New fic
Title: Vision
Author: DaystarsMom
Rating: PG
Characters: Conrad, Julia, Yuuri, Yozak
Approx. 3000 words
Disclaimer: Good grief, it's fanfiction. Of course it's Not Mine. Do people really need to be told this?
Obligatory stupid summary: Conrad goes on his annual drinking binge. Conrad/Julia, Conrad/Yuuri, Conrad/Yozak.
Vision
By DaystarsMom
Conrad straightened his uniform and ran a comb through his hair one last time. This night, of all nights, he would leave Covenant Castle in perfect form, however he looked when he returned. He frowned slightly at his image in the mirror. He'd never worn his uniform on one of these...excursions before, and he wasn't sure he liked the idea. But he'd told Yuuri he was going to be on patrol in town all night, and he didn't want his king to spot him leaving the castle in civilian clothes. Bad enough that Conrad would be missing their morning run; he didn't want Yuuri asking awkward questions on top of it.
Quietly, he slipped out of his rooms and made his way to the castle gates. He saw no sign of Yuuri or Wolfram. Gwendal passed him, and Conrad saw the exact moment when his usual frown deepened into understanding and disapproval. But Gwendal had had twenty years to learn the futility of reasoning with his younger brother about his annual binges, and he passed by without speaking.
Outside the gates, Conrad paused for a moment. The sun had set, but the low-hanging clouds in the western sky were still smeared with dark reds. Blood red, Conrad thought. Battlefield red. He shivered. He preferred the years when it rained.
A heavy arm dropped companionably over his shoulders. "So you're at it again this year, Captain?"
"Yozak." Conrad growled and shook his shoulders, but the arm stayed put. He looked up, forcing himself to ignore the concern in those bright blue eyes. "I'm not interested in company."
"Interested or not, you have it," Yozak said, but he lifted his arm. "Don't worry; I won't cramp your style."
"Yozak..." It had been years since Yozak tried to accompany him. Eight years, to be exact. Conrad had put up with it until the fourth bar, then...his memory wasn't too clear, but he'd drawn his sword, and though no one had been killed, he and Yozak had both taken home new scars that night. They'd made it up afterward, awkwardly, but Yozak hadn't followed him since.
"Sorry, Captain. I have my orders."
"Orders?" Conrad gave him a hard look.
Yozak shrugged. "I don't like it any more than you do, Captain, but that's how it is."
Gwendal. Speaking of over-protective big brothers... Conrad scowled, and almost turned back to have it out with his elder brother. But that would mean postponing this ritual, and that...was unacceptable.
"I thought you'd rather know," Yozak said when Conrad didn't reply. "If you'd like, I can...disappear."
Conrad opened his mouth to tell him to do just that, but...what would be the point? Yozak would still be following him. "Do as you please," he said instead, and started down the road toward the village.
o------o
Conrad started at the seediest bar he could find on the lower south side, but it didn't help. Even there, he was recognized almost immediately, and the whispers were loud enough to hear as he sat down and ordered a glass of Lieblingswein. He didn't expect them to have such a thing in a place like this, but it had been Julia's favorite wine, and he always began with it if he could.
To his surprise, the bar had it in stock. The whispers increased as he was served: "Lion of Lutenberg" and "anniversary every year" and "that was last week." He ignored them. He knew what they thought-that this was some strange memorial to the comrades fallen in battle, though no one could explain why he kept it eight days after the battle had ended. Conrad had fostered that idea very carefully.
And after all, it wasn't exactly a lie. His annual ritual was a memorial to a fallen comrade. But no one thought to associate Conrad's ritual binges with the date of Julia's death, and he preferred to keep it that way. Some things were too...personal to parade in public.
He drank the wine slowly, remembering all the things he had loved about her. The grace of her movements, the silky sheen of her hair, that warm, welcoming smile. And that blank, blank look in her unseeing eyes.
Conrad's hand tightened around the glass. Those pale blue, sightless eyes. No one ever wondered what he saw in Julia; everyone loved her, so it was hardly a surprise that the Maoh's halfbreed son would love her, too. No one suspected that what he loved most about Julia was what she couldn't see in him.
