Contact 15: Walls
Chapter 15: Conrad has a thing for walls. Yuuri has a thing for rambling thoughts.
It's all right to cry; I'll hold you
Your sadness tore the shape of a heart
In the center of my chest
The hair under his fingers is soft, and he trails his fingers down. They whisper down his lover's nape where his short nails press down in slow circles, fingertips searching around the shoulders for knots to ease. And up again, they move to tuck stray strands behind an ear. He puts as much comfort and reassurance as he can into these actions. A soft grunt; an imperceptible stirring. His sleeping lover's breathing evens out even as his lips are still pulled down into a frown.
Yuuri wraps his arms tighter around Conrad and feels his heart twinge in shared pain. He resists the urge to clutch at the hollow ache in his own chest in favor of clinging tighter to Conrad and hoping that his presence is enough to soothe away the nightmares. And hoping that the bond that connects them, which he has begun to be able to consciously sense after growing into his powers, will be able to deliver this message.
Conrad has a thing for walls, and it's not just about the part where he's always leaning against them. It's this part of him that's sort of... cute. Not in the "big shiny eyes" or "tiny helpless kitten" sort of way, but more like... Here is a man who, outwardly, is perfectly confident and confidently perfect. It's rare for him to show any hints of emotional fragility, and there are walls around his heart.
He leans against them in a way that seems nonchalant, but is actually very guarded. Alert. Defensive. No-way-can-anyone-stab-him-in-the-back. And Yuuri used to wonder, "Why is that? What's with the thing he has for leaning against walls with his arms crossed? Is the cold stone wall really more comfortable than a chair?"
Conrad is all smiles whenever the subject comes up, and Yuuri would roll his eyes and say, "Whatever. Fine, don't tell me."
It had remained a mystery until Yuuri had noticed that Conrad's arms were always crossed just so; crossed in such a way that brought his right hand closer to the hilt of his sword while his left elbow was in the way, obscuring the details of his movements from possible foes.
It's this guarded nature that Yuuri thinks is as cute as it is admirable. No one gets past Conrad's defense, except Yuuri did, and that makes him feel special and giddy and embarrassed and protective all at once.
Being like this, or even feeling like this, is not something that he ever expected to happen. Conrad is older than him, and stronger. Calmer, more mature, more experienced in just about everything. Yuuri has no delusions of ever having the kind of physique that Conrad has. He isn't a swordsman, and he will never have a swordsman's corded muscles, lean and tough like a taut bowstring.
Yuuri is a king who lives a soft royal life. Aside from the occasional adventure, he spends his days behind a desk full of paperwork. He is attended to by an entire regiment of guards, servants, retainers and the like. It's true that he's the most powerful person in the kingdom when it comes to the sheer amount of maryoku he has, but it's just too bad that strong maryoku doesn't translate into strong anything else, because he's sort of gotten sick of having his ass handed to him every time there's a physical confrontation. (Okay, really sick. It's not fair! Why do the bandits always find a way to sneak up on him? There should be a limit to how often a person gets kidnapped, even if they are a little bit too trusting at times...)
But if there's one thing he's learned in all these years, it's that sometimes people make stupid rules. They make stupid rules but take them so seriously because there's no one from the outside who can come in through an inter-dimensional toilet and tell them that it's stupid. Shin Makoku is lucky to have someone with his outsider's common sense to tell them that slapping people is a bad way to declare love, and that women shouldn't be thrown into prison camps for having interracial relationships, and that it's really not okay to Destroy All Humans.
Similarly, sometimes Yuuri wishes he could find another magical toilet that would take him into the past just so he could smack some sense into his younger self. Because all the rules that they have on Earth about who you're allowed to marry and who you're allowed to fall in love with... are kind of bullshit now that he's thought about them. It would have been nice if he'd come to that realization sooner, because then he wouldn't have had to spend all that time questioning his own sanity and masculinity.
It's ironic how the things that seem like common sense to him now were major epiphanies when he first thought about them. Like the fact that being in love with another man doesn't mean you have to swoon and weep like a shoujo manga protagonist. As if he could ever act as cutesy as that, with all the constant sighing and flowery backgrounds!
There's also the fact that sometimes love doesn't actually change people as much in real life as it does in certain TV dramas, especially the ones that his mom likes, where the lovers tend to fall out of touch with reality and end up in a Twilight Zone where nothing else matters but their love.
Yeah... No. Yuuri's soft puff of laughter blows through Conrad's hair, to which Conrad mumbles sleepily and snuggles further in.
No, Yuuri is still Yuuri, even now that he's admitted to himself that the weird tingly feeling he gets around Conrad is called "love". And he still wants to do the things he has always wanted to do, like go out for ramen after the game, or protect the people he cares about. It's just how he is. He doesn't like it when he sees injustice. He doesn't like it because good people get hurt in those situations, and even though the scars may not be visible on the surface, he can see it in their eyes, or in the cracks around the walls they build around their hearts. If Yuuri can do anything to make sure that the hurt fades, he'll do it.
So, with all of that, what does it matter if he's the shorter, skinnier guy? If he can't even lift Conrad, much less carry him when he's injured, or catch him when they fall off a cliff? It doesn't mean he has to swoon and let Conrad do all the protecting. There are other ways of being a strong man.
Even back then, even when he was just a fifteen-year-old brat who had no idea what he was doing in this world, Yuuri had felt like he wanted to protect Conrad's heart. It means a lot to him to know that he's able to do that now, so even if Conrad probably can't hear him, Yuuri says it anyway.
