Kyou Kara Maou Fan Fiction ❯ The Bedding of Wolfram ❯ Broken Wolfram ( Chapter 3 )

Kyou kara Maou : The Bedding of Wolfram

 

Summary: It takes a tragedy to crystallize Yuuri's feelings for Wolfram, but it may be too little too late. Can his family and Yuuri save a broken Wolfram?

 

Disclaimer: standard - Kyou kara Maou is not mine.

 

Warnings: not a very cheerful story, of course. Rated M for explicit gore and sexual details, but the aim is not particularly pornographic, just mature. I don't think there are any spoilers. Details that seem like spoilers are probably ones I made up.

 

Please review.

 

Update: just cleaning up.

 

Chapter 3 : Broken Wolfram

 

Suicide? Yuuri couldn't imagine Wolfram attempting suicide. Suicidal acts of valor, certainly, but killing himself? It wasn't just the outside of this battered young man that was unrecognizable.

 

Wolfram, what the hell happened to you?

 

Yuuri smoothed Wolfram's hair. “More water?” he murmured. Wolfram just kept his face turned away. He looked much better, with clean bandages, all the soiled wrappings taken away, tucked into the covers in his own - our own - bed. He was breathing easier. Yuuri did a brief healing again and felt the difference. Giesela and her assistants had applied majutsu as well as physical tending. Even the bruising on his face was noticeably lighter. The lower torso felt…better, but still dangerously wrong.

 

And suddenly, his cool clarity was back. That comment about suicide had rattled him, but that was over now. There was nothing in the universe that mattered right now, except simply to help Wolfram get better. Suicide was just another detail. “I'm going to pull the blanket back a bit to work on healing you,” Yuuri said.

 

“No,” Wolfram stated clearly. A lightly bandaged hand clawed the blanket.

 

“Good,” said Yuuri. “You're stronger than I thought. Alright, I'll do the healing through the blankets. Let me know when you need a bedpan or anything, though.” It seemed best to be matter-of-fact about these things. He imagined it hurt Wolfram's pride to need such services.

 

“Catheter. Clear liquids only.”

 

“Wow, you're clearer than I thought, too. I figured Giesela had you on the heavy drugs. Well, would you like me to read to you to help take your mind off things?” Would you like to tell me what happened to you? he knew he shouldn't ask.

 

“Yuuri. Stop babbling.”

 

“Alright. But I have something I want to say first. Every day you were missing, over and over, I told it to that picture of Shinou that looks like you. `I miss you, Wolfram, please come home safe.' I would have demanded to go with Conrad and Günter, so they didn't tell me. Maybe when Gwendal disappeared, I should have gone after you then. But the damnedest thing was - even though I thought about you every waking minute, the you I was thinking of, wanted me to stay here - to mind the kingdom and take care of Greta. Because this time it was me holding down the fort. I guess I believed them when they said I couldn't help. So, instead I wanted to make you proud of me. Anyway, that's why I wasn't in the rescue party. No one wanted to see you more, though.”

 

No response.

 

Yuuri settled down to healing again. “You're vastly better at this than I am. Let me know if you have any suggestions. Or, if knowing any more about the wounds would help…”

 

No response.

 

Eventually - it took nearly an hour of Yuuri's silence - Wolfram started to speak. It didn't sound like Wolfram. Partly because his mouth and nose were so swollen, his vocal chords maybe bruised as well. But mostly because the paper dry raspy voice was quiet, flat, dead of emotion.

 

“They bound us with houjutsu crystals. Directly on our bodies, on our heads. Everything swam with vertigo, coming in and out of focus. We were already bleeding from the fight. We rode for hours like that, bound and slung over horses, to their village. Then they tied us hand and foot to bedposts, and started to rape us. I don't know how many times. I don't remember the rescue. I remember coming to, somewhere. Conrad's knife was in reach. I took it and stabbed myself in the gut because I could. Gwendal and Conrad tried to stop me. My majutsu worked again, so I flamed them.”