Oh, she'd known he was half-human. Everyone knew. But blind as she was, she didn't have the constant reminder of his too-human appearance to keep her at a proper distance. She'd treated him the same way she treated everyone else, not merely as a friend, but as someone worthy of friendship, perhaps even of love. And that warmth and caring had been irresistible to the lonely, affection-starved young man, even though he'd known, then as now, that he was taking advantage of her infirmity. That if she had been sighted, she would never have chosen him as a friend, let alone a potential lover.
Adelbert had known. It was what had driven him to such a frenzy-watching his promised wife smile and chat with a man everyone else deemed an outcast, someone who was only tolerated at Blood Pledge Castle because of his family connections. A man Julia would have given no more than a distant smile and perhaps her sincerest pity, if she had been able to see.
The stem of the wineglass snapped between his fingers. Conrad stared down at the sudden bright bloom of blood on his fingers, hardly hearing the bartender's complaints. Julia's friendship had opened doors for him that his mother's influence could not. Her affection and comradeship had changed Conrad's life. And every year, on the anniversary of her death, he paid her the dubious complement of drinking until his internal barriers came down and he could admit to himself that everything she had given him was based...not on a lie, exactly, but on the convenient forgetting of an unwelcome truth.
She couldn't see me. The man she cared for was an idea, not really me at all.
"Whiskey," Conrad snarled at the bartender. Usually, he was nearing the bottom of his second bottle before he could let himself remember so much, so clearly. This year, it seemed, the truth was easier to admit. The reason was obvious.
Yuuri.
Julia's soul reincarnated in a black-haired, bright-eyed boy-sighted, but still blind in some ways. Good ways, Conrad told himself as the whiskey burned its way down his throat to warm his stomach. Yuuri didn't know what it meant to be of mixed blood in this world, and whenever someone tried to tell him, he ignored them. His determination to see the best in people brought out the best in them, every time. And Yuuri saw Conrad as his ideal: strong and wise and loyal and kind and honorable.
Perfect.
Conrad gulped his newly-refilled glass of whiskey at one go, grimaced-"rotgut" was too nice a word to describe the stuff-and demanded another. Yuuri absolutely refused to see his godfather as anything but flawless. Even when Conrad had "defected" to Big Cimarron, Yuuri had insisted against all evidence that he must have had a good reason.
And he was right, whispered a small voice in the back of Conrad's head, but another drink silenced it. Yuuri didn't see the anger and the violence lurking beneath Conrad's practiced smile and polished surface. You wouldn't really have killed him, Yuuri said with assurance, ignoring Conrad's corpse-littered past and downplaying the fury that had erupted right in front of him more than once.
Yuuri doesn't see any more of the real me than Julia did. The only difference is that he chooses not to see.
Willful blindness, Conrad thought numbly. Was that better or worse than the other kind? Or the real kind? Did that make too many kinds? Probably, but he had a drink for each one, just to make sure. It didn't really matter; the result was the same: kindness and careless affection that Conrad knew he didn't deserve, but couldn't bring himself to reject.
And I'm as bad as they are. Were. Willfully blond. Blind. Pretending it's really me they care for.
Conrad chugged the rest of his glass and slapped it on the bar. He scowled at it as the bartender poured him another, reluctant to continue. But he owed Julia this-this one night each year when he brought himself to acknowledge the honest truth he had never been able to tell her while she lived. And now...now he owed a truth to Yuuri as well. Or perhaps Yuuri owed him one. But he couldn't take Yuuri out drinking, so he'd just have to drink Yuuri's drinks for him. It was a damned good thing Yuuri had gotten himself engaged to Wolfram. Wolfram didn't have to be perfect for him.
His glass was empty. Both of them. Again. Conrad waved one of his hands to signal yet another refill, but another hand came down to cover the glass. Conrad blinked at it. It was larger than his hands, with tiny reddish hairs curling on the back. Not his hand then. He heard a familiar voice: "-should cover the tab. I'm taking him back now."
"'M not finished," Conrad informed the voice.
"Sure you are, Captain; your glass is empty, isn't it? Come on, upsy-daisy."
A muscular arm slid under Conrad's armpit, so that his own arm lay across a pair of broad shoulders. Conrad turned his head to stare into a pair of vivid blue eyes. "Yo-zak," he said carefully.
"That's me," the spy said cheerfully. "Let's go."
The floor was bucking and rolling like the deck of a ship in a storm, but with Yozak's help he made it out the door. Someone seemed to have greased the cobblestones outside, too; his feet kept slipping out from under him.
"That's a bar," Conrad said as they passed a familiar sign.
