Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

He ignored the letter at first.

And the second.

And the third, for a few days at least. It was this third letter that Sigewinne noticed half buried under a stack of invoices, plucked up with a confused tilt of her head.

“Have you not even opened this? It’s postmarked from almost a week ago,” she asked, her rhinophores canting to one side with the movement of her head, not unlike a puppy. As endearing as it was, the trait drove Wriothesley up the wall because it made it more difficult to tell her no than he felt it should.

“Clearly not,” he replied, setting another invoice on top of the stack. “What could the Palais possibly want with that tool?”

“Did you even look at it?” she asked, exasperated. “It has your name on it, not the previous Administrator. It’s been almost three years, he hasn’t been addressed by name since the first one,” She stared up at him, but he gave no response. “You’re going to have to open it sooner or later. Meropide may be autonomous from the rest of Fontaine, but we still have an agreement with the Palais Mermonia.”

Internally sighing, he set his pen down, knowing this was something else that would have to be dealt with. “What kind of agreement again?”

He should probably have read that sooner, but in his defense, everything about this office was a mess and even after almost three years, he still found more messes. He kept on top of the incoming and outgoing and all the paperwork that went with it, already having worked the jobs himself for years, so the original contract itself was something that had slipped his mind.

“Meropide supplies parts in exchange for a tax reduction,” she replied. “There should be a written agreement in that cabinet, I’m sure there’s more to it than that.”

Yeah, he should have read it sooner.

Wriothesley pulled open a drawer in the filing cabinet she indicated and began to dig, picking through them one at a time. If there was meant to be some kind of system, he didn’t have the slightest clue what it was supposed to be. Like most things had been in this hellscape of an office, it was a complete mess. He’d only gotten the accounting straightened out two quarters ago, with how cooked the books were, sue him for not having read through every folder and packet in the filing cabinet that was labeled “Manuals and Maintenance Logs”. Most of the others were sorted properly, thank you very much, and somehow Sigewinne still found things faster than he did.

“You should still open the letter,” Sigewinne repeated, waving the envelope.

With another sigh, he plucked the letter from her hand, jabbing his thumbnail under the wax seal to pop it off to pull the parchment free. He began skimming it with a flat expression, getting about halfway through before his brow twitched, and he dropped it back on the table.

“Yeah, no, waste of time, it’s just some swindler,” he said, moving to knock it into the trash, but Sigewinne snatched it back first.

“Wriothesley, this isn’t someone trying to pull a fast one on you. This is Monsieur Neuvillette’s own handwriting, and I can see his Hydro residuals on the page if you’re going to tell me that’s fake too,” she informed him, crossing her arms.

He glanced down at her. “You expect me to believe that the Iudex himself, y’know, the guy that put me here, wants to make me a Duke ? Sounds like a cold day in hell, Sigewinne.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, it isn’t a scam, so I don’t know what else you want me to tell you. Are you going to go?”

“Are you going to let it go if I don’t?” he countered.

“Nope!” she beamed, and he let out yet another sigh.

“If this ends up being total bullshit, I’m throwing you so far under the bus you’ll have to swim to see the light of day again,” he threatened, receiving a very intimidated giggle in return.

“I’m sure you will, just make sure you actually write a response to that,” she nodded towards the letter.

“Alright, alright, fine,” he relented, plopping down in the chair and brushing a couple of barely filled out forms to the side, pulling out a clean sheet of paper. He wondered what he could even write that wouldn’t be unfathomably embarrassing should it turn out to be some joke after all. Giving a convicted criminal a noble title, a Duke of all things, didn’t even sound presumptuous, it sounded delusional.

But. In all the time he’d been down in the Fortress, Sigewinne had never once had bad intentions towards him, or anyone for that matter, and he couldn’t find a reason why she’d start now. It had earned her more trust than Wriothesley had ever given by choice.

So, with a sigh, he unscrewed the cap on his pen and began to write.

To: Neuvillette, Chief Justice of Fontaine …

(*)

“I told you so!” Sigewinne crowed, waving around the letter she’d snatched the second he’d finished reading it himself.

“Yeah, fine, you did,” he admitted in a put-upon grumble. “But I’m not going.”

“Why not?” she looked up with big, confused eyes. “This is a good thing.”

“I’m not going to some inauguration party or event or whatever to be paraded around like some kind of circus act. I don’t even know how this got approved, since I doubt there would be a single person there who’s happy about a convict joining their little clique,” he told her, tone dark and bitter.

“Then don’t,” she replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Inauguration ceremonies are a common tradition, yes, but they’re not a requirement. Technically, all you need to do is go up to the Palais and sign the certificate. Then you’ll just get a signet ring and a medal and be on your way,” she explained.

Huh. Given that almost every resident in Fontaine would never turn down a good party, it genuinely hadn’t occurred to him to just…not have one.

“Can I do that? Would I even be allowed to? I thought this process involved some whole…thing,” he gestured vaguely in the air, but Sigewinne just shook her head, little pigtails bobbing.

“Nope. Just ask, I really don’t think Monsieur would mind,” she encouraged, which maybe made sense? When you’ve been around as long as the Iudex has, everything probably gets boring eventually, especially politics.

Out of arguments, he resigned himself that he was, in fact, going.

Him. A Duke.

What a joke.

(*)

Standing outside the polished doors of the Chief Justice’s office in the looming halls of the Palais Mermonia, it was starting to feel like less of a joke and more of a holy shit, I’m actually doing this , but it was way too late for second thoughts now. Either he was about to peak with probably the most significant thing to ever happen to him, or he would just expire on the spot because this did, in fact, end up bullshit.

So, he did what he always did when stepping into the unknown. He sucked in a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and faced it head on.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he gave three sharp raps on the door with scarred knuckles before folding his hands behind his back.

It was almost eerie being in such a large space with no one else in it. When Wriothesley had requested they skip the fanfare, the Chief Justice suggested he just come by after hours, that he often worked into the evening if the warden wanted to avoid the crowds entirely. He couldn’t decide if the gesture was thoughtful or dismissive, but he could take it at face value easily enough.

“ Come in.”

He hadn’t heard the man speak in years, but the Chief Justice’s voice still carried that same cadence of authority. Firm, but not cruel, enacting Justice in the most fair way he knew how.

Nudging one of the doors open, he slipped into the office, large enough that the foyer managed to have the same energy of echoing emptiness as the hall, but the further in he walked, the more it faded. Still, it was quiet enough that he was hyper aware of the clinking his boots made, buckles lightly tapping rivets with each step.

When Wriothesley first got them, he’d wondered if they were too much, but quickly stopped caring when he realized how well they protected his shins. Just because he could take the hit, didn’t mean he wanted to. Dirty fighters loved shins, and by the gods did it hurt when some asshole gets a good kick in with steel toe work boots.

So yeah, the way he dressed wasn’t something he thought about much about, so naturally it was the only thing he seemed to be able to focus on as the Iudex’s desk grew closer and closer.

He showered this morning, right? Did it even matter, or would the smell of rust and grease and Meropide cling to him no matter what? His hair rarely did anything except ruffle into its current state, would it just make him look sloppy? Sigewinne told him it just looked ruffled, but ruffled could be anywhere from bedhead to wildly unrealistic Inazumen light novels, and he had no idea which side of the spectrum he fell on.

Did it even matter? The Chief Justice’s hair was swept back into the same neat, low ponytail it had been in thirteen odd years ago, glossy and not a hair out of place. He wouldn’t be surprised if that’s just how the Iudex woke up, neat and pristine and flawless. Next to him, Wriothesley looked like a stray dog, covered in scars and barely even qualifying as “put together”, and he braced himself for underhanded remarks and thinly veiled condescending jabs on his looks, his attitude, his background.

“Monsieur Chief Justice, you requested to see me?” he spoke, tone measured and face in a careful mask of blank politeness in the face of barely contained disdain.

Except… that wasn’t what he got. No, instead, Neuvillette gave him the warmest smile he’d received since…hm.

“Wriothesley, yes? I’ve wanted to speak to you in person for some time now, but I understand that running a place like Meropide must be quite demanding of your time,” Neuvillette said, setting aside whatever he’d been working on.