 

Yuuri quietly tucked that away in a screaming corner of his mind to deal with later, possibly in nightmares for the rest of his life, filling in the details of that dead flat statement, I don't know how many times. Yet his strange clarity stayed with him. Right now, the only important thing about that hideous story was that Wolfram vomited it out of his system like the poison it was, and never had to tell Yuuri again.

 

So he responded calmly and firmly, “I love you, Wolfram. So do Conrad and Gwendal. Even if you did toast them a bit.”

 

“Did you hear. What I said,” said Wolfram.

 

“Every word of it. And out of that whole hell, I responded with the only thing that matters.”

 

He gently turned Wolfram's head to look him in the eyes. They could only open partway, their brilliant emerald green clotted with blood. Yuuri spoke with conviction, willing Wolfram to see it as he saw it, so clearly. “Every man who did this to you is dead. Nothing of what happened to you matters, except that you get well. Your family loves you. Greta loves you. I love you.”

 

Wolfram's eyes quivered. He gulped. He started to shake. At first, he whispered. It built to a scream of terror. “Don't touch me. Don't touch me! DON'T TOUCH MEEEEEEEE!” His mitted hands started to clutch at himself.

 

Yuuri had no choice but to hold him down, to keep him from tearing at his own bandages. He half-lay over Wolfram's torso, without putting any weight on him, to protect it from moving too much as Wolfram thrashed. He gently held both Wolfram's hands to his sides and rested his forehead to Wolfram's forehead. “Please, Wolfram,” he whispered, heart aching. “Please stop. Please stop hurting yourself. I love you. I won't let you hurt yourself any more.”

 

“Donttouchme, donttouchme, donttouchme…” Wolfram continued to mutter and shudder and thrash the little he could. “No, nooooo….”

 

“I'm going to hold you, until you're back to the here and now. And it'll get better. I swear to you Wolfram, it'll get better. It was horrible, but it's over, and every day, every minute, it's going farther away from you, and you will get better, I swear to you, love.”

 

“Noooo…there's no way out of here…I just want to die. Paol died, Robair died, they were bleeding and screaming for someone to just kill them, they were begging me to kill them and I couldn't reach them…they all died, all my men died, my troopers died, they died trying to protect me, why didn't I die…I want to die…don't touch me, don't touch me…noooooo…..”

 

And it went on like that for a long time. Eventually Wolfram cried himself to sleep, that outpouring of emotion overwhelming his battered and broken and starving and hated body.

 

“I was wrong, Wolfram,” Yuuri whispered to the sleeping man, still holding him close. “I said I didn't know what love was, or whether I loved you. I was wrong. I do love you. I know that now. I'll do whatever it takes to get you back.”

 

Yuuri hadn't missed the rescue mission after all. There was a long way to go.

 

-oOo-

 

Conrad and Gwendal came to spell him in late afternoon, hair only slightly singed. Gwendal assured him they were old hands at this. They'd changed the mercurial little firebug's diapers, after all. Gwendal was carrying a knitted dragon - well, he said it was a dragon - he'd been knitting secretly for Greta. Yuuri kissed it and set it by Wolfram's hand.

 

“He'll probably throw it. He could use a zillion things to throw. I hope you won't be offended.”

 

“Has he…been calm?” Conrad asked, gently stroking Wolfram's hair.

 

“…He's kind of all over the place, mentally,” said Yuuri. “He was calm a while, but after he told me what happened…he freaked out. I had to pin him down to keep him from hurting himself until he cried himself to sleep.”

 

“He told you what happened…” Conrad said wonderingly.

 

“So he's still suicidal,” added Gwendal sadly.

 

“He'll get better,” Yuuri asserted. “Right now, I need to talk to Greta. I'll be back in an hour or so.”

 

Gwendal glared at him, jaw clenched. “You don't want a briefing?”

 

“Not here or now,” Yuuri said, with calm authority. “First things first.”

