spa and looked like a fever dream. Someone in interior design had decided that chandeliers belonged on the floor and waterfalls belonged on the ceiling. Wriothesley loved it instantly.
Neuvillette looked around like he was mentally calculating the number of workplace safety violations.
A small server named Brienne (age 19, hopes, dreams, and at least three active bets riding on this encounter) seated them in the corner booth with an abundance of subtlety and a clear, unrelenting shipper agenda.
Wriothesley sat across from Neuvillette, then reconsidered and slid around to sit beside him. He did this casually. Like it didn’t mean anything. Like his thigh didn’t brush Neuvillette’s. Like his entire soul wasn’t screaming at the proximity.
Neuvillette, to his credit, didn’t flinch. He merely blinked once, glanced sideways, and said, “Ah. You prefer this orientation for strategic visibility of the exit?”
“Yes,” said Wriothesley, who had no such plan and absolutely did not just want to sit close enough to count Neuvillette’s lashes.
They ordered tea.
---
Meanwhile, outside the window:
Navia was joined by Charlotte, Clorinde, and a rapidly growing crowd of legal aides, Melusines, and local gossip columnists pretending to be on break.
Someone had brought popcorn.
Sigewinne arrived by rooftop. “How bad is it?”
“They’re sitting next to each other,” Navia whispered.
“That’s progress.”
“They’re discussing legislative procedure.”
“Oh gods. We’re going to need backup.”
---
Inside, the conversation was indeed derailing fast.
Wriothesley: “...and then Sigewinne made me this ridiculous chart about my caffeine intake. It glows. It sparkles. It judges me.”
Neuvillette: “Ah. Perhaps we should integrate that into Fontaine’s health initiative. Would you consider submitting it as evidence?”
Wriothesley: “Only if I get visitation rights.”
Neuvillette: “To the chart?”
Wriothesley: “...Sure.”
A pause.
They sipped tea.
Neuvillette: “This blend is quite soothing.”
Wriothesley: “You’re soothing.”
Neuvillette blinked. “Pardon?”
“The tea,” Wriothesley lied. “The tea is soothing.”
Neuvillette nodded, then proceeded to stare at his cup as if it held the answers to love, law, and existential longing.
(It did not. It had a flower in it. It was floating awkwardly.)
Meanwhile, under the table, two things happened:
Wriothesley’s pinky accidentally brushed Neuvillette’s.
Neuvillette did not move away.
Wriothesley died. Came back. Sipped his tea like nothing happened.
Neuvillette considered this brush of skin, catalogued it, stored it somewhere under “Noteworthy Occurrences: See Also, Gentlemen.” He did not look up.
---
In the café’s kitchen:
Brienne ran to the back. “They shared a dessert spoon,” she gasped.
“You mean a bite?”
“No. A spoon.”
Screams.
---
Something hung between them. Not tension, exactly. That would imply either of them was capable of naming what they were feeling.
No, it was something much worse.
It was hope.
The quiet, trembling, delicate kind that hovers just beneath the surface of polite conversation like a jellyfish made of emotional constipation. A hope so fragile even the clink of a teacup could scare it off. The kind of hope that attaches itself to the shape of someone’s smile and refuses to leave, no matter how many times you tell yourself this is Just Tea With A Coworker.
They sipped.
They lingered.
Neuvillette tilted his head to regard the chandelier overhead, whose glowing crystals pulsed with faint aquamarine light. “Curious design. Is it meant to resemble… rainfall, perhaps?”
Wriothesley, who had been very bravely attempting not to stare at the slope of Neuvillette’s neck, nearly choked on his drink. “You—what?”
“The chandelier,” Neuvillette said, as if this explained everything. “A symbolic inversion. Light falling upward, evoking storm and serenity at once. A suspended deluge.”
Wriothesley blinked. “Right. Rain. Very… poetic.”
Neuvilitte blinked back. “It’s literal.”
“I mean—sure.”
They lapsed back into silence. The kind that people mistake for comfort but is actually just two men playing emotional chicken with their own feelings.
---
At a nearby table outside, a Melusine named Pip had climbed onto the back of a bench to get a better view.
“Do you think they’ll kiss?” she whispered to Clorinde.
“They don’t even know they’re on a date,” Clorinde hissed back. “They think this is a committee meeting.”