…oops.

“Truthfully, sir, I had assumed your previous letters were some kind of forgery and discarded them. It was only because Sigewinne found one first that I realized the legitimacy of them,” he admitted, fighting back the heat of embarrassment. Why did he say that???

To his surprise, Neuvillette actually hummed out a soft laugh at his candor. “Yes, she mentioned as much in one of her letters. I have been made aware that this is something of a recurring issue?”

“Something like that,” Wriothesley agreed, forcing his shoulders to relax. He hoped he didn’t look half as stiff and uncomfortable as he felt.

“Then I suppose I should count myself fortunate to be having this meeting at all,” Neuvillette told him, pulling a document envelope out of a drawer and sliding the contents out. “Seeing as you declined the reception, I will not presume to keep you here longer than necessary.”

Wriothesley was presented with a handful of documents to sign and initial, carefully scanning each one because one could never be too careful. Neuvillette was patient to a fault as he read through them all, but he found nothing to indicate they were more than a bump in status.

He didn’t want to say he was actively looking for some kind of catch, but it came as a bit of a relief when he still didn’t find one. Everything seemed to be in order, and for the life of him, Wriothesley couldn’t find some loophole designed to fuck him over. The worst he found was a section that would require him to attend a meeting at the Palais if there was a significant change in Fontaine’s legislation. He’d asked Neuvillette about it, not sure why he’d need to be there if Meropide was autonomous.

“It is better than not for someone in your position to be completely up-to-date on changes to the law, in the event it would overturn the sentence of an inmate, for example. While the Court cannot enact any regulations upon Meropide itself, changing them can still affect the inmates. It is mandatory to ensure any potential conflicts can be addressed before they have a chance to come to pass,” Neuvillette explained, passing over a thin sheaf of papers. “Rest assured, such changes are rare and even more so that they will truly affect Meropide in any noteworthy capacity. It is there for caution more than anything.”

It wasn’t unreasonable, he begrudgingly admitted. While the chances of it having any actual impact were slim, he understood how it was still possible. With nothing else left to contest, he finally picked up the pen Neuvillette had offered, hesitating for a moment before signing his name.

Just like that, he had, functionally, the third most powerful title in the nation(probably?? He didn’t even know where the Chief Justice would fall in the hierarchy, but he supposed it was an irrelevant technicality and didn’t care to consider it further), and he quickly pushed that thought away before he got nauseous or something. He flicked through the thin packet, penning down his initials (initial?) in a couple spots before signing his own copy of the inauguration certificate.

“So, is that it?” Wriothesley asked, setting the pen back down and folding his hands behind his back.

“That’s it,” Neuvillette confirmed, taking back most of the papers. “These will be added to the records here, but those are yours to keep. Frame them, tuck them away in a drawer, do with them what you will so long as they stay intact. Your signet ring and medal will be brought to you by courier in the coming days. I do hope I did not overstep, but I took the liberty of having them emblazoned with Meropide’s crest. If this is not to your taste, I can-”

“That’s fine,” Wriothesley cut in, praying the Iudex wouldn’t take it as a slight. “I’ll already be associated with the Fortress for the rest of my life, making it official won’t change much.”

“No, I suppose not,” Neuvillette agreed, sliding the papers into a folder and setting them aside. “Then I believe that is everything. Congratulations, Your Grace.”

Ugh, that was awful. He would never let that stick.

When he leaned down to collect his own certificate, Neuvillette’s gaze flicked to his shoulder with a look of faint surprise before another warm smile tugged at his mouth. The gentle honesty of the expression was enough to catch him off guard for just a moment. Again. Monsieur Neuvillette was very good at turning his expectations on their head, it seemed. He wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about it, but if nothing else, it wasn’t an inherently bad thing.

“Ah, perhaps another congratulations is in order. You have found something you wish to do at last, I see.”

Wriothesley followed his line of sight and was met with the soft glow of his Vision in the low light. With a small smile of his own that one might even call sincere, he replied with a nod of acknowledgement before taking his leave.

When he stepped back outside, the newly minted Duke sucked in a deep breath of Fontaine's dusk air, clearing his throat against an itch that began to rise.

(*)

Although they were still uncommon, Wriothesley never made the mistake of discarding the Iudex’s seal again. Most of their correspondence is still done through letter, but on rare occasions he will find himself with a more formal summons instead.

Well, it was phrased like a request, and he was pretty sure he wouldn’t get in some kind of trouble if he declined, but the Iudex didn’t request him to come in person unless he had a reason. He apparently wanted to rework the agreement between Meropide and the Palais, something about increased demand and more tax breaks and whatnot. Stuff Wriothesley did actually understand, but it was no less tedious regardless of the situation. Being good at math did not uncook years worth of botched accounting, unfortunately, he had to do that himself and years later it still exhausted him just to think about it. It was the reason he didn’t let anyone except Sigewinne touch any of the clerical work.

He was on fairly amicable terms with Monsieur Neuvillette, though, and it sounded like the deal he was proposing would do nothing but benefit them both, so he figured it was worth making the trip. Over the past couple of years, he’d learned that Neuvillette was actually pretty decent company, free of that insufferable superiority complex most of the upper class seemed to wear like a badge.

He couldn’t help the faint quirk of his lips at a comment near the bottom.

I do hope you have a few hours to spare. Negotiations such as these can take quite a bit of time, and I was hoping you might introduce me to another tea. I won’t claim to be particularly fond of it, but I did quite enjoy the last blend.

There were a few more lines of polite drivel before the elegant signature at the bottom that he barely skimmed before his eyes wandered back up.

“Another tea, huh?” he mused aloud before wheezing a sudden cough into his hand. He could feel the rattle in his throat as his coughing dislodged the irritant, spitting it rather gracelessly into his waiting hand.

Right.

He stared down at the two damp Pluie Lotus petals laying limply in his palm.

That.

He sighed, shaking them into the bin under his desk before setting the letter aside. As nice as a thought it was, Neuvillette wasn’t asking about his hobbies for anything other than friendly courtesy.

Neuvillette had asked him about what he did in his spare time once, quite a while ago now, and had seemed a bit interested when he’d mentioned he liked trying different teas. At first, he’d wondered if maybe this was his way of trying to build some sort of acquaintanceship with Wriothesley, but upon mentioning it to Sigewinne, she’d brightened and launched into a speech about how he always asked about stuff she and her sisters liked. He would frequently gift them with little trinkets and gifts that accommodate their preferences, and although he would deny it until the day he died, Wriothesley had found himself the slightest bit disappointed that the behavior was not unique to him. He then quickly chastised himself for thinking such a thing in the first place-he could count on his fingers with a few left over the number of times he’d even spoken to Neuvillette face to face. It was hardly the Chief Justice’s problem that he'd developed this ridiculous infatuation.

With a sigh, he retrieved the notebook he kept stowed in his desk drawer, jotting down the number 2 and the date. He thought that keeping a count like this was a little unnecessary, but his head nurse had insisted in that way of hers that made it very clear it was not a suggestion.

It was nearly a year ago now that Sigewinne had discovered the petals, not quite accidentally, not quite deliberately. He didn’t outright tell her about them, but he hadn’t known what they were, either. So when he hacked up a lotus petal one day, her eyes had gone wide and the speed at which she began to fret over him nearly gave him whiplash.

That was the day he learned two very important things. The first, was that apparently he wasn’t just “a little fond of Neuvillette because the man was kind”, leading directly into the second, that he had a condition that would eventually kill him.

It hadn’t sounded real at the time. Honestly, it still kind of didn’t sound real, but he’d done enough research by now to know that it definitely was, and had been for at least 500 years. It hadn’t taken him long to accept, though. The less he dwelled on it, the less danger he was in, and he was in the perfect place to not dwell on it. Over the course of the year, his condition hadn’t really changed at all, making him reasonably confident he could manage it.

The moment he’d been sentenced to Meropide, he’d known he wouldn’t have a long, fulfilling life, but he could be happy with a shorter one if it meant something. If he could really change Meropide for the better, and make it stick …

Yeah. He’d be happy with that.

