Pherocious Pheromones (other suggestions for a title are welcome)
Val's long overdue KKM fic that I promised her something like three years ago to encourage her to study. Loosely set after "For Love of a Plushie". I still haven't watched the rest of KKM, it's on my to-do list though. Standard disclaimers, etc, apply.
Title: Pherocious Pheromones (although this is subject to change)
Series: Kyou Kara Maou
Warnings: a lot of innuendo and the occasional nonsensical ramble
In the years since his arrival, life had eventually, settled into a routine for the Maou and his retainers. True, that routine was somewhat less sedate than many had expected but it was a routine, nonetheless. The dramas revolving around the antics of Günter, Anissina and Gwendal were a perfect example. At least once a week, Gwendal would find himself contemplating the pros and cons of life as a monk when, without fail, Günter would, somehow, draw Anissina’s attentions away from his husband and towards himself and Gwendal would resolve that taking vows was a little too extreme a measure to avoid the terrible redhead.
If Gwendal had ever bothered to ask Conrad about it, his younger brother would have sat him down and explained exactly how this sacrifice on Günter’s part was just that, a sacrifice. He would have laid no few of Gwendal’s doubts to rest by flatly telling him that Günter did this intentionally as an act of love and compassion for Gwendal himself. Of course, Gwendal would never lower himself thus and so he still laboured under the faulty impression that his husband of two years was deeply and passionately in love with the Maou and had only been tricked into marrying him.
A foolish belief on his part because even the innocent and oblivious Maou could have told him that, while Günter might have proposed accidentally - if you could call the well deserved left hook after being felt up while in plushie form that - the white seneschal would hardly have been so ignorant of law and custom that he could not have broken the betrothal had he been so inclined. Günter von Kleist might fawn over the young Maou but his heart was firmly held by Lord Gwendal Von Walde.
Returning to the topic at hand which was routine. More specifically, it was those involving the nightmare trio of Günter, Gwendal and Anissina - Anissina being the nightmare and the two men being the dreamers that could not, for the life of them, wake up. In any case, this particular little score was yet again unfolding at high volume and little discretion. Günter, as always, was strapped into the latest complicated contraption, with an uncertain and slightly nauseous expression on his handsome face. Anissina was standing close by, expounding to the audience about the purpose of this death trap, apologies, marvellous invention, while Gwendal watched on, silently cursing his cowardice at allowing this pushy woman, childhood ‘friend’ or not, to torture his lover like this. How would he ever gain Günter’s supposedly unobtainable affections if he continued to act like such a worm?
Due to his self-flagellation, Gwendal missed Anissina’s latest spiel and only began paying attention to his surroundings again when a very strong arm yanked him against a firm chest, the hand on the arm’s partner lifted his chin and a pair of, to him, highly desirable lips descended upon him. Gwendal was inclined to struggle until he realized that it was no stranger but his beloved Günter assaulting his person thusly and then he did struggle because, no matter how much he wanted this, he was an honourable soul most of the time, and Günter was obviously not in his right mind. Forget personal preferences and the fact that Gwendal was not a slender, black-haired, black-eyed young Maou, a sane Günter would never debase himself by trying to ravage anyone, especially Gwendal, in the castle courtyard in full view of twenty-four witnesses. Cheeks pink with embarrassment, Gwendal pushed Günter away, or as far away as his own arguing libido and Günter’s tenacious strength would allow him.
“What…” Gwendal began only to be silenced when Günter again planted a big wet one on him.
“Take me, I’m yours!” the Maou’s foremost fanboy moaned after attempting to excavate Gwendal’s tonsils with his tongue.
Gwendal was mortified. He struggled to push his husband away and it was a struggle as Günter really did not want to be pushed away. Whatever inhibitions he might once have possessed had gone out the window and Gwendal correctly blamed Anissina. He glared venomously over Günter’s shoulder at her. “What the Hell did you do to him?” he demanded furiously as he fought to restrain a man that seemed to have developed the dexterity of the average octopus.
Anissina was, of course, all innocence and wounded sensibilities, which belied the wickedly evil shine in her bright eyes. “I did nothing! Gwendal, how could you think I’d risk hurting your precious husband?”
Gwendal growled, captured the wandering hand that had descended for parts better left unknown and attempted to immobilize Günter, all the while barking at Anissina. Gwendal was quite competent at multitasking, a skill gained in his youth by trying to complete his lessons and avoid upsetting his rather irresponsible mother. “Let us think, Anissina, Günter is normal, or as normal as he gets, before you start your latest monstrosity and afterwards he’s lost all dignity!”
“You can’t blame me for that!” she shouted back huffily, “It’s your fault!”
“My fault?” Gwendal was so outraged that he spluttered incoherently for a moment. “My fault? How is this my fault?”
She smirked slyly at him, infuriating him further. “Why, isn’t it obvious? Clearly, your animal magnetism has overwhelmed him. We can hardly hold Günter at fault when that is the case.”
“My animal magnetism, as you put it, hardly caused such show before you subjected him to that damned thing!”
“Gwendal, my love,” Günter interrupted indulgently, “I have always adored you, but only now do I understand the needlessness of my self-restraint! We could have been worshipping each other’s bodies for far longer than we have had together and I will not waste another moment of our time together!”
Gwendal twitched when he felt Günter’s free hand slip behind cloth that was there for a reason and hastily tried to back pedal. “Günter, you don’t know what you’re doing! She’s done…”
“Ohhhhh,” Günter purred throatily as he followed Gwendal, allowing no space at all to form between them. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”
The hand was delving deeper and Gwendal was growing frantic. Had they been in the privacy of their own quarters, then he would have surrendered at that point and quite possibly experienced the best night of his life. As it was, they were not in their own quarters and they were, in fact, the focus of two dozen transfixed gazes, no few of these observers drooling. “It’s not you! It’s her machine!”
Günter growled and leapt forward to plaster himself against Gwendal from groin to shoulder. “I beg to differ,” he whispered into Gwendal’s neck in betwixt nips and licks. “This is all me!” And he rubbed himself provocatively against Gwendal as if to prove it.
Now, Gwendal was a strong man and brave too, his fear of Anissina aside, but even he had his limits. His husband’s last action was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back, not even the great Sage could have been expected to stand strong against such an assault. Anissina would answer for her crimes later, although giving her time to compose either an acceptable defence or to hightail it to higher ground would not be conductive to any justice the besieged lord might hope for. For pride and privacy, Gwendal broke free and ran for it.
That was not exactly the routine the inhabitants of the Maou’s castle had come to expect but, as the outcome was chaos and embarrassment in equal measures for the two men, it was not exactly unusual, either.
Now, let it not be said that Anissina was needlessly malicious to her childhood friend. Indeed, many of her actions were intended to make his life, if not easier, then more interesting. If the first goal was one she rarely succeeded with, the second goal she rarely failed in accomplishing. Anissina’s motto was ‘life was only lived once, let’s not waste our time doing things that we could have automated’. Actually, to be completely honest, her motto was ‘don’t leave anything important to the men’ or, on occasion, ‘if it isn’t broken, find out why’ but her goals in regards to her inventions oftentimes supported the first philosophy so that it could be said that, no matter what she might say, she lived that one. In spite of what he might believe, Anissina was a generous woman and Gwendal, of course, having the unrivalled good fortune of being her childhood friend, was the most common recipient of that generosity.
Gwendal might argue, uselessly, at the need, or lack thereof, for her bizarre brand of good Samaritanism but he was, as most males were wont to be, oblivious to her good intentions, preferring to persist in believing that her sole purpose was to torture him with pointless and dangerous gizmos. Anissina, should there ever come a time when Gwendal wised up, would argue back that it was apparent that he could not manage his own love life and so he obviously needed a feminine influence to get him on the right track. Of the two of them, Anissina was the more correct, Gwendal patently had no idea of how to woo, win and keep the object of his affections, thus the infamous plushie incident that resulted in the pair of not quite blissfully wedded Mazouku lords.
After two years of watching the pair dance around each other, or rather, Günter dance around the Maou and Gwendal stand back sulking, Anissina’s vast reserves... moderate reserves… her patience had been stretched to the utter limits and beyond and she resolved that it was time, yet again, for her to intercede on behalf of her block-headed friend. Anissina, being a Machiavellian soul that was physically incapable of doing things in the simple and straightforward method of sitting Gwendal down to explain the mechanics of his and Günter’s relationship in a manner that his feeble male brain could comprehend, devised an extremely convoluted scheme that would solve Gwendal’s marital difficulties and land him his lavender-haired hunk, resolving once and for all his doubts regarding said hunk’s affections. After considering the parties involved and tendency for males to ruin a perfectly good plan, Anissina rethought her methods and concocted a simpler, though similarly brilliant stratagem, this one slightly similar to the one that encouraged Günter to propose to Gwendal in the first place.
Anissina liked originality even more than the next person but sometimes the classic approach was best.
Which was how, exactly two years to the day after Günter had been plushified, Gwendal had found himself being ravaged in front of twenty plus witnesses. Of course, Anissina had not intended for Günter to lose all of his inhibitions, and, contrary to popular belief, Günter did have inhibitions, his tendency to glomp the Maou not withstanding, but she was not averse to watching two very attractive men get all hot and heavy in front of her. In fact, in the few minutes of voyeurism that she was allowed before Gwendal beat his strategic, and much needed, retreat, she decided that she might very well make it a prerequisite for future attempts at helping the helpless. As salaries went, it wasn’t bad.
The point of this was that Anissina had not intended to make Günter uninhibited, though that was a perfectly lovely side effect that she was definitely planning to make a standard outcome in all of her future endeavours; it was, in fact, to make him incapable of lying to himself and others. With nothing particularly pressing on the official front, the Maou currently being in the otherworld leaving most of the higher ranking Mazoku with less to do, she had thought it a perfect opportunity to zap Günter, as it were, and, after subjecting him to a series of leading and revealing questions while he was under the influence of her fiendishly brilliant machine, she had intended to conclude the day’s exercise by locking both Gwendal and his exposed lover in their bedroom, which she had ensured was more than adequately provisioned for at least a week’s retreat. The exposure that had actually occurred was not in the plan, or not so soon and in the present company anyway, but she figured that it was an acceptable deviation that would leave the two men in the same position in the end anyway and so she dismantled the device and congratulated herself on a mission completed satisfactorily.