 

And Gwendal, too, looked at him in new respect. But Conrad only had eyes for his baby brother.

 

-oOo-

 

Yuuri found Greta alone in the garden, and plopped down beside her on the grass. The little girl was focused completely on weaving a little cord out of grass, and didn't look up. Through the kitchen windows, rising and falling in loudness and pitch, Yuuri could hear a heartbroken Sanguria keening.

 

“I couldn't leave Wolfram for a while,” he began. “I'm going to have to spend a lot of time alone with him. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to come talk to you.”

 

Greta didn't look up from her grass weaving. “Can I see him?”

 

Yuuri pictured Greta seeing Wolfram as he'd just seen him, and set aside the ugly image. “No, sweetie, he's not well enough. Though he will be, and I know he'll want to see you soon. In the meantime, I need your help.”

 

That got her to look up, huge brown eyes close to overflowing with tears. “I can help? Really?”

 

“Really,” said Yuuri emphatically. “I need all those letters you wrote to Wolfram, and the cards we made for him together. And I want you to keep on writing them, and give them to me every day, OK? Oh, and if he could borrow some of your stuffed animals, I think those would help, too.”

 

Greta smiled and jumped up, holding out a hand to “pull” Yuuri up. “Let's go to my room and get them right now! Wolfram can borrow all my stuffed animals.”

 

Yuuri hardly knew how to part with the girl after several armfuls - not all - of the stuffed animals had been tied in a sheet for carrying. Fortunately, Annissina arrived and took charge, with a maniacal gleam in her eye.

 

“Go do man things,” she waved Yuuri off. “This young lady and I are taking over the kitchen!” Greta clapped her hands in glee, gave Yuuri a quick peck on the cheek, and ran off ahead of Annissina, delighted at the prospect of making a really big mess.

 

“Thank you, Annissina,” Yuuri said, heartfelt, clasping her hand.

 

Annissina nodded, assured. “I got here as soon as I heard - no one thought to tell me,” she accused. “Don't worry about Greta, I've got things under control.” Yuuri grinned, watching her march off to storm the kitchens. It felt good, really good, to have his friends back, people he could count on.

 

-oOo-

 

Giesela and her assistants headed him off when Yuuri tried to return to his bedroom. “All the other wounded are taken care of. It's imperative now that we establish Wolfram's recovery.” By this she meant the ability to digest a meal and defecate, both impossible with lacerated gut and rectum. But in the meantime, Wolfram was starving to death.

 

“Is there anything you can do for his…mental equilibrium?” Yuuri inquired.

 

Giesela looked away sadly. “That will take longer, I imagine. In any case, for now, go eat, catch up with people freely where he can't hear you, and get someone back here in about two hours. I don't want loved ones in the room while we work. But tonight you'll have to take turns watching him like a hawk.”

 

Yuuri dropped off his bundles in the window embrasure, briefly brushed a hand through the hair of the sleeping Wolfram, then headed down to dinner with Conrad and Gwendal. He was famished, not having eaten since a breakfast he hadn't really been hungry for. Wolfram hasn't eaten in four days.

 

“I had a question,” Yuuri said. “Paol and Robair and the rest of Wolfram's troop?”

 

“Paol and Robair were already dead by the time we reached them,” said Conrad. “It took a long time…no one dared give up the raiders. It was just luck that Yozak caught wind of Adelbert in Mizrat and we hooked up. Adelbert still had contacts enough to track them down. It's amazing that Wolfram was still alive. Over two days…he lost a lot of blood.”

 

Gwendal took up the tale. “Two more of Wolfram's troop died of their wounds. Axel was the least wounded in the original fight. He's the one who came back to guide us, and he wouldn't stop going after the hostages. When he saw Paol and Robair's bodies, and what Wolfram looked like… Axel went berserk, killed 6 men singlehandedly before they got him. The last surviving trooper, Andrei, lost an eye and right hand. He's already on his way home to Bielenfeld.”

 

“Any other casualties?”

