Chapter Text
It was early evening when Neuvillette knocked on her door. It was a pleasant surprise, as all visits from him were, though Furina had to apologize multiple times for the mess as she invited him in. Today, she’d taken an interest in origami, and although she was terrible at it for now, the only way to learn was practice.
However, it was hard to enjoy with a time limit hanging over her head. After five hundred years of life, the tiny human lifespan she’d been consigned to since her curse was lifted felt not nearly enough. There was so much she wanted to do, so much to see. She’d spent generations longing from the archon’s throne, yet now she was free, she had barely the time to enjoy it.
That, she guessed, was why Neuvillette was here.
When she had brought up this thought of hers, only in passing, Neuvillette had been very quick to agree with her. “Of course, you deserve to live for as long as you like. One happy day for every painful one you have endured.”
She wasn’t completely sure why he acted so attached to her these days, though she couldn’t truthfully say it didn’t go both ways. Furina had already considered that her mortal lifespan was also a punishment for him, who she would have to leave behind. For a while, after she had vacated the Palais Mermonia and closed herself off from everyone, she believed that Neuvillette would want nothing to do. No matter how much she cared about him, all she’d provided was irritation and deceit. He’d wanted to trust her, and she betrayed that trust.
But once they had finally reconnected, albeit awkwardly, he expressed the complete opposite. Actually, he rarely made it through a few sentences without praising her in some way. Despite not knowing why she meant so much to him, she couldn’t deny that he was probably as worried as she was about her new lifespan. Before the divine and the powerful, a human’s life flicks away in the blink of an eye. Now she was that human.
So when he suggested he do some research into a way to extend her lifespan again, Furina enthusiastically agreed. He couldn’t promise that he would find anything, and it was likely that such a thing would come at a heavy price, but Furina at least wanted to know her options. If there really was nothing that could be done, she’d have to come to terms with it and move on. But if there was… Living forever in Neuvillette’s company, getting to explore the world and learn new things and read every book… It was definitely worth it.
“I have done some research, Furina,” Neuvillette said as he took a seat in Furina’s apartment, placing a book on the table in front of him.
“And…?” she asked slowly. Based on his tone of voice, she was guessing it was bad news. “It’s impossible, right?”
“That is not… exactly the case.” He closed his eyes. “I have found one way, but I am afraid it is rather… vulgar. You’re unlikely to find it a viable option.”
…Vulgar? What could that possibly mean?
“Well, at least tell me what it is,” she replied.
“...Perhaps you should read for yourself.” Neuvillette opened the book and slid it over to her somewhat reluctantly. She peered over to read as he continued speaking. “Of course, there may very well be other options, but I can’t say how long it would take to find them. Decades of searching are, of course, not a possibility here, given the time limit…”
Furina tuned him out as she read.
As the element of fertility, those with significant capabilities in wielding hydro, especially natural capabilities divorced from the need for a vision, are likely to be particularly fertile. Species of Bathysmal Vishap, for example, are able to actively control the fertility of their semen to ensure reproduction. It is speculated that with the full power of the dragon’s authority, the hydro sovereign’s semen had the ability to give life directly to its mate, preventing aging and allow a mortal partner to become immortal for the duration in which they are regularly engaging in intercourse with the
She stopped reading abruptly.
…"EHHH!?" She pushed the book away from herself, face burning. Neuvillette cleared his throat awkwardly.
“As I warned you, it's not exactly ideal.”
That… that… that would mean she’d have to… have sex with him?? And “regularly” too?? H-How often would regularly be? And he was… they couldn’t… no, no way. Absolutely no way! That would be totally weird! She didn’t even know how to do that sort of thing… it wasn’t like she had any experience.
Her reaction was obviously visible on her face, because Neuvillette apologized quickly. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have even bothered showing it. I do plan to continue searching, but most methods I have found historical reference to are highly dangerous and have been debunked by researchers at later points, making this-”
“No, no, it’s fine,” she said hurriedly. “I prefer you show me everything than hide things from me, even if it’s really… weird. Thank you for trying, I really appreciate it.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for you. Like I said, I’ll keep searching, just in case.”
They both fell awkwardly silent for a moment. Furina vaguely considered offering him some cake to break the tension, but the rest of her mind was elsewhere. No, she definitely shouldn’t be thinking about this now , right in front of him. She would need a moment to herself if she really wanted to consider the idea of fucking Neuvillette. Still, a thought had occurred to her, and she opened her mouth to ask before she realized what she was doing.
“The way you phrased it, and the fact you showed me at all…” she said quietly. “...If I agreed to it, you’re saying you’d… do that?”
The pause was long enough that Furina knew she was right before he even spoke. “...If that was your wish, I would,” he said eventually, not meeting her eye.
