Kyou Kara Maou Fan Fiction ❯ The Bedding of Wolfram ❯ Yuuri Lover ( Chapter 5 )

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 5 : Yuuri Lover

 

The days passed. Wolfram's strength returned slowly. He still spent most of his time in his room with his father. He lunched in his room with Greta and Yuuri, but joined the usual group at the dinner table. A détente was established whereby Manfred didn't dine with them anymore. Wolfram's guest, Wolfram can deal with him.

 

Though Yuuri had always known in theory that Wolfram took his fidelity seriously and rebuffed endless opportunities, watching Manfred take the opposite tack was a bit scary. The black-humored, gorgeous Manfred was wildly popular among the women of the castle, save Cheri. Watching Gwendal flounder in mixed feelings while Manfred hit on Annissina did help brighten an otherwise trying time.

 

By his second day there, Manfred declared the suicide watch over, and Yuuri and Wolfram had the room to themselves again at night. Yuuri stubbornly refused to move out or have a cot brought in, though Wolfram couldn't cope with them sharing the bed. Instead Yuuri brought an overstuffed armchair to sleep by Wolfram's side, and held his hand all night.

 

Wolfram still flinched at any other attempt by Yuuri to touch him, though he could handle hugs and kisses from his family. He was buffeted by mood swings - never really his strong suit at the best of times - and the nightmares were constant and terrifying. Because Yuuri held his hand, he was fairly sure he woke up to talk Wolfram through all of those. Yuuri ached to climb into bed and hug him close then, but honored Wolfram's flinching skittishness and didn't do it.

 

“Wolfram…” Yuuri asked, one of those nights in the gloom, “why didn't you ever tell me about your father.”

 

“Mm, no real reason, I guess. Habit. Keeping my mother's side and my father's side separate. You just kinda fell into my mother's side. And… I spend most of my life on my mother's side.”

 

“Does it help? All this time you spend talking to Manfred?”

 

“Yeah, it does. I'm sorry, I know having him here is a strain for everybody… Chichiue's had a lot of related experiences himself, though not so bad, and he's been a healer for a century, helping people put their lives back together… Most people in my position, he'd insist on taking back to Bielenfeld to work it through. Heh. He says I'm a perfectionist. If I were just willing to hate humans, give up male lovers, toss the soldiering, and be a healer, like him, I'd be a happily bitter man in no time.” He chuckled darkly. That was another thing Yuuri had to get used to - that Wolfram had Manfred's wicked sense of humor. He had to admit, though, it served Wolfram well now.

 

“Anyway, Chichiue's learned some tricks over the years. How to engage and disengage, re-experience and detach, and just kind of work through the feelings. I'm lucky a little, in that he taught me these tricks long ago. Starting from learning how to do it would… take a lot longer. But since I already know how, he just has to keep me doing it, much as I'd like to crawl under the covers and hide.”

 

“Wolfram… Could I ask… What you're trying to work through now?”

 

Wolfram was silent a few moments, thinking, then squeezed Yuuri's hand. “It's not really like that. If you could get it… all… sifted into neat little piles, all unrelated, it would be easy, but… It all goes back and forth and crisscrosses. Robair and Axel and Yuuri and a rapist and back to Axel and forward to Yuuri. Healing versus fire and fighting and Chichiue and Hahaue and guilt. A tangled mess.”

 

“But,” and in this, Yuuri's heart was in his throat, and he whispered, “you don't need to leave for Bielenfeld? You can stay here and get well? With me? Wolfram… please don't give up on me. I won't give up on you.”

 

Wolfram was silent again, and when he resumed speaking, Yuuri could hear the now all-too-familiar quaver of soft crying in his voice. “The thing is, Yuuri, I don't know… what I am anymore. I don't think I can just pick up and be an officer again, raise another majutsu troop. I have the potential as a healer… I was studying under Suzanna Julia… I just turned my back on it when she died. I couldn't… didn't want to… be compassionate then. And you… I want to trust you, but I never can, because you keep deserting me to go back to Japan… Oh, God, Yuuri, if you abandoned me now…”

 

And Yuuri cried, too, because for that he had no answer - his travel between worlds was completely at Shinou's mercy. “I hate him, I hate Shinou. I should be the one to decide when I come and go…”

 

“Don't say that, Yuuri. That's treason.”

 

-oOo-

 

The next day Yuuri spotted Manfred on a balcony flirting with Annissina, and something Wolfram said in the night came back to him: You're on my mother's side. He'd been coming to loathe Manfred, but Yuuri refused to loathe anybody. I'm not on Cheri's side. I'm on Wolfram's side. And this man is too.

 

He walked out to the balcony and greeted them.

 

“Well, I should run along,” said Annissina, with a peck on Manfred's cheek. “Later, you rascal!” And she sashayed off the balcony, with a coquettish glance behind.

 

“I do love the maniacal gleam in that girl's eye,” Manfred mused, watching Annissina's backside until she passed from view. “What can I do for you, Yuuri?”

 

“Ah, Manfred-sensei… I'd like you to help me encourage Wolfram to stay here. To get well.”

 

“Mmm, no can do,” said Manfred. “The problem with that, is that Wolfram has another home to go to, another life he could pick up if he can't make this one work out. I'm simply pointing that out, and telling him that he's always welcome to my world. And obviously, I'm never going to take that back. However. Yuuri… Would you mind a bit of advice?”

 

Stinging, Yuuri suspected he'd mind very much, but that… wasn't in the spirit of why he came out to the balcony. “Ah… well, I guess I could use it.”

 

Manfred laughed. “Wimp.” Yuuri thought at first that Manfred was calling him one, as his son did constantly. “You ever wonder, why it is Wolfram calls you that?”

