Fic: When Universes Collide (GwendalxGunter)
Title: When Universes Collide
Author: Lin
Rating: PG13
Characters/Pairings: GwendalxGunter
Genre: Romance
Chapter: Follow-up to my previous fic Tensions. Part 3 (the final chapter) is currently with my beta!
Warnings: More awkwardness, and some pretty heavy tongue kissing action.
Summary: Gwendal ignores the tension between him and Gunter, while Gunter tries to resolve it.
Word count: 2.507
Author’s note: To be fair this needed a better backdrop. What can I say, I was too preoccupied with the fluff to be able to come up with a decent reason for Gunter to be in the library in the middle of the night. Also watch me make up more Gwendal backstory! *fistpump!*
The wonderful and talented azami222 has drawn an illustration for this fic! It can be found here (features two guys kissing their little hearts out).
Gwendal was many things, but he was not a stupid man. He had always been aware of Gunter being quite extraordinarily beautiful. It was something of a given, really - you simply could not deny that the man who had actually been voted the most beautiful man in the kingdom several years in a row was pleasing to the eye.
He had known him since childhood, though they did not become more closely acquainted until Gunter became his mother's advisor. The first time he'd seen him had been at his father's funeral. Gwendal's father had passed away when Gwendal was just a little boy, and the funeral had been an almost tastelessly huge event - orchestrated mostly by his uncle, while his mother sat in her room and stared at the wall - but among the throngs of nobles who came to pay their respects the Von Kleist's teenage son, standing quietly beside his mother, had stood out to him. Even as a child Gwendal was aware that this young lord, with his silver air and fine features, was something to be seen. Gunter had grown into an adult before Gwendal even managed to get a firm grip on puberty, and became something of an eye-catcher at social gatherings. Gwendal would observe him occasionally, too young, too well-mannered and certainly too stubborn to approach an older man of the nobility without them having ever been formally introduced. They were, finally, formally introduced when Gunter served as Conrad's teacher at the academy, but Gwendal himself was already quite busy with his work in the military and his responsibilities as the ruler of the Von Voltaire lands, and as such did not get to experience Gunter's presence often apart from formal dinners or the many parties his mother had thrown. As such, it was not until Gunter began working more closely with the Queen and took up residence in Blood Pledge castle that Gwendal got to experience him on a more... personal level. The Von Kleist heir turned out to be intelligent, well-mannered, knowledgeable on a lot of subjects and usually friendly to everyone surrounding him. He was, however, also obnoxiously long-winded and overreacted to almost everything, qualities which irked Gwendal to no end, but the more pleasant sides to his character combined with his striking beauty ensured that Gwendal did not mind him living in the same castle as him at all. One might even say he had always been in some way more or less attracted to him, on a purely physical level at least.
But he had never, never entertained the possibility of... something, an actual something, between him and Gunter. Gunter was after all... well... Gunter. Gunter, who would panic at the littlest things, who over-doted on His Majesty, who swooned at everything and who always managed to get himself into the weirdest situations, from getting magical crowns stuck on his head to having his soul transported into a flying wooden doll. Gwendal was hardly able to stand being confronted with these absurd situations by someone he worked with, let alone someone he... might have grown more than a simple friendly liking to.
Still, though he would deny it to the death if anyone were to ask, since their little incident in his office a few weeks earlier his thoughts kept getting pulled back to the moment where he found himself staring up into bright violet eyes, a fair face that had turned slightly pink when their eyes met the way they did. The look in Gunter's eyes, a look which suggested that Gunter had been just as surprised by the sudden prospect of something that went beyond a professional relationship blossoming between them ( and perhaps even beyond a mere friendly one) kept coming back to him. It made him appreciate how the light would get caught in Gunter's hair, or how his reading glasses made him look sophisticated. It made him see the small, content smile Gunter wore when he was tending to his roses, and notice hints of pride in his voice when he spoke of his daughter (well-concealed, but definitely there).
It made him see things about Gunter he had never really paid attention to before. Things he liked. And really now? Gwendal had no time and no need to see things he liked in anyone, let alone Gunter. So he did his very best to convince himself that really, Gunter was still the same obnoxious, flappable wreck he'd always been, and that this all was simply his own imagination tricking him into thinking he was developing... feelings for him.