What Anissina was unaware of was that her machine had worked in a manner that was even more unexpected than was immediately apparent. True, Gwendal and Günter, once Günter caught his fleeing spouse, would end up spending an extended period naked, sweaty and panting, but not quite in the way Anissina had hoped. Nor had she realised that, in extremely specific circumstances, the effects of her machine would be, in a manner of speaking, contagious to a certain demographic, i.e. the Maou.
The routine at Blood Pledge Castle was about to change.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Since being sucked down a toilet when he was fifteen, Yuuri had become, if not accustomed, then slightly blasé about the weird occurrences in his life, and there were quite a few of those. So it was that he wasn’t entirely surprised when, after helping his mother clean the kitchen-he was a good son-he was transported to the otherworld not through the sink full of soapy water but, instead, through the small puddle of spilled water on the floor next to it. It had been nearly three weeks since his last visit and Yuuri was resigned to destiny, fate or Ulrike using whatever resources that were at hand to bring him over. A puddle that wouldn’t even have filled a baby’s bottle was kind of extreme but, as previously mentioned, it had been three weeks and his people tended to get a little antsy when their Maou was out of sight for so long.
Now, being swallowed up by tiny puddle might not have surprised Yuuri but coming up in a cramped tub definitely did and not because it was a tub, Yuuri had long ago resigned himself to the fact that he wasn’t always going to appear somewhere as private and comfortable as the royal bath chamber - see arrivals thirty-one through to forty-eight when he had done the rounds of all the local horse troughs. No, it was not the fact that he had appeared in a tub that shook the young Maou, it was the other, naked occupants of the tub. Until he had made his unscheduled appearance, it seemed that Gwendal had been getting a sponge bath from Günter and now all three, for differing reasons, were regarding each other with horror, Gwendal for having been caught in this position (Günter having finally trapped him after a small mishap in the kitchens), Günter for having Yuuri being the one to catch him (in his current state he might have been fixated on his husband but there was still a tiny little part of him that was sober enough to realise that the Maou would remember this forevermore) and Yuuri for catching the two of them at all.
There was three seconds of frozen shock and then the bathtub erupted. Gwendal, whose mortification was, barely, the greatest, being the repressed individual that he was, managed to escape the tub completely and resurrect decency by wrapping the nearest towel around his waist (decency being interpreted in the loosest manner of speaking here due to the size of the towel). Yuuri and Günter faired less successfully. Günter, having attempted to recapture his husband, he was still under the influence after all, had missed, slipping, and landed on Yuuri, who had almost managed to climb out of the tub. The tub overturned and, during the following crash, there was a light show that, for some reason, the watching Gwendal found dreadfully familiar. He ignored the inexplicable, although if he took the time to pinpoint exactly why he thought he recognised the light show then nothing would have been more plain, and ominous feelings of doom that were roiling in his gut and rushed forward to help his love and his Maou out from beneath the tub.
He lifted the tub away to find two dazed men, though one of these, by popular opinion, would not be considered such until he had undergone a few necessary rites of passage, saturated and plastered against each other. His senses returning and his faculties resolving themselves into correct and functioning order, Günter lifted his head away from Yuuri’s neck where his nose had been buried in the sweet skin under Yuuri’s jaw and decided that he could die happily now having experienced both the close embrace of the wonderful Maou and his precious Gwendal. Gwendal’s feelings of impending disaster were then substantiated, to him at least, when Yuuri did not blush and stammer protests at Günter’s proximity but instead licked his lips as he gazed hungrily into the venerable seneschal’s eyes. This promptly sent Günter into an overload of near orgasmic fanboying, thus dashing whatever hopes Gwendal had built that his husband might indeed care for him.
Of course, fate being the nasty creature that it was, Günter was the one mourning broken dreams when, a few seconds later, Yuuri looked over his shoulder to see Gwendal standing in nothing but a skimpy towel, a few bubbles decorating dark hair, and the Maou’s already black irises darkened to a hue never before seen in nature. Gwendal shuddered, feeling vulnerable in a way that his lack of apparel really did not help and Günter’s eyes widened as his hindbrain began screaming desperate warnings of a threat to their territory in an effort to get his forebrain moving and in between the Maou and his husband. The message was only incompletely received by Günter’s rather sluggishly working forebrain, but it was enough to compel him to scramble up and attempt to conceal Gwendal behind him, all the while unconsciously, as the conscious had still not caught up, chanting, “Mineminemineminemine, you can’t have him, he’s mine!”
Gwendal was torn between regarding the strangely fearsome young man that was his ruler and his husband who was being fiercely and openly possessive of Gwendal, himself. Anissina would later have all justification for self-congratulation even if her plan to bring about an epiphany in the blockheaded lord had not proceeded quite as planned. Where Günter’s words had not been enough, though, to be fair to Gwendal, they were subject to reasonable doubt being as Günter was not quite in his right mind as he spoke them, his actions, or rather this shielding-slash-hoarding behaviour, got through to Gwendal. While he could reason away wild lust on Günter’s part as nothing special, Gwendal knew full well that he was a hottie, such possessiveness, and against the Maou, too-which made it even more significant-could surely only occur if Günter felt some form of affection towards him. Needless to say, even Gwendal could get the hint after being mauled by it, although, now that he wanted to be mauled, it looked as though that was not a go for the near future.
Now, Yuuri being Yuuri, i.e. an innocent and naïve eighteen year old that still had nearly everyone who knew him, bar Conrad (but then Conrad was an exception to many things with regards to the Maou) wondering if he knew exactly why most married couples shared a bed, did not fully understand the subtleties of the situation… consciously at least. His own hindbrain seemed to assess the situation, deem Gwendal not worth a fight, and whatever it was in him that had roused, settled down again, though a shadow remained in the black eyes to tell them that whatever it was might not be as deeply settled as they might wish.
Günter relaxed somewhat, the way one might relax around a dozing wolf and exchanged a speaking glance, one of those subtleties that Yuuri constantly missed, with Gwendal. The brunette lord, though generally happy with life due to his new realisations and a little disappointed that Günter seemed to be back to normal before he could take advantage of his previous state with a now clear conscience, understood and fully agreed with the apprehension in Günter’s gaze. Yuuri did not, as a matter of course, look dangerous and even when the power sleeping within him awoke, he did not give out the vibes of a predator looking to hunt. This little episode was, then, aberration enough to cause no little alarm between two of the lords that had to manage the Maou but the sudden arrival of several dozen guards suddenly reminded the two lords exactly where Gunter had waylaid Gwendal for his bath and they then had other things on their minds than the Maou acting strangely when everyone knew he wasn’t normal anyway.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The young Maou was in more ways than one, an abnormal youth. Unlike most teenage boys, Yuuri either did not experience the, previously thought inevitable, urges of adolescence or he sublimated them so thoroughly that no one, least of all he, knew they had occurred to him at all. It was the source of some amusement for everyone who watched Wolfram’s efforts at furthering his relationship with his supposed fiancé bounce off said fiancé’s impenetrable shield of innocence because Yuuri really did not think of such things. Of further frustration to the young blond lord with the persistent case of blue balls was his elder brothers’ infuriating commentary every time Yuuri shot him down with all the oblivious accuracy of a first class military sniper.
Conrad was bad enough, with his inferior breeding, aggravating perceptiveness and absolutely insanely, nauseatingly close relationship with the object of Wolfram’s affections, but Gwendal, who had caught his lover and he was almost as romantically inept as Yuuri, did not even have to open his mouth to drive Wolfram completely wild with envy and anger. Nothing seemed to rub salt so deeply into a wound as seeing an idiot (and in these situations that was the only way to describe the eldest of Wolfram’s brothers) succeed where he continuously failed.
As Yuuri would say, it sucked.
Wolfram was many things though, beautiful, brilliant, charismatic and above all, obstinate. If the blond got an idea into his head then it dug in with the help of a professional and experienced drilling team and set up camp to last. The notion of marrying the Maou had not only dug in and set up camp, but also set up the marriage pavilion, banquet hall and honeymoon suite. Needless to say, considering its accommodations, the notion was not going anywhere soon and Wolfram was not yet giving up on wooing, wedding and bedding Yuuri.
Luckily for him, Wolfram had missed the fracas involving his elder brother, brother-in-law and a mad inventor’s insane idea of marriage counselling and instead overheard Ulrike’s handmaidens (he had not been eavesdropping, he had merely been enjoying an afternoon constitutional that had taken him within hearing distance of the group) discussing the Maou’s imminent return and so had raced back to the castle to prepare. Incidentally, he had crossed Gwendal and Gunter’s paths at this point and done no more than direct Gunter after Gwendal without querying his motives for running about crazed, why Gwendal was hiding or why Gunter’s normally pale eyes were now a disturbingly dark violet. Wolfram had a seduction to plan.
The first problem would be locating the Maou after his arrival and co-opting him before anyone else could. Although Gunter seemed like he would be otherwise occupied, there was still Conrad, the sneaky, conniving son-of-a-human as a valid concern. Yuuri’s tendency to appear in any available water source at the oddest times was troublesome but Wolfram figured the Maou was due to begin rounds of the local bathtubs again now that he had finally visited the last of the birdbaths in the area. The most likely spot was hopefully the Maou’s bathing chamber, but that could not be counted on, so some judicious bribing of the servants was required. Lighter by a considerable about of gold but assured that every other bath in the castle would be empty, Wolfram made a quick trip (though quick may be open for redefinition in this instance) to his chambers to garb himself in something more fetching before staking out the Maou’s bathroom.
