stavlighttx

[stavlighttx]

fic: Words Unspoken Off Duty

the first part of my Wriolette fic!! hope someone enjoys, english isnt my first language so srry for any grammar or spelling mistakes

The Chief Justice always stood for it. Gods, it was his life. All of it---justice, or so he thought, before he met someone far more... exciting. New, even after seeing everything with tired eyes. The universe has played a trick on him and he knelt to it. Justice was in fact cruel, but he hasn't felt it so personally before, not skin to skin heart to heart. It was fate's game anyway, a fluke, it would pass sooner or later with the seasons changing, coming and going. 

It hasn't passed in five hundred eighty four days.

The Duke was a nice man. Probably wedded already, keeping a sliver, glinting with fair love under starfall, ring under those gloves, cutout just right to his palms, ragged skin, adorned with scars he snatched out of weapons hands and grinned afterward. A man fair and utterly beautiful... someone like Wriothesley upon the definite eye of Neuvillette's judgement had to already have chosen someone to mark his heart as theirs. 

Not that it mattered, not that he cared, of course not.

He was tired and hand-kept in place by his own work. Which stood correct to both men. Both. Men. Neuvillette could describe the black haired male in millions of words--reasons--and yet that one thing stood infinite. It was wrong, it shouldn't be! It wasn't coincidental that Neuvillette now looked at his own watered down by rainfall reflection with detrimental disgust. It was natural to something unnatural.

And he hated how Navia herself got closer to him just to assure it was normal, when it was not. A woman of class, money and honor. A woman who made a friend merely because he didn't hide the hunger in his eyes well enough once.

A woman that was beloved by a woman.

Clorinde spoke about Navia as if she were the sun, the moon, the beginning and end in a body of cinnamon smelling sunlight. Wriothesley was sick of it, not because he hated her words, her, or her deeply rooted relationship. No, he hated how he could envision someone else as she spoke, someone that wasn't golden haired, lively and warm. Instead, someone that might've not been entirely human, someone that might've had more rain in themselves than true, raw feeling.

Neuvillette stayed in his mind like rain soared in skies to rest eternally in grass. It was unfair, merely. Simply. How could he believe in something that was such a... sinful act, and be fooled that both parts of that decay-stained coin felt like they stayed as one piece of metal just because they still stood tall?

The sunlight fell warmly upon the floor, and Neuvillette thought of three people, hopeful only because it wasn't one man stuck on his mind like Clorinde's jewelery on Navia's fingers. He was still unused to the golden-haired, polite and lively Navia having an affair with another... woman. He didn't criticize it, seeing the bliss in both eye colours, but it looked wrong to him, he felt as if the gods were going to slash his throat for letting it happen.

He didn't care that much, not in face of such exultant behaviour in the faces of two adults usually weighted down by dejected stress sparkling with torment that could be compared to being held at gunpoint, but it was just mundane realities of everyday, blank lives. So... when he saw them fill that emptiness with bright colour, he couldn't stand against it.

A knock in the door and the Iudex sat a bit straighter, the rain eased down as he breathed half warm air in.

Neuvillette didn't expect Navia and--out of all people--Morax standing at his office doors. He stood, slowly ascending to meet the other mans hand halfway. The older smiled politely, a sight the Chief Justice hasn't seen in far stretched years. He didn't reciprocate the gesture, stabbed cold by conflicts that faced his own head.

"It's certainly nice to see justice himself again." -- his voice was just as Neuvillette remembered, warm and utterly welcoming, as if he could make the Fortress of Meropide feel cosy. -- "How long has it been, again? Did we not meet for tea before Mauvika got prouder and louder again?" -- he almost chuckled, but remembered who he was facing, and what reputation he had to hold up.

"...Certainly would seem so." -- his own tone held to kept down warm hues of autumn orange, just rainy chills.

Navia took a step forward, her hand flying to Moraxes--now Zhongli's--shoulder as she grinned widely, cheeks stained with rosy bliss at a reunion half awkard, half heartfelt.

"Clorinde will come later aswell. We can all have tea, can we not? Just Zhongli, you, Dear Justice, my love and perhaps the Duke? Does he not love tea more than his gloves?" -- she tilted her head lihtly, bringing torture to Neuvillette's heart. Yes, of course he loved tea. His favourite was Sumerian, Chamomile with an herb he couldn't quite spell himself.

"Perhaps," -- a singular word sounding more bitter and sour than post-due-date essays passed by the Melusine's, gifted by tired teachers, written by children sure their sweat and ink will reach the Iudex or Foclaros. He already knew he's lost, that he needed to build an iron will for that tea evening. 

"Invite Furina aswell," -- Morax lightly asked, the corners of his lips still curled up in blissfull memories. -- "What reunion is it if I don't see... her again?"

"Of course, I'll make sure to ask her. Just the... six of us, then. Quite the meeting afterward! Let's meet at 6o'clock right here, alright? And, Zhongli--" -- the sunshine in a woman's body chuckled like warm butter melting on bread. -- "Be ready for Foclaros to absoloutely tackle you. If anyone loves reunions, it's her. And don't be shy or anything, I'm sure you already know how to act around others, but I wanted to, you know, make sure. We're quite a different batch than Liyue and Mondstad. Atleast we... might... not torture you with singing bards and drunken fun-coloured haired siblings."

"Sounds delightful either way. I'll make sure to keep my eyes open for Furina, then. Monstadt is certainly different than Fontaine, although, what difference do differences make when it's the people being home, no?" -- the smile warmed like fire. He nodded at the silent Neuvillettte and left with Navia following closely, but glancing at the Chief Justice with those worry filled eyes he despised because of glistening pity he didn't want particularly directed at him.

Six pm. The air found it's way to his lungs and choked back out, as he ignored his twitching hands and hateful, reluctant warmth climbing his neck and face as he thought of seeing-- no, no, he didn't think of him, he never did.

Wriothesley was nothing, no one to him.

The rain poured down not passively for the next twenty three minutes. A certain Duke counted.