Furina swallowed hard. Neuvillette opened his mouth then closed it again, clearly trying to diffuse the tension but lost for what to say.
“Do you…” She shook her head and cleared her throat, her voice returning to its usual chirpy cadence as she stood up. “Do you want a drink? Or a slice of cake? You are my guest, after all.”
“There's no need…” Neuvillette began to politely decline, but perhaps he caught that Furina was looking for a distraction, because he changed his mind. “Although, I suppose if you're offering, I wouldn't say no to a glass of water.”
“Perfect!” She wasted no time slipping away to the kitchen. Then she collapsed on the floor just out of sight.
Rightfully, the most reasonable move to make in this situation would be to laugh and say “Nope, absolutely not, what a ridiculous and absurd suggestion! Sex with Neuvillette? Bah, how comical!” But that wasn't how Furina felt at all. For whatever reason, she was conflicted.
She fidgeted a little, rubbing her legs together. She really really wanted something to work. And people have casual sex all the time, not a big deal at all! Though Furina wasn't ‘people’, and neither was Neuvillette. They were far more complicated, as most things left to tangle for hundreds of years are.
But she didn't want to reject it. Maybe I should tell him I need time to think? Yes, that was what she needed. Time. Always more time.
She shook her head bitterly and pushed herself up again. No, you should at least discuss it with him, Furina. You can't run from your problems all the time. If you can't even manage to talk about it, surely the whole thing is a lost cause? But you're better than that! You're Furina de Fontaine, expert at surviving difficult conversations. Just talk it out.
Furina found that to be less easy than she’d hoped. Once she returned with the water as promised, Neuvillette changed the subject and began chatting about pretty much nothing. A welcome escape in theory, but very frustrating in practice, since it meant Furina herself would have to bring that awkward topic back up. And after I'd just hyped myself up, too!
She smiled and nodded and made a few comments for a while, until she finally reached her limit and bit the bullet. “Neuvillette…” she started, unsure how to continue. Her eyes flicked down to that book, still open on the desk, and thankfully Neuvillette seemed to follow her gaze. Right, that puts us on the same page, pun not intended. “...Can we talk about it?”
“...Ah. Of course.”
His emotions were frustratingly hard to read. Ah well, here goes nothing… She just had to decide where to start with her thoughts…
“You… believe it has a reasonable chance of working?” she started.
“It aligns with my existing knowledge, yes. But there’s no way of knowing without finding out. It is, unsurprisingly, not well documented. And while my understanding of myself is more than a human’s understanding, it’s still, as you know, limited. A lot of my personal history has been lost to time.”
“But…” Furina fidgeted again. It’s okay, you’re mature, you can have a mature conversation about this. “...If we did… that. Wouldn’t I just get pregnant?”
“Ah, no.” From his tone of voice, Neuvillette seemed a lot more comfortable with this topic than Furina felt. “That shouldn’t be an issue. Dragon biology differs somewhat from human biology. Unlike for humans, a dragon’s semen isn’t necessarily fertile. That’s something that can be controlled. I suppose that’s to prevent it from being ‘wasted’.”
“W-Wait, hold on!” Furina stammered. “You’re saying you can choose whether or not you get someone pregnant just by like… thinking about it?”
“You could put it like that, yes.”
“That’s…” so weird. But… also kind of cool? “...actually really useful… I wonder why humans can’t do something like that? Seems like it would avoid a number of unfortunate situations.”
“Mm, I agree.”
“But- But anyway! That’s completely off topic! Let's see, umm…” Despite being the one to steer things back on course, Furina struggled to find another question to ask.
“...May I ask if you’re actually considering it, Furina?” Neuvillette said slowly.
“Uhh….” She felt her face heat up. “It’s… not out of the question, I suppose. My thoughts are kind of complicated though…”
“You’d like to discuss them?”
“Yeah. I’m just not sure… how to put it into words…” Furina fell silent for a moment, before burying her face in her hands. “Oh, this is so embarrassing!!”
“...My apologies for pushing this on you so suddenly. We can talk later if you’d rather-”
“No!” She shook her head. “No, now is fine! I… I want to live longer, really badly… even if just to give me the freedom to decide what I want without pressure. Something like this isn’t that big of a cost for immortality, all things considered… it should be good! And I don’t… I don’t feel bad or gross about the idea, I’d be fine with it, or at least, of it having happened, I guess? H-Having sex, I mean.” Furina wasn’t looking at Neuvillette, so she had no choice but to hope he was following her rambling. “But um, well I’ve never done that before, and I’m scared of actually- I mean… it would be really awkward, I think, and I don’t want to make things weird between us, and I wouldn’t even know what to do… But there’s not… any way around that, is there?”