An hour later, he was beginning to wonder if he’d misheard Ulrike’s handmaidens when a shriek from the direction of his brother’s office caught the attention of every being within the castle as well as a few circling boneys. Bored and fed up with waiting, Wolfram followed the flood of guards on their way to fulfil their duty and defend their lords (which Wolfram thought was very admirable), all the while making bets about whether Gunter had cornered his prey and if the noise was Gwendal giving in to the seneschal, which Wolfram did not approve of. So Wolfram was there when the door to Gwendal’s office opened and a wet but fully-clothed Maou stepped through while his subconscious edited out the sight of a naked Gunter, nearly naked Gwendal, overturned tub and suds on the desk and paperwork from his brain before it registered.
Without really thinking about it, though his subconscious was still hard at work, Wolfram glomped onto Yuuri and began leading him away, coincidently putting his back to the door and any further assaults of unnecessary information. He was a little disturbed to discover that Yuuri was now an inch or so taller than he was but that didn’t really matter to Wolfram since Yuuri was so obviously a submissive personality that, excess height or not, he would undoubtedly let Wolfram lead when they finally made it into bed together.
Or so Wolfram was so busily thinking that he missed the warning glint in Yuuri’s uncharacteristically molten black irises until they’d turned a corner into a deserted hall. Then Wolfram was forcibly awakened to the not so pliant portion of Yuuri’s previously unseen sexuality, (although that unexpected spine might have been artificial and infectious but since Wolfram was unaware of that it did not really matter). Wolfram did have a brief moment of ‘wall, full length bodily contact, yay!’ before he realised that something was wrong with the picture he was in.
It took him several seconds to realise that the positions in one of his recently more common frustration-borne fantasies were reversed but his slowness can be excused considering he was under attack by the also previously unsuspected, full complement of potent pheromones Yuuri was releasing in his direction.
For a moment Wolfram drooled at the revelation of the latent sex-kitten so obviously unfurling himself right before his wondering eyes, but then things were no longer quite so favourable when the kitten became a tiger. Wolfram’s dreams of topping in bed began to evaporate without a word being mentioned or a move towards the once-desired conjugal bed made. Yuuri had done nothing more than stare at him and Wolfram already had the most abrupt and sudden case of cold feet erupt in him which he would later describe as being dunked in icy slush that had been bespelled to shrivel a man’s precious bits faster than Gwendal could run from Anissina. One second he was wondering what brick had finally hit his oblivious fiancé while melting from the radiance of his heat and then, in the next second, Wolfram’s testicles had clambered so far up his spine that he could feel the lumps between his shoulder blades.
It occurred to him that Yuuri’s abnormal innocence had really been an unrecognised blessing and now that it seemed to be gone, they were all doomed, blood would flow and Wolfram was cancelling the wedding. The Maou was definitely more than he could handle. Wolfram was man enough to admit it even if he wasn’t man enough in other ways (though the kind of man it would take to be enough in those other ways was beyond his comprehension and it was all Conrad’s problem now).
He dropped, ducked under Yuuri’s entrapping arms and ran for the hills, deciding that it was a good time to visit his mother and that he’d write a letter to the effect that the engagement was over when he was far, far, away.
Behind him, Yuuri shook his head and watched him go in bemusement before wandering off to see if anyone was going to act normally that day.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Conrad and his troops rode into the castle courtyard in high spirits for not only had they beat the stuffing out of some uppity group of bandits who’d thought to ambush them, but they also had word that the Maou had returned. Conrad and Yosak were exchanging speaking glances that due to their long friendship, they were each able to translate as things like, ‘think blondie struck out again?’ and ‘undoubtedly and his Majesty would be most gratified at the way you are picking up baseball phrases.’ They dismounted and Yosak took the reins of Conrad’s horse so that Conrad could seek out and find the mismatched duo of blond lordling and clueless Maou before the lordling ruptured something or committed regicide.
Conrad, with his Yuuri-seeking sense, surprisingly found Wolfram first, or, rather, Wolfram found and bulldozed Conrad before even that remarkably alert warrior had a chance to dodge. Conrad was required to peel himself away from the very hard and quite cold wall of the stone castle on his own because his younger sibling certainly didn’t stop and, after glancing back once (Conrad had noticed a rather becoming flush on Wolfram’s cheeks which did not flatter the terrified pallor that was simultaneously battling for control of the blond’s complexion) ran off even faster. In fact, all Conrad gained from this encounter, apart from a bruised shoulder, was the distant, heartfelt announcement that the wedding was off.
That pronouncement did not bother Conrad overly. He had long regarded the pairing of his younger brother and his ruler as an oddity that persisted only due to his brother’s pigheaded ways and tolerated because it protected the Maou from certain diplomatic considerations that his Majesty was not ready to deal with and would otherwise be significantly bothersome. There were too many princes and princesses in the surrounding countries, not to mention the odd king or queen that would love to snap up the Maou as a spouse and Shin Makoku with him. Still, considering Wolfram’s remarkable lack of success in regards to pinning the Maou down (and a person could interpret that however they wanted to) Conrad knew that he was not the only one formulating a list of acceptable nobles to replace his esteemed brother on Yuuri’s arm. He was not, however, expecting Wolfram to cut his Majesty loose of his own accord unless faced with destruction of his immortal soul or baldness and Conrad hoped his young Maou was not taking it too badly… although it was entirely possible that the Maou was just as bewildered about the broken engagement as he had been about the initial proposal.
Whichever end of the spectrum the Maou might be at, Conrad would be unable to evaluate his emotional slate until he had seen the Maou and so the half-human warrior re-engaged his Yuuri-seeking senses. He eventually tracked the Maou down to Greta’s room where she was out to the world for her afternoon nap while her adoptive father fondly watched her sleep. Conrad was gratified to see his Majesty’s face light up when he saw Conrad in the doorway and absolutely no sign of a broken heart. Conrad put a finger to his lips and beckoned his ruler to him. Obligingly, his cute little master did as directed and soon they were chatting amiably as they wandered through the castle.
So Conrad heard about the circumstances of the Maou’s arrival and also about Wolfram’s behaviour right up to the point where the blonde had fled, screaming like a little girl. He resolved to tease his elder brother about appropriate locations for bathing and, relieved that Yuuri was unaffected by his new bachelor status, Conrad filed the incident away as blackmail material on his younger brother.
“So I’m single?” Yuuri repeated in a wondering, rather blissful kind of voice that said volumes about how he regarded his engagement and former fiancé.
Conrad smiled with all the restrained amusement that someone viewing a soap opera similar to ‘Passions’ could possess because they knew they were not expected to participate in the melodrama. “Yes, your Majesty.”
“Huh.” The young Maou paused in thought and Conrad was rather taken aback by the sudden rather… liquid look about him. Then the Maou moved and Conrad was discomfited to notice that liquid - specifically the liquid grace of Earth’s larger felines - was not mutually exclusive with the Maou as himself when not channelling his greater powers and that the sight of Yuuri’s shapely form moving like that was not something that Conrad should be witnessing. Conrad made sure to remain a step or so behind the Maou so his young ruler did not see Conrad’s sudden crisis of conscience - he was not going to imitate Wolfram in any way shape or form, let alone by hitting on an innocent that was well and truly too young and too good for him. Of course, the disturbing consequence of his positioning was that he was forced to watch the Maou, the unnaturally boneless Maou, as he prowled forward like a panther that’d scented something large, juicy and possibly bleeding.
“Oh dear…” Conrad murmured and several epiphanies went off in his brain like a mad fireworks festival. “Your Majesty, are you-”
The Maou paused and half turned, setting in a lovely pose that demonstrated his limber flexibility and set his dark eyes to glittering mysteriously in the shadow of his hair. “Now how many times have I told you, Conrad; you named me! You should…”
Conrad gasped and stepped back despite himself. Brave and steadfast he might be but no one, no matter how brave, steadfast, honourable and all those other admirable things he might be, should have their hormones yanked into full awareness like this and Yuuri had done it by simply saying his name…
“Conrad?” The Maou turned fully and lunged at Conrad, peering up thought thick, dark lashes at him in concern. “Conrad? What’s wrong?”
Conrad tried to retreat but the Maou pressed forward until the lithe form in black was pressed against him in all the wrong ways and he almost groaned in pain. The rebellion his libido was looking to stage was gaining momentum and affecting his mind because, otherwise, there’s no possible way he would be looking at his Majesty and having such thoughts occur to him. Things like it was not right that such a delicious and sensual young man was run by a mind of surpassingly sweet ingenuousness were honestly not things that Conrad usually considered but, then, Conrad would admit, if only to himself, that there were occasions… Conrad was rather chagrined to discover that only his king’s purity was protecting him from Conrad’s baser instincts and that was never something he had expected to have to save his ruler from.
Conrad damned Wolfram for choosing a day to end the thrice-blasted engagement which coincided with Conrad supremely inconvenient personal realisations. Maybe Wolfram also saw the temptation bundled into this one pretty package and could no longer take it, leaving Yuuri distressingly free and open for claiming by any cad without morals… Conrad closed his eyes in despair for the madness rising in him was becoming too much to resist.
“Conrad?”
Conrad’s eyes flew open again because that was not how the Maou, his innocent, naïve little Yuuri, sang… said his name. Then all he could see were two predatory black orbs that had to know how they were affecting him because look at the way that pink tongue was licking those soft lips and Conrad groaned as his hands, which had moved to push Yuuri away, were savouring the firm young flesh beneath black cloth.
“Oh gods,” he moaned, “I’m going to Hell. Do you have any idea of what you’re doing to me, Yuuri?”
The beautiful face tilted as those dark, knowing eyes regarded him heavily and a soft voice answered deeply, “I think my science teacher said something about pheromones but I don’t really remember…”
Conrad believed it. He gasped as Yuuri pressed even closer and wished he could get the young man to turn the damned things off because Conrad really didn’t want to see exactly how depraved he could be if pushed. Some of the things that were starting to pass through his mind were more suited to a dirty-minded adolescent and not a grown man who had left puberty, and its associated urges, long behind him. Perhaps his long abstinence had not been as unimportant at he’d thought at the time; in fact he now thought it had been a really bad idea. Almost as bad as tumbling Yuuri into his bed… which really wasn’t all that bad a notion considering his own bloodline wasn’t really all that dreadful. He really did love the young man and who out there was in fact more devoted to Yuuri than him?