 

“Not on our side. Quite a few wounded. They'll recover.”

 

They arrived in the dining room to find Cheri uncharacteristically slumped in a chair. She rose and ran to them, insistently folding Conrad and Gwendal into a group hug. “Giesela headed me off before I could go see him,” she complained. “I've been running a floating hospital all day, while my baby…”

 

Yuuri rubbed her back from outside the hug huddle. “Two hours - we'll take the next watch together, Hahaue,” then calmly walked over to sit at the head of the table. Cheri looked after him in touched surprise - Yuuri wasn't in the habit of calling her `mother', yet he seemed to do it automatically, without thought.

 

“Well, I'm looking forward to dinner tonight,” Yuuri forcibly set the tone for the meal. “Greta and Annissina have taken over the kitchens from Sanguria. Ah! There's the beautiful assistant chef, now! What have you cooked for me, Greta?”

 

What the meal lacked in its usual quality, it made up for in heart. Greta was apparently in charge of arranging things on plates in happy faces, and garnishing with edible flowers.

 

It turned out Adelbert von Gratz was already gone. After the day spent on heavy lifting for the hospital ship, he'd borrowed Cheri's yacht and crew to give him a lift up the broad Donza River to visit Gratz, a trip that took days on horseback but only hours by Cheri's wind-majutsu powered yacht. “I could hardly refuse,” said Cheri. “After all he's done for us. And he promised to bring Wolfram's poor friend Andrei back to his parents in Bielenfeld.”

 

“Von Gratz went to Bielenfeld?” Gwendal frowned. Cheri looked at him thoughtfully, then seemed to resign herself to something, and resumed eating.

 

“It can't be helped,” Conrad said softly.

 

“Oh, that's right,” said Yuuri. “Adelbert called Wolfram his cousin?”

 

“Second cousin,” explained Conrad. “Adelbert's mother and Wolfram's father's mother are sisters, very close. And Gratz and Bielenfeld border one another. Adelbert von Gratz and Manfred von Bielenfeld grew up close as brothers. Though, later they had a falling out.”

 

“Manfred had a `falling out' with everyone,” said Cheri sadly.

 

“Well, eventually, so did von Gratz,” Gwendal said in fairness. “Strong-minded men.” And the conversation was firmly steered away from the apparently painful topic.

 

-oOo-

 

It was a long night. Cheri and Conrad and Yuuri stayed in the room with Wolfram, taking turns sleeping and keeping watch on him. Gwendal looked torn between wanting to stay and gruff shyness at the obvious lack of need for him to do so. In the end he wandered off, to attack his mountain of paperwork well into the night, Yuuri suspected.

 

Unsurprisingly, his mother was by far the most skilled at soothing Wolfram when he started reliving his captivity, followed in a close second by Conrad. The habit of trusting the ones who had calmed the night terrors of a small child ran deep. One time Yuuri woke to Wolfram screaming, and within minutes, Cheri had him back in hand and cheerfully bickering about techniques to improve Greta's penmanship.

 

Heartbreakingly, Yuuri didn't fare nearly so well. In Wolfram's fevered, shattered mind and emotions, Yuuri touching him and his rapists touching him were too closely related. He went most readily over the edge, most deeply into hell, when Yuuri had to pin him down. At those times, Cheri confidently took over and cradled her grown child like a baby.

 

In the morning, Cheri shooed Conrad and Yuuri out to do their normal morning exercise, while she and Giesela fed Wolfram his first semi-solid meal of porridge. After breakfast with Greta, Yuuri was headed to his office to pick up a pile of paperwork to bring back to his bedroom. He was stopped in his tracks in the gallery, by a vision of Wolfram, leaning on a cane, staring up into the portrait of Shinou, Wolfram on the wall.

 

“Wolfram!” he blurted.

 

The man who was not Wolfram turned and smiled grimly. “Manfred von Bielenfeld. You must be the Maou, Yuuri heika. Could you direct me to my son's room?”

 

-oOo-

 

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