Chapter Text
Title: "Heaven Was Never Meant for Me"
POV: Neuvillette
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I. The Church Beneath the Sea
The first time I watched him fight, I thought he was a monster.
The second time, I realized I was the one who trembled.
Wriothesley does not kneel. He never has. He stands even when the water rises, when the law turns its eye, when gods would call him guilty. He smiles as if nothing could touch him. And I—I who have judged nations—find myself silent in his presence.
What does it say of a man who feels more divine wrath in the curve of another’s mouth than in the weight of a thousand trials?
He is everything I am not. Blazing where I am still. Warm where I am cold. Mortal where I am something other.
But he looks at me like I am human.
And oh, how I wish he would stop.
Because I cannot bear the way it makes me hope.
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II. Judgment in the Veins
"Do you ever sleep?" he asked once, voice rough with the drag of exhaustion, his sleeves rolled up, knuckles scraped raw from a riot that had never reached the surface. I was watching him bandage a child's arm—a child who had bitten him for daring to touch her.
"I do not require much," I answered.
He scoffed. "That's not what I asked."
I remember looking at his hands then. Scarred. Earned. Tangible.
My hands have never known labor. Only the weight of gavels and centuries. And yet, in that moment, I wanted to trade my immortality for his warmth. My authority for the chaos of his care.
When I dream—though I claim I do not—he is always kneeling at my feet, not in worship, but in defiance. Daring me to feel. Daring me to fall.
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III. Sanctified Suffering
There are churches in Fontaine—crumbling now, half-drowned and forgotten. Temples to the gods of justice and water. But I think the truest altar lies deep in the Fortress of Meropide, carved into blood and rust and mercy denied.
Wriothesley bleeds for others. I have seen it. He does not hide his pain.
But I do.
I wear composure like sacred cloth, and still I burn beneath it.
He touches me once, accidentally—shoulder to shoulder in a narrow corridor—and I feel the judgment of the stars in that moment. Want is not a sin I am allowed. Not I, who was made to watch, to weigh, to weep where no one sees.
And yet I would drown the world for a kiss. For a single, blasphemous moment.
I would damn myself.
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IV. Baptism by Ice
When the flood came, I found him encased in his own vision’s ice—alone in the dark, preserving himself not out of fear but to give others time to escape. Always others. Never himself.
He looked dead.
For the first time in a thousand years, I screamed.
I shattered the water. Ripped through salt and silence and the suffocating grip of ancient tides.
And when I pulled him into my arms, when his lashes fluttered and he looked up at me and whispered, “You came,”—I felt the earth shift.
Not because I had saved him.
But because I knew I could never live in a world without him.
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V. Confession Without Redemption
I do not go to church.
What would I pray to? Myself?
I am not god enough to deserve him.
Yet I find myself kneeling outside his quarters, long after midnight, listening to the scrape of his pen, the quiet sighs of a man who never learned how to rest.
He is so human it hurts.
And I am not.
Still, I want. I want with the fury of storms.
He opens the door once and finds me there. I lie. I say I was checking in. That there is paperwork.
He takes the forms without question.
But the next time, he leaves the door unlocked.
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VI. Devotion in the Dark
I do not know when it began. I only know it did not end.
His lips on mine are a sin I commit with reverence. His name on my tongue a prayer I do not deserve to say.
We are quiet in our damnation. Careful. Always so careful.
But there are moments—brief, staggering moments—when he looks at me like he would walk into hell for me.
And I realize I would burn the sky for him.
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VII. Take Me to Church
If love is a sin, then I am already condemned.
And if heaven is a place without him, then I would rather rule in hell.
Because Wriothesley is not a god.
He is not pure.
He is better.
And every time he reaches for me without fear, I break a little more.
Until one day, I will shatter completely.
And when I do, it will not be divine wrath that consumes me.
It will be him.
And I will thank him for it.