He took a (terrifying) moment to respond. “...Well, it may technically be possible artificially, but… I wouldn’t be confident in the result. It may not be as effective, if at all, and if the method is based on hydro energy, it’s likely to quickly fade away when outside the body. If you’d like to try that regardless, I would be okay with it, but I wouldn’t place much hope in the idea.”
“Y-Yeah, I guessed as much…” She finally looked up and gave Neuvillette an awkward smile. “I guess I want to, and I also don’t want to. I don’t know what to do…”
“I don’t want to put you in a situation you aren’t comfortable with, Furina,” he said gently. “If you’re not sure about it, I’ll try to find something else.”
“And if you can’t find anything else?”
Neuvillette didn’t respond.
Furina sighed heavily. “What a mess… I really am okay with it as a concept, I just don’t actually wanna do it. If I could just close my eyes and then it was a thing that happened in the past, it wouldn’t bother me at all.”
“...” Neuvillette looked thoughtful for a moment.
“...”
“...”
“...I may be able to achieve that.”
“H-Huh!?” Furina stared at him, baffled. “But- What? How??”
“Apologies if this sounds a little indelicate,” he said carefully. “But what if you were unconscious?”
Unconscious…? “You mean like… you have sex with me while I’m asleep?”
He blinked slowly in confirmation. “There are plenty of powerful sleeping potions I could get imported. I’d have to do some research first, but it’s completely plausible. Would that make it any better, Furina? Or would that be worse…?”
“Uhhhhh…..” What a terrible, shameful and taboo idea… and yet… It really did fix everything! She could just go to sleep, Neuvillette could… do what he had to… and then boom, she'd wake up with a little extra time to her life. Although, it did seem somewhat unfair on Neuvillette to ask him to do something like that…
“Obviously I would only touch you as much as necessary,” he added. “And you can set as many rules as you like beforehand.”
“Are you really okay with that, though? Surely it would be weird for you? I don't want you to have to-’
“I'm fine with it.” His reply was firm. Furina couldn't find an argument for that, so fell silent for a moment.
“I guess… In that case… I'd like to try.”
Neuvillette nodded - if he found Furina’s decision as weird as she was finding it right now, he didn’t show it.
“But!” she stumbled to clarify. “That’s not a definite decision or anything- I might change my mind again, since… I need to think. But if you could find a sleeping potion that’s um, perfectly safe and has no weird side-effects… That would be good. Probably. B-Besides…” She laughed tensely and gave a dramatic shrug. “It doesn’t really count if I’m unconscious anyway, so there’s no issue. Y’know, ‘cause like, sex needs two people, and it’s only really one person in that case, so completely not the same, right? Haha…”
“Furina… Maybe I should leave and give you some time to think about it,” he said, sounding a little worried.
“Right… yeah, maybe…” She hung her head. “Sorry, I’m not very good at this type of discussion…”
Neuvillette stood up, closing that dreadful book and scooping it up in his arms. “This is… also outside of my comfort zone. Conversation-wise, that is.” For a second, Furina could see the embarrassment on his face too, and was surprisingly reassured by the sight. She offered him a genuine smile this time.
“Oh, of all the situations to put me in, you troublesome dragon…”
“My apologies, Furina,” he said, bowing his head. He was smiling though. Furina felt a tension lift from her, one she was suddenly able to put into words.
“Uh, Neuvillette?” she asked. “Even if we decide to do this… it’s not going to change things between us, is it? Make it really awkward or tense or… something like that? Because, I don’t want…” I don’t want to live longer if I’m not happily beside you, Furina finished in her head, but it sounded too romantic to say aloud.
He seemed to get the message regardless. “I don’t want that either. I can assure you that I don’t intend on acting any different.”
“Okay. Then I’ll do the same.” She held out a hand. “Deal? No matter what happens, even if it ends up a really bad mess?”
Those lavender eyes softened on her for a moment. Then he reached a gloved hand to shake hers.
“Deal.”
Furina couldn’t help fidgeting a little as Neuvillette took a seat on the bed beside her, a respectful distance away. She’d had a while now to think things through, and part of her was confident that once the moment passed, she’d realize what a silly decision she was making. But she didn’t. Even when Neuvillette told her he’d found a suitable potion, and even when they arranged to meet up to actually do it. She didn’t change her mind.
Now she was here, and here was now, and she was really actually going to drug herself out and let Neuvillette fuck her sleeping body. There was no point covering it with vague sugary language.
She took the glass of sleeping potion from him but didn’t drink it, instead swirling it and staring at her blurred reflection in the liquid.