"Thank you, Conrad, for letting me in."
It's all right to cry; I'll hold you
Your sadness tore the shape of a heart
In the center of my chest
The hair under his fingers is soft, and he trails his fingers down. They whisper down his lover's nape where his short nails press down in slow circles, fingertips searching around the shoulders for knots to ease. And up again, they move to tuck stray strands behind an ear. He puts as much comfort and reassurance as he can into these actions. A soft grunt; an imperceptible stirring. His sleeping lover's breathing evens out even as his lips are still pulled down into a frown.
Yuuri wraps his arms tighter around Conrad and feels his heart twinge in shared pain. He resists the urge to clutch at the hollow ache in his own chest in favor of clinging tighter to Conrad and hoping that his presence is enough to soothe away the nightmares. And hoping that the bond that connects them, which he has begun to be able to consciously sense after growing into his powers, will be able to deliver this message.
Conrad has a thing for walls, and it's not just about the part where he's always leaning against them. It's this part of him that's sort of... cute. Not in the "big shiny eyes" or "tiny helpless kitten" sort of way, but more like... Here is a man who, outwardly, is perfectly confident and confidently perfect. It's rare for him to show any hints of emotional fragility, and there are walls around his heart.
He leans against them in a way that seems nonchalant, but is actually very guarded. Alert. Defensive. No-way-can-anyone-stab-him-in-the-back. And Yuuri used to wonder, "Why is that? What's with the thing he has for leaning against walls with his arms crossed? Is the cold stone wall really more comfortable than a chair?"
Conrad is all smiles whenever the subject comes up, and Yuuri would roll his eyes and say, "Whatever. Fine, don't tell me."
It had remained a mystery until Yuuri had noticed that Conrad's arms were always crossed just so; crossed in such a way that brought his right hand closer to the hilt of his sword while his left elbow was in the way, obscuring the details of his movements from possible foes.
It's this guarded nature that Yuuri thinks is as cute as it is admirable. No one gets past Conrad's defense, except Yuuri did, and that makes him feel special and giddy and embarrassed and protective all at once.
Being like this, or even feeling like this, is not something that he ever expected to happen. Conrad is older than him, and stronger. Calmer, more mature, more experienced in just about everything. Yuuri has no delusions of ever having the kind of physique that Conrad has. He isn't a swordsman, and he will never have a swordsman's corded muscles, lean and tough like a taut bowstring.
Yuuri is a king who lives a soft royal life. Aside from the occasional adventure, he spends his days behind a desk full of paperwork. He is attended to by an entire regiment of guards, servants, retainers and the like. It's true that he's the most powerful person in the kingdom when it comes to the sheer amount of maryoku he has, but it's just too bad that strong maryoku doesn't translate into strong anything else, because he's sort of gotten sick of having his ass handed to him every time there's a physical confrontation. (Okay, really sick. It's not fair! Why do the bandits always find a way to sneak up on him? There should be a limit to how often a person gets kidnapped, even if they are a little bit too trusting at times...)
But if there's one thing he's learned in all these years, it's that sometimes people make stupid rules. They make stupid rules but take them so seriously because there's no one from the outside who can come in through an inter-dimensional toilet and tell them that it's stupid. Shin Makoku is lucky to have someone with his outsider's common sense to tell them that slapping people is a bad way to declare love, and that women shouldn't be thrown into prison camps for having interracial relationships, and that it's really not okay to Destroy All Humans.
Similarly, sometimes Yuuri wishes he could find another magical toilet that would take him into the past just so he could smack some sense into his younger self. Because all the rules that they have on Earth about who you're allowed to marry and who you're allowed to fall in love with... are kind of bullshit now that he's thought about them. It would have been nice if he'd come to that realization sooner, because then he wouldn't have had to spend all that time questioning his own sanity and masculinity.
It's ironic how the things that seem like common sense to him now were major epiphanies when he first thought about them. Like the fact that being in love with another man doesn't mean you have to swoon and weep like a shoujo manga protagonist. As if he could ever act as cutesy as that, with all the constant sighing and flowery backgrounds!
There's also the fact that sometimes love doesn't actually change people as much in real life as it does in certain TV dramas, especially the ones that his mom likes, where the lovers tend to fall out of touch with reality and end up in a Twilight Zone where nothing else matters but their love.
Yeah... No. Yuuri's soft puff of laughter blows through Conrad's hair, to which Conrad mumbles sleepily and snuggles further in.
No, Yuuri is still Yuuri, even now that he's admitted to himself that the weird tingly feeling he gets around Conrad is called "love". And he still wants to do the things he has always wanted to do, like go out for ramen after the game, or protect the people he cares about. It's just how he is. He doesn't like it when he sees injustice. He doesn't like it because good people get hurt in those situations, and even though the scars may not be visible on the surface, he can see it in their eyes, or in the cracks around the walls they build around their hearts. If Yuuri can do anything to make sure that the hurt fades, he'll do it.
So, with all of that, what does it matter if he's the shorter, skinnier guy? If he can't even lift Conrad, much less carry him when he's injured, or catch him when they fall off a cliff? It doesn't mean he has to swoon and let Conrad do all the protecting. There are other ways of being a strong man.
Even back then, even when he was just a fifteen-year-old brat who had no idea what he was doing in this world, Yuuri had felt like he wanted to protect Conrad's heart. It means a lot to him to know that he's able to do that now, so even if Conrad probably can't hear him, Yuuri says it anyway.
"Thank you, Conrad, for letting me in."