Gwendal simply did not do feelings, and that, as they say, was that.
Luckily for him his duties did not leave him with much time to be distracted by this inner turmoil. A seemingly new threat had reared its head - word had begun to spread about a houryoku powered weapon which humans might be able to use against the Mazoku. This rumour had not only reached Shin Makoku but also Dai Shimaron, who had latched onto it and treated it as the latest and greatest resource to try and overthrow them once and for all. Thing was that nobody really seemed to know whether the weapon actually existed. Even His Holiness, who with his 4.000 years of memories usually knew at least something, was at a loss. So both Shin Makoku and Dai Shimaron were working day and night to find out something, anything, before the other did.
Gwendal had ordered Yozak to stay in Dai Shimaron, to keep up with how their research was progressing. Yozak had barely been able to provide them with information, but had recently come across some intelligence that Lanzhil had deployed a small yet infamously capable crew of houjutsu users into the mountains of Francia. He’d sent Huber after them, in the vain hope of cutting them off at the chase. He had intended to keep this mission a secret from His Majesty, since knowing him he would have chased straight after Huber to try and help which Gwendal had hoped to avoid. Unfortunately His Majesty had found out after all and was now, as expected, itching to follow Huber. He insisted it was important they reached the mysterious weapon before Dai Shimaron did and that Huber would be able to use any help they could offer, foregoing the fact that Huber did not only work very well on his own, but would probably be only hindered by their company. Conrad, Wolfram and His Holiness were doing a fine job keeping him put for now, but Gwendal knew by experience that His Majesty's persistence would eventually sway them, and it was only a matter of time until he would find their beds empty and His Majesty would have thrown himself into yet another situation he should have been staying far away from. Gwendal actually feared that it was not so much His Majesty's wish to help Huber as it was his curiosity concerning the weapon which drove his insistence on the subject - a curiosity he knew Wolfram shared, and which did not mix well at all with Conrad's taste for adventure.
This had forced him to quicken the pace of their own research - not only did they have to prevent Dai Shimaron from finding the fabled weapon, now they also had to figure out just what exactly it was they were up against before it might just eat their king (assuming it would have teeth, but really, at this point, nothing would surprise Gwendal anymore). Gunter was assisting Gwendal in the research and Gwendal knew that the current situation made him very nervous - Gunter, too, was well aware of His Majesty's tendency to get in the thick of things, and the idea of his precious king going in blind was making him very jittery.
It was well past midnight when Gwendal found Gunter in the library, dark apart from a lit candle on the desk Gunter was using. He was surrounded by books, most of them opened, and making notes as he appeared to be reading at least three of them at the same time. He was so deep in concentration he did not notice Gwendal entering the room. The light of the candle reflected in the glasses he wore to read and cast dark shadows under his eyes. Gunter rarely looked his age, but right now Gwendal could see every single one of the man’s 200-and-then-some years in his face. It was as worrying as it was incredibly attractive.
"Are you making any progress?"
His sudden question startled Gunter, who looked up, blinked, then sighed and shook his head. "Not even remotely. It's hopeless. I keep thinking I have something, only to turn out that it's the same thing over and over and it's useless".
"I hope to receive some kind of word from Huber soon. If not from the books, we should at least be able to gather something useful from ground zero." He approached the desk. The mess of papers and books seemed one massive chaos, not unlike Gunter himself, but he was quite sure that Gunter knew exactly what went where and said what. A mug stood by his elbow, still half full of tea which, by the looks of it, had been getting cold for a while.
Gunter nodded and took his glasses off, putting them on top of a thick, leather-bound book and a stack of papers with notes scribbled on them in Gunter's graceful cursive handwriting. "Anything at all would be helpful at this point... I know His Majesty is anxious to throw himself into the situation, but we just... we can't just take action without having a clue about what we're up against. We can't take that risk."
"Indeed. I'm not sure spending the entire night in the library looking for a scrap of information you know isn't there is very helpful, though".