His subconscious had apparently decided to ally with his groin, his heart seemed to be considering following suit and Yuuri was still pasted to him like an affectionate kitten. “Please, gods give me strength. Yuuri, move back, I’m not that strong.”
“You’re the strongest man I know.” Yuuri did NOT just purr that and his voice was not full of proprietary approval! Once more, Conrad’s mind found itself looking for a home in the gutter and even considering moving into the sewer. He should NOT think of sex and a kittenish Yuuri in one thought!!
“Not right now,” Conrad whispered honestly.
“Then why are you still saying no?” Conrad caught the knowing smirk but could not answer. Yuuri rubbed their cheeks together and rumbled into Conrad’s ear, “I’m inexperienced, not an idiot, Conrad.”
Clarity came to Conrad for an instant. He recognised the atypical aggressiveness in Yuuri’s posture and the insistence that did not usually appear unless the Maou had found another cause to champion. Not to mention, Yuuri certainly didn’t normally do this to his self-control unless Conrad was very, very drunk which he made sure never happened. No one produced that many pheromones naturally! “What happened to you?”
“Nothing happened to me, I’m completely normal.”
“No-”
“Conrad!” Conrad’s protests fizzled ignominiously at the proximity of those lips to his own and he held onto his higher brain functions by the skin of his teeth. Yuuri smiled against the skin of his jaw and Conrad swallowed, those higher brain functions were slippery devils…
“Are you otherwise attached?” Yuuri demanded of him.
“No…” he whispered in return, trying not to strain for contact with those tantalising lips.
“Are you afraid of me?” Yuuri persisted.
“Never,” Conrad vowed, not even now when Yuuri was so obviously twisting him around his little finger with all the skill of an experienced courtesan and wondered why it was even suggested.
Yuuri moved to look him directly in the eye. “Do you want me?”
Conrad stared into the face of his Maou, the face of the boy he had named, into the face of a beautiful young man that he could not deny. To Hell with it! “Yes!” he declared and then proceeded to educate his Yuuri on all the things that the young man seemed to have missed on his journey through puberty. Multiple times.
Early the next morning, the door to the Maou’s bedchamber burst open and Gwendal and Gunter rushed in only to be confronted by a wild-haired, wild-eyed, very naked Maou who was growling ferociously at them with an aura of rising power around him that made even those two worthies a tad anxious (as a side note, Gunter was dismayed to catalogue numerous small bruises on the Maou’s chest, shoulders and neck that he recognised as being from similar causes to the ones he and his own husband bore). His majesty was regarding them in a very unfriendly manner and the newly re-bonded spouses were faced with either retreating ignominiously or confronting a very powerful and apparently, very angry ruler. Or they were until a strong brown hand spun their glowing ruler around, its partner imparted a stinging slap on the Maou’s cheek and the lips that went with the rest of the package and had probably caused the aforementioned bruises, claimed the Maou’s in a very steamy and very possessive kiss.
Up until that moment, neither Gwendal nor Gunter, even at the dizzying heights of fanboy mania, had truly considered the Maou in a sexual light and so seeing his unclothed form being ravished by an equally bare Conrad was enlightening to say the least. True, Gwendal could have lived without this particular eye-opening lesson but Gunter, at the realisation that his beloved ruler had finally be claimed by his true love, melted into Gwendal.
When Conrad finally separated from Yuuri, the atmosphere was heated, Yuuri’s eyes were closed, his lips moist and bruised and his expression dreamy. The edible sight changed as Yuuri’s eyes snapped open and touched his reddened cheek incredulously. “Conrad…?”
Conrad smiled with a great deal of admittedly smug satisfaction and pushed Yuuri in the direction of his own bath chamber. “Wash up and get dressed. It’s going to be a busy day if we’re going to have everything ready for this evening. Your wedding is an Event, after all.”
“Wedding?” Gwednal and Gunter exclaimed in concert, reminding Yuuri of their presence and setting off a chain reaction that involved a genuine full-body blush and a hasty retreat on the behalf of the shy Yuuri.
The two lords blinked at the speed with which Yuuri had vacated the vicinity and turned as one to Conrad. “Wedding?
Conrad smiled complacently as he sought out some clothes. “Of course.”
“Tonight?” Gunter demanded in a strangled voice, with just cause considering how much would need to be done, and most of it needing to be organised by him, to pull it off.
Conrad tied the drawstring on the pants he’d donned and looked at his pale-haired brother-in-law. “Considering I spent all of last night and a large portion of the yesterday afternoon thoroughly debauching my husband-to-be, we should probably have the wedding sooner rather than later for propriety’s sake if nothing else.” And that reminded him of another matter. Conrad fixed both his brother and his brother-in-law with a very displeased expression. “And while we have a moment, please feel free to explain how my darling but utterly clueless lover not only scared our obnoxiously over-sexed younger brother away but also became hot sex on legs in one fell swoop. I presume you know because I cannot think of why else you would be so concerned as to invade his chambers at this time of the morning.”
“There are other reasons” Gwendal maintained stubbornly but Conrad could read the guilt in his brother’s face.
Conrad’s eyebrow twitched. Perhaps his respected brother did not fully comprehend how serious Conrad was in regards to this issue, after all his new relationship with the affected innocent could hardly have had time to penetrate. Conrad supposed that, even if it had, Gwendal had no previous experience with Conrad’s lovers to know how Conrad reacted when someone threatened someone he held dear. And Yuuri was not just someone that Conrad held dear but also Conrad’s in a way that roused all sorts of primitive instincts on the swordsman’s part that wise men really did not want to mess with. (For all Yuuri’s strange aggressiveness, even he seemed to regard himself as belonging to Conrad. Perhaps it had to do with the younger man’s strangely feline mating instincts that would test the mate before accepting him. Conrad did not know and did not mind if it was, Yuuri was still his.)
He smiled congenially at his brother. “I do not believe in coincidences, brother.” Then he proceeded to explain how, if they had thought Wolfram was possessive, Conrad was far worse because, firstly, he did not act without thinking things through which meant his subsequent actions were all the more dangerous and, secondly, to him Yuuri could do no wrong, thus the other party was obviously the transgressor and the one requiring attitude readjustments to be performed as painfully as possible by Conrad.
Gwendal and Gunter both paled and, then, shivered, but it was not until he had them gibbering in terror that Conrad thought he had made his point sufficiently clear. He nodded in satisfaction as the two proceeded to tell him everything beginning with Anissina and ending, for them, with hiding from far too many guards and servants. When they were done, Gwendal and Gunter leaned against each other in relief as they began to hope that it might be safe enough now to regrow their spines.
Conrad’s smile was probably still a little scary but he didn’t really care. Those two geniuses had left his Yuuri wandering around with impaired judgement. What if Wolfram hadn’t been scared off? Conrad wouldn’t have had the best night of his life with many more to follow, that’s what! “Gunter, shouldn’t you be getting to work? The Maou’s wedding is your responsibility to organise, and it has to be worthy of him.”
Gwendal stepped in to defend his husband. “It is unreasonable to expect everything to be ready for this evening.”
Conrad smiled broadly. “I happen to know that the plans for a royal wedding is something of a hobby of Gunter’s”
Gunter blushed. “It has always been possible Wolfram could have worn his Majesty down…”
“Substituting me for my brother should not be too much of a trial,” Conrad pointed out, “Gwendal will just have to assign Yosak to the security arrangements.”
“Yosak? Why not-”
“You are going to stand with me, I hope, brother.” Conrad’s smile morphed into a mischievous grin as Gunter squealed excitedly and even the stoic Gwendal smiled, pleased at the honour. After all Conrad, and thus Yuuri, would basically be announcing to the whole kingdom that they both honoured Gwendal as one of the most important people to support them in their new life.
“Of course,” Gwendal answered instantly, “I can hardly do both. I should also dig Wolfram out of whatever hole he has take refuge in and I would not be surprised if Mother had already caught wind of the engagement in that mysterious way of hers.”
Conrad shared with his brother the contended smile of happily taken men who looked forward to regular sex from attractive and affectionate mates that they adored.
“Would it be possible to bring Yuuri’s family here? I’m sure he’d want them present and his own brother should stand with him.”
Gwendal nodded, obviously making plans and communicating them in some telepathic fashion to his husband. “We will take care of it,” he told Conrad absently, “You enjoy the morning with his Majesty. You will both be very busy later on.”
Conrad was sure they didn’t hear his thank you, too absorbed in their convoluted planning but as he forgot about them before they started towards the door, he didn’t mind. Instead, he made his way into the attached on-suite which, while far less palatial than the official bath chamber, was still more than comfortable despite its convenience. He took a moment to enjoy watching the soap covered Yuuri in the modest tub.
When Yuuri noticed, he blushed and looked down but did not try to sink beneath the water which made Conrad very happy. “I heard what happened,” Yuuri admitted.
Conrad untied the cord of his pants. “Oh?” he asked as the material slipped off his hips.
“Mm,” Yuuri said, his eyes wide and fixed on Conrad as he sauntered towards the tup without a stitch of clothing. “I’m not sorry thought… even if I could have done without seeing Gunter and Gwendal like that.”
“I’m glad,” Conrad murmured as he slipped into the tub behind Yuuri and enjoyed the feel of that slippery skin against his chest as Yuuri settled back against him. “Very glad.”
“So am I,” Yuuri confided.
The bath lasted almost an hour and it took more than one maid twice that to mop up the mess which resulted. It was not really another job that any of them needed that day but, fortunately for Conrad and Yuuri, they were forgiven because the maids were, one and all, in absolute raptures over having caught them making out while still damp and only partly dressed.
The wedding went off without a problem that evening and a very happy, though slightly confused Anissina was toasted afterwards.