Pip frowned. “Are they always like this?”
Navia leaned over the table, an entire organizational binder of “Intervention Protocols for Romantically Repressed Men” open in her lap. “This is advanced-stage oblivious. I’ve seen rocks with more self-awareness.”
Charlotte looked up from her surveillance sketchpad—yes, she was sketching this. For posterity. “I’ve got a shot of Wriothesley staring at Neuvillette’s hands like they hold the answers to the universe.”
“They do,” said Clorinde grimly.
---
Back inside, Wriothesley was internally reciting his own will.
Do not reach for his hand, he thought. Do not compliment his eyes. Do not mention how you sometimes think about the way he says “Your Grace” like it’s bedroom name.
Instead, he said: “So, uh… good tea.”
Neuvillette nodded. “A surprisingly complex profile. Hibiscus, elderflower, a hint of—”
“Justice,” Wriothesley offered.
Neuvillette paused. “...Pine, I believe.”
“Right. Totally what I meant.”
A long pause.
“Your Grace,” Neuvillette began, adjusting the gloves he still hadn’t removed. “I hope this… outing… has not interfered with your schedule.”
“It hasn’t,” Wriothesley said, far too quickly.
“You’re certain?”
“Neuvillette,” Wriothesley said, voice soft, “I would’ve canceled a riot to be here.”
Neuvillette blinked slowly, lips parting like he was about to say something with actual emotional substance.
But then their server returned with a new pot of tea, and the moment collapsed under the weight of polite refills and floral steam.
---
Outside, someone shrieked, “HE SAID HE’D CANCEL A RIOT FOR HIM.”
Navia slapped a hand over their mouth. “You’ll spook them! They’re like skittish deer. Beautiful, oblivious deer with law degrees.”
---
The second problem was the umbrella.
Wriothesley, having gallantly paid for the entire tea experience with his Hero of the Fortress discount (and definitely not just to feel suave), stepped outside into a light mist of Fontaine rain. The clouds hung low, humming with magic and emotional repression.
Neuvillette followed, eyes flicking skyward.
“Oh,” he said softly. “She’s crying again.”
Wriothesley glanced over. “You say that like the rain is a person.”
“It is,” Neuvillette said. “Or rather—many persons. The grief of the nation. The longing of the tide.”
“Right,” Wriothesley said, very calmly. “Totally normal to be in love with a man who talks like a tragic ocean god.”
“What?”
“What?”
“What did you just say?”
“Nothing. Rain’s nice.”
They stood there in silence for a moment longer as water beaded on Neuvillette’s lashes like delicate glass.
And then—
“Ah. I brought an umbrella,” Wriothesley said, dramatically producing it from his coat like it was a sword of romantic subtext. “Want to share?”
Neuvillette turned to look at him. The umbrella was comically small.
“I do not believe that will suffice,” he said.
“Sure it will,” Wriothesley replied. “Just get close.”
Neuvillette hesitated. Then stepped forward.
And forward. And closer.
Their arms brushed. Their shoulders touched. The umbrella tilted slightly as Wriothesley adjusted it to cover Neuvillette more, rain trailing down his own back like he didn’t care—because he didn’t.
Neuvillette said nothing.
Wriothesley said nothing.
But their silence was now full of a third thing: proximity. Unspoken want.
The unbearable weight of maybe.
---
The rain didn’t stop, and neither did the silence.
Wriothesley’s shoulder was wet. His coat was damp. His dignity was… negotiable. But he would rather perish (again) than move an inch further away from Neuvillette, who was now standing close enough that Wriothesley could count the raindrops caught on the strands of his hair, one by one, like some kind of hydrological rosary.
Neuvillette, for his part, had a furrow between his brows that suggested he was deeply concerned—not about the umbrella, or the weather, or the fact that Wriothesley’s arm was currently pressed to his own with all the gentle pressure of a man actively praying no one pulls away—but because the sky’s emotional state seemed to mirror something in himself that he didn’t have the proper protocol for.
“The rain has become inconsistent,” he murmured.
“Maybe she’s nervous,” Wriothesley offered, like a dumbass.
Neuvillette blinked. “Pardon?”
