KKM Kiss and Tell Epilogue
Coping with 'Happily Ever After'
*This is dedicated to Wolfram, who is out-and-out my favorite character in KKM. This is the angsty bit that I felt very required to include. KKM has an interesting way of dealing with some very heavy subjects (racism, world war, homosexuality, orphans, hatred, rigid class structure, emancipation, to name a very few) by keeping them 'lite' - like Wellington, the plot lines move over rough ground lightly. Perhaps the character that carries the greatest burden of difficult, unwieldy emotions is Wolfram: jealousy, unrequited love; loneliness, grief, isolation. And yet we laugh at him and his antics. And we're supposed to.
Now, me, I adore him. He is a very brave soul in a very difficult situation...and he is hilarious. So, this is for Wolfram.
Oh!
There was something hard and hot pressing between the cleft of his buttocks, warming the tissue-thin layer of pink silk, all that separated him from the rightful owner of his current bed. A tanned hand lay curled possessively over the jut of his hip and his sensitive neck was bathed in slow humid breaths by a half-human nose, in and out, whoosh, whish, snuffling sometimes on the blonde hairs that tickled it.
Green eyes blinked sleepily, lashes tangling as he tried to concentrate, measure the angle of washed-out light brightening stone and wood. Morning again, and an hour left before they should bathe and breakfast.
Morning again…and he was afraid.
Not 'afraid' exactly – he was a soldier, after all, and despised fear – but there was an emotion remarkably like it tugging at the woven strands of his comfort.
Wolfram turned away from it immediately and did his best to allow the soothing pleasure of touch permeate him, for he wasn't used to it yet. Two months had skipped and trickled by since his King had repeated his proposal, serious and certain of his choice this time around, and still Wolfram von Bielefeld, 'Fiancé Forever', just couldn't…quite…believe it.
It struck him hard at the oddest of times. He'd walk into the study and find himself anticipating the moment the wimp would blow him off, only to be met with a soft, shy smile and twinkling eyes, as if there was a secret only they shared. He'd straighten Yuuri's collar before a meeting, fully expecting to be shrugged off impatiently, and then his sloe-eyed, sneaky Demon King would grasp his busy fingers and kiss them tenderly, rubbing his cheek into palms made hot by Wolfram's uncontrollable blush.
He'd be in the midst of a rant, having worked up a towering head of steam over this or that or something else and then Yuuri would lay his lips on Wolfram's angry ones and proceed to render him speechless, sucking all the air of his heaving lungs, stealing all the strength from his wobbly knees. He was lucky if he remembered his own name afterwards, much less whatever had pissed him off.
It made his heart stop. It would stutter forward again after a split-second of uneasy silence and then he'd smile stupidly, because he couldn't help it, because it seemed so unreal. The stifled giggles and raised eyebrows of their usual audience – the Maou went nowhere entirely alone, of course – were the only things that convinced Wolfram he wasn't still asleep.
He didn't like it. Way back when, when he'd first fallen, hard and incontrovertibly, he'd believed that when the infuriating Yuuri was finally his he'd practically shout it aloud from the rooftops, rub it gleefully in the faces of all those non-believers, caper down the halls of the castle in a victory dance. He'd be proud and he'd be smug and he'd be absolutely certain that this was the way it should be. But then Yuuri chose Earth and he'd realized he would've settled for a great deal less – a simple ceremony, a tiny Ball, the most discreet of announcement cards, white vellum, black-edged. Anything at all, in fact, provided it happened.
By the time Yuuri returned he was over all that nonsense. He didn't expect anything anymore, especially not after the Great Sage's little heart-to-heart; absolutely not after swallowing continual and enormous doses of Yuuri's bland, incredibly sincere, 'one-size-fits-all' good will. Wolf had finally taken the few remaining expectations he'd had left, crumpled them into a little ball and tossed them very far back into the dark, musty corners of his consciousness. There would be no wedding, bright bells ringing, banners waving, couples entwined. There would be no cake or little brown-haired flower girls or Gwendal taking him aside to ensure he understood the duties of a husband.
No hands fasted, no cords bound, no toasts drunk. Only waiting, waiting and more patient waiting until his little reign as 'The Fiancé' was over and he could slip away…and go a little mad, maybe.