"I can't just sit in my rooms and do nothing! You know His Majesty, his patience wears thin too quickly!". Gunter gestured wildly, causing him to accidentally knock his glasses off the book and onto the floor. More out of reflex than anything else Gwendal bent to retrieve them, just as Gunter leaned down from his chair to do the same. Gwendal got the glasses, while Gunter's hand ended up covering his.
They looked at each other, very still. The air around them grew suddenly thick, as Gunter's face flushed and Gwendal felt his own grow equally hot. He cleared his throat and quickly stood up, placing the glasses back on the desk. He opened his mouth, trying to think of something to say, but failed to do so and instead simply turned and hurriedly walked away.
"Gwendal. Gwendal, wait, please. I... just wait, we need to talk about this," Gunter said, standing up.
"No we don't," Gwendal gruffly replied, moving back towards the door. "Get some sleep, Gunter."
"Gwendal! For Shinou's sake, just wait. We need to talk about this. This, this between us, it's been a few weeks now, I just can't - we can't just ignore this. We need to at the very least talk about it, please!" Gunter followed him. Gwendal stopped, his shoulders tense, his hands balled into tight fists.
"Yes we can ignore this. I feel I've been doing so quite well. There's nothing - this is nothing we need to concern ourselves with at the present time." Or any time, he added to himself. He reached for the door.
"Please don't act like this is nothing. Apart from... everything else... we work together, we need to be able to look each other in the eye without... Gwendal would you just listen to me for once!".
Gunter reached out and grabbed his wrist tightly. Heat welled up inside Gwendal, an urge that arose from somewhere below his stomach and bubbled over into his head, ringing in his ears. Without thinking he yanked his arm forward. Gunter did not let go and stumbled towards him, surprised. Gwendal took advantage of this, hooking his free arm around Gunter's waist and bowing his head to cover Gunter's mouth with his own.
Gunter made a short, soft sound, but almost immediately kissed him back, opening his mouth to accommodate Gwendal's tongue. He kept one hand on Gwendal's wrist, and moved the other to tug on his uniform coat, pulling him closer.
Gunter's lips were soft, as was his skin, and he smelled really quite delightfully of lavender and aged parchment - the strange combination of his shampoo and spending hours poring over books 10 times his already impressive age. He tasted vaguely sweet, an echo of the honey he used to flavour his tea. The kiss was not gentle, or loving - Gwendal was holding onto him tightly, almost as if he was worried Gunter might break loose and wanted to prevent this from happening, and their mouths met roughly. Their teeth knocked together, and their tongues pushed against each other just slightly too hungrily. This, apparently, was what happened if you let their sort of tension fester for too long.
Gunter made soft, almost desperate sounds into the kiss, which Gwendal swallowed greedily. He finally let go of Gunter's wrist so he could put his hand on the back of Gunter's head, tugging slightly on his hair and angling his head just so to deepen the kiss even further. Gunter's freed arm fell limply by his side at first, then came up to curl around Gwendal's waist. They were pressed together almost entirely from head to toe, Gunter's body warm and firm against him. He could feel a heartbeat against his chest, but wasn't even sure if it was his own heart or Gunter's beating so hard and fast.
He ended the kiss as abruptly as he started it, pulling his head back and gasping for air. Gunter stared up at him, breathing heavily. His cheeks were red, his lips swollen and glistening with saliva. His eyes were huge and strangely dark, so many emotions reflected in them that Gwendal could hardly identify them all - curiosity, arousal, shock, even hints of anger. Gwendal held onto Gunter for a moment longer, taking in the look in his eyes and trying to catch his breath, their chests heaving against each other.
He let go of Gunter and stepped back, brushing his hands down his front to smooth down his uniform jacket. "Get - get some rest," he managed to stammer, averting his eyes. His mind was entirely blank. He wouldn't even know what to think at all about the situation, other than, perhaps, feel some kind of remorse for stopping it. But stop it he had, and he was not about to restart it. The entire notion was far too complicated to even be considered.
"Yes" Gunter replied, his voice hoarse. Gwendal opened the library door and stepped into the cool, shadowed corridor. He didn't close it behind him, instead letting it fall shut on its own as he walked away, Gunter watching him as he went.