Shaking himself from his wandering thoughts, Wriothesley retrieved a clean sheet of paper to give a proper reply to the Chief Justice.

(*)

“Then, if the terms are agreeable to you as well, I believe we have a deal?” Neuvillette flipped the mock-up contract back around and passed it over to Wriothesley for a final inspection.

Truthfully, the first rendition wasn’t that bad, but it had taken over seventy years for the Palais to try and update their partnership with the Fortress, so Wriothesley had wanted to make absolutely certain it would be an agreement suited to last another seventy years if it had to. They’d gone back and forth for a few hours, and several of the pages had notes made all throughout the margins as they each settled their own terms.

“I think we do. Looks good to me if you’re on board, Chief,” Wriothesley nodded, skimming back over each of their notes and finding nothing else to address.

“Excellent. I will have an amended copy sent to you in the coming days for your signature, and we will then proceed from there,” Neuvillette told him, taking back the annotated documents and sliding them into a folder.

“Sure thing. I’ll do my best to limit how many stickers it comes back with,” he joked, finishing the last of his lukewarm tea.

“How is Sigewinne?” the Iudex asked, straightening up in his chair. “I rarely get to speak with her outside of written correspondence.”

Despite the fact that he tended to know more about Sigewinne’s whereabouts than most, this somehow surprised Wriothesley. Hm, maybe he should start shooing her to the overworld more often. She’d been the doctor at the Fortress for at least triple as many years as he’d been alive (probably longer, that’s just the furthest back he’s heard her talk about) , she should be getting more breaks.

“Still being the bane of my existence, as usual,” he replied with a snort. “There’s a public betting pool for which of her and her friends can get the most stickers on my belongings. I’ve seen it pull more bets than some of the Pankration matches.”

“So you often have other Melusines visiting the Fortress?” Neuvillette inquired with a slight tilt of his head.

“These days, yeah. There’s normally at least one in the infirmary to see Sige,” Wriothesley replied, leaning back.

There was a brief furrow to Neuvillette’s brow, but the man smoothed it before Wriothesley could dwell on it. “And they are safe to come and go in the Fortress? I do not wish to doubt your capability-”

“Nah, I get it, they’re basically your kids,” Wriothesley waved off the apology. “But I wouldn’t worry too much about them, Monsieur. Frankly, I think Sigewinne might command more respect than I do on a personal level. Sure, I have respect that comes from my authority, but people genuinely like Sigewinne and the other Melusines. Even if there was a problem, they’d be answering to me. ”

Maybe it was how confidently he assured the Melusines safety, or maybe it was his blatant declaration of his own willingness to protect the girls, but something Wriothesley said brought a smile packed with so much warmth and gratitude that for a moment, the Duke forgot how to breathe.

Outside his sunny little nurse, a bright spot for everyone down in the dingy can under the sea, Wriothesley very rarely had any reason for someone to look at him like that. Like he was the bright spot in their day. Generally, his presence was regarded as a bad omen, especially in the overworld, yet here he was in the office of the Iudex himself, being given a smile warm enough to thaw a glacier.

And for just a moment, he forgot. For just a moment, he let that warm feeling spread thought his chest. Let it crawl up his spine and heat the back of his neck and burn his throat-oh. That wasn’t the burn of warm, fuzzy feelings he thought he’d forgotten how to feel.

His eyes watered a bit as he tried to suppress the coughing fit that, really, he knew there wasn’t any stopping. Sigewinne always lectured him not to try and hold it down, that it would make the plants do more harm than just letting them come up, but he couldn’t help but try and save a little face in front of Neuvillette.

A fat lot of good it did him as he watched the concern in Neuvillette’s eyes grow as the coughing fit persisted, before shifting to shock when a small clump of limp lotus petals fell into his palm, dotted with a few smears of blood.

The following few seconds were tense with thick silence, the only sound in the room coming from Wriothesley, who was trying to catch his breath without agitating his throat again.

“Sorry about that,” he finally rasped, tucking the petals away in a napkin he pulled from a pocket, the motion a bit too practiced.

“How long have you been afflicted?” Neuvillette asked softly, his face scrunched in a conflicted emotion Wriothesley couldn’t quite identify.

“...around a year, give or take,” Wriothesley finally answered, not seeing the point in deflecting. “It’s fine, really. The symptoms aren’t that bad, and I’ve been managing it with Sigewinne. It’s barely an inconvenience.”

This didn’t seem to pacify Neuvillette in the slightest, but the man didn’t try to argue against the statement.

“If you are certain, Your Grace,” Neuvillette finally said, not looking or sounding certain in the slightest, but Wriothesley could live with that if it meant dodging an interrogation over it.

Their meeting wrapped up shortly after the little revelation, the air now a bit awkward and stilted as they talked around the sumpter beast in the room.

“Ah, Your Grace?” Neuvillette called when they both finally ran out of things to say and Wriothesley was making to leave.

“Yeah, Chief?”

“I hope I am not being too forward, but if there is anything you might need that could help aid with your condition, I would like to help you if I am able,” Neuvillette told him with all the sincerity in Teyvat and Wriothesley wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.

“Uh, I appreciate the sentiment, Monsieur, but I’m not really sure what you would be able to do,” Wriothesley told him honestly. If there was any kind of remedy that actually worked, he’s pretty sure Sigewinne would have tracked it down by now.

“Even so, it would be a disservice to Meropide and even Fontaine as a whole not to offer any assistance I can. I’ve never seen the Fortress thrive like it has since you took over the administrative duties, Your Grace,” Neuvillette told him.

Coming from anyone else, he would have assumed Neuvillette just didn’t want to find a replacement for him so soon, but he couldn’t help but feel like Neuvillette was implying more than that. It was enough that he found his response to be surprisingly sincere.

“If Sige or I come across anything you can help with, I’ll be sure to let you know,” Wriothesley told him, more honestly than he’d intended.

Because it shouldn’t be a truthful statement. He shouldn’t be even considering letting Neuvillette get involved, because it would likely have the opposite effect.

But, he was in this exact position for a reason, and he couldn’t quite find it in himself to deny the raw earnestness from the Iudex.

He wasn’t sure he could deny him anything.

(*)

He’d never seen Sigewinne so visibly frustrated before. Her cheeks had gone red as she poked at the half unfurled bud he’d choked up about twenty minutes ago.

“I just don’t understand!” she finally said, brows scrunched together in a way that looked almost wrong on her usually cheerful face. “For over a year, your condition barely changed! You didn’t even use most of the remedies I found, and now with Monsieur sending them too, you shouldn’t be progressing this fas-”

She stopped up short, and Wriothesley could practically see the cogs turning in her head. For how sweet and innocent she acted, Sigewinne was sharp as a tack, and he had a feeling he knew where this was going.

“Wriothesley,” she began slowly, “When did Monsieur start checking in on your condition and sending things to help?”

They both knew what she was really asking, and he knew there was nothing he could say or do to put that cat back in the bag without outright lying, which he wouldn’t do. Lying to her wouldn’t do anything except hurt her feelings, which frankly was a worse punishment than latrine duty.

“...a little over a month ago,” he admitted with a sigh, resigning himself to the conversation he knew would be coming one day but still dreaded all the same.

She didn’t even bother to ask, just turned to him with the biggest, saddest magenta eyes. “You aren’t going to tell him, are you?”

“What good would it do?” he asked, propping his cheek on a loosely curled fist. “All that would do is make him feel guilty over something he can’t change or fix. He carries the burden of an entire nation’s guilt, what would I accomplish by adding to it?”

Sigewinne chewed her lip. “I think he still deserves to know. You never know, Your Grace.”

“You’re right,” he conceded easily, “I don’t know. I also don’t know if the prophecy will happen tomorrow, but I’m not exactly holding my breath on it, either. It’s too high a risk for virtually no chance of a reward. If I’m wrong, I won’t be just burning the candle at both ends, I’ll be dropping it into a bonfire.”

Wriothesley was proof that the symptoms of Hanahaki could be staved off for quite a long time, but once they escalated, there was no going back, it became the new normal. Just being around Neuvillette was already putting him on a decline, an outright rejection to his face would likely spell out his end.