The details of how Gwendal, Gunter and Conrad conspired to set her up with the now notably unattached Wolfram in a plot that was partly…okay mostly…well alright, fully in revenge, is another story though.
Title: Pherocious Pheromones (although this is subject to change)
Series: Kyou Kara Maou
Warnings: a lot of innuendo and the occasional nonsensical ramble
In the years since his arrival, life had eventually, settled into a routine for the Maou and his retainers. True, that routine was somewhat less sedate than many had expected but it was a routine, nonetheless. The dramas revolving around the antics of Günter, Anissina and Gwendal were a perfect example. At least once a week, Gwendal would find himself contemplating the pros and cons of life as a monk when, without fail, Günter would, somehow, draw Anissina’s attentions away from his husband and towards himself and Gwendal would resolve that taking vows was a little too extreme a measure to avoid the terrible redhead.
If Gwendal had ever bothered to ask Conrad about it, his younger brother would have sat him down and explained exactly how this sacrifice on Günter’s part was just that, a sacrifice. He would have laid no few of Gwendal’s doubts to rest by flatly telling him that Günter did this intentionally as an act of love and compassion for Gwendal himself. Of course, Gwendal would never lower himself thus and so he still laboured under the faulty impression that his husband of two years was deeply and passionately in love with the Maou and had only been tricked into marrying him.
A foolish belief on his part because even the innocent and oblivious Maou could have told him that, while Günter might have proposed accidentally - if you could call the well deserved left hook after being felt up while in plushie form that - the white seneschal would hardly have been so ignorant of law and custom that he could not have broken the betrothal had he been so inclined. Günter von Kleist might fawn over the young Maou but his heart was firmly held by Lord Gwendal Von Walde.
Returning to the topic at hand which was routine. More specifically, it was those involving the nightmare trio of Günter, Gwendal and Anissina - Anissina being the nightmare and the two men being the dreamers that could not, for the life of them, wake up. In any case, this particular little score was yet again unfolding at high volume and little discretion. Günter, as always, was strapped into the latest complicated contraption, with an uncertain and slightly nauseous expression on his handsome face. Anissina was standing close by, expounding to the audience about the purpose of this death trap, apologies, marvellous invention, while Gwendal watched on, silently cursing his cowardice at allowing this pushy woman, childhood ‘friend’ or not, to torture his lover like this. How would he ever gain Günter’s supposedly unobtainable affections if he continued to act like such a worm?
Due to his self-flagellation, Gwendal missed Anissina’s latest spiel and only began paying attention to his surroundings again when a very strong arm yanked him against a firm chest, the hand on the arm’s partner lifted his chin and a pair of, to him, highly desirable lips descended upon him. Gwendal was inclined to struggle until he realized that it was no stranger but his beloved Günter assaulting his person thusly and then he did struggle because, no matter how much he wanted this, he was an honourable soul most of the time, and Günter was obviously not in his right mind. Forget personal preferences and the fact that Gwendal was not a slender, black-haired, black-eyed young Maou, a sane Günter would never debase himself by trying to ravage anyone, especially Gwendal, in the castle courtyard in full view of twenty-four witnesses. Cheeks pink with embarrassment, Gwendal pushed Günter away, or as far away as his own arguing libido and Günter’s tenacious strength would allow him.
“What…” Gwendal began only to be silenced when Günter again planted a big wet one on him.
“Take me, I’m yours!” the Maou’s foremost fanboy moaned after attempting to excavate Gwendal’s tonsils with his tongue.
Gwendal was mortified. He struggled to push his husband away and it was a struggle as Günter really did not want to be pushed away. Whatever inhibitions he might once have possessed had gone out the window and Gwendal correctly blamed Anissina. He glared venomously over Günter’s shoulder at her. “What the Hell did you do to him?” he demanded furiously as he fought to restrain a man that seemed to have developed the dexterity of the average octopus.
Anissina was, of course, all innocence and wounded sensibilities, which belied the wickedly evil shine in her bright eyes. “I did nothing! Gwendal, how could you think I’d risk hurting your precious husband?”
Gwendal growled, captured the wandering hand that had descended for parts better left unknown and attempted to immobilize Günter, all the while barking at Anissina. Gwendal was quite competent at multitasking, a skill gained in his youth by trying to complete his lessons and avoid upsetting his rather irresponsible mother. “Let us think, Anissina, Günter is normal, or as normal as he gets, before you start your latest monstrosity and afterwards he’s lost all dignity!”
“You can’t blame me for that!” she shouted back huffily, “It’s your fault!”
“My fault?” Gwendal was so outraged that he spluttered incoherently for a moment. “My fault? How is this my fault?”
She smirked slyly at him, infuriating him further. “Why, isn’t it obvious? Clearly, your animal magnetism has overwhelmed him. We can hardly hold Günter at fault when that is the case.”
“My animal magnetism, as you put it, hardly caused such show before you subjected him to that damned thing!”
“Gwendal, my love,” Günter interrupted indulgently, “I have always adored you, but only now do I understand the needlessness of my self-restraint! We could have been worshipping each other’s bodies for far longer than we have had together and I will not waste another moment of our time together!”
Gwendal twitched when he felt Günter’s free hand slip behind cloth that was there for a reason and hastily tried to back pedal. “Günter, you don’t know what you’re doing! She’s done…”
“Ohhhhh,” Günter purred throatily as he followed Gwendal, allowing no space at all to form between them. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”
The hand was delving deeper and Gwendal was growing frantic. Had they been in the privacy of their own quarters, then he would have surrendered at that point and quite possibly experienced the best night of his life. As it was, they were not in their own quarters and they were, in fact, the focus of two dozen transfixed gazes, no few of these observers drooling. “It’s not you! It’s her machine!”
Günter growled and leapt forward to plaster himself against Gwendal from groin to shoulder. “I beg to differ,” he whispered into Gwendal’s neck in betwixt nips and licks. “This is all me!” And he rubbed himself provocatively against Gwendal as if to prove it.
Now, Gwendal was a strong man and brave too, his fear of Anissina aside, but even he had his limits. His husband’s last action was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back, not even the great Sage could have been expected to stand strong against such an assault. Anissina would answer for her crimes later, although giving her time to compose either an acceptable defence or to hightail it to higher ground would not be conductive to any justice the besieged lord might hope for. For pride and privacy, Gwendal broke free and ran for it.
That was not exactly the routine the inhabitants of the Maou’s castle had come to expect but, as the outcome was chaos and embarrassment in equal measures for the two men, it was not exactly unusual, either.
Now, let it not be said that Anissina was needlessly malicious to her childhood friend. Indeed, many of her actions were intended to make his life, if not easier, then more interesting. If the first goal was one she rarely succeeded with, the second goal she rarely failed in accomplishing. Anissina’s motto was ‘life was only lived once, let’s not waste our time doing things that we could have automated’. Actually, to be completely honest, her motto was ‘don’t leave anything important to the men’ or, on occasion, ‘if it isn’t broken, find out why’ but her goals in regards to her inventions oftentimes supported the first philosophy so that it could be said that, no matter what she might say, she lived that one. In spite of what he might believe, Anissina was a generous woman and Gwendal, of course, having the unrivalled good fortune of being her childhood friend, was the most common recipient of that generosity.
Gwendal might argue, uselessly, at the need, or lack thereof, for her bizarre brand of good Samaritanism but he was, as most males were wont to be, oblivious to her good intentions, preferring to persist in believing that her sole purpose was to torture him with pointless and dangerous gizmos. Anissina, should there ever come a time when Gwendal wised up, would argue back that it was apparent that he could not manage his own love life and so he obviously needed a feminine influence to get him on the right track. Of the two of them, Anissina was the more correct, Gwendal patently had no idea of how to woo, win and keep the object of his affections, thus the infamous plushie incident that resulted in the pair of not quite blissfully wedded Mazouku lords.
After two years of watching the pair dance around each other, or rather, Günter dance around the Maou and Gwendal stand back sulking, Anissina’s vast reserves... moderate reserves… her patience had been stretched to the utter limits and beyond and she resolved that it was time, yet again, for her to intercede on behalf of her block-headed friend. Anissina, being a Machiavellian soul that was physically incapable of doing things in the simple and straightforward method of sitting Gwendal down to explain the mechanics of his and Günter’s relationship in a manner that his feeble male brain could comprehend, devised an extremely convoluted scheme that would solve Gwendal’s marital difficulties and land him his lavender-haired hunk, resolving once and for all his doubts regarding said hunk’s affections. After considering the parties involved and tendency for males to ruin a perfectly good plan, Anissina rethought her methods and concocted a simpler, though similarly brilliant stratagem, this one slightly similar to the one that encouraged Günter to propose to Gwendal in the first place.
Anissina liked originality even more than the next person but sometimes the classic approach was best.
Which was how, exactly two years to the day after Günter had been plushified, Gwendal had found himself being ravaged in front of twenty plus witnesses. Of course, Anissina had not intended for Günter to lose all of his inhibitions, and, contrary to popular belief, Günter did have inhibitions, his tendency to glomp the Maou not withstanding, but she was not averse to watching two very attractive men get all hot and heavy in front of her. In fact, in the few minutes of voyeurism that she was allowed before Gwendal beat his strategic, and much needed, retreat, she decided that she might very well make it a prerequisite for future attempts at helping the helpless. As salaries went, it wasn’t bad.
The point of this was that Anissina had not intended to make Günter uninhibited, though that was a perfectly lovely side effect that she was definitely planning to make a standard outcome in all of her future endeavours; it was, in fact, to make him incapable of lying to himself and others. With nothing particularly pressing on the official front, the Maou currently being in the otherworld leaving most of the higher ranking Mazoku with less to do, she had thought it a perfect opportunity to zap Günter, as it were, and, after subjecting him to a series of leading and revealing questions while he was under the influence of her fiendishly brilliant machine, she had intended to conclude the day’s exercise by locking both Gwendal and his exposed lover in their bedroom, which she had ensured was more than adequately provisioned for at least a week’s retreat. The exposure that had actually occurred was not in the plan, or not so soon and in the present company anyway, but she figured that it was an acceptable deviation that would leave the two men in the same position in the end anyway and so she dismantled the device and congratulated herself on a mission completed satisfactorily.