Author: Lin
Rating: PG13
Characters/Pairings: GwendalxGunter
Genre: Romance
Chapter: Follow-up to my previous fic Tensions. Part 3 (the final chapter) is currently with my beta!
Warnings: More awkwardness, and some pretty heavy tongue kissing action.
Summary: Gwendal ignores the tension between him and Gunter, while Gunter tries to resolve it.
Word count: 2.507
Author’s note: To be fair this needed a better backdrop. What can I say, I was too preoccupied with the fluff to be able to come up with a decent reason for Gunter to be in the library in the middle of the night. Also watch me make up more Gwendal backstory! *fistpump!*
The wonderful and talented azami222 has drawn an illustration for this fic! It can be found here (features two guys kissing their little hearts out).
Gwendal was many things, but he was not a stupid man. He had always been aware of Gunter being quite extraordinarily beautiful. It was something of a given, really - you simply could not deny that the man who had actually been voted the most beautiful man in the kingdom several years in a row was pleasing to the eye.
He had known him since childhood, though they did not become more closely acquainted until Gunter became his mother's advisor. The first time he'd seen him had been at his father's funeral. Gwendal's father had passed away when Gwendal was just a little boy, and the funeral had been an almost tastelessly huge event - orchestrated mostly by his uncle, while his mother sat in her room and stared at the wall - but among the throngs of nobles who came to pay their respects the Von Kleist's teenage son, standing quietly beside his mother, had stood out to him. Even as a child Gwendal was aware that this young lord, with his silver air and fine features, was something to be seen. Gunter had grown into an adult before Gwendal even managed to get a firm grip on puberty, and became something of an eye-catcher at social gatherings. Gwendal would observe him occasionally, too young, too well-mannered and certainly too stubborn to approach an older man of the nobility without them having ever been formally introduced. They were, finally, formally introduced when Gunter served as Conrad's teacher at the academy, but Gwendal himself was already quite busy with his work in the military and his responsibilities as the ruler of the Von Voltaire lands, and as such did not get to experience Gunter's presence often apart from formal dinners or the many parties his mother had thrown. As such, it was not until Gunter began working more closely with the Queen and took up residence in Blood Pledge castle that Gwendal got to experience him on a more... personal level. The Von Kleist heir turned out to be intelligent, well-mannered, knowledgeable on a lot of subjects and usually friendly to everyone surrounding him. He was, however, also obnoxiously long-winded and overreacted to almost everything, qualities which irked Gwendal to no end, but the more pleasant sides to his character combined with his striking beauty ensured that Gwendal did not mind him living in the same castle as him at all. One might even say he had always been in some way more or less attracted to him, on a purely physical level at least.
But he had never, never entertained the possibility of... something, an actual something, between him and Gunter. Gunter was after all... well... Gunter. Gunter, who would panic at the littlest things, who over-doted on His Majesty, who swooned at everything and who always managed to get himself into the weirdest situations, from getting magical crowns stuck on his head to having his soul transported into a flying wooden doll. Gwendal was hardly able to stand being confronted with these absurd situations by someone he worked with, let alone someone he... might have grown more than a simple friendly liking to.
Still, though he would deny it to the death if anyone were to ask, since their little incident in his office a few weeks earlier his thoughts kept getting pulled back to the moment where he found himself staring up into bright violet eyes, a fair face that had turned slightly pink when their eyes met the way they did. The look in Gunter's eyes, a look which suggested that Gunter had been just as surprised by the sudden prospect of something that went beyond a professional relationship blossoming between them ( and perhaps even beyond a mere friendly one) kept coming back to him. It made him appreciate how the light would get caught in Gunter's hair, or how his reading glasses made him look sophisticated. It made him see the small, content smile Gunter wore when he was tending to his roses, and notice hints of pride in his voice when he spoke of his daughter (well-concealed, but definitely there).
It made him see things about Gunter he had never really paid attention to before. Things he liked. And really now? Gwendal had no time and no need to see things he liked in anyone, let alone Gunter. So he did his very best to convince himself that really, Gunter was still the same obnoxious, flappable wreck he'd always been, and that this all was simply his own imagination tricking him into thinking he was developing... feelings for him.
