[KKM] Fixed Point in a Changing World (Adult; Yozak, Conrad)
Authors: lynndyre and threewalls
Disclaimer: Not my characters.
Pairing: Yozak Gurrier & Conrad Weller
Rating: ~15+
Spoilers: All the way through to episode 78.
Notes: This is something of an experiment, an epic in many very small pieces. They are in chronological order, some with years between them, some with minutes.
Written with the Delta set of prompts from 1sentence.
With thanks to jtriskell for her enthusiastic reaction to an earlier draft of this.
Summary: One possible timeline of Yozak's life, in fifty snapshots.
FIXED POINT IN A CHANGING WORLD
Summer
Every summer, Yozak promises himself that he'll travel to the capital, but then a roof collapses, a father gets sick, or bandits appear again, and his promise becomes: next summer, and then the next, until one morning when he wakes up and just leaves because he knows that if he doesn't then, he never will.
Taboo
With his head still ringing and blood in his eyes, Yozak can't see more of the man slowing his descent down the barroom wall than a shocking blue blur: another halfbreed or he wouldn't have bothered to step into the fight, but a knight, rolling out platitudes like
"they'll be disciplined" as though this was the first time anyone in the army had tried to make Yozak taste the difference between his blood and theirs.
Lost
Sparring with his new commander is a challenge and a pleasure: speed versus strength, skill versus experience; it continues to surprise him how good a loser Weller-kyo is the rare times Yozak manages to disarm him.
Fall
Some time between the transfer that happens overnight and the promotion that Yozak deserves but never expected to receive, he starts to believe in every one of Weller-kyo's extravagant, arrogant promises.
Welcome
Of everything his promotion might mean, Yozak is most grateful to be taught to read-- Conrad himself leaning close over Yozak's shoulder to underline the words with his finger as Yozak sounds them out-- literacy means that Yozak will never be just another soldier.
Drink
Yozak realises why Conrad doesn't drink around the men when he slumps heavily against Yozak's shoulder after his first bottle and starts making crazy confessions like "I'm saving myself for marriage," "I couldn't curse bastards with my blood" and "you know, Yozak, your hair smells really good."
Winter
When the army winters, Yozak's commander wanders in the provinces and during later years in the human kingdoms, shedding his mother's protection as though skill with a sword alone had protected him at court; this gives Yozak plenty of practice at trailing, and only being seen when he wishes to be.
Dark
Yozak wakes at the sudden weight pinning his chest, eyes wide in the window-less dark, strength tensed to throw until his would-be attacker mumbles with a voice recognisable, if slurred by sleep, into his neck; Yozak slides Conrad off without waking him, leaving just as he planned if a few hours early: before his commander can start thinking about the coincidence of Yozak being in this town just in time to step into that fight without a room of his own.
Poison
Suzanna Julia is blind, engaged and Conrad's mother's age, but, mostly, Yozak can't respect anyone who could let Conrad act the way he is without either taking him up on it or letting him down easy.
Roses
Yozak assures the Maou that, no matter what she's heard, her son isn't throwing his prospects away on a peasant sweetheart and she thankfully doesn't ask for details, dismissing him with a distracted pout (it would be a lie for him to say that he's never slept in her son's bed, even though only in place of a warming pan).
War
He joined the army in Dan Hiri's memory and with von Voltaire's patronage, but that isn't why Yozak stays and that isn't why he volunteers to follow Weller-kyo to the front.
Fire
Yozak doesn't dare light a fire, just in case they aren't the only survivors, but he holds his commander up between their stripped armour and the shelter of a tree, hoping his own heat is enough to see Conrad through the night.
Despair
At first, taking in the empty bed that hadn't been unoccupied in months, Yozak thinks 'gone to another world' is von Voltaire-kakka's euphemism for the obvious and even a fuller explanation doesn't stop the offer of a knighthood from feeling like salt in his still-healing wounds; he refuses, he won't be an officer, won't try to be Conrad, and it's a relief to let Gwendal send him where Yozak won't be himself, either.