 

“Ah… Because I want to make peace with humans and don't put to death the people who cross me? It hasn't been easy for him to accept that about me. Ah, I'm kinda surprised he ever did.”

 

“Mm, me too! God knows, I'll never agree with you on it. Politics.” That was a dismissal - Manfred considered politics uninteresting. Cecilie did politics. He did majutsu. “I think it's, uh, simpler than that, Yuuri. Try again. Something… more personal, more emotional?”

 

“Umm…”

 

“Think pink.”

 

Yuuri blushed. Think pink immediately brought to mind Wolfram's pink nightie.

 

Manfred was staring at him with an expression very like Wolfram's you're-none-too-bright-are-you look. But Professor Manfred was trying really hard to make Yuuri fire his own neurons. “Think pink negligeé. Think sexy fiancé in bed? Think… pretty girl climbs into bed with you, bats sexy eyelashes, and waits… waits, for what?”

 

“Ah, hah, for me to… kiss her?”

 

Manfred stared at him a moment, then motioned, go on…

 

“Wolfram… Oh. Really?”

 

Manfred patted him on the back, hard. “Be a man, son. Or let the pretty vixen go… happy thought that…” And Manfred wandered off, to chase skirts no doubt.

 

Yuuri feared that whatever new respect he'd lately earned at Blood Pledge Castle, after that conversation, Manfred von Bielenfeld would forever consider him an idiot. And a… wimp.

 

-oOo-

 

At bedtime, Yuuri considered simply climbing into bed with Wolfram. The blond was already asleep. Yuuri pictured climbing in, and waking Wolfram by firmly grabbing him and kissing him on the mouth. Yuuri pictured Wolfram raking his claws across Yuuri's face… No, I have to wait for an opportunity… Yuuri pictured two almost-matching sardonic blond demons giving advice. You could make an opportunity. Idiot. Yuuri climbed into his armchair in defeat, clutching Wolfram's hand. “I love you, Wolfram,” he said quietly.

 

“Mmm, wimp,” Wolfram muttered in his sleep, and rolled over toward him. Yuuri fell asleep.

 

The nightmare was bad. Wolfram screamed and sat upright, jolting Yuuri awake. Suddenly, his strange clarity was back. I did it right the first time, when he first came back, he thought. He climbed into his bed and embraced Wolfram.

 

“No, don't touch me, don't touch me…” Wolfram whispered.

 

“Shhh, love. It's alright. It's alright…you're here with me…” And Yuuri kissed him on the mouth, long and gentle. Wolfram protested a little at first, then gradually returned the kiss. Then he freaked out a little and tried to push Yuuri away.

 

“No, Yuuri, it's no good, I'm too scared…” He was going rigid and crying.

 

Yuuri firmly held Wolfram's head to his shoulder and pressed him tight by the small of his back, pushed a leg between his and held his leg tight too. “No,” Yuuri murmured. “It's alright. This is nothing to be afraid of. Nothing like they were. I love you. You'll be OK. I won't let go.”

 

“Yuuri…” it turned into a soft keening, but then Wolfram clasped Yuuri in return, hard. “Don't let go,” he whispered.

 

“No, I won't let go,” Yuuri said. He found Wolfram's mouth again and they enjoyed a long kiss. Yuuri felt himself getting hard, Wolfram getting hard, and firmly told himself to put any of that feeling into the kiss for now. Our first real kiss… “I love you. Oh, Wolfram, I love you…” Wolfram fell asleep before he did, but Yuuri kept him pressed tight, head to foot. He laughed at himself silently. Oh, hell. And I thought Cheri could calm him down better… I'm sorry, love. I won't screw this up anymore. I promise.

 

The next night Wolfram was rather fearful when Yuuri kissed him goodnight. He didn't want Yuuri in bed with him - he was afraid it would give him nightmares. Would Yuuri sleep in the armchair again? And Yuuri kissed him again harder, but since Wolfram was still pushing him away, he acquiesced and slept in the chair. And when Wolfram woke with a nightmare, he climbed into bed as he had the night before, and held Wolfram as he had the night before, though stroking and exploring a bit more, pillow talking a bit more.

 

The next night Yuuri didn't ask, he simply got into bed and asked Wolfram to fwoosh the lights out, then held him tight. Wolfram confided some fears, Yuuri got him to laugh a little, and they slept. And the nightmares were getting milder.

 

A couple nights later, while they were getting ready to sleep, Wolfram called him a wimp. Yuuri laughed and murmured, “Wimp, huh?” and tugged Wolfram's nightgown up so he could reach more. Not penetration, not yet. It didn't matter if it wasn't ever. There was plenty more they could do. And gradually, gently, they did.

 

-oOo-

 

“Ah!” Yuuri said, “what a gorgeous morning!” Conrad was tossing a ball while he stretched.

 

“You and Wolfram are both looking suspiciously happy these days,” commented Conrad with a big smile.

 

“Mm, are we?” said Yuuri. “I hear you're going to fence with him this afternoon? Ah, that'll be good to see, Wolfram with a sword again. That should cheer him up.”

 

“Maybe,” said Conrad. “We'll take it easy and see how it goes. Er, Yuuri? Perhaps we should hit the baths instead of playing ball before work.”

 

Yuuri laughed. “OK, I'll take the hint. Meet you there.”

 

As he undressed in the baths, Yuuri could smell Conrad's point. His nocturnal adventures might require a little adjustment in the daily routine. Fine by him. He scrubbed extra special thoroughly, resolved to do so again after dinner, and slipped into the bath for a nice soak. “Ah….” He adored a float in this vast piping hot bath pool.

 

“YUURI!” yelled Conrad.

 

And Yuuri looked up to see the whirlpool forming, dragging him into it. “NO!!! NOT NOW!” he screamed.

 

-oOo-

 

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