Tea & Paperwork

So This is Love

"I think you're in love," Sigewinne tells him.

Wriothesley stills and gives her a curious look. She barely returns it, turning his hand over to prod at his busted knuckles. "So," he says, drawing out the word long and slow, "when someone comes to you and tells you that they've been feeling fucking weird, that isn't the response they are looking for." A pause. Sigewinne hums as she digs into his bones, testing their bruising.

Wriothesley hisses, and then grunts. "No, listen to me," he continues. "You're always harping about how I never come in for my check-ups despite being one step away from a heart attack."

That gets her attention. Her gaze slides to him, and she gives Wriothesley a once over that makes his skin crawl. "I've never said that. Specifically. But you're getting older, and should be more careful."

Wriothesley rolls his eyes and doesn't warrant that with a response.

When he tries to pull his hand away, Sigewinne holds it firm with surprising strength. Right. That. Wriothesley knows better than to fight back, so he just sighs and gives in, letting her do her thing.

"You came to me complaining about minor chest discomfort—"

"I said pain."

"You said, and I quote: 'my chest has felt a little funny lately, like it's flipped upside down'. You've been having weird dreams, which you refused to describe, which means they are embarrassing, which further means they're probably of the wet sort."

Wriothesley cringes.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Sigewinne's smile softens. "Other symptoms: 'I'm distracted', 'I can't focus on work', 'My mind wanders'—"

"What if I'm stroking out? What if something's up with my blood pressure? What if—what are you doing?"

Sigewinne turns his palm face up and clamps her fingers around his wrist, thumb pressed to his pulse. She doesn't answer, head tilted as she feels it. Counts the beats and seconds that tick by. Then she clicks her tongue and says, "Just like before, your vitals seem fine."

"I'm telling you that something's off."

"And I'm telling you that you're in love."

Wriothesley's mouth snaps shut. His silence prompts her to look at him again, pulling his hand back into a position to pull Hydro across the back of it.

"Bruised," she murmurs. "Next time you should have Monsieur Neuvillette take a look at it."

Oh. Oh, that's what this is. Sigewinne's sticking her stupid face into his nonsense, talking about things she doesn't know.

"He wouldn't..."

"Fix it? Please. That man would bend over backwards and do a cartwheel if it meant fixing you."

"He would not."

Only he would. Wriothesley knows that, Sigewinne knows that, the entirety of Fontaine knows that by this point. They aren't subtle. They can't be, not with their whirlwind romance and propensity to make out in the dark corners of the Opera Epiclese.

He drags a hand down his face and lets out a morose groan, far too embarrassed to be talking about this.

"Would it be so bad?" asks Sigewinne. She drags Hydro over his knuckles, and the deep-seated ache that plagues them eases up.

"For me to go to Neuvillette? Sige—"

"For you to love him," she corrects.

"I..." His knee-jerk reaction is to say yes. Wriothesley doesn't deserve love, he's never thought that he'd—