"So it is," Yozak said.
"I want to go in."
"No offense, Captain, but you're drunk enough already."
"'M not drunk."
Yozak's eyebrows rose. "No? Could have fooled me."
"Drunks sing," Conrad informed him. "I'm not singing."
"And a good thing, too," Yozak said. "You'd wake the kiddo for sure."
"Yuuri." Conrad looked up at the looming walls of Blood Pledge Castle, and almost fell over backwards. Someone had made the hill steeper-probably the same person who'd greased the cobblestones and put the floor of the bar on rollers. Maybe he could get Yuuri to investigate. "Yuuri likes investigating things."
"Yeah, well, I don't think you want him seeing you like this."
"Won't."
"No, not if I can help it," Yozak agreed.
"Won't see," Conrad insisted. "Willfullily blond. All of us, willfulllily blond."
"Whatever you say, Captain." They turned a corner, and Yozak propped him against a wall. "Hold up here for just a minute."
Conrad studied the wall. It didn't look as if it needed anyone to hold it up. He started to slide down it, but Yozak was back and had an arm around him again. They wobbled through an open door, and then Yozak lowered him to sit on a narrow bed.
Conrad blinked owlishly. It wasn't just the bed that was narrow; the room was narrow, too, and sparsely furnished. In the dim light from the single window, he could see a bed, a stool, and a clothes chest, no more. Yozak ducked out the door and returned with a lantern, which he lit and hung from a hook over the bed. Conrad frowned at him. "These aren't my quarters."
"No, they're mine," Yozak said. "You're spending the night here."
"Why?"
"Because I'm not hauling you up the stairs to your own rooms, for one, and because if you're here, you won't accidentally run into the kiddo tomorrow morning and let the cat out of the bag, for another." Yozak studied him for a moment and shook his head. "Never mind. Let's get your boots and jacket off; then you get to drink some water before you bed down for the night. You can yell at me in the morning. If you're in the mood for yelling, that is."
"No," Conrad said as Yozak knelt to pull off his boots. "I mean why?"
"Orders," Yozak said without looking up. "I told you that earlier."
"No. Gwendal didn't...Gwendal wouldn't..."
Yozak was on his feet, handing Conrad a large glass. Conrad sniffed it. Water. He glared at Yozak, who only grinned. "You'll thank me for it in the morning, Captain. Drink up."
"You 'splain, then."
Yozak dropped onto the stool and rolled his shoulders. "All right, you drink and I'll talk."
Conrad nodded. He took a sip from the glass, then looked at Yozak expectantly. Yozak laughed. "Gods, I'd almost forgotten how stubborn you get when you're drunk."
"Yozak..."
"Your brother was expecting you to give up your little ritual, now that the kiddo is here," Yozak said. "He wasn't happy when he found out you were going drinking anyway. So he sent me to keep an eye on you. Drink."
Conrad took several swallows of water and waited.
"I think he was hoping to hear that you took it easy this year, even if you didn't quit entirely," Yozak went on. "Cutting you off like that-well, now I can tell him truthfully that you didn't get any more plastered than you did last year." He paused. "Just a lot faster."
Conrad drained the glass and set it on the floor. When he straightened, the room swam unpleasantly. But Yozak had more to say, he could tell. Conrad leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. "And?"
"And it's just as well you didn't keep going," Yozak replied. There was another pause, and Conrad felt himself being shifted and lowered onto the bed. "Drinking yourself to death might solve your problems, Captain, but it'd leave a major mess for the rest of us. I think you really need to find some other way to deal with your demons, so to speak."
"Not mine," Conrad mumbled into the comforting darkness.
"No, and that's part of your problem, isn't it?" Hands undid his belt, pulled it off, lifted his legs onto the bed. "Not that it would have helped any if Lady Julia had gotten herself unengaged to Lord von Grantz and reengaged to you. Because that's not really what you wanted from her."
Conrad's eyes flew open. Yozak was half turned away, reaching for the lantern, and didn't notice. The light fell across his face, highlighting pain-filled shadows and an old weariness around his eyes that Conrad had never noticed before.
The light dimmed as Yozak turned the wick down, and his face became a shadowy blur. His shoulders slumped and he looked down at Conrad's belt and jacket, draped across the stool. "And you're making the same mistake again, with the kiddo," he said, so softly that Conrad wasn't quite sure whether he'd imagined the words. "You hide half of yourself behind smiles and military decorum, and then grieve because he doesn't notice. Damn Julia for making you think that the only people who can care for you are the ones who can't see all of who and what you are."