Head
They've both changed in twenty-six months apart: Yozak isn’t sure whether to be glad or disgusted with this Conrad who’s come back-- the spy-trained parts of his brain find it all too easy to spot someone carrying a sword as though they hadn't used one in two years, but buried darker beneath that is the urge to grab this (not a taichou, not his Taichou) Weller-kyo by his too-short hair and jerk off over that fucking empty smile.
End
The first time they spar after Conrad’s return, it ends with Yozak straddling Conrad’s downed form, one arm around his throat, and a dagger he hadn’t carried two years before pricking into Conrad’s side - Conrad’s unmasked surprise makes Yozak wonder if he shouldn't have let it go that far, but he doesn’t think Weller-kyo will make the mistake of giving him a handicap again.
Green
When he's between missions at Blood Pledge, Yozak sometimes gets roped into demonstrating with Conrad, teaching Weller-kyo's new division not to stab themselves in the feet; he doesn't think he and Conrad were ever that young.
Pretty
Yozak doesn't dwell on it (he's at this dance for the new Maou, not himself), but despite the looks he's drawing from everyone else, having Conrad Weller's arm around him makes Yozak feel like he's the prettiest girl in the ballroom.
Honour
The day before yesterday, Yozak couldn't have imagined finding any of this boy-Maou's orders a honour to carry out, but after last night it's almost more surprising to feel Conrad's warm glance, like he'd never doubted Yozak's loyalty or threatened his life for daring to put the kingdom before the king.
Hope
It can't be a good omen to be returning to Dai Shimeron at a time like this, but Yozak reminds himself that an arm isn't a body, not when it isn't even a sword arm, not when it's Conrad.
Air
It's almost easy to let Conrad force him over the edge, when he’s buoyed by the irrational hope that this means Taichou isn't really committing treason after all.
Hollow
A loyal soldier of Shin Makoku shouldn't concede battle, shouldn't willingly step off a cliff-edge abandoning the Maou to the enemy; but Yozak has-- because it had been Conrad who had asked him to-- and even though in the end his choice had been the right one, he can’t ignore the reality of why he made it.
Snakes
Yozak's not sure what he would have done with the knowledge, if Conrad had told him who Julia's soul would become before this -- but he'd rather have known, rather Conrad had trusted him, than find out only because of Adalbert and that damned blue necklace.
Snow
Perhaps it's the miasma, perhaps it's his own bruised faith, but Yozak struggles as much with the snow as he does with memories of poor command decisions, and yet, in the instant when they fall, he reaches for Conrad without any doubt at all.
Flexible
When Gisela finally releases them from Wolfram's chambers, it is only for the short, blanket-clad walk to Conrad's own bedchamber; Yozak pillows Conrad's head on his shoulder and tries not to think how long it's been since they lay like this, how long it may be again.
Regret
Conrad's arm is useless, Gwendel can't see, and Yozak could kick himself for not being more suspicious; the Great Sage had introduced himself in the wash of uncertainty just after Yozak had heard Conrad was dead, just as the Shinou spoke to Conrad after Suzanna Julia died.
Peace
With the boxes and all threat they brought with them now gone, there's not much more than drunken dignitaries to watch out for and Yozak finds his eyes following Conrad through the party below.
Old
The kid is the only one who'll ever believe Belal's claims of being an unwitting pawn, but even if Dai Shimeron's latest draft treaty is only the old bastard looking for breathing room, it still includes a written concession of any claims they might have had on Conrad-- and that alone almost makes Yozak hope they sign it.
Strange
Yozak takes the attempt to award him a princess for services to the kingdom as an excellent example of Conrad's sense of humour, though the image of his commander in black lace over beige taffeta will stay with him a long time.
Water
As they wait before the altar for the portals to open, Yozak leans over to complain about traveling naked through nearly frozen puddles; Conrad drops his eyes for all of an instant and whispers back, grinning, "if it wasn't so cold, you'd frighten the shrine maidens."
Coffee
The customs in the other world are different from any he knows, Yozak finds, when the Maou's mother sees him accidentally sipping from Conrad's (identical) coffee mug; Conrad just smiles, small enough to be real, and finishes off Yozak's coffee completely (to Jennifer-sama's increased delight).