Were they really gonna do this…? Was this really a good idea? The more she thought about it, the more she felt nervous, her clothes too loose on her body, her skin tingling in an unfamiliar way. But it wasn’t necessarily a bad type of nerves. It was actually a tiny bit exciting, though Furina couldn’t really describe why. She’d made this decision because she didn’t want to have sex with him, right? Or perhaps it was just to avoid the awkwardness and embarrassment she’d feel if she was conscious. Maybe part of her liked it a little, for more than just the immortality.
None of that stopped it from being a scary decision to make, however. She could feel Neuvillette’s eyes on the back of her head.
“You’re sure you want to go ahead?” he asked. Her grip on the glass tightened a little.
“...” She was here now, wasn’t she? There was no point hesitating when she’d already come this far. It wasn’t like she’d be aware of any of it. Close her eyes and it would be over, no problem. A non-issue, really. And, if it worked… they could stay together forever. Neuvillette wouldn’t have to be alone some hundred years in the future, when even she would have otherwise left him. That… that was important to her too. Not just her future, but his as well. Maybe… that was selfish? Probably? But hadn’t she earnt the chance to be a little selfish?
It was easy, so easy, the opportunity so perfect… If she didn’t try it at least once, Furina would never be able to stop thinking about it.
“...Yes. I’m sure.”
Neuvillette was silent for a moment. “...In that case, are there any boundaries you’d like to lay in advance? Or instructions you wish to give?”
She mulled the question over for a moment. “Well, obviously don’t be too… rough with me…”
“Of course not.”
“...And if you could clean up afterwards and leave me in bed like I would normally sleep…”
“What should I do with the house key you gave me when I leave?”
“Ah, you can keep it,” she said quickly. “I know you won't abuse the privilege.”
“Thank you.” They made eye contact for a second, before immediately breaking it again awkwardly. “...Anything else?”
“I don’t think so.” Furina’s gaze returned to the glass in her hand. “I… trust you. Do whatever you need to. Just, like I said, nothing that might hurt me. Since it's my uh, first time and all that.”
“I will be especially careful.”
With that conversation topic exhausted, the room fell silent again. Furina raised the glass. “Well, uh. Time to see if this works. Hopefully it doesn’t taste too bad.”
She didn’t wait for Neuvillette to speak before placing the glass to her lips. If she hesitated any longer, she’d only get more nervous. The only way to deal with something like this was to thrust herself in the deep end and hope it worked out. She tipped her head back and downed the liquid.
The taste was very synthetic, but less unpleasant than she was expecting. Still, she didn’t risk letting it linger in her mouth for too long, swapping the now-empty glass for some water to wash it down.
“How is it?” Neuvillette asked. Furina scrunched up her nose.
“Just tastes like medicine, pretty much. It’s not terrible though. I can tolerate it.” She placed the water back down, turning to Neuvillette. “How long until it takes effect?”
“Shouldn’t be long. A few minutes at most. Although the dosage varies between people, so that is something we will see through trial and error. I wanted to avoid anything with unnecessary side-effects, but the cost may be some amount of inconsistency.”
“Hm.” She hummed cheerfully, more to calm herself than anything. Now that her choice had been made and the potion drank, she felt extremely vulnerable. She considered asking Neuvillette to leave the room until she fell asleep, but if something went wrong, she definitely wanted him there. “...Sorry for dragging you into something like this just for me. I couldn’t just be normal, I had to overcomplicate things…”
“There’s nothing to apologize for, Furina. Please don’t worry about that.” His voice was a little more gentle than usual, and Furina wondered if he could tell how nervous she was.
“Still, not many people would agree to such a weird…” She trailed off, registering the slight slur to her words, and the heavy feeling behind her eyelids. “Ah, I think it’s starting to work? I feel kind of fuzzy.”
“You should lie down,” Neuvillette suggested from beside her. “As if you are falling asleep normally. That will make it more comfortable.”
“Right.” The sleepiness was coming on heavily now, but she fished around for her blanket anyway, her vision a little hazy. Neuvillette passed it to her before pulling her bed sheets aside to let her lie down. The bed was definitely softer and warmer than usual, and her eyes drifted comfortably shut, though her head was still buzzing.
“Is there anything else you need?” a voice from above her asked.
“...No, I’m okay…” Her instinct was to curl up as small as possible, but it occurred to her that it might be a little difficult to fuck her like that. Although if she was fully knocked out, it couldn’t be that hard for him to move her around anyway… The idea of Neuvillette basically using her body, touching her gently to not hurt her but still rough enough to fill her up… she’d make him feel good, right? Would he be quick and efficient, or would he take it really slow, whispering words to her as she slept…? Was he… excited now too…? Did he want… this…? She didn’t have the energy… to look… perhaps she would ask…
Furina didn’t exactly remember the words she spoke, but she very barely recalled his response.
“...I do.” A slight rustle, and the feeling of her blanket being pulled up over her shoulder.
“Sleep well, Furina.”