Conrad wanted to protest, but his tongue felt thick and heavy in his mouth and tangled all the words he wanted. It's not her fault, I don't want to upset him, who would, who could, it's better this way. After a moment, he gave up, and said the only thing he could get out: "Yozak?"
"Right here, Captain." Yozak's voice was still low, but louder. "I'm like a bad penny; you can't get rid of me. But I'll let you alone to sleep it off in a minute, just as soon as I've finished making you comfortable. Can't have a prince of Shin Makoku complaining about my hospitality in the morning."
Yozak moved toward the foot of the bed, and Conrad's eyes fell shut again. Yozak's voice was a soothing buzz…unless Conrad made a point of listening to the words. Making a point of listening was hard, but he made himself do it because it felt important. Because Yozak knew. Yozak had been there for most of his life, seen everything he was and had ever been, and understood more, it seemed, than Conrad had himself.
"You know, I thought the Commander was wrong right from the start," Yozak said. "I figured that having the kiddo here at last would make things worse for you, this time of year, not better. Especially when I saw how he looks up to you. You never have dealt with that very well, have you? You're a lot more comfortable with people who think you're something they'd scrape off their shoes. I wish I'd been wrong, though."
There was a creaking sound, then a soft sigh. "It's a pity I can't tell you all this in the morning, but you'd just smile and say it's not my business. But gods, Conrad..." Another sigh, and the weight of a blanket covering him.
"Yozak?" It was a struggle to form the words, but it was important to say, now, while he was thinking of it. "You're not. You're the only one who's not."
"Not what, Captain?"
"Not willfully blond."
A low laugh. "Nope. Natural redhead, that's me. Go to sleep, Captain. If you remember any of this, you can explain it to me in the morning."
The last dim glow of light faded, and Conrad heard the sound of the door opening and closing. As consciousness faded, his last thought was that he needed to remember this in the morning, because he'd been even more blind than he'd ever believed.
--End
Yeah, I've been away for a while-blame general life-craziness. Which I expect to continue; life is just like that sometimes. But at least I got this done.
Author: DaystarsMom
Rating: PG
Characters: Conrad, Julia, Yuuri, Yozak
Approx. 3000 words
Disclaimer: Good grief, it's fanfiction. Of course it's Not Mine. Do people really need to be told this?
Obligatory stupid summary: Conrad goes on his annual drinking binge. Conrad/Julia, Conrad/Yuuri, Conrad/Yozak.
Vision
By DaystarsMom
Conrad straightened his uniform and ran a comb through his hair one last time. This night, of all nights, he would leave Covenant Castle in perfect form, however he looked when he returned. He frowned slightly at his image in the mirror. He'd never worn his uniform on one of these...excursions before, and he wasn't sure he liked the idea. But he'd told Yuuri he was going to be on patrol in town all night, and he didn't want his king to spot him leaving the castle in civilian clothes. Bad enough that Conrad would be missing their morning run; he didn't want Yuuri asking awkward questions on top of it.
Quietly, he slipped out of his rooms and made his way to the castle gates. He saw no sign of Yuuri or Wolfram. Gwendal passed him, and Conrad saw the exact moment when his usual frown deepened into understanding and disapproval. But Gwendal had had twenty years to learn the futility of reasoning with his younger brother about his annual binges, and he passed by without speaking.
Outside the gates, Conrad paused for a moment. The sun had set, but the low-hanging clouds in the western sky were still smeared with dark reds. Blood red, Conrad thought. Battlefield red. He shivered. He preferred the years when it rained.
A heavy arm dropped companionably over his shoulders. "So you're at it again this year, Captain?"
"Yozak." Conrad growled and shook his shoulders, but the arm stayed put. He looked up, forcing himself to ignore the concern in those bright blue eyes. "I'm not interested in company."
"Interested or not, you have it," Yozak said, but he lifted his arm. "Don't worry; I won't cramp your style."
"Yozak..." It had been years since Yozak tried to accompany him. Eight years, to be exact. Conrad had put up with it until the fourth bar, then...his memory wasn't too clear, but he'd drawn his sword, and though no one had been killed, he and Yozak had both taken home new scars that night. They'd made it up afterward, awkwardly, but Yozak hadn't followed him since.