What Anissina was unaware of was that her machine had worked in a manner that was even more unexpected than was immediately apparent. True, Gwendal and Günter, once Günter caught his fleeing spouse, would end up spending an extended period naked, sweaty and panting, but not quite in the way Anissina had hoped. Nor had she realised that, in extremely specific circumstances, the effects of her machine would be, in a manner of speaking, contagious to a certain demographic, i.e. the Maou.
The routine at Blood Pledge Castle was about to change.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Since being sucked down a toilet when he was fifteen, Yuuri had become, if not accustomed, then slightly blasé about the weird occurrences in his life, and there were quite a few of those. So it was that he wasn’t entirely surprised when, after helping his mother clean the kitchen-he was a good son-he was transported to the otherworld not through the sink full of soapy water but, instead, through the small puddle of spilled water on the floor next to it. It had been nearly three weeks since his last visit and Yuuri was resigned to destiny, fate or Ulrike using whatever resources that were at hand to bring him over. A puddle that wouldn’t even have filled a baby’s bottle was kind of extreme but, as previously mentioned, it had been three weeks and his people tended to get a little antsy when their Maou was out of sight for so long.
Now, being swallowed up by tiny puddle might not have surprised Yuuri but coming up in a cramped tub definitely did and not because it was a tub, Yuuri had long ago resigned himself to the fact that he wasn’t always going to appear somewhere as private and comfortable as the royal bath chamber - see arrivals thirty-one through to forty-eight when he had done the rounds of all the local horse troughs. No, it was not the fact that he had appeared in a tub that shook the young Maou, it was the other, naked occupants of the tub. Until he had made his unscheduled appearance, it seemed that Gwendal had been getting a sponge bath from Günter and now all three, for differing reasons, were regarding each other with horror, Gwendal for having been caught in this position (Günter having finally trapped him after a small mishap in the kitchens), Günter for having Yuuri being the one to catch him (in his current state he might have been fixated on his husband but there was still a tiny little part of him that was sober enough to realise that the Maou would remember this forevermore) and Yuuri for catching the two of them at all.
There was three seconds of frozen shock and then the bathtub erupted. Gwendal, whose mortification was, barely, the greatest, being the repressed individual that he was, managed to escape the tub completely and resurrect decency by wrapping the nearest towel around his waist (decency being interpreted in the loosest manner of speaking here due to the size of the towel). Yuuri and Günter faired less successfully. Günter, having attempted to recapture his husband, he was still under the influence after all, had missed, slipping, and landed on Yuuri, who had almost managed to climb out of the tub. The tub overturned and, during the following crash, there was a light show that, for some reason, the watching Gwendal found dreadfully familiar. He ignored the inexplicable, although if he took the time to pinpoint exactly why he thought he recognised the light show then nothing would have been more plain, and ominous feelings of doom that were roiling in his gut and rushed forward to help his love and his Maou out from beneath the tub.
He lifted the tub away to find two dazed men, though one of these, by popular opinion, would not be considered such until he had undergone a few necessary rites of passage, saturated and plastered against each other. His senses returning and his faculties resolving themselves into correct and functioning order, Günter lifted his head away from Yuuri’s neck where his nose had been buried in the sweet skin under Yuuri’s jaw and decided that he could die happily now having experienced both the close embrace of the wonderful Maou and his precious Gwendal. Gwendal’s feelings of impending disaster were then substantiated, to him at least, when Yuuri did not blush and stammer protests at Günter’s proximity but instead licked his lips as he gazed hungrily into the venerable seneschal’s eyes. This promptly sent Günter into an overload of near orgasmic fanboying, thus dashing whatever hopes Gwendal had built that his husband might indeed care for him.
Of course, fate being the nasty creature that it was, Günter was the one mourning broken dreams when, a few seconds later, Yuuri looked over his shoulder to see Gwendal standing in nothing but a skimpy towel, a few bubbles decorating dark hair, and the Maou’s already black irises darkened to a hue never before seen in nature. Gwendal shuddered, feeling vulnerable in a way that his lack of apparel really did not help and Günter’s eyes widened as his hindbrain began screaming desperate warnings of a threat to their territory in an effort to get his forebrain moving and in between the Maou and his husband. The message was only incompletely received by Günter’s rather sluggishly working forebrain, but it was enough to compel him to scramble up and attempt to conceal Gwendal behind him, all the while unconsciously, as the conscious had still not caught up, chanting, “Mineminemineminemine, you can’t have him, he’s mine!”
Gwendal was torn between regarding the strangely fearsome young man that was his ruler and his husband who was being fiercely and openly possessive of Gwendal, himself. Anissina would later have all justification for self-congratulation even if her plan to bring about an epiphany in the blockheaded lord had not proceeded quite as planned. Where Günter’s words had not been enough, though, to be fair to Gwendal, they were subject to reasonable doubt being as Günter was not quite in his right mind as he spoke them, his actions, or rather this shielding-slash-hoarding behaviour, got through to Gwendal. While he could reason away wild lust on Günter’s part as nothing special, Gwendal knew full well that he was a hottie, such possessiveness, and against the Maou, too-which made it even more significant-could surely only occur if Günter felt some form of affection towards him. Needless to say, even Gwendal could get the hint after being mauled by it, although, now that he wanted to be mauled, it looked as though that was not a go for the near future.
Now, Yuuri being Yuuri, i.e. an innocent and naïve eighteen year old that still had nearly everyone who knew him, bar Conrad (but then Conrad was an exception to many things with regards to the Maou) wondering if he knew exactly why most married couples shared a bed, did not fully understand the subtleties of the situation… consciously at least. His own hindbrain seemed to assess the situation, deem Gwendal not worth a fight, and whatever it was in him that had roused, settled down again, though a shadow remained in the black eyes to tell them that whatever it was might not be as deeply settled as they might wish.
Günter relaxed somewhat, the way one might relax around a dozing wolf and exchanged a speaking glance, one of those subtleties that Yuuri constantly missed, with Gwendal. The brunette lord, though generally happy with life due to his new realisations and a little disappointed that Günter seemed to be back to normal before he could take advantage of his previous state with a now clear conscience, understood and fully agreed with the apprehension in Günter’s gaze. Yuuri did not, as a matter of course, look dangerous and even when the power sleeping within him awoke, he did not give out the vibes of a predator looking to hunt. This little episode was, then, aberration enough to cause no little alarm between two of the lords that had to manage the Maou but the sudden arrival of several dozen guards suddenly reminded the two lords exactly where Gunter had waylaid Gwendal for his bath and they then had other things on their minds than the Maou acting strangely when everyone knew he wasn’t normal anyway.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The young Maou was in more ways than one, an abnormal youth. Unlike most teenage boys, Yuuri either did not experience the, previously thought inevitable, urges of adolescence or he sublimated them so thoroughly that no one, least of all he, knew they had occurred to him at all. It was the source of some amusement for everyone who watched Wolfram’s efforts at furthering his relationship with his supposed fiancé bounce off said fiancé’s impenetrable shield of innocence because Yuuri really did not think of such things. Of further frustration to the young blond lord with the persistent case of blue balls was his elder brothers’ infuriating commentary every time Yuuri shot him down with all the oblivious accuracy of a first class military sniper.
Conrad was bad enough, with his inferior breeding, aggravating perceptiveness and absolutely insanely, nauseatingly close relationship with the object of Wolfram’s affections, but Gwendal, who had caught his lover and he was almost as romantically inept as Yuuri, did not even have to open his mouth to drive Wolfram completely wild with envy and anger. Nothing seemed to rub salt so deeply into a wound as seeing an idiot (and in these situations that was the only way to describe the eldest of Wolfram’s brothers) succeed where he continuously failed.
As Yuuri would say, it sucked.
Wolfram was many things though, beautiful, brilliant, charismatic and above all, obstinate. If the blond got an idea into his head then it dug in with the help of a professional and experienced drilling team and set up camp to last. The notion of marrying the Maou had not only dug in and set up camp, but also set up the marriage pavilion, banquet hall and honeymoon suite. Needless to say, considering its accommodations, the notion was not going anywhere soon and Wolfram was not yet giving up on wooing, wedding and bedding Yuuri.
Luckily for him, Wolfram had missed the fracas involving his elder brother, brother-in-law and a mad inventor’s insane idea of marriage counselling and instead overheard Ulrike’s handmaidens (he had not been eavesdropping, he had merely been enjoying an afternoon constitutional that had taken him within hearing distance of the group) discussing the Maou’s imminent return and so had raced back to the castle to prepare. Incidentally, he had crossed Gwendal and Gunter’s paths at this point and done no more than direct Gunter after Gwendal without querying his motives for running about crazed, why Gwendal was hiding or why Gunter’s normally pale eyes were now a disturbingly dark violet. Wolfram had a seduction to plan.
The first problem would be locating the Maou after his arrival and co-opting him before anyone else could. Although Gunter seemed like he would be otherwise occupied, there was still Conrad, the sneaky, conniving son-of-a-human as a valid concern. Yuuri’s tendency to appear in any available water source at the oddest times was troublesome but Wolfram figured the Maou was due to begin rounds of the local bathtubs again now that he had finally visited the last of the birdbaths in the area. The most likely spot was hopefully the Maou’s bathing chamber, but that could not be counted on, so some judicious bribing of the servants was required. Lighter by a considerable about of gold but assured that every other bath in the castle would be empty, Wolfram made a quick trip (though quick may be open for redefinition in this instance) to his chambers to garb himself in something more fetching before staking out the Maou’s bathroom.