He could tell without even having to look at her that she didn’t fully share the sentiment, but understood how severe the consequences would be. Though he trusted Sigewinne with his life and then some, he still couldn’t take the chance.

“Promise me you won’t tell him.”

Her brows furrowed again, and he knew she was going to argue.

“I will tell him one day,” he spoke before she could. “But I want to tell him on my terms. He shouldn’t have my condition on his conscience over something that isn’t even his fault.”

If anything, she looked more upset by this, but he wasn’t planning on budging on this and if nothing else, she’d learned to pick her battles with him.

“Alright,” she said softly. “I won’t say anything, but you have to tell him eventually.”

“I will,” he repeats. “One day, I will.”

One day, when it is too late and the burden of guilt can be made as light as possible.

(*)-----

Neuvillette knew his presence wasn’t exactly welcome in the Fortress. It caused unrest at best and outrage at worst, with hissed curses and spit insults often echoing in his ears. And yet, he simply couldn’t find this an important enough reason to stay away anymore. He knew that, in some capacity, it made Wriothesley’s job more difficult, a fact he loathed , but not more difficult than his illness did, which had become reason enough for him to continue to make the trip.

As the days became weeks, Neuvillette was watching the man slowly deteriorate before his eyes. He honestly wasn’t sure if Wriothesley had lied to him that day or not, saying it was barely an inconvenience. He hadn’t scented any dishonesty from the man, but every time he would visit, it would seem that some new complication would crop up.

On paper, he understood how the illness worked, but he couldn’t seem to rationalize it with what was in front of him. The Wriothesley from his office over a month ago had seemed exactly as he said-afflicted with a chronic condition, but managing just fine despite it with little inconvenience. But as the weeks passed, the man seemed to wilt just a little more each time Neuvillette saw him.

It just didn’t make sense.

Beyond the herbal supplements he would occasionally send and books he managed to find on the condition, there was little he could do beyond just keeping him company. He’d been a little hesitant to do so, at first, but Wriothesley seemed to genuinely enjoy him coming around simply for tea or a game of chess. Neuvillette did his best not to just fret like a mother hen over the man, but it was difficult not to express concern every time he saw another petal fall from his lips.

He’d been surprised to learn the Duke had never played the game before with such a sharp mind and keen sense of strategy, but unsurprised when he’d picked it up quickly, only taking a handful of rounds to offer Neuvillette actual competition. Wriothesley hadn’t quite managed to win yet, but Neuvillette considered himself an intermediate player at best and knew it likely wouldn’t be long. Perhaps he should suggest introducing Dame Clorinde in a more casual setting. He couldn’t quite recall the circumstances of how it happened, but the one time he’d ever played against her, he managed to lose four rounds in nearly as many minutes, being handed defeat after swift defeat with an almost embarrassing speed. He was certain Wriothesley would be thrilled with the challenge.

Offering a polite nod to the guards on duty, he made his way to the doors of the office with as little preamble as possible, fortunate to only pass three inmates that hadn’t seemed inclined to look at him, let alone speak to him.

Stepping inside the first set of doors, he rapped on them from the inside and called up the stairs.

“Your Grace, are you available?”

He could smell the warm scent of tea infused with violetgrass, cinnamon and what he thought might be stone fruits. It was a tea Wriothesley seemed to be quite fond of, finding it a frequent pick in the Duke’s rotation.

“C’mon up, Monsieur, I just made tea,” he heard the man reply.

Neuvillette made his way up the stairs with a light stride, metallic heels only faintly clinking against the steps.

“Excellent timing, Chief,” Wriothesley said once he’d reached the top level, already pulling out a second cup. “What brings you around today?”

“Merely visiting,” Neuvillette replied, leaning a hip against the railing. “Though I’m curious what has you brewing an entire pot of tea so late. Have I really become so predictable?”

Wriothesley huffed out a laugh, making a face as it wavered. Neuvillette didn’t comment on it, more than familiar by now with the expressions the Duke would make when his condition would act up.

“Not quite, Monsieur. It’s nothing too important, but I’ve let myself get behind on the maintenance logs for some of the equipment in the production zone. I usually keep an index for each machine so if I ever have to look something up, I’m not digging through years of part requisition forms and repair invoices,” Wriothesley explained, gesturing to a few stacks of papers, grouped with paperclips.

“Quite diligent, Your Grace,” Neuvillette told him. “If I am keeping you-”

“Nah,” Wriothesley waved him off with a shake of his head. “It’s not too bad, I’ve definitely let it get worse. And drop the title, wouldja? Save the standing on ceremony for someone who gets their stockings on a twist over it, yeah?”

Coming from anyone else, it would be bordering on rude, and perhaps it still was now, but Neuvillette had learned that Wriothesley cared little for the acclaim that came with his inauguration into nobility. He found it exhausting to keep up with the pleasantries, something Neuvillette had come to appreciate.

“As you wish, Wriothesley,” Neuvillette told him, crossing over to the sofa pushed against the wall where the other man was pouring the tea. The eye roll he got in return did not go unnoticed, and he suppressed an amused smile.

“So, what can I do for ya?” Wriothesley asked, taking a seat with his own cup in hand.

Neuvillette hesitated a moment before answering, eyes flicking over Wriothesley’s face. His complexion seemed to grow a shade lighter every visit, while the circles under his eyes grew darker. There was a curve to his spine when the Duke thought no one was looking, and a tiredness that not even the strongest of teas could fully shake. Neuvillette wasn’t quite sure when it started, but a couple of weeks prior he realized he could hear his breathing.

This wasn’t altogether too unusual, he could hear quite a bit better than most humans, but he’d long since learned to tune out autonomous sounds like a heartbeat or breathing. But, once he’d noticed Wriothesley’s, it became impossible to ignore the more deliberate effort each inhale required, or the faint rasp of the air moving around an obstruction. It wasn’t quite a chore to breathe yet, but Neuvillette could tell his body was working harder to pull the oxygen in than it would have, had his lungs not been filled with those godforsaken plants.

“I’m not going to just keel over, you know,” Wriothesley told him after he waited too long to respond.

Neuvillette had to bite back the ‘ yet ’ on the tip of his tongue, knowing it would just come out bitter. He was all too aware that his time with Wriothesley was finite, and he had rapidly learned that he valued the man’s company more than he thought. It wasn’t a notion he’d taken too much time to examine, as emotionally illiterate as he was, and to do so would only be a means to an end anyway.

So, instead, he would cherish the time he did have to keep the memories untainted with sadness and frustration.

“I know, Your Grace. You are a hardy man, I would not deny that, but I will worry regardless,” Neuvillette conceded, his small smile only a little forced.

“I appreciate the sentiment, Monsieur, but you might ought to save your worry for more important things. You carry an awful lot of weight to be concerned with one of the few things that isn’t under your jurisdiction,” Wriothesly said, a hint of wry humor peeking through, but Neuvillette wasn’t exactly amused.

“Whether or not you are ‘under my jurisdiction’ is irrelevant,” Neuvillette frowned. “I do not worry out of obligation, Wriothesley, I worry because I care. ”

Wriothesley just blinked at him, looking a bit stunned. Was the notion that Neuvillette cared about him truly that surprising?

“Chief, I-”

Whatever he was going to say was cut off by a thin wheeze as a coughing fit began.

This wasn’t an entirely uncommon occurrence, but every time it sent an icy bolt of something akin to fear down Neuvillette’s back. How could it not? Each time, the hacking was accompanied by the smell of blood, too faint for a human to pick up but the streaky drops were more than enough for Neuvillette to catch the scent of.

Normally, he would just clench his jaw and let the Duke ride out the fit. The bitter reality was that there was little the Iudex could do to help, and the one time he tried was not particularly well received. It was probably the most politely he’d ever been told to sit down and stop hovering, and the irony that it came from Wriothesley was not lost on him.

…though he had never exactly counted , he did not recall the other coughing episodes lasting this long.

He did his best not to stare, but a glance at the still coughing warden showed a furrow to his brow and eyes a bit wider with confusion and something that fell short of panic but was more than worry. He lurched forward to nearly slam his teacup on the table before hunching in on himself.