Food
He isn't worried because it's a formal Mazoku dinner-- Yozak learnt full Mazoku etiquette when he was learning not to smudge his eyeliner or breathe in a corset-- but this is the royal family, Conrad's family, and not one of them seems surprised to see him here on Conrad's invitation.
Bugs
The moment hangs for too long with nothing to break the silence, or dispel the blankness spreading out from the edges of Conrad's smile-- as Yozak's grip on Conrad's wrist slackens, their hands fall, and Conrad steps back, then disappears behind the curtain, leaving Yozak alone on the balcony with the awful certainty that if he hadn't moved, his cheek would have felt the sting of Conrad's palm.
Duty
Yozak's painted nails dig into his palm, but he doesn't call after Conrad -- a man married to Weller-kyo Conrad, prince and Ruttenberg Patriot, would have made an obvious, and probably swiftly deceased spy.
New
There's a new distance after that night, one Yozak isn't sure Conrad wants to close anymore-- so he lets his work take him away from Shin Makoku, and resents the healing arrow-wound to the thigh that finally fixes him in one place long enough to think about it.
Doors
In a tiny room, in a tiny backwater inn in Suberera, Yozak puts his sword back down beside the bed that he's lying on and Conrad shuts the door-- Yozak wonders what Gwendal must have told Conrad to make him come here.
Stable
Yozak finally lets Conrad re-dress his wounds, even though they don't need it, unable to find any other way to reassure Conrad that he won't bleed out in the night; it's the first time they've ever slept sharing Yozak's bed.
Solid
Conrad's body is solid warmth against Yozak's, and it’s more than just having someone he can trust at his back -- Yozak finds himself stroking Conrad’s flank, but Conrad only moves closer, and this joining isn’t one Yozak has it in him to refuse.
Ugly
Between the dresses and the madcap rescues, Conrad has an overly romantic view of what Yozak has done in the name of Shin Makoku; Yozak never wants that to change, so he... prevaricates when Conrad asks about the scars that he's never seen before.
Secret
They've weathered so many false rumours that by the time they have something precious to hide, no one else notices that anything has changed.
Apples
They save the apples Conrad brought with him until after Yozak teaches him how to sit on the roof without falling (or being spotted by anyone from the royal wedding reception below, though Wolfram's reaction to Yuuri stepping on his toes is probably distraction enough in that case).
Spring
"I don't mind that the kid comes first, Taichou-- he's the Maou, and he's a good one-- you keep forgetting that any time you leap to his defense, I'll be right behind you."
Metal
Somewhere in the crowd of Conrad's students eagerly watching their swordmaster take on Shin Makoku's (rumoured) spymaster are three students Yozak is very proud of, even if he wouldn't admit they exist.
Foot
Yozak knows what they have is less than what Conrad hoped for, but it’s also more than Yozak thought realistically possible-- especially considering they started off so much on the wrong foot.
Light
"Taichou must have been just dying to see my nurse's outfit," Yozak says with a wink, because it's good to see Conrad laugh even with his arm clutched across his cracked, bandaged ribs.
Flying
Yozak dances with Conrad at Gwendel's wedding; not the first time he's stood beside Conrad in front of the court, but the first he's done it with small, blue, pointed flowers embroidered on his dress and woven through his hair.
Grave
"Mother, you always told me to find someone worth it--," because unlike Mazoku, humans expected to marry for their entire, brief lifespans, "this is Conrad Weller, and he's as good as they come."
Rain
Yozak had planned to ride until their horses tired, as far from that dead land as he could get, but the rain closes in too quickly; once in their tent he is rough, inciting Conrad to take him hard, driving out his memories and demons with the pain.
Beginning
"Does this mean--?" Conrad asks, afterwards, slowly laying his right hand on Yozak's left cheek and Yozak finally has to admit that he never planned on saying no again.
Wood
"Father, this is Yozak-- he was probably shorter when you saw him last; remember how you said I should hold out for a really good-looking wife--" and that's all Conrad gets out before he's being chased around the tree, laughing too hard to speak.
Earth
Gwendel gives them an unidentifiable brown knitted animal cuddled up to an equally questionable orange one for their wedding present, and says that they deserve each other with a look that lets them know it isn't quite a compliment.