An hour later, he was beginning to wonder if he’d misheard Ulrike’s handmaidens when a shriek from the direction of his brother’s office caught the attention of every being within the castle as well as a few circling boneys. Bored and fed up with waiting, Wolfram followed the flood of guards on their way to fulfil their duty and defend their lords (which Wolfram thought was very admirable), all the while making bets about whether Gunter had cornered his prey and if the noise was Gwendal giving in to the seneschal, which Wolfram did not approve of. So Wolfram was there when the door to Gwendal’s office opened and a wet but fully-clothed Maou stepped through while his subconscious edited out the sight of a naked Gunter, nearly naked Gwendal, overturned tub and suds on the desk and paperwork from his brain before it registered.
Without really thinking about it, though his subconscious was still hard at work, Wolfram glomped onto Yuuri and began leading him away, coincidently putting his back to the door and any further assaults of unnecessary information. He was a little disturbed to discover that Yuuri was now an inch or so taller than he was but that didn’t really matter to Wolfram since Yuuri was so obviously a submissive personality that, excess height or not, he would undoubtedly let Wolfram lead when they finally made it into bed together.
Or so Wolfram was so busily thinking that he missed the warning glint in Yuuri’s uncharacteristically molten black irises until they’d turned a corner into a deserted hall. Then Wolfram was forcibly awakened to the not so pliant portion of Yuuri’s previously unseen sexuality, (although that unexpected spine might have been artificial and infectious but since Wolfram was unaware of that it did not really matter). Wolfram did have a brief moment of ‘wall, full length bodily contact, yay!’ before he realised that something was wrong with the picture he was in.
It took him several seconds to realise that the positions in one of his recently more common frustration-borne fantasies were reversed but his slowness can be excused considering he was under attack by the also previously unsuspected, full complement of potent pheromones Yuuri was releasing in his direction.
For a moment Wolfram drooled at the revelation of the latent sex-kitten so obviously unfurling himself right before his wondering eyes, but then things were no longer quite so favourable when the kitten became a tiger. Wolfram’s dreams of topping in bed began to evaporate without a word being mentioned or a move towards the once-desired conjugal bed made. Yuuri had done nothing more than stare at him and Wolfram already had the most abrupt and sudden case of cold feet erupt in him which he would later describe as being dunked in icy slush that had been bespelled to shrivel a man’s precious bits faster than Gwendal could run from Anissina. One second he was wondering what brick had finally hit his oblivious fiancé while melting from the radiance of his heat and then, in the next second, Wolfram’s testicles had clambered so far up his spine that he could feel the lumps between his shoulder blades.
It occurred to him that Yuuri’s abnormal innocence had really been an unrecognised blessing and now that it seemed to be gone, they were all doomed, blood would flow and Wolfram was cancelling the wedding. The Maou was definitely more than he could handle. Wolfram was man enough to admit it even if he wasn’t man enough in other ways (though the kind of man it would take to be enough in those other ways was beyond his comprehension and it was all Conrad’s problem now).
He dropped, ducked under Yuuri’s entrapping arms and ran for the hills, deciding that it was a good time to visit his mother and that he’d write a letter to the effect that the engagement was over when he was far, far, away.
Behind him, Yuuri shook his head and watched him go in bemusement before wandering off to see if anyone was going to act normally that day.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Conrad and his troops rode into the castle courtyard in high spirits for not only had they beat the stuffing out of some uppity group of bandits who’d thought to ambush them, but they also had word that the Maou had returned. Conrad and Yosak were exchanging speaking glances that due to their long friendship, they were each able to translate as things like, ‘think blondie struck out again?’ and ‘undoubtedly and his Majesty would be most gratified at the way you are picking up baseball phrases.’ They dismounted and Yosak took the reins of Conrad’s horse so that Conrad could seek out and find the mismatched duo of blond lordling and clueless Maou before the lordling ruptured something or committed regicide.
Conrad, with his Yuuri-seeking sense, surprisingly found Wolfram first, or, rather, Wolfram found and bulldozed Conrad before even that remarkably alert warrior had a chance to dodge. Conrad was required to peel himself away from the very hard and quite cold wall of the stone castle on his own because his younger sibling certainly didn’t stop and, after glancing back once (Conrad had noticed a rather becoming flush on Wolfram’s cheeks which did not flatter the terrified pallor that was simultaneously battling for control of the blond’s complexion) ran off even faster. In fact, all Conrad gained from this encounter, apart from a bruised shoulder, was the distant, heartfelt announcement that the wedding was off.
That pronouncement did not bother Conrad overly. He had long regarded the pairing of his younger brother and his ruler as an oddity that persisted only due to his brother’s pigheaded ways and tolerated because it protected the Maou from certain diplomatic considerations that his Majesty was not ready to deal with and would otherwise be significantly bothersome. There were too many princes and princesses in the surrounding countries, not to mention the odd king or queen that would love to snap up the Maou as a spouse and Shin Makoku with him. Still, considering Wolfram’s remarkable lack of success in regards to pinning the Maou down (and a person could interpret that however they wanted to) Conrad knew that he was not the only one formulating a list of acceptable nobles to replace his esteemed brother on Yuuri’s arm. He was not, however, expecting Wolfram to cut his Majesty loose of his own accord unless faced with destruction of his immortal soul or baldness and Conrad hoped his young Maou was not taking it too badly… although it was entirely possible that the Maou was just as bewildered about the broken engagement as he had been about the initial proposal.
Whichever end of the spectrum the Maou might be at, Conrad would be unable to evaluate his emotional slate until he had seen the Maou and so the half-human warrior re-engaged his Yuuri-seeking senses. He eventually tracked the Maou down to Greta’s room where she was out to the world for her afternoon nap while her adoptive father fondly watched her sleep. Conrad was gratified to see his Majesty’s face light up when he saw Conrad in the doorway and absolutely no sign of a broken heart. Conrad put a finger to his lips and beckoned his ruler to him. Obligingly, his cute little master did as directed and soon they were chatting amiably as they wandered through the castle.
So Conrad heard about the circumstances of the Maou’s arrival and also about Wolfram’s behaviour right up to the point where the blonde had fled, screaming like a little girl. He resolved to tease his elder brother about appropriate locations for bathing and, relieved that Yuuri was unaffected by his new bachelor status, Conrad filed the incident away as blackmail material on his younger brother.
“So I’m single?” Yuuri repeated in a wondering, rather blissful kind of voice that said volumes about how he regarded his engagement and former fiancé.
Conrad smiled with all the restrained amusement that someone viewing a soap opera similar to ‘Passions’ could possess because they knew they were not expected to participate in the melodrama. “Yes, your Majesty.”
“Huh.” The young Maou paused in thought and Conrad was rather taken aback by the sudden rather… liquid look about him. Then the Maou moved and Conrad was discomfited to notice that liquid - specifically the liquid grace of Earth’s larger felines - was not mutually exclusive with the Maou as himself when not channelling his greater powers and that the sight of Yuuri’s shapely form moving like that was not something that Conrad should be witnessing. Conrad made sure to remain a step or so behind the Maou so his young ruler did not see Conrad’s sudden crisis of conscience - he was not going to imitate Wolfram in any way shape or form, let alone by hitting on an innocent that was well and truly too young and too good for him. Of course, the disturbing consequence of his positioning was that he was forced to watch the Maou, the unnaturally boneless Maou, as he prowled forward like a panther that’d scented something large, juicy and possibly bleeding.
“Oh dear…” Conrad murmured and several epiphanies went off in his brain like a mad fireworks festival. “Your Majesty, are you-”
The Maou paused and half turned, setting in a lovely pose that demonstrated his limber flexibility and set his dark eyes to glittering mysteriously in the shadow of his hair. “Now how many times have I told you, Conrad; you named me! You should…”
Conrad gasped and stepped back despite himself. Brave and steadfast he might be but no one, no matter how brave, steadfast, honourable and all those other admirable things he might be, should have their hormones yanked into full awareness like this and Yuuri had done it by simply saying his name…
“Conrad?” The Maou turned fully and lunged at Conrad, peering up thought thick, dark lashes at him in concern. “Conrad? What’s wrong?”
Conrad tried to retreat but the Maou pressed forward until the lithe form in black was pressed against him in all the wrong ways and he almost groaned in pain. The rebellion his libido was looking to stage was gaining momentum and affecting his mind because, otherwise, there’s no possible way he would be looking at his Majesty and having such thoughts occur to him. Things like it was not right that such a delicious and sensual young man was run by a mind of surpassingly sweet ingenuousness were honestly not things that Conrad usually considered but, then, Conrad would admit, if only to himself, that there were occasions… Conrad was rather chagrined to discover that only his king’s purity was protecting him from Conrad’s baser instincts and that was never something he had expected to have to save his ruler from.
Conrad damned Wolfram for choosing a day to end the thrice-blasted engagement which coincided with Conrad supremely inconvenient personal realisations. Maybe Wolfram also saw the temptation bundled into this one pretty package and could no longer take it, leaving Yuuri distressingly free and open for claiming by any cad without morals… Conrad closed his eyes in despair for the madness rising in him was becoming too much to resist.
“Conrad?”
Conrad’s eyes flew open again because that was not how the Maou, his innocent, naïve little Yuuri, sang… said his name. Then all he could see were two predatory black orbs that had to know how they were affecting him because look at the way that pink tongue was licking those soft lips and Conrad groaned as his hands, which had moved to push Yuuri away, were savouring the firm young flesh beneath black cloth.
“Oh gods,” he moaned, “I’m going to Hell. Do you have any idea of what you’re doing to me, Yuuri?”
The beautiful face tilted as those dark, knowing eyes regarded him heavily and a soft voice answered deeply, “I think my science teacher said something about pheromones but I don’t really remember…”
Conrad believed it. He gasped as Yuuri pressed even closer and wished he could get the young man to turn the damned things off because Conrad really didn’t want to see exactly how depraved he could be if pushed. Some of the things that were starting to pass through his mind were more suited to a dirty-minded adolescent and not a grown man who had left puberty, and its associated urges, long behind him. Perhaps his long abstinence had not been as unimportant at he’d thought at the time; in fact he now thought it had been a really bad idea. Almost as bad as tumbling Yuuri into his bed… which really wasn’t all that bad a notion considering his own bloodline wasn’t really all that dreadful. He really did love the young man and who out there was in fact more devoted to Yuuri than him?