“Wriothesley…?” Neuvillette asked hesitantly when he heard the man struggle to draw in a breath, the air sounding pinched and shaky and dangerously close to choking.

With a noise that was half cough, half gag, an entire Pluie Lotus bloom fell into his hands, bright blue, yellow and orange marred with streaks of red. Neuvillette’s heart sank.

He’d never hated a flower more in his life.

“Well, that’s not good,” Wriothesley said after a moment of silence so thick it couldn’t have been cleaved with a greatsword. His voice sounded like he’d gargled gravel and Wriothesley’s face pulled into a pained scrunch when he tried to take a deep breath, one hand coming up to press against his chest.

Unsure what else to do, Neuvillette hurried down the steps, poking his head out the office door to have a guard fetch Sigewinne. Protests from Wriothesley fell of deaf ears all the way up and down.

“Neuvillette, it’s fine, it’ll go away in a minute,” he insisted when Neuvillette asked if there were any remedies he used to soothe his throat.

“It will do no such thing, Your Grace,” Neuvillette told him with an unimpressed glance. “No matter how much we may wish it otherwise, Hanahaki does not ‘go away’.”

Wriothesley rolled his eyes , balling up the flower and stuffing it into a pocket before leaning back. “Now you’re just splitting hairs, you know what I meant.”

An uncharacteristic bubble of frustration suddenly swelled, and Neuvillette’s tone gained just the slightest edge.

“No, You Grace, I do not know what you mean. I do not understand why you have chosen to allow this condition to dictate your life! Surely this cannot be better than to simply confess?” Neuvillette questioned.

Wriothesley wheezed out a humorless laugh. “It is when confessing is useless. They don’t love me, all I’d be doing is digging my grave even faster.”

“If that is true, then perhaps you should just have them removed-”

“No.” Wriothesley cut him off in as firm a voice as he could manage.

“This person cannot possibly be worth this much suffering. Would it not be better to forget them in the first place?,” Neuvillette pressed, but Wriothesley was already shaking his head.

“Neuvillette, I will suffer until my last breath, treasuring those memories,” Wriothesley told him, voice soft and raspy and refusing to lift his eyes from the floor. “Letting them get stripped away will strip away a part of me , too. I don’t want to live like that.”

“Who is it that has such power over you?” Neuvillette asked, falling just short of desperation, but the Duke did not answer. Neuvillette hadn’t really expected him to.

Sigewinne comes hurrying in a few minutes later, a pared down version of her med kit stuffed discreetly in her smock. She gave Neuvillette a passing greeting, but spared him very little attention beyond that.

She shooed Wriotheley back to the couch and dragged the short ottoman in front of him to be eye level with the man.

“What happened?” she asked over her shoulder, directing the question to Neuvillette.

“Nothing, it’s fi-ack!” Wriothesley’s dismissal was interrupted by the Melusine sticking a wooden depressor in his mouth, pinning his tongue down. The nurse ignored his narrowed eyes as she shined a glowlight pen in his mouth, twisting the glass at the end to focus the light of the glowing crystal on his throat.

“I didn’t want to cause a fuss, but the flower was whole,” Neuvillette said quietly. “To my knowledge, this is a ew development.”

Sigewinne pressed her lips together and didn’t answer, which didn’t really make him feel any better.

“Everything I can see of your throat is completely inflamed and I can see one abrasion that drew blood, so I’m willing to bet there’s more,” she said after another minute, voice even and clinical, but they could both still hear the worry seeping in. “I have something you can drink to stop the bleeding and help with the pain, but it will put you to sleep.”

“That’s alright, I’ll manage-”

“That wasn’t a request, Your Grace,” Sigewinne cut him off. “I was informing you of the side effects, not making a suggestion. Even breathing too hard is enough to agitate it right now. If you want to keep this hidden, this is your only option.”

Neuvillette watched the two stare each other down, but ultimately it was Wriothesley who folded. Despite telling the Duke it wasn’t a suggestion, she didn’t make any move to give the man anything without actual permission. He got the feeling this more out of respect than Wriothesley being her superior. It was exceedingly rare Wriothesley would ever actually enforce his authority over the Melusine.

“Fine,” he said, more whisper than word, but a concession nonetheless. “But you know I can’t stay down for long.”

Sigewinne maintained her hard look for only a few more seconds before she, too, cracked. “I know. You need to give your body a break and give the inflammation a chance to go down, but it should only keep you asleep for a few hours. No hot drinks for at least two days and try to keep the talking to a minimum. The more you baby it the faster it will heal.”

Wriothesley looked a bit disgruntled over his “no hot drinks” stipulation, but didn’t argue. Sigewinne turned and dug through her little med kit, pulling out a small bottle of dark brown glass.

“You can stir it in water or juice if you want, it tastes pretty awful, or you can just take about a teaspoon with a spoon. Your choice,” she informed him, passing over the little bottle.

Neuvillette didn’t hear any liquid sloshing in it, but could see it was filled a bit over halfway, presumably a syrup.

“Well now you’ve got me worried if you even think it tastes awful,” Wriothesley commented despite just being told not to, eyeing the bottle with the same regard someone might an insect they had just stepped on.

“Stop talking!” Sigewinne hissed, lightly smacking his arm. “Shoo, go get some rest, I can see Monsieur out.”

Wriothesley then turned to where Neuvillette had been trying not to hover. “Sorry ‘bout…” He gestured vaguely to himself in lieu of speaking any more.

“Please, do not apologize, Your Grace. As Sigewinne said, get some rest,” Neuvillette told him with a reassuring wave of his hand.

Wriothesley just nodded before rather gracelessly kicking open the panel in the floor that led to a hidden set of stairs to take him to his quarters.

“May I ask why you cannot heal his injuries?” the Iudex asked, turning to the nurse as Wriothesley walked out.

“I’m not completely sure,” she admitted with a slump of her shoulders. “From what we’ve managed to dig up, the condition has some kind of connection to Irminsul, although no one is sure exactly how. My best guess is it won’t work because of some kind of interference with the Leylines, but there’s no way to know for certain.”

“Is there really no way to help?” Neuvillette asked Sigewinne when he was certain Wriothesley could not hear them. “His symptoms after nearly a year were only the earliest stages of the illness, why has it accelerated so much? How much has it progressed?”

Sigewinne pressed her lips together as she repacked her little kit, refusing to look at him. “He’ll probably have a bit of trouble breathing from now on. Most of why he sounds so awful is because of where the leaves scratched his throat, which should heal in a few days. But if the plants have gotten big enough to produce entire buds, it’s going to limit what he can, or at least should , do,” she told him. “I don’t think it will be actively harming his health yet, I don’t see any stems, so it should still be somewhat manageable. He won’t be happy, but he may have to stop doing the ranked pankration matches permanently.”

“You don’t sound so certain,” Neuvillette said carefully.

“I’m not. The fact is that it’s been getting worse and I don’t think there’s anything I can really do about it except make the effects easier to bear,” she said, voice hitching every few words as she tried to keep it even. She still wouldn’t look at him. “If…If I’m being entirely honest, it might be time to start looking into other potential candidates for Administrator. It will be better to have a suitable replacement on standby so if something extreme happens, the Fortress doesn’t fall into unsavory hands again.”

Neuvillette’s eyes widened a bit and hit gut sank like it had been filled with lead. “It he truly so far gone?”

“Right now, no, but you know as well as I do how stubborn he is. It will keep getting worse, and eventually we’ll start running out of options,” she answered, her little hands balling into fists in her skirt.

Something about the way she spoke niggled at him.

“Do…Do you know who it is?” he asked the little nurse, and oh, when she looked up he’d never seen her big magenta eyes look so sad.

“I do,” she admitted quietly. “But I can’t tell you.”

“Sigewinne-”

“I promised. I-I’m sorry, ” her little voice cracked and in a fit of protectiveness, Neuvillette knelt and gathered her up in a hug.

He would never ask her to break a promise, to make a liar of herself.

“So there truly is nothing to be done?” he asked no one in particular. Sigewinne squeezed his shoulders a fraction tighter before letting go and giving him a long, searching look.