LD & MC
09/11/06
Disclaimer: Not my characters.
Pairing: Yozak Gurrier & Conrad Weller
Rating: ~15+
Spoilers: All the way through to episode 78.
Notes: This is something of an experiment, an epic in many very small pieces. They are in chronological order, some with years between them, some with minutes.
Written with the Delta set of prompts from 1sentence.
With thanks to jtriskell for her enthusiastic reaction to an earlier draft of this.
Summary: One possible timeline of Yozak's life, in fifty snapshots.
FIXED POINT IN A CHANGING WORLD
Summer
Every summer, Yozak promises himself that he'll travel to the capital, but then a roof collapses, a father gets sick, or bandits appear again, and his promise becomes: next summer, and then the next, until one morning when he wakes up and just leaves because he knows that if he doesn't then, he never will.
Taboo
With his head still ringing and blood in his eyes, Yozak can't see more of the man slowing his descent down the barroom wall than a shocking blue blur: another halfbreed or he wouldn't have bothered to step into the fight, but a knight, rolling out platitudes like
"they'll be disciplined" as though this was the first time anyone in the army had tried to make Yozak taste the difference between his blood and theirs.
Lost
Sparring with his new commander is a challenge and a pleasure: speed versus strength, skill versus experience; it continues to surprise him how good a loser Weller-kyo is the rare times Yozak manages to disarm him.
Fall
Some time between the transfer that happens overnight and the promotion that Yozak deserves but never expected to receive, he starts to believe in every one of Weller-kyo's extravagant, arrogant promises.
Welcome
Of everything his promotion might mean, Yozak is most grateful to be taught to read-- Conrad himself leaning close over Yozak's shoulder to underline the words with his finger as Yozak sounds them out-- literacy means that Yozak will never be just another soldier.
Drink
Yozak realises why Conrad doesn't drink around the men when he slumps heavily against Yozak's shoulder after his first bottle and starts making crazy confessions like "I'm saving myself for marriage," "I couldn't curse bastards with my blood" and "you know, Yozak, your hair smells really good."
Winter
When the army winters, Yozak's commander wanders in the provinces and during later years in the human kingdoms, shedding his mother's protection as though skill with a sword alone had protected him at court; this gives Yozak plenty of practice at trailing, and only being seen when he wishes to be.
Dark
Yozak wakes at the sudden weight pinning his chest, eyes wide in the window-less dark, strength tensed to throw until his would-be attacker mumbles with a voice recognisable, if slurred by sleep, into his neck; Yozak slides Conrad off without waking him, leaving just as he planned if a few hours early: before his commander can start thinking about the coincidence of Yozak being in this town just in time to step into that fight without a room of his own.
Poison
Suzanna Julia is blind, engaged and Conrad's mother's age, but, mostly, Yozak can't respect anyone who could let Conrad act the way he is without either taking him up on it or letting him down easy.
Roses
Yozak assures the Maou that, no matter what she's heard, her son isn't throwing his prospects away on a peasant sweetheart and she thankfully doesn't ask for details, dismissing him with a distracted pout (it would be a lie for him to say that he's never slept in her son's bed, even though only in place of a warming pan).
War
He joined the army in Dan Hiri's memory and with von Voltaire's patronage, but that isn't why Yozak stays and that isn't why he volunteers to follow Weller-kyo to the front.
Fire
Yozak doesn't dare light a fire, just in case they aren't the only survivors, but he holds his commander up between their stripped armour and the shelter of a tree, hoping his own heat is enough to see Conrad through the night.
Despair
At first, taking in the empty bed that hadn't been unoccupied in months, Yozak thinks 'gone to another world' is von Voltaire-kakka's euphemism for the obvious and even a fuller explanation doesn't stop the offer of a knighthood from feeling like salt in his still-healing wounds; he refuses, he won't be an officer, won't try to be Conrad, and it's a relief to let Gwendal send him where Yozak won't be himself, either.