"Sorry, Captain. I have my orders."
"Orders?" Conrad gave him a hard look.
Yozak shrugged. "I don't like it any more than you do, Captain, but that's how it is."
Gwendal. Speaking of over-protective big brothers... Conrad scowled, and almost turned back to have it out with his elder brother. But that would mean postponing this ritual, and that...was unacceptable.
"I thought you'd rather know," Yozak said when Conrad didn't reply. "If you'd like, I can...disappear."
Conrad opened his mouth to tell him to do just that, but...what would be the point? Yozak would still be following him. "Do as you please," he said instead, and started down the road toward the village.
o------o
Conrad started at the seediest bar he could find on the lower south side, but it didn't help. Even there, he was recognized almost immediately, and the whispers were loud enough to hear as he sat down and ordered a glass of Lieblingswein. He didn't expect them to have such a thing in a place like this, but it had been Julia's favorite wine, and he always began with it if he could.
To his surprise, the bar had it in stock. The whispers increased as he was served: "Lion of Lutenberg" and "anniversary every year" and "that was last week." He ignored them. He knew what they thought-that this was some strange memorial to the comrades fallen in battle, though no one could explain why he kept it eight days after the battle had ended. Conrad had fostered that idea very carefully.
And after all, it wasn't exactly a lie. His annual ritual was a memorial to a fallen comrade. But no one thought to associate Conrad's ritual binges with the date of Julia's death, and he preferred to keep it that way. Some things were too...personal to parade in public.
He drank the wine slowly, remembering all the things he had loved about her. The grace of her movements, the silky sheen of her hair, that warm, welcoming smile. And that blank, blank look in her unseeing eyes.
Conrad's hand tightened around the glass. Those pale blue, sightless eyes. No one ever wondered what he saw in Julia; everyone loved her, so it was hardly a surprise that the Maoh's halfbreed son would love her, too. No one suspected that what he loved most about Julia was what she couldn't see in him.
Oh, she'd known he was half-human. Everyone knew. But blind as she was, she didn't have the constant reminder of his too-human appearance to keep her at a proper distance. She'd treated him the same way she treated everyone else, not merely as a friend, but as someone worthy of friendship, perhaps even of love. And that warmth and caring had been irresistible to the lonely, affection-starved young man, even though he'd known, then as now, that he was taking advantage of her infirmity. That if she had been sighted, she would never have chosen him as a friend, let alone a potential lover.
Adelbert had known. It was what had driven him to such a frenzy-watching his promised wife smile and chat with a man everyone else deemed an outcast, someone who was only tolerated at Blood Pledge Castle because of his family connections. A man Julia would have given no more than a distant smile and perhaps her sincerest pity, if she had been able to see.
The stem of the wineglass snapped between his fingers. Conrad stared down at the sudden bright bloom of blood on his fingers, hardly hearing the bartender's complaints. Julia's friendship had opened doors for him that his mother's influence could not. Her affection and comradeship had changed Conrad's life. And every year, on the anniversary of her death, he paid her the dubious complement of drinking until his internal barriers came down and he could admit to himself that everything she had given him was based...not on a lie, exactly, but on the convenient forgetting of an unwelcome truth.
She couldn't see me. The man she cared for was an idea, not really me at all.
"Whiskey," Conrad snarled at the bartender. Usually, he was nearing the bottom of his second bottle before he could let himself remember so much, so clearly. This year, it seemed, the truth was easier to admit. The reason was obvious.
Yuuri.
Julia's soul reincarnated in a black-haired, bright-eyed boy-sighted, but still blind in some ways. Good ways, Conrad told himself as the whiskey burned its way down his throat to warm his stomach. Yuuri didn't know what it meant to be of mixed blood in this world, and whenever someone tried to tell him, he ignored them. His determination to see the best in people brought out the best in them, every time. And Yuuri saw Conrad as his ideal: strong and wise and loyal and kind and honorable.
Perfect.
Conrad gulped his newly-refilled glass of whiskey at one go, grimaced-"rotgut" was too nice a word to describe the stuff-and demanded another. Yuuri absolutely refused to see his godfather as anything but flawless. Even when Conrad had "defected" to Big Cimarron, Yuuri had insisted against all evidence that he must have had a good reason.