“It’s possible, but I can’t interfere. If he has even the slightest suspicion it was something I staged for the sake of his health, he would never believe it. But even if that wasn’t the case, I don’t know if they would recognize their feelings until it’s too late.”

A spark of hope flickered to life.

“So this person does return His Grace’s affections?” Neuvillette asked, leaning back.

Sigewinne chewed her lip, seeming to realize she may have said a bit too much. “I’m sorry, Monsieur, I don’t think I can keep answering your questions.”

Frustration welled in Neuvillette, but just as quickly he pushed it back down. This situation was no one’s fault, especially not the little nurse’s.

It seemed he would have to do some digging.

(*)

Three weeks.

For three weeks, Neuvillette’s spare time had been dedicated entirely to combing through old guest logs, employee records and even some of the merchants that delivered their own goods to the Fortress, and he felt like he was still sitting at the start.

What was he missing ? There had to be something, because he had yet to find anyone that could reasonably be Wriothesley’s unrequited flame. The biggest problem he was having was that he simply didn’t let anyone get close enough to him in the first place. The only person he could recall Wriothesley having ever referred to as a friend was Clorinde, but they hadn’t ever spoken until after the Hanahaki had developed.

His next best lead had been the man who monitored the Pankration Ring, Roussimoff. Neuvillette had been certain he’d found his culprit until he pulled the man’s old inmate file. His term had run out nearly three years ago, but he’d chosen to remain at Meropide. As he glanced through the file, the trial tugged dimply at his memory.

He’d been sentenced for domestic abuse, his ex-wife filing for both divorce and abuse charges. There wasn’t anything notable about it, really, a fairly straightforward case of a perfectly respectable, if not hot-tempered, man who lost all sense of control when intoxicated. According to Roussimoff’s own testimony, he’d been about to turn and slap the woman to stop her shouting but she had been standing closer than he’d realized and the bottle in his hand had shattered over her shoulder, leaving several cuts on her face and neck.

While the extent of the damage had been unintentional, the actions were not. The man had pleaded guilty in a voice shaking with shame and an understanding that he’d gone too far.

He’d cleaned up his act quite a bit, sobering up completely and learning how to manage his temper instead of letting it manage him. It was an admirable effort, to be sure, but truthfully Neuvillette didn’t think it was enough. Knowing what he did about Wriothesley’s own past, he didn’t think the Duke would truly be able to overlook the abuse, not personally.

Which left him here, just as directionless as he’d started, and for the first time, he wondered why. Why was he so hellbent on finding this person, why was he so desperate to figure out a solution to the disease?

Why did his chest ache at knowing it would ultimately be someone else with the power to save him?

Letting out a sigh, he started stacking the files back in the box he’d pulled from the archive. He’d been at it for nearly three hours and he could see the colors of dusk beginning to kiss the sky. Probably best to head home before Sedene caught wind of his long hours and sat him down for a scolding again.

Just as he was finishing packing away the files, the sound of rapid footsteps in the main hall outside his office drew his attention. He’d taken about two steps to go investigate for himself when the doors of his office were pushed open by a panting garde. One he realized was wearing Meropide’s uniform, not the Maison Gardiennage.

“Is something the matter?” Neuvillette asked, somewhat alarmed. It wasn’t often any of the gardes would leave Meropide while on duty, that uniform very rarely saw true sunlight.

“Sorry to barge in, Monsieur,” he gasped. “You didn’t seem to be at your home so this was the only other place I could think to look.”

His home? How did this man even know where he lived, Neuvillette had gone through many lengths to keep such details private, but for the moment he just filed it away as the garde kept talking.

“Miss Sigewinne asked me to come get you, said something about a bouquet? I don’t know, it seemed a bit random but she looked pretty worried, so I figured it would be better to find you as fast as possible,” he finished, breathing only barely beginning to even out.

Alarm bells began to ring in Neuvillette’s head, loudly. He could only assume Sigewinne meant Wriothesley was coughing up multiple flowers now, a very late stage symptom. He could only assume she was the one to give the garde his address, and if she’d truly been that desperate…

Fear wasn’t a particularly familiar emotion. He generally did not have much cause to be afraid, of anything really, but he wasn’t sure what else to call this icy weight curling and squeezing in his chest.

“Thank you for informing me,” he told the garde, hastily digging his key out and following the man out the door. “Please, lead the way.”

(*)

“Sigewinne, enough , it wo-” he was cut off by another round of hacking and gagging, another blood streaked lotus falling into the bin between his feet. He spit another glob of blood and saliva after it before roughly scrubbing at his mouth with the towel clutched in a hand.

“Please, let me try !” the nurse all but begged. “I should be able to get the swelling in your throat to go down if you just give me a few-”

She was cut off by another rough round of coughing, each breath rattling and laboured as he gagged again on a leaf dotted stem in his throat. The Melusine couldn’t do anything but watch as his hands shook from the exertion, back hunched under the force of the coughing.

In the past, she’d never made much effort to get close to the Administrators, for a number of reasons. While there were a few that weren’t malicious, an unfortunate number of them were just like Wriothesley’s predecessor and she did her best to just stay out of their way.

But Wriothesley was different. He’d always been different, had always fought on behalf of others and would only fight for himself when it was necessary to survive. When you spent as long as she had cleaning up the aftermath of these fights, you develop a pretty good sense for the ones who just enjoy violence for the sake of violence and the ones that don’t.

Wriothesley didn’t, but seemed to understand it was a necessary evil to get himself in the position he wanted to be.

It had been a bit interesting to watch, actually, watching him start to enjoy the fights, but not for the same reasons many of the others did. He learned to love the thrill of it, the exercise, the satisfaction of being able to take down any opponent just from sheer skill. He’d turned it into something of an art, in the most rugged way.

This also meant they got plenty acquainted along the way as he paid for those skills in bruises and blood, and like an angry feral cat that still kept coming back, he grew on her. She respected his drive and dedication to it and would do her best to help him where she could, giving him nutrient powder to add to his drinks and showing him a few stretches to help keep from pulling muscles.

Eventually, still much like a feral cat, he still held her at arm’s length but learned to trust that the hand she offered was there to help and not hurt.

It was rare that she became anything more than passing acquaintances with the Administrators for Meropide, but once again Wriothesley proved himself to be an exception to the rule.

That also made it all the more heartbreaking to watch his body destroy itself because of a disease that only worsened the Duke’s outlook on love.

Wriothesley gripped the edges of the bin as he spit out another clot of blood into the bin before glaring at the box on his desk. She’d never seen so many full blooms come up at once, and truthfully, it scared her.

Sigewinne had been the one to bring him the package, so she was already in his office when the attack happened. It didn’t take a scholar to put together that the contents of the package had been what triggered it, so she went to investigate what exactly it was since Wriothesley was so adamant in his refusal of her help.

Pulling herself up onto his chair, she pulled the parcel closer and understood right away why it had elicited such a response.

It was filled with tea. Little tins carefully packed to fit perfectly in the wooden box, each filled to the brim with six very expensive and hard to find teas outsourced from each of the other nations, catered to Wriothesley’s preferences, and she’d known it was from Neuvillette from the moment she saw the wrapped box streaked with familiar Hydro residuals. Many things could be falsified like signatures and stamps, but it was impossible to mimic Monsieur Neuvillette’s residuals. They were unlike any other Hydro residuals she or any of the other Melusines had ever seen before and she could only guess it was because they were the residuals of a Sovereign and not Celestial. They were all over every tin, clearly put together by hand with care.

No, the attack wasn’t surprising at all.

“Oh Monsieur, if only you could just understand, ” she whispered, not even bothering to read the included letter. Wriothesley hadn’t even been able to get to it.

It took close to twenty minutes for Wriothesley to finally stop coughing and steady his breathing. Well, as much as it could be steadied at this point, there was a faint but very present wheeze accompanying every breath now. She’d slipped away at some point during the fit, quietly pulling over one of the gardes just starting the night shift and instructing to find Monsieur Neuvillette and ask him to come as discreetly as possible. With a silent apology, she told him where Neuvillette’s townhome was located with strict instructions not to share it with anyone else.