Gwendal simply did not do feelings, and that, as they say, was that.
Luckily for him his duties did not leave him with much time to be distracted by this inner turmoil. A seemingly new threat had reared its head - word had begun to spread about a houryoku powered weapon which humans might be able to use against the Mazoku. This rumour had not only reached Shin Makoku but also Dai Shimaron, who had latched onto it and treated it as the latest and greatest resource to try and overthrow them once and for all. Thing was that nobody really seemed to know whether the weapon actually existed. Even His Holiness, who with his 4.000 years of memories usually knew at least something, was at a loss. So both Shin Makoku and Dai Shimaron were working day and night to find out something, anything, before the other did.
Gwendal had ordered Yozak to stay in Dai Shimaron, to keep up with how their research was progressing. Yozak had barely been able to provide them with information, but had recently come across some intelligence that Lanzhil had deployed a small yet infamously capable crew of houjutsu users into the mountains of Francia. He’d sent Huber after them, in the vain hope of cutting them off at the chase. He had intended to keep this mission a secret from His Majesty, since knowing him he would have chased straight after Huber to try and help which Gwendal had hoped to avoid. Unfortunately His Majesty had found out after all and was now, as expected, itching to follow Huber. He insisted it was important they reached the mysterious weapon before Dai Shimaron did and that Huber would be able to use any help they could offer, foregoing the fact that Huber did not only work very well on his own, but would probably be only hindered by their company. Conrad, Wolfram and His Holiness were doing a fine job keeping him put for now, but Gwendal knew by experience that His Majesty's persistence would eventually sway them, and it was only a matter of time until he would find their beds empty and His Majesty would have thrown himself into yet another situation he should have been staying far away from. Gwendal actually feared that it was not so much His Majesty's wish to help Huber as it was his curiosity concerning the weapon which drove his insistence on the subject - a curiosity he knew Wolfram shared, and which did not mix well at all with Conrad's taste for adventure.
This had forced him to quicken the pace of their own research - not only did they have to prevent Dai Shimaron from finding the fabled weapon, now they also had to figure out just what exactly it was they were up against before it might just eat their king (assuming it would have teeth, but really, at this point, nothing would surprise Gwendal anymore). Gunter was assisting Gwendal in the research and Gwendal knew that the current situation made him very nervous - Gunter, too, was well aware of His Majesty's tendency to get in the thick of things, and the idea of his precious king going in blind was making him very jittery.
It was well past midnight when Gwendal found Gunter in the library, dark apart from a lit candle on the desk Gunter was using. He was surrounded by books, most of them opened, and making notes as he appeared to be reading at least three of them at the same time. He was so deep in concentration he did not notice Gwendal entering the room. The light of the candle reflected in the glasses he wore to read and cast dark shadows under his eyes. Gunter rarely looked his age, but right now Gwendal could see every single one of the man’s 200-and-then-some years in his face. It was as worrying as it was incredibly attractive.
"Are you making any progress?"
His sudden question startled Gunter, who looked up, blinked, then sighed and shook his head. "Not even remotely. It's hopeless. I keep thinking I have something, only to turn out that it's the same thing over and over and it's useless".
"I hope to receive some kind of word from Huber soon. If not from the books, we should at least be able to gather something useful from ground zero." He approached the desk. The mess of papers and books seemed one massive chaos, not unlike Gunter himself, but he was quite sure that Gunter knew exactly what went where and said what. A mug stood by his elbow, still half full of tea which, by the looks of it, had been getting cold for a while.
Gunter nodded and took his glasses off, putting them on top of a thick, leather-bound book and a stack of papers with notes scribbled on them in Gunter's graceful cursive handwriting. "Anything at all would be helpful at this point... I know His Majesty is anxious to throw himself into the situation, but we just... we can't just take action without having a clue about what we're up against. We can't take that risk."
"Indeed. I'm not sure spending the entire night in the library looking for a scrap of information you know isn't there is very helpful, though".