And he was right, whispered a small voice in the back of Conrad's head, but another drink silenced it. Yuuri didn't see the anger and the violence lurking beneath Conrad's practiced smile and polished surface. You wouldn't really have killed him, Yuuri said with assurance, ignoring Conrad's corpse-littered past and downplaying the fury that had erupted right in front of him more than once.
Yuuri doesn't see any more of the real me than Julia did. The only difference is that he chooses not to see.
Willful blindness, Conrad thought numbly. Was that better or worse than the other kind? Or the real kind? Did that make too many kinds? Probably, but he had a drink for each one, just to make sure. It didn't really matter; the result was the same: kindness and careless affection that Conrad knew he didn't deserve, but couldn't bring himself to reject.
And I'm as bad as they are. Were. Willfully blond. Blind. Pretending it's really me they care for.
Conrad chugged the rest of his glass and slapped it on the bar. He scowled at it as the bartender poured him another, reluctant to continue. But he owed Julia this-this one night each year when he brought himself to acknowledge the honest truth he had never been able to tell her while she lived. And now...now he owed a truth to Yuuri as well. Or perhaps Yuuri owed him one. But he couldn't take Yuuri out drinking, so he'd just have to drink Yuuri's drinks for him. It was a damned good thing Yuuri had gotten himself engaged to Wolfram. Wolfram didn't have to be perfect for him.
His glass was empty. Both of them. Again. Conrad waved one of his hands to signal yet another refill, but another hand came down to cover the glass. Conrad blinked at it. It was larger than his hands, with tiny reddish hairs curling on the back. Not his hand then. He heard a familiar voice: "-should cover the tab. I'm taking him back now."
"'M not finished," Conrad informed the voice.
"Sure you are, Captain; your glass is empty, isn't it? Come on, upsy-daisy."
A muscular arm slid under Conrad's armpit, so that his own arm lay across a pair of broad shoulders. Conrad turned his head to stare into a pair of vivid blue eyes. "Yo-zak," he said carefully.
"That's me," the spy said cheerfully. "Let's go."
The floor was bucking and rolling like the deck of a ship in a storm, but with Yozak's help he made it out the door. Someone seemed to have greased the cobblestones outside, too; his feet kept slipping out from under him.
"That's a bar," Conrad said as they passed a familiar sign.
"So it is," Yozak said.
"I want to go in."
"No offense, Captain, but you're drunk enough already."
"'M not drunk."
Yozak's eyebrows rose. "No? Could have fooled me."
"Drunks sing," Conrad informed him. "I'm not singing."
"And a good thing, too," Yozak said. "You'd wake the kiddo for sure."
"Yuuri." Conrad looked up at the looming walls of Blood Pledge Castle, and almost fell over backwards. Someone had made the hill steeper-probably the same person who'd greased the cobblestones and put the floor of the bar on rollers. Maybe he could get Yuuri to investigate. "Yuuri likes investigating things."
"Yeah, well, I don't think you want him seeing you like this."
"Won't."
"No, not if I can help it," Yozak agreed.
"Won't see," Conrad insisted. "Willfullily blond. All of us, willfulllily blond."
"Whatever you say, Captain." They turned a corner, and Yozak propped him against a wall. "Hold up here for just a minute."
Conrad studied the wall. It didn't look as if it needed anyone to hold it up. He started to slide down it, but Yozak was back and had an arm around him again. They wobbled through an open door, and then Yozak lowered him to sit on a narrow bed.
Conrad blinked owlishly. It wasn't just the bed that was narrow; the room was narrow, too, and sparsely furnished. In the dim light from the single window, he could see a bed, a stool, and a clothes chest, no more. Yozak ducked out the door and returned with a lantern, which he lit and hung from a hook over the bed. Conrad frowned at him. "These aren't my quarters."
"No, they're mine," Yozak said. "You're spending the night here."
"Why?"
"Because I'm not hauling you up the stairs to your own rooms, for one, and because if you're here, you won't accidentally run into the kiddo tomorrow morning and let the cat out of the bag, for another." Yozak studied him for a moment and shook his head. "Never mind. Let's get your boots and jacket off; then you get to drink some water before you bed down for the night. You can yell at me in the morning. If you're in the mood for yelling, that is."
"No," Conrad said as Yozak knelt to pull off his boots. "I mean why?"
"Orders," Yozak said without looking up. "I told you that earlier."
"No. Gwendal didn't...Gwendal wouldn't..."