“The rain. She’s doing that weird sprinkle-pour-stop-pour again. She’s probably, you know…” Wriothesley waved his free hand vaguely. “Feeling weird. About stuff.”
“You are suggesting,” Neuvilitte said slowly, “that the sky is emotionally compromised.”
“I’m saying,” Wriothesley said, more slowly, “that maybe she’s watching two people do something very stupid under an umbrella and is trying to give them privacy.”
Neuvillette blinked again, then looked away.
Then blushed.
Blushed.
The Chief Justice of Fontaine—dragged directly out of a marble statue catalog and legally incapable of recreational emotion—was blushing.
The rain immediately stopped.
“I see,” Neuvillette said, with an air of such bone-deep reverence it could have been confused with a confession.
Wriothesley almost dropped the umbrella.
---
Elsewhere, Operation Mutual Obliviousness Surveillance Team had moved to the Aquarium.
Why?
Because Neuvillette, in an act of self-sabotage, had asked—formally—if Wriothesley would like to “continue the analysis of public venues designed for leisure and educational purposes.”
(AKA: “Would you like to walk around with me and look at fish.”)
(AKA: A date.)
Wriothesley said yes so fast he forgot he still had the umbrella and was halfway down the street before he realized it was flapping behind him like a limp bat wing.
They entered the aquarium side by side.
They did not hold hands. They did not buy the “Two-for-One Couple’s Entry” ticket.
They did, however, walk slowly and synchronously enough that a clerk in the gift shop muttered “Soulmates” under her breath and was fined 25 mora by her coworker, who had a betting pool going.
They passed tanks of jellyfish, soft as dreams. Schools of silver fish darting like rumors. A manta ray that swam past the glass and made eye contact with Wriothesley, who whispered, “I think he knows,” and made Neuvillette snort—snort—so softly it had to be written down in the Fontaine Archives as a national miracle.
“You’re surprisingly good with aquatic creatures,” Neuvillette said.
“Well, prison doesn’t have many aquariums, but I do have a fondness for sea cucumbers.”
“Why?”
“They’re blobby and underappreciated,” Wriothesley replied, tone matter-of-fact. “They mind their business. Just like me.”
“You hardly mind your business.”
“Only because you are my business.”
There was a pause.
A long pause. A very long pause.
“I mean,” Wriothesley said, backpedaling violently, “in the sense that law and order is—y’know—important. Societal structures. You’re the judiciary. I’m correctional oversight. We’re a team. Not—like—that kind of team, unless—”
Neuvillette had not moved. He was watching a sea turtle float past like it held divine answers.
“It’s fascinating,” he said softly. “How some creatures seem so slow, and yet go exactly where they’re meant to.”
Wriothesley blinked.
“Yeah,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Wild.”
---
Wriothesley, who had faced down chaos beasts, political subterfuge, and inmates who refused to recycle, was now losing a slow and brutal battle to a sea turtle. Not the turtle itself, which floated serenely on the other side of the glass like a creature unbothered by mortal failings—but what the turtle represented.
Which was apparently fate. Or destiny. Or something poetic and wet.
Neuvillette, meanwhile, stood like a marble statue commissioned by someone who wanted to capture “gentle, unknowable yearning” and succeeded too well. The gentle angle of his shoulders, the calm line of his mouth, the soft crease between his brows—he looked like he was contemplating the exact curvature of time that had brought them both to this moment. Or maybe just how long it would take the turtle to reach the other end of the tank.
Wriothesley swallowed. He opened his mouth.
He was going to say something.
Something terrifying.
And then—
“Would you like to see the crustaceans?” Neuvillette asked, voice serene.
Wriothesley blinked.
“I—what?”
“There’s a section devoted to hermit crabs and others with shell-based externalities. I think you might enjoy them.”
Wriothesley made a noise that could generously be interpreted as agreement.
He followed.
The conversation about fate died a quiet death, buried under the sound of footsteps on polished tile and a single crab waving its claw in accusatory judgment.
---
The crustacean exhibit was… a mistake.
Wriothesley, upon seeing a tank labeled “Battle of the Titans: Giant Crab Showdown,” decided that he was going to get into a staring contest with the largest specimen.
Neuvillette watched this happen with the air of someone who was both horrified and inexplicably charmed.
“You do realize it cannot comprehend dominance hierarchies in a human context,” he said gently.