"I can't just sit in my rooms and do nothing! You know His Majesty, his patience wears thin too quickly!". Gunter gestured wildly, causing him to accidentally knock his glasses off the book and onto the floor. More out of reflex than anything else Gwendal bent to retrieve them, just as Gunter leaned down from his chair to do the same. Gwendal got the glasses, while Gunter's hand ended up covering his.
They looked at each other, very still. The air around them grew suddenly thick, as Gunter's face flushed and Gwendal felt his own grow equally hot. He cleared his throat and quickly stood up, placing the glasses back on the desk. He opened his mouth, trying to think of something to say, but failed to do so and instead simply turned and hurriedly walked away.
"Gwendal. Gwendal, wait, please. I... just wait, we need to talk about this," Gunter said, standing up.
"No we don't," Gwendal gruffly replied, moving back towards the door. "Get some sleep, Gunter."
"Gwendal! For Shinou's sake, just wait. We need to talk about this. This, this between us, it's been a few weeks now, I just can't - we can't just ignore this. We need to at the very least talk about it, please!" Gunter followed him. Gwendal stopped, his shoulders tense, his hands balled into tight fists.
"Yes we can ignore this. I feel I've been doing so quite well. There's nothing - this is nothing we need to concern ourselves with at the present time." Or any time, he added to himself. He reached for the door.
"Please don't act like this is nothing. Apart from... everything else... we work together, we need to be able to look each other in the eye without... Gwendal would you just listen to me for once!".
Gunter reached out and grabbed his wrist tightly. Heat welled up inside Gwendal, an urge that arose from somewhere below his stomach and bubbled over into his head, ringing in his ears. Without thinking he yanked his arm forward. Gunter did not let go and stumbled towards him, surprised. Gwendal took advantage of this, hooking his free arm around Gunter's waist and bowing his head to cover Gunter's mouth with his own.
Gunter made a short, soft sound, but almost immediately kissed him back, opening his mouth to accommodate Gwendal's tongue. He kept one hand on Gwendal's wrist, and moved the other to tug on his uniform coat, pulling him closer.
Gunter's lips were soft, as was his skin, and he smelled really quite delightfully of lavender and aged parchment - the strange combination of his shampoo and spending hours poring over books 10 times his already impressive age. He tasted vaguely sweet, an echo of the honey he used to flavour his tea. The kiss was not gentle, or loving - Gwendal was holding onto him tightly, almost as if he was worried Gunter might break loose and wanted to prevent this from happening, and their mouths met roughly. Their teeth knocked together, and their tongues pushed against each other just slightly too hungrily. This, apparently, was what happened if you let their sort of tension fester for too long.
Gunter made soft, almost desperate sounds into the kiss, which Gwendal swallowed greedily. He finally let go of Gunter's wrist so he could put his hand on the back of Gunter's head, tugging slightly on his hair and angling his head just so to deepen the kiss even further. Gunter's freed arm fell limply by his side at first, then came up to curl around Gwendal's waist. They were pressed together almost entirely from head to toe, Gunter's body warm and firm against him. He could feel a heartbeat against his chest, but wasn't even sure if it was his own heart or Gunter's beating so hard and fast.
He ended the kiss as abruptly as he started it, pulling his head back and gasping for air. Gunter stared up at him, breathing heavily. His cheeks were red, his lips swollen and glistening with saliva. His eyes were huge and strangely dark, so many emotions reflected in them that Gwendal could hardly identify them all - curiosity, arousal, shock, even hints of anger. Gwendal held onto Gunter for a moment longer, taking in the look in his eyes and trying to catch his breath, their chests heaving against each other.
He let go of Gunter and stepped back, brushing his hands down his front to smooth down his uniform jacket. "Get - get some rest," he managed to stammer, averting his eyes. His mind was entirely blank. He wouldn't even know what to think at all about the situation, other than, perhaps, feel some kind of remorse for stopping it. But stop it he had, and he was not about to restart it. The entire notion was far too complicated to even be considered.
"Yes" Gunter replied, his voice hoarse. Gwendal opened the library door and stepped into the cool, shadowed corridor. He didn't close it behind him, instead letting it fall shut on its own as he walked away, Gunter watching him as he went.