His subconscious had apparently decided to ally with his groin, his heart seemed to be considering following suit and Yuuri was still pasted to him like an affectionate kitten. “Please, gods give me strength. Yuuri, move back, I’m not that strong.”
“You’re the strongest man I know.” Yuuri did NOT just purr that and his voice was not full of proprietary approval! Once more, Conrad’s mind found itself looking for a home in the gutter and even considering moving into the sewer. He should NOT think of sex and a kittenish Yuuri in one thought!!
“Not right now,” Conrad whispered honestly.
“Then why are you still saying no?” Conrad caught the knowing smirk but could not answer. Yuuri rubbed their cheeks together and rumbled into Conrad’s ear, “I’m inexperienced, not an idiot, Conrad.”
Clarity came to Conrad for an instant. He recognised the atypical aggressiveness in Yuuri’s posture and the insistence that did not usually appear unless the Maou had found another cause to champion. Not to mention, Yuuri certainly didn’t normally do this to his self-control unless Conrad was very, very drunk which he made sure never happened. No one produced that many pheromones naturally! “What happened to you?”
“Nothing happened to me, I’m completely normal.”
“No-”
“Conrad!” Conrad’s protests fizzled ignominiously at the proximity of those lips to his own and he held onto his higher brain functions by the skin of his teeth. Yuuri smiled against the skin of his jaw and Conrad swallowed, those higher brain functions were slippery devils…
“Are you otherwise attached?” Yuuri demanded of him.
“No…” he whispered in return, trying not to strain for contact with those tantalising lips.
“Are you afraid of me?” Yuuri persisted.
“Never,” Conrad vowed, not even now when Yuuri was so obviously twisting him around his little finger with all the skill of an experienced courtesan and wondered why it was even suggested.
Yuuri moved to look him directly in the eye. “Do you want me?”
Conrad stared into the face of his Maou, the face of the boy he had named, into the face of a beautiful young man that he could not deny. To Hell with it! “Yes!” he declared and then proceeded to educate his Yuuri on all the things that the young man seemed to have missed on his journey through puberty. Multiple times.
Early the next morning, the door to the Maou’s bedchamber burst open and Gwendal and Gunter rushed in only to be confronted by a wild-haired, wild-eyed, very naked Maou who was growling ferociously at them with an aura of rising power around him that made even those two worthies a tad anxious (as a side note, Gunter was dismayed to catalogue numerous small bruises on the Maou’s chest, shoulders and neck that he recognised as being from similar causes to the ones he and his own husband bore). His majesty was regarding them in a very unfriendly manner and the newly re-bonded spouses were faced with either retreating ignominiously or confronting a very powerful and apparently, very angry ruler. Or they were until a strong brown hand spun their glowing ruler around, its partner imparted a stinging slap on the Maou’s cheek and the lips that went with the rest of the package and had probably caused the aforementioned bruises, claimed the Maou’s in a very steamy and very possessive kiss.
Up until that moment, neither Gwendal nor Gunter, even at the dizzying heights of fanboy mania, had truly considered the Maou in a sexual light and so seeing his unclothed form being ravished by an equally bare Conrad was enlightening to say the least. True, Gwendal could have lived without this particular eye-opening lesson but Gunter, at the realisation that his beloved ruler had finally be claimed by his true love, melted into Gwendal.
When Conrad finally separated from Yuuri, the atmosphere was heated, Yuuri’s eyes were closed, his lips moist and bruised and his expression dreamy. The edible sight changed as Yuuri’s eyes snapped open and touched his reddened cheek incredulously. “Conrad…?”
Conrad smiled with a great deal of admittedly smug satisfaction and pushed Yuuri in the direction of his own bath chamber. “Wash up and get dressed. It’s going to be a busy day if we’re going to have everything ready for this evening. Your wedding is an Event, after all.”
“Wedding?” Gwednal and Gunter exclaimed in concert, reminding Yuuri of their presence and setting off a chain reaction that involved a genuine full-body blush and a hasty retreat on the behalf of the shy Yuuri.
The two lords blinked at the speed with which Yuuri had vacated the vicinity and turned as one to Conrad. “Wedding?
Conrad smiled complacently as he sought out some clothes. “Of course.”
“Tonight?” Gunter demanded in a strangled voice, with just cause considering how much would need to be done, and most of it needing to be organised by him, to pull it off.
Conrad tied the drawstring on the pants he’d donned and looked at his pale-haired brother-in-law. “Considering I spent all of last night and a large portion of the yesterday afternoon thoroughly debauching my husband-to-be, we should probably have the wedding sooner rather than later for propriety’s sake if nothing else.” And that reminded him of another matter. Conrad fixed both his brother and his brother-in-law with a very displeased expression. “And while we have a moment, please feel free to explain how my darling but utterly clueless lover not only scared our obnoxiously over-sexed younger brother away but also became hot sex on legs in one fell swoop. I presume you know because I cannot think of why else you would be so concerned as to invade his chambers at this time of the morning.”
“There are other reasons” Gwendal maintained stubbornly but Conrad could read the guilt in his brother’s face.
Conrad’s eyebrow twitched. Perhaps his respected brother did not fully comprehend how serious Conrad was in regards to this issue, after all his new relationship with the affected innocent could hardly have had time to penetrate. Conrad supposed that, even if it had, Gwendal had no previous experience with Conrad’s lovers to know how Conrad reacted when someone threatened someone he held dear. And Yuuri was not just someone that Conrad held dear but also Conrad’s in a way that roused all sorts of primitive instincts on the swordsman’s part that wise men really did not want to mess with. (For all Yuuri’s strange aggressiveness, even he seemed to regard himself as belonging to Conrad. Perhaps it had to do with the younger man’s strangely feline mating instincts that would test the mate before accepting him. Conrad did not know and did not mind if it was, Yuuri was still his.)
He smiled congenially at his brother. “I do not believe in coincidences, brother.” Then he proceeded to explain how, if they had thought Wolfram was possessive, Conrad was far worse because, firstly, he did not act without thinking things through which meant his subsequent actions were all the more dangerous and, secondly, to him Yuuri could do no wrong, thus the other party was obviously the transgressor and the one requiring attitude readjustments to be performed as painfully as possible by Conrad.
Gwendal and Gunter both paled and, then, shivered, but it was not until he had them gibbering in terror that Conrad thought he had made his point sufficiently clear. He nodded in satisfaction as the two proceeded to tell him everything beginning with Anissina and ending, for them, with hiding from far too many guards and servants. When they were done, Gwendal and Gunter leaned against each other in relief as they began to hope that it might be safe enough now to regrow their spines.
Conrad’s smile was probably still a little scary but he didn’t really care. Those two geniuses had left his Yuuri wandering around with impaired judgement. What if Wolfram hadn’t been scared off? Conrad wouldn’t have had the best night of his life with many more to follow, that’s what! “Gunter, shouldn’t you be getting to work? The Maou’s wedding is your responsibility to organise, and it has to be worthy of him.”
Gwendal stepped in to defend his husband. “It is unreasonable to expect everything to be ready for this evening.”
Conrad smiled broadly. “I happen to know that the plans for a royal wedding is something of a hobby of Gunter’s”
Gunter blushed. “It has always been possible Wolfram could have worn his Majesty down…”
“Substituting me for my brother should not be too much of a trial,” Conrad pointed out, “Gwendal will just have to assign Yosak to the security arrangements.”
“Yosak? Why not-”
“You are going to stand with me, I hope, brother.” Conrad’s smile morphed into a mischievous grin as Gunter squealed excitedly and even the stoic Gwendal smiled, pleased at the honour. After all Conrad, and thus Yuuri, would basically be announcing to the whole kingdom that they both honoured Gwendal as one of the most important people to support them in their new life.
“Of course,” Gwendal answered instantly, “I can hardly do both. I should also dig Wolfram out of whatever hole he has take refuge in and I would not be surprised if Mother had already caught wind of the engagement in that mysterious way of hers.”
Conrad shared with his brother the contended smile of happily taken men who looked forward to regular sex from attractive and affectionate mates that they adored.
“Would it be possible to bring Yuuri’s family here? I’m sure he’d want them present and his own brother should stand with him.”
Gwendal nodded, obviously making plans and communicating them in some telepathic fashion to his husband. “We will take care of it,” he told Conrad absently, “You enjoy the morning with his Majesty. You will both be very busy later on.”
Conrad was sure they didn’t hear his thank you, too absorbed in their convoluted planning but as he forgot about them before they started towards the door, he didn’t mind. Instead, he made his way into the attached on-suite which, while far less palatial than the official bath chamber, was still more than comfortable despite its convenience. He took a moment to enjoy watching the soap covered Yuuri in the modest tub.
When Yuuri noticed, he blushed and looked down but did not try to sink beneath the water which made Conrad very happy. “I heard what happened,” Yuuri admitted.
Conrad untied the cord of his pants. “Oh?” he asked as the material slipped off his hips.
“Mm,” Yuuri said, his eyes wide and fixed on Conrad as he sauntered towards the tup without a stitch of clothing. “I’m not sorry thought… even if I could have done without seeing Gunter and Gwendal like that.”
“I’m glad,” Conrad murmured as he slipped into the tub behind Yuuri and enjoyed the feel of that slippery skin against his chest as Yuuri settled back against him. “Very glad.”
“So am I,” Yuuri confided.
The bath lasted almost an hour and it took more than one maid twice that to mop up the mess which resulted. It was not really another job that any of them needed that day but, fortunately for Conrad and Yuuri, they were forgiven because the maids were, one and all, in absolute raptures over having caught them making out while still damp and only partly dressed.
The wedding went off without a problem that evening and a very happy, though slightly confused Anissina was toasted afterwards.
The details of how Gwendal, Gunter and Conrad conspired to set her up with the now notably unattached Wolfram in a plot that was partly…okay mostly…well alright, fully in revenge, is another story though.