“That’s what the crab wants you to think,” Wriothesley replied, squinting harder. “He’s testing me. He knows I know he knows.”
Neuvillette pressed a hand to his temple. “You are attempting to outwit a bottom-feeder.”
“Justice is blind,” Wriothesley intoned. “But the crab sees all.”
The crab clicked its claw once. Menacingly.
Neuvillette leaned in slightly, voice very low. “Do not escalate this.”
Wriothesley did not escalate. But he did whisper, “I respect your power, General Clawthorne. This war ends here.”
Neuvillette sighed like the sea pulling back from shore.
---
Elsewhere, the disaster team had now officially declared them a catastrophic romantic delay zone.
Brienne, who had been observing through a cleverly hidden periscope (borrowed from the Furina, long story), reported in:
“He challenged a crab to a duel and then called it ‘General Clawthorne.’”
“What does it mean?”
“I think it was a metaphor. Maybe. Possibly. He might just be weird.”
“New theory,” Sigewinne said. “They’re both in love and allergic to the concept of admitting it.”
“It’s not a theory if it’s true,” Navia muttered.
“I give it two more dates,” Clorinde said, sipping her espresso. “Three, tops. Then someone breaks.”
“You said that three dates ago.”
“I am choosing hope over evidence.”
---
Back in the exhibit, Wriothesley and Neuvillette were now seated on a bench near the octopus tank.
They were very close. Too close.
A passing aquarium employee politely cleared her throat and offered them a “date night couple’s coupon” with a smile that said I know exactly what this is.
Wriothesley choked. Neuvillette accepted it with grave dignity and no visible awareness of its implications.
“Thank you,” he said. “We appreciate the educational incentive.”
“It’s for the kissing booth,” the employee replied.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing,” she said, vanishing into the jellyfish mist like a cryptid.
Neuvillette studied the card. “Curious.”
Wriothesley was vibrating at frequencies only dolphins could hear.
---
“Do you believe sea creatures understand affection?” Neuvillette asked a moment later, watching a pair of fish swirl together.
“In the biblical sense or the emotional sense?” Wriothesley said before he could stop himself.
Neuvillette turned, very slowly. Wriothesley immediately regretted being born.
“I—uh—I meant like. Do they feel things. For each other. Loyalty. Closeness. Tenderness. You know. Fish feelings.”
Neuvillette nodded once. “Certain marine species mate for life.”
Wriothesley blinked. “Oh.”
“There’s a type of anglerfish, for instance, where the male fuses to the female permanently.”
“Oh.”
“It’s quite romantic.”
Wriothesley, a man who once bit a crime lord and got away with it, had no idea what to say to that.
Neuvillette, perfectly composed, added, “I’m not suggesting we adopt such a model, of course.”
Wriothesley made a noise that may have been “Thank the Archons,” but could also have been the death rattle of his remaining composure.
---
They exited the aquarium sometime after the sun dipped behind Fontaine’s cathedral spires, casting everything in watercolor gold. The rain had stopped. Again.
Neuvillette was walking at Wriothesley’s side. Too close to be accidental. Not close enough to count as deliberate.
His gloves were still off.
Wriothesley stared at his hands.
Neuvillette noticed. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” Wriothesley said. “No, it’s just—your hands. You never take off your gloves.”
“I trust you,” Neuvillette said.
It was said like fact. Like breath. Like gravity.
“Oh,” said Wriothesley again, with the awe of a man being gently launched into orbit.
They walked another few steps.
“You don’t need to,” Neuvillette added.
“I know,” Wriothesley said. “That’s the best part.”
---
The city had that evening hush about it—the one that settles over cobblestones like velvet, heavy with the scent of rain and the last light spilling from shopfronts. Wriothesley and Neuvillette walked shoulder-to-shoulder through streets that curved like questions they hadn’t dared ask yet.
They passed a vendor selling warm pastries shaped like sea creatures. One was a jellyfish with blueberry eyes. Wriothesley slowed.
“You hungry?” he asked, because he didn’t know how to say do you want to stay a little longer.
“I could eat,” Neuvillette said, which meant yes.
So they stopped and bought two.
And stood on the edge of the plaza, looking out over the glassy canals of Fontaine while biting off sugar-dusted tentacles like that was a normal thing people did when trying to avoid saying please don’t go home yet.