It highly out of character for Sigewinne to make anything resembling a threat, but even her polite yet firm tone didn’t take away from the fact she had personal relationships with two of the most powerful people in the nation, both of which would be directly in charge of any kind of punishment for sharing the private information of a government official.

Satisfied with the man’s determined salute to uphold his word, she sent the man off and scurried back up to the office where Wriothesley was still hacking and struggling to breathe.

Still, once those wheezing breaths had finally leveled out, Wriothesley still stood and made his way back to the desk. He drops the lid back on the box of tea and pushes it to the far corner of his desk all without actually looking at it again, then sits heavily in the chair and picks up his pen.

Like nothing happened. At least, like he wanted to believe nothing happened.

“Your Grace, you really should take something and get some rest,” Sigewinne fretted, gesturing to his tea cabinet where she kept all the remedies that actually did something. There was little use in keeping them in the infirmary, both for discretion and the fact that, currently, no one in the Fortress had any consistent need of them outside of the Duke.

“I can do paperwork without talking,” he replied stubbornly.

“It’s not just your throat I’m worried about! You look like you haven’t gotten a proper night’s rest in days and I can tell you’re starting to lose weight. I told you to tell me if your throat was making it difficult to eat!” she scolded, little balled up fists planted on her hips.

A look of revulsion passed over Wriothesley’s face.

“I’d rather drop a couple pounds while my throat heals than drink those gross milkshakes, Sige,” he told her with an unimpressed look.

“They can’t honestly be that bad,” she shoots back. “It’s not like I put anything unsanitary or inedible in them!”

“Just because you can eat something, doesn’t mean you should ,” Wriothesley told her, exasperated.

She just let out a routine sigh. It was an old argument, they’d been beating the same horse for years now but she didn’t want to give him any more reasons to ignore her and keep talking with his shredded throat.

“I’m still going to make you some of the tea,” she finally relented. “If you’re so determined to make things harder for yourself, you can at least do so without risking an infection.”

Wriothesley nods in concession and drops his eyes back to the papers in front of him.

He was nearly finished with the tea when Neuvillette finally arrived, looking rather disheveled. Well, disheveled for Neuvillette.

“Sigewinne? Is everything alright?” the man asked immediately, looking concerned.

“You didn’t ,” Wriothesley hissed, shooting her a dirty look.

“If you won’t listen to me, maybe you’ll listen to him, ” she remarked. “If it means you’ll take care of yourself, I’ll use everything I can.”

Wriothesley was visibly annoyed, but didn’t question her further. Her statement was more than enough.

“He had another attack,” Sigewinne informed Neuvillette bluntly, earning another glare from Wriothesley. “A bad one, and I was hoping if he wouldn’t listen to me, maybe you could convince him.”

“Me?” Neuvillette looked confused but when he actually took a good look at the Duke, his eyes widened.

Sigewinne was already making her way out of the office, hoping Neuvillette would at least be able to break the stalemate, but she was getting worried. The scale of his attacks were getting dangerous, and she wasn’t sure how much longer Wriothesley could keep this up.

“This might be our last chance before the damage starts becoming permanent. Even if he somehow gets cured, his throat won’t be able to take much more abuse before it won’t heal properly anymore,” Sigewinne tells him quietly. “I hope you can at least get him to lie down.”

Neuvillette turns to look at the pale, exhausted man, mouth set in a pinched line.

“I will do what I can.”

“That’s all I can ask. If anything, anything else happened, please call for me,” she instructs and Neuvillette nods resolutely.

Now, there was little she could do but wait and hope.

(*)

Neuvillette felt a flash of concern at the little nurse’s words, but it faded quickly when he looked back to the sickly man. Because Wriothesley did look so very sickly. Neuvillette’s chest ached at the deep circles under his eyes, the sheen of sweat over too pale skin, the tremor in his hands that didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

“Sigewinne is right, Your Grace, you ought to at least lie down for a bit,” Neuvillette said, striding closer.

“It’s fine, I was just gonna work on paperwork,” Wriothesley groused, waving Neuvillette off. His voice sounded as awful as he looked. “Sitting and laying down aren’t that different.”

“Agree to disagree,” Neuvillette said dryly. Once upon a time, his ingrained manners would have never let him speak to someone in such a way, but Wriothesley welcomed the bluntness and Neuvillette had learned to be more lax and speak more freely in his presence.

“You can disagree all you like, I’m a big boy, and it’s not my bedtime yet,” Wriothesley retorted with barely restrained irritation, brushing past him to sit at the desk anyway. “If you just came down here to hover, then you can go wring your hands with Sigewinne.”

Wriothesley was ornery at the best of times when someone was trying to make him do something, but this level of blatant disrespect was a bit out of character. The Duke was blunt and straightforward, but not insolent.

“You know she only wants what’s best for you. We both do,” Neuvillette said, keeping his tone level.

“Okay, well, there is no ‘best’ anymore, there’s just managing it until the next time something happens,” Wriothesley told him in a tone that was far too dismissive.

Neuvillette pursed his lips, already knowing the response he’d get before he spoke.

“If you would perhaps reconsider getting them removed-”

“No.” Wriothesley didn’t even try to entertain an argument.

“Wriothesley-”

Wriothesley hissed out a loud sigh over the words. “By the gods, I don’t know why she even dragged you down here. There’s nothing anyone can do about it at this point anyway.”

“Because she cares , Wriothesley. Because I care, I would have come whether I was asked to or not. Neither of us enjoy watching your suffering, especially not when there is a way to end it,” Neuvillette shot back, some of his own frustration seeping through. Even the surgery was on a time limit, if the disease spread too far, it couldn’t be removed without causing damage beyond repair. This must be was Sigewinne was referring to, their last chance to convince the man before his fate was truly sealed.

“I’d just be trading one type of suffering for another,” Wriothesley said lowly. “This is the one I choose, and I’ve accepted the consequences of that choice.”

“You put so much into what this person means to you, but have you not considered what you mean to anyone else?” Neuvillette pressed. “You are sentencing them to just as much loss!”

“At least I got to choose!” Wriothesley near shouted, slamming a fist on the desk. “I know what you all want, but this is what I want. Is it really so much to ask for my wishes to be respected for once? ”

Wriothesley’s words brought Neuvillette up short. There were many things he did not know about Wriothesley’s past, but above all else, he knows his childhood before Meropide had been manipulation after manipulation. His choices had never truly been his own save for the one that landed him here, and the Fortress was hardly the place to find your sense of autonomy.

“Is it really so much to want to see you happy?” Neuvillette asked, voice soft. “I will not pretend to understand what the loss could mean for you, but is it truly so wrong to want you to have a chance to find your happiness?”

Wriothesley opened his mouth, but he had nothing to say in the face of such raw earnestness.

Instead, he doubled over in another violent coughing fit.

Neuvillette floundered for a moment before jogging over to retrieve the bin the man was using earlier, several bloody, crumpled blooms in the bottom. He hastily rushes over to the desk to plant it in front of the heaving man, hit with a fresh wave of the scent of blood.

He could hear the rattling of the plants in Wriothesley’s throat as the man tried to dislodge them, as well as every labored breath that struggled around them. Wriothesley barely looked able to hold himself upright, and Neuvillette was shocked to see tears starting to bead up in the man’s eyes from the force of the exertion. Wriothesley could hardly breathe , let alone speak, and the reality that it had gotten this bad tasted bitter on the back of his tongue.

The pressure behind Neuvillette’s ribs had grown so intense he wondered if his chest would just burst.

Unable to do anything else, Neuvillette went to retrieve Sigewinne, but only made it a few steps before stopping up short.

He’d breezed right past it earlier, but there, pushed to the corner of the desk, was the parcel that Neuvillette himself had sent in an attempt to just make the Duke’s day a little brighter.

“It varies so much from person to person because it’s tied so closely to their emotions,” Sigewinne explained after Neuvillette had learned of Wriothesley’s affliction. “The less they dwell on it, the less it progresses, but all it takes is one reminder of that person to trigger an episode and whatever damage it causes becomes the new baseline.”

He’d already known a bit about Hanahaki, but had never encountered it so closely before, and Sigewinne had taken the time to explain as much as she could.