Head
They've both changed in twenty-six months apart: Yozak isn’t sure whether to be glad or disgusted with this Conrad who’s come back-- the spy-trained parts of his brain find it all too easy to spot someone carrying a sword as though they hadn't used one in two years, but buried darker beneath that is the urge to grab this (not a taichou, not his Taichou) Weller-kyo by his too-short hair and jerk off over that fucking empty smile.
End
The first time they spar after Conrad’s return, it ends with Yozak straddling Conrad’s downed form, one arm around his throat, and a dagger he hadn’t carried two years before pricking into Conrad’s side - Conrad’s unmasked surprise makes Yozak wonder if he shouldn't have let it go that far, but he doesn’t think Weller-kyo will make the mistake of giving him a handicap again.
Green
When he's between missions at Blood Pledge, Yozak sometimes gets roped into demonstrating with Conrad, teaching Weller-kyo's new division not to stab themselves in the feet; he doesn't think he and Conrad were ever that young.
Pretty
Yozak doesn't dwell on it (he's at this dance for the new Maou, not himself), but despite the looks he's drawing from everyone else, having Conrad Weller's arm around him makes Yozak feel like he's the prettiest girl in the ballroom.
Honour
The day before yesterday, Yozak couldn't have imagined finding any of this boy-Maou's orders a honour to carry out, but after last night it's almost more surprising to feel Conrad's warm glance, like he'd never doubted Yozak's loyalty or threatened his life for daring to put the kingdom before the king.
Hope
It can't be a good omen to be returning to Dai Shimeron at a time like this, but Yozak reminds himself that an arm isn't a body, not when it isn't even a sword arm, not when it's Conrad.
Air
It's almost easy to let Conrad force him over the edge, when he’s buoyed by the irrational hope that this means Taichou isn't really committing treason after all.
Hollow
A loyal soldier of Shin Makoku shouldn't concede battle, shouldn't willingly step off a cliff-edge abandoning the Maou to the enemy; but Yozak has-- because it had been Conrad who had asked him to-- and even though in the end his choice had been the right one, he can’t ignore the reality of why he made it.
Snakes
Yozak's not sure what he would have done with the knowledge, if Conrad had told him who Julia's soul would become before this -- but he'd rather have known, rather Conrad had trusted him, than find out only because of Adalbert and that damned blue necklace.
Snow
Perhaps it's the miasma, perhaps it's his own bruised faith, but Yozak struggles as much with the snow as he does with memories of poor command decisions, and yet, in the instant when they fall, he reaches for Conrad without any doubt at all.
Flexible
When Gisela finally releases them from Wolfram's chambers, it is only for the short, blanket-clad walk to Conrad's own bedchamber; Yozak pillows Conrad's head on his shoulder and tries not to think how long it's been since they lay like this, how long it may be again.
Regret
Conrad's arm is useless, Gwendel can't see, and Yozak could kick himself for not being more suspicious; the Great Sage had introduced himself in the wash of uncertainty just after Yozak had heard Conrad was dead, just as the Shinou spoke to Conrad after Suzanna Julia died.
Peace
With the boxes and all threat they brought with them now gone, there's not much more than drunken dignitaries to watch out for and Yozak finds his eyes following Conrad through the party below.
Old
The kid is the only one who'll ever believe Belal's claims of being an unwitting pawn, but even if Dai Shimeron's latest draft treaty is only the old bastard looking for breathing room, it still includes a written concession of any claims they might have had on Conrad-- and that alone almost makes Yozak hope they sign it.
Strange
Yozak takes the attempt to award him a princess for services to the kingdom as an excellent example of Conrad's sense of humour, though the image of his commander in black lace over beige taffeta will stay with him a long time.
Water
As they wait before the altar for the portals to open, Yozak leans over to complain about traveling naked through nearly frozen puddles; Conrad drops his eyes for all of an instant and whispers back, grinning, "if it wasn't so cold, you'd frighten the shrine maidens."
Coffee
The customs in the other world are different from any he knows, Yozak finds, when the Maou's mother sees him accidentally sipping from Conrad's (identical) coffee mug; Conrad just smiles, small enough to be real, and finishes off Yozak's coffee completely (to Jennifer-sama's increased delight).