“I like this,” Wriothesley said quietly.
Neuvillette looked at him. “The pastry?”
“This. Walking around with you. Talking. Being.”
Neuvillette was silent for a long moment.
Then, very softly: “I do too.”
They didn’t move. Didn’t say more.
The silence between them wasn’t fragile anymore. It was full.
A pause.
Then—
“Would you,” Wriothesley said, voice cracking slightly, “want to—do this again? But, like. Intentionally.”
Neuvillette blinked. “You mean… intentionally as in—?”
“A date,” Wriothesley said, finally. “A real one. On purpose. With me knowing it’s a date. And you knowing it’s a date. So we don’t end up arm-wrestling crabs and calling it legislative outreach.”
Neuvillette’s lips twitched.
Wriothesley panicked. “I mean, if you don’t want to, that’s fine, I just—”
“I do.”
Wriothesley blinked.
“You do?”
“I would like very much to go on a date with you, Wriothesley,” Neuvillette said, with the clear conviction of a man delivering a sentence in court. “A real one. On purpose.”
“Oh,” Wriothesley said again, breathless.
Then, helplessly: “I should’ve asked sooner.”
“I should’ve clarified sooner.”
“I thought I was hallucinating.”
“I thought you were being polite.”
“I was being feral,” Wriothesley said. “Internally. The number of times I almost kissed you during that aquarium visit—”
Neuvillette blinked rapidly. “You—almost—?”
“Have you seen yourself next to a bioluminescent tank? I blacked out for six minutes. I think I fell in love around the sea turtle.”
Neuvillette turned a color not previously recorded by nature.
“I—” he started. Then stopped.
Then: “I practiced smiling in the mirror before meeting you.”
Wriothesley blinked. “What.”
“I wanted to look… approachable,” Neuvillette murmured, ears a bright and regal pink. “But it was difficult. I don’t often smile genuinely.”
Wriothesley’s heart exploded. Reassembled. Then exploded again.
“I would’ve taken any version of you,” he said. “The frowny one. The tidal wave one. The guy who threatened to prosecute a jellyfish for emotional damage. All of it.”
Neuvillette made a sound—half sigh, half laugh. Then, hesitantly, he held out his hand. Palm up and bare.
Wriothesley didn’t hesitate. He took it.
Their fingers fit like puzzle pieces drawn from different boxes but meant for the same picture all along.
---
Meanwhile, across town:
The Disaster Romance Observation Squad™ had gone feral.
“THEY’RE HOLDING HANDS,” Brienne screamed into a vision transmitter.
Sigewinne was spinning in a chair with joy.
Charlotte was crying and sketching at the same time.
Navia updated the Final Report.
Status: Together
Timeline: 5.75 near-dates
Catastrophic emotional repression: resolved
Forecast: Rain with chance of hand-holding and inevitable kissing
---
Back in the plaza, Wriothesley tugged Neuvillette gently toward the nearest bench.
“Sit with me?”
Neuvillette nodded. They sat.
It was quiet. The kind of quiet people wait their whole lives to deserve.
“I wasn’t sure you liked me,” Wriothesley said after a while.
“I wasn’t sure I was allowed to.”
Wriothesley turned.
Neuvillette’s gaze was steady. “You’re life. You make the sky feel different.”
“You make me feel different,” Wriothesley whispered. “Like I want to be softer. Quieter.”
Neuvillette leaned in.
The sky held its breath.
Then—
Their foreheads touched. It was barely anything.
A whisper of contact.
But in it was everything.
Yes.
And finally. And here.
They didn’t kiss. But the space between them had changed.
Shrunk and sweetened.
Warmed.
The kind of warmth that seeps into your bones and says you can rest here.
“I would like to kiss you,” Neuvillette said, plain as law.
Wriothesley laughed.
“I’d like that too.”
And then—
He did.
He leaned in. Slow and certain. Sun-warmed sugar and sea salt.
And kissed him like an answer. Like a verdict returned at last:
Guilty.
Of wanting.
Of hoping.
Of falling.
Of finally knowing what this is.
---
Above them, the sky broke into rain.
It was joyful. The kind of rain that blooms things. That washes away the weight.
That begins.