He could see that: Wolfram losing it, burning things, breaking things, running amok. He'd been damned close to that state a few too many times already.
…And sometimes, mid-kiss, with a fever welling up from his thighs and the Maou's hand on his ass, Wolfram von Bielefeld, Fiancé to the Maou, was sure he'd gone raving, in the nicest possible way.
That half-hitch of an inhalation, the silence in his chest where his heart should've been beating, the feeling that the stone floor had yet to settle beneath his feet – they were all the little tricks he used to hang on to his sanity, convince himself by the twitch of Gwendal's eyebrows or the smile on his mother's face that it was real, yes it was, and he was here and so was Yuuri and Yuuri was the one who'd just done that to him.
Just like now, when the mouth opened on his shoulder and the curious hand slipped down his belly and nestled between his thighs. Silk crumpled between them and Wolfram went still as stone, waiting for the Maou to sigh himself back into dreamland.
Night was easier. He could believe in all this 'happily ever after' when his lover tucked him between arms made strong by constant baseball practice and held him close, both rather boneless with languor. He could breathe more easily then, for maybe it was a dream and maybe it wasn't, but he'd stay in the dream, all the same, for as long as he possibly could. He could comprehend the lovemaking, the delicious slide of skin against skin, the licking and sucking and straining of bodies – that he could believe. He was still beautiful, wasn't he? The wimp liked that; he admired it and exclaimed over it and acted as though his fiancé's physical charms were a precious gift. Wolfram was glad, for his Yuuri was like a magpie, always following after shiny things, and it was good to know he was considered dazzling and the shiniest of them all.
He could be dazzling, at night, in bed. He could be Yuuri's dream then and be certain those tiny cracks in his heart were healing ever so slowly.
It was when morning came, the paleness of dawn tapping at the windows, when he woke up spooned against his fiancé's morning erection, his nape nibbled, his deceptively smooth limbs held fast and safe against the coolness of Yuuri's skin, and found it all too amazing - impossible, unlikely. How could it be daylight when he was dreaming still? But the hand reassured him; the weight of Yuuri at his back gave him courage; the ridge of swollen muscle poking into his nightgown twisted his…fear… back into focus: he was here and Yuuri was here and it was real, yes it was.
This particular morning Wolfram concentrated on breathing softly and remaining still, doing his honorable best not to wake Yuuri. His fiancé was tired and they'd been up half the night and there was a special drill today for his cadre of fire-wielders that had to be picture-perfect in less than sixty days.
Two months. In two months more there'd be a wedding, a Royal one, with brass horns raised and splendid arches of ceremonial swords, comfits and gold coins for the cheering populace and a new white suit to wear, black-lapelled. There'd be golden rings – he and Yuuri had chosen them on Earth and Shoma had then been so kind as to gift his son-in-law-to-be with the price of them, tucking the tiny velveteen box away for Jennifer and Cheri to present – and furling streamers of von Bielefeld Blue and Maou Black fluttering gaily down from the battlements and not one, but two lovely flower girls, though not so tiny and doll-like as he'd first imagined, both adorned in Wolfram's favorite dusky pink.
Hands would clasp and remain entwined and silken cords would tie them, forever, and death would not part them, or at least not him. He'd be haunting Yuuri in the afterlife, a half-step behind, shoulders bumping, fingertips clinging, as tight together as they were now.
Two months, built of moments that moved faster than light. Sixty short days to practice believing; to shore up their happiness; to make certain Yuuri would still feel the same tomorrow as he did yesterday.
It seemed much too brief a time to accomplish all that—he was afraid.
A dozing Yuuri shifted closer still in the cool rays of dawn, nipping his fiancé gently on one pale shoulder in a sleepy invitation to roll over.
But it was real – yes, it was.
Wolfram sighed thankfully, the joy flooding back 'round the jagged edges of his unnamed fear, and blinked hard and fast as he clasped the Maou's errant hand in his own. He twisted, turning his body toward Yuuri's so that those lips drifted to his collarbone and their clasped hands rose gently above the thud of his heart.
Best to start with these quiet mornings, then; stealing some of Yuuri's boundless, goofy ability to believe in things by kissing his lover into wakefulness and encouraging him to put that wandering hand to good use.