Food
He isn't worried because it's a formal Mazoku dinner-- Yozak learnt full Mazoku etiquette when he was learning not to smudge his eyeliner or breathe in a corset-- but this is the royal family, Conrad's family, and not one of them seems surprised to see him here on Conrad's invitation.
Bugs
The moment hangs for too long with nothing to break the silence, or dispel the blankness spreading out from the edges of Conrad's smile-- as Yozak's grip on Conrad's wrist slackens, their hands fall, and Conrad steps back, then disappears behind the curtain, leaving Yozak alone on the balcony with the awful certainty that if he hadn't moved, his cheek would have felt the sting of Conrad's palm.
Duty
Yozak's painted nails dig into his palm, but he doesn't call after Conrad -- a man married to Weller-kyo Conrad, prince and Ruttenberg Patriot, would have made an obvious, and probably swiftly deceased spy.
New
There's a new distance after that night, one Yozak isn't sure Conrad wants to close anymore-- so he lets his work take him away from Shin Makoku, and resents the healing arrow-wound to the thigh that finally fixes him in one place long enough to think about it.
Doors
In a tiny room, in a tiny backwater inn in Suberera, Yozak puts his sword back down beside the bed that he's lying on and Conrad shuts the door-- Yozak wonders what Gwendal must have told Conrad to make him come here.
Stable
Yozak finally lets Conrad re-dress his wounds, even though they don't need it, unable to find any other way to reassure Conrad that he won't bleed out in the night; it's the first time they've ever slept sharing Yozak's bed.
Solid
Conrad's body is solid warmth against Yozak's, and it’s more than just having someone he can trust at his back -- Yozak finds himself stroking Conrad’s flank, but Conrad only moves closer, and this joining isn’t one Yozak has it in him to refuse.
Ugly
Between the dresses and the madcap rescues, Conrad has an overly romantic view of what Yozak has done in the name of Shin Makoku; Yozak never wants that to change, so he... prevaricates when Conrad asks about the scars that he's never seen before.
Secret
They've weathered so many false rumours that by the time they have something precious to hide, no one else notices that anything has changed.
Apples
They save the apples Conrad brought with him until after Yozak teaches him how to sit on the roof without falling (or being spotted by anyone from the royal wedding reception below, though Wolfram's reaction to Yuuri stepping on his toes is probably distraction enough in that case).
Spring
"I don't mind that the kid comes first, Taichou-- he's the Maou, and he's a good one-- you keep forgetting that any time you leap to his defense, I'll be right behind you."
Metal
Somewhere in the crowd of Conrad's students eagerly watching their swordmaster take on Shin Makoku's (rumoured) spymaster are three students Yozak is very proud of, even if he wouldn't admit they exist.
Foot
Yozak knows what they have is less than what Conrad hoped for, but it’s also more than Yozak thought realistically possible-- especially considering they started off so much on the wrong foot.
Light
"Taichou must have been just dying to see my nurse's outfit," Yozak says with a wink, because it's good to see Conrad laugh even with his arm clutched across his cracked, bandaged ribs.
Flying
Yozak dances with Conrad at Gwendel's wedding; not the first time he's stood beside Conrad in front of the court, but the first he's done it with small, blue, pointed flowers embroidered on his dress and woven through his hair.
Grave
"Mother, you always told me to find someone worth it--," because unlike Mazoku, humans expected to marry for their entire, brief lifespans, "this is Conrad Weller, and he's as good as they come."
Rain
Yozak had planned to ride until their horses tired, as far from that dead land as he could get, but the rain closes in too quickly; once in their tent he is rough, inciting Conrad to take him hard, driving out his memories and demons with the pain.
Beginning
"Does this mean--?" Conrad asks, afterwards, slowly laying his right hand on Yozak's left cheek and Yozak finally has to admit that he never planned on saying no again.
Wood
"Father, this is Yozak-- he was probably shorter when you saw him last; remember how you said I should hold out for a really good-looking wife--" and that's all Conrad gets out before he's being chased around the tree, laughing too hard to speak.
Earth
Gwendel gives them an unidentifiable brown knitted animal cuddled up to an equally questionable orange one for their wedding present, and says that they deserve each other with a look that lets them know it isn't quite a compliment.
LD & MC
09/11/06