Wriothesley’s desk was covered in a slew of paperwork and little else, except the barely opened gift box, and all at once, Neuvillette understood. Perhaps not everything, but enough.

Turning back around, he returned to where the man was coughing so hard, drops of blood would sometimes trickle out, and knelt on the floor in front of him as Wriothesley rode out the attack.

It took almost ten minutes, but eventually the only sound was Wriothesley’s wheezing for air and spitting leftover blood into the bin. Neuvillette retrieved the towel the Duke had been using earlier, flipping it to the clean side and dabbing at the sweat on his face.

“It would truly break my heart if you were to leave me, Your Grace,” Neuvillette says softly, wetting the other end of the towel with a dab of Hydro before beginning to clean the drying streaks of blood from his chin. “So if you won’t stay for yourself, would I be able to convince you to stay for me?”

Wriothesley’s eyes widened before he roughly shoved Neuvillette back, nearly toppling the man over as he lunged for the bin again, gagging on yet another lotus.

“What-What are you talking about?” the Duke grates out when he is able, voice completely indistinguishable from his regular speaking voice at this point, but his eyes were still a bit too wide, a bit too disbelieving.

“Emotions are something I’ve never been able to grasp, not in the most human of ways,” Neuvillette spoke, reaching forward to cup Wriothesley’s jaw between his palms and holding the man’s incredulous gaze. “It was not until you, that I understood feelings cannot be learned, they can only be felt. ”

Neuvillette pressed his forehead to Wriothesley’s, eyes falling to the Duke’s chapped, bloody lips. “But I understand now, and I feel. ” He waited for a long moment to give the man a chance to pull away if he was wrong, but Wriothesley only wrapped his own shaky hands around Neuvillette’s wrists.

Neuvillette took it as the permission he was searching for and gently pressed his lips to Wriothesley’s.

Unsurprisingly, the metallic tang of blood was the first thing he really registered, but it didn’t take long for that odd pressure in his chest to overtake it, warmth streaming out from between his ribs in a heady sensation unlike anything he’d ever felt before.

And then, there was doubt. Doubt, confusion, disbelief, but above all, there was a surge of hope.

Neuvillette pulled back just a hair and cracked his eyes open to find Wriothesley’s still tightly shut, clutching at his wrists now like they were the only things keeping him afloat. He also noticed the thin trails seeping from the corners of the man’s eyes, trickling down to pool in the crease formed by their skin, and Neuvillette understood where the doubt came from.

“Wriothesley…” he said, so light it could almost be called a coo.

“Is this real?” the Duke rasped, hands trembling so much Neuvillette could see them in his shoulders. “Please be real, I-I can’t -”

“Open your eyes, mon trésor,” Neuvillette whispered, swiping the tears away with his thumbs.

The gasp Wriothesley let out was cut off and choked, but after a few seconds, he did as asked, hope and desperation warring. This close, Neuvillette could see the different streaks of yellow and gold that ringed his pupil and smiled.

“There you are, love. I am so very sorry for taking so long to understand just how important you are to me,” Neuvillette told him, and no matter how brittle around the edges it was, the smile he got in return was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

The next sound Wriothesley let out was somewhere between a cough and a sob, and he reared back, one hand already reaching for that godsforsaken bin that reeked of flowers and blood. Then the other came up to yank on his already loose tie, which was a bit odd. There’s no way it could have been obstructing his breathing, but when Wriothesley tried to inhale, it was paper thin and he looked up at Neuvillette with panic in his eyes as he struggled to draw in air.

“Si..Sige…winne,” he choked out and Neuvillette scrambled to his feet, all but flying down the stairs.

He knew he needed to at least try and maintain some discretion, but it was rapidly being overridden by worry.

He shoved the door open as inconspicuously as he could(it was not particularly successful), opening his mouth to ask a garde to fetch the little nurse when he spotted her sitting at one of the tables at the cafeteria. She’s seen Neuvillette the moment he opened the door and was already hurrying over.

“Is something wrong, sir?” one of the gardes posted outside the office asked, her brow furrowing, and for the first time in his life, Neuvillette told a blatant lie.

“Not at all, I was just looking to get Miss Sigewinne’s input on a matter His Grace and I were discussing,” he told the woman. If you bent it through a maze and possibly used a few mirrors, his statement could perhaps be somehow related to the truth? He did need Sigewinne’s input, at least, but something was definitely wrong.

Before he could dwell on it further, she was bustling past his legs and Neuvilette gave the shortest farewell that could feasibly be called polite before shutting the door again and following after the Melusine.

By the time he made it up the steps, Sigewinne was pushing Wriothesley to sit on the floor, grabbing the penlight from her smock and sticking it in the man’s mouth. Neuvillette tried not to focus on the angry red flush on his face or the way his lips were starting to go purple.

“The flowers are coming up,” Sigewinne said, already stripping her gloves off. “All of them.”

“All of them? Is that-” Neuvillette cut himself off, looking between them nervously as she yanked a pair of latex gloves from the pocket and wriggled them on.

“Technically, it’s a good thing, but not if we don’t get them out of his throat. It’s just bad luck that the leaves are so thick, he can’t just cough them up on his own.” She tilted Wriothesley’s head back, peering into his mouth with her brows furrowed in concentration. “I need you to keep your mouth open as wide as you can, okay? I don’t have my kit, so this isn’t going to be very comfortable, please try not to bite me.”

Wriothesley had a half second to look confused before his nurse stuck her entire hand into his mouth, carefully sliding her fingers down his throat until she could grasp the stem of the leaves she’d seen. Wriothesley jolted and shuddered at the invasive maneuver. His hands floundered for a moment before just latching onto the hem of her apron to try and hang on to something. He made a noise that almost sounded like a whine before squeezing his eyes shut, knuckles turning white from between the ruffles in the fabric. Frankly, the fact he didn’t outright gag was admirable.

Neuvillette watched as Sigewinne slowly but steadily started withdrawing her hand. A moment later, a thick, bloody clump of about six tangled stems and far too many leaves was being carefully pulled free. All of them were dotted with lotus buds, some having a few strips of color peeking through, but most still tightly shut.

Neuvillette could nearly thank the gods that they would never open.

Another noise of distress came from Wriothesley, and he smacked a fist against the floor as he fought to keep still. It still took about another six inches before the clump finally came loose and once Sigewinne’s hands were clear, the gagging was immediate, but he could finally breathe under his own power again.

“I think that’s the worst of it, but this might take a bit,” Sigewinne said, dropping the gorey bouquet into the bin when Wriothesley’s head wasn’t hanging over it. “Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot to do about the rest except make sure he doesn’t stop breathing again.”

Neuvillette stepped to the side while Sigewinne stripped off the blood and saliva smeared gloves, tossing them into a different wastebasket. She wetted the end of her apron with her own Vision to clean off her hands before replacing her usual linen gloves.

Meanwhile, Neuvillette kept his gaze on the nurse as she tidied up, trying to give Wriothesley some semblance of privacy as he ejected the remaining flowers.

Sigewinne then gently tugged on his sleeve, leading him over to the cabinet where Wriothesley usually kept his tea, pulling out a small tray.

“These are the medicines I use when his throat gets torn up,” she began, setting the tray on the Duke’s desk. “This one is the anti-inflammatory syrup from before. The painkillers in it are what puts him to sleep, no more than two tablespoons in a twenty-four hour period, but one is usually enough to knock him out for the night. His tolerance to them is um…rather low.”

She pulled the remedies out one by one, carefully explaining what they did, how much to give and how often. A mild numbing agent just to soothe his throat, an antibiotic tea meant to be steeped strong to keep any of the scratches in his throat from getting infected and a topical ointment for his throat to help his breathing.

The fact all these things were just kept in the office spoke volumes.

“I appreciate the information, Sigewinne, but I must ask why you are telling me?” Neuvillette inquired, visibly confused.

“Because, if you’re willing, I’d like you to stay a couple days and help him recover. I think you both have a lot to talk about, and after everything, I think it would be better for you to see to him than me,” she explained. “Are you up for it?”

Neuvillette looked over at where Wriothesley had finally seemed to have finished coughing up those damned plants and was just panting into the bin with his head hanging low.

“For him? Anything.”