Yozak was on his feet, handing Conrad a large glass. Conrad sniffed it. Water. He glared at Yozak, who only grinned. "You'll thank me for it in the morning, Captain. Drink up."
"You 'splain, then."
Yozak dropped onto the stool and rolled his shoulders. "All right, you drink and I'll talk."
Conrad nodded. He took a sip from the glass, then looked at Yozak expectantly. Yozak laughed. "Gods, I'd almost forgotten how stubborn you get when you're drunk."
"Yozak..."
"Your brother was expecting you to give up your little ritual, now that the kiddo is here," Yozak said. "He wasn't happy when he found out you were going drinking anyway. So he sent me to keep an eye on you. Drink."
Conrad took several swallows of water and waited.
"I think he was hoping to hear that you took it easy this year, even if you didn't quit entirely," Yozak went on. "Cutting you off like that-well, now I can tell him truthfully that you didn't get any more plastered than you did last year." He paused. "Just a lot faster."
Conrad drained the glass and set it on the floor. When he straightened, the room swam unpleasantly. But Yozak had more to say, he could tell. Conrad leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. "And?"
"And it's just as well you didn't keep going," Yozak replied. There was another pause, and Conrad felt himself being shifted and lowered onto the bed. "Drinking yourself to death might solve your problems, Captain, but it'd leave a major mess for the rest of us. I think you really need to find some other way to deal with your demons, so to speak."
"Not mine," Conrad mumbled into the comforting darkness.
"No, and that's part of your problem, isn't it?" Hands undid his belt, pulled it off, lifted his legs onto the bed. "Not that it would have helped any if Lady Julia had gotten herself unengaged to Lord von Grantz and reengaged to you. Because that's not really what you wanted from her."
Conrad's eyes flew open. Yozak was half turned away, reaching for the lantern, and didn't notice. The light fell across his face, highlighting pain-filled shadows and an old weariness around his eyes that Conrad had never noticed before.
The light dimmed as Yozak turned the wick down, and his face became a shadowy blur. His shoulders slumped and he looked down at Conrad's belt and jacket, draped across the stool. "And you're making the same mistake again, with the kiddo," he said, so softly that Conrad wasn't quite sure whether he'd imagined the words. "You hide half of yourself behind smiles and military decorum, and then grieve because he doesn't notice. Damn Julia for making you think that the only people who can care for you are the ones who can't see all of who and what you are."
Conrad wanted to protest, but his tongue felt thick and heavy in his mouth and tangled all the words he wanted. It's not her fault, I don't want to upset him, who would, who could, it's better this way. After a moment, he gave up, and said the only thing he could get out: "Yozak?"
"Right here, Captain." Yozak's voice was still low, but louder. "I'm like a bad penny; you can't get rid of me. But I'll let you alone to sleep it off in a minute, just as soon as I've finished making you comfortable. Can't have a prince of Shin Makoku complaining about my hospitality in the morning."
Yozak moved toward the foot of the bed, and Conrad's eyes fell shut again. Yozak's voice was a soothing buzz…unless Conrad made a point of listening to the words. Making a point of listening was hard, but he made himself do it because it felt important. Because Yozak knew. Yozak had been there for most of his life, seen everything he was and had ever been, and understood more, it seemed, than Conrad had himself.
"You know, I thought the Commander was wrong right from the start," Yozak said. "I figured that having the kiddo here at last would make things worse for you, this time of year, not better. Especially when I saw how he looks up to you. You never have dealt with that very well, have you? You're a lot more comfortable with people who think you're something they'd scrape off their shoes. I wish I'd been wrong, though."
There was a creaking sound, then a soft sigh. "It's a pity I can't tell you all this in the morning, but you'd just smile and say it's not my business. But gods, Conrad..." Another sigh, and the weight of a blanket covering him.
"Yozak?" It was a struggle to form the words, but it was important to say, now, while he was thinking of it. "You're not. You're the only one who's not."
"Not what, Captain?"
"Not willfully blond."
A low laugh. "Nope. Natural redhead, that's me. Go to sleep, Captain. If you remember any of this, you can explain it to me in the morning."
The last dim glow of light faded, and Conrad heard the sound of the door opening and closing. As consciousness faded, his last thought was that he needed to remember this in the morning, because he'd been even more blind than he'd ever believed.
--End
Yeah, I've been away for a while-blame general life-craziness. Which I expect to continue; life is just like that sometimes. But at least I got this done.