Grab my hand, soldier. I won't let go.
There just had to be an earthquake right in the middle of a scuffle between Wolfram's men and a scraggly band of bandits, and now the bad, bad men that were capable of running had been frightened into running by the malicious rumbling, and Wolfram's men were pulling up comrades that have collapsed, looking for the missing and wounded.
Avoiding falling into the cracks in the earth. Pity. Wolfram was stuck in one, with what felt like a broken leg, a broken rib, and a near-broken mind, pain a crowbar brought to batter his thinking.
He tried shouting when he heard the familiar sound of military boots stomping close, but his throat was on strike. A harsh wheeze, the passing solider said a prayer for the dying badger, and Wolfram was still injured and gone.
The remaining men ran like headless chickens with determination in their guts, looking for him high and low, but not low enough. His magic would have healed him, that obligating thing, but he'd used it up fighting and sending long-distance healing spells to his men.
Make that two broken ribs. They jutted out slightly, sharp knobs on the chest of his uniform.
Better out than in. Word had it a punctured lung was a bitch to breathe through.
Blood was painting merry havoc on his uniform, and Wolfram couldn't decide if he hated the colour. This particular jacket would be burned the moment he could; he could just tell that wearing it again would result in the feeling of phantom broken ribs.
He tried to shout again, damn it, shouldn't someone hear? Where was his guardian angel, the one that was supposed to bully the odds to side with him?
Lazy thing. If he had one, the angel had never made an appearance since he was...
Wolfram remembered his war-torn upbringing, his dead father, his uncle's feud, and the rest of the world.
Since ever.
Therefore, he concluded, he would die in this pitiful hole, body never to be found, Shinou forbid assumed deserted.
Maybe writing a will would be a good idea. When he returned as a land-bound spirit, he would need some reference as to who he should haunt. Off-handedly he wondered if he would reappear in regal clothing, or in the torn, bloodied rags complete with phantom broken ribs.
He wasn't fond of the phantom broken ribs, no, really, thank you.
Wolfram smiled maniacally. How morbid, a letter written in blood.
Yuuri looked up, ears pricked like a herbivore feeling goosebumps because while the wolf was out of sight, he wasn't out of mind.
He had a bad feeling about this. Wolfram had left early in the morning, so early he hadn't even been able to open his eyes, and now it was blood-red late afternoon. He should have been home hours ago.
He was like a fretting husband, Yuuri knew.
But it was for his husband, and he would fret as he saw fit. Really.
Something was wrong, tremendously wrong. Wolfram was more punctual than the Casio Yuuri wore on his wrist (Yuuri wore himself slung around Wolfram's shoulders when he could), and the digital lines told him it was altogether too late for it to be his husband away and eating scones (Wolfram would have brought them back to share. He always did).
The clop of hooves pounding against dirt, and Yuuri turned to the window so fast it hurts.
Blast. He's looking out East, when really, he should be facing West. He turns and stares at the entrance of a blue uniform, but his Wimp Senses weren't tingling.
It wasn't Wolfram.
The reason why it wasn't Wolfram had Yuuri leaping over his desk in a way he would have been proud of, had he remembered.
Down stairs, down halls, down passages, too swift a turn and he almost knocks a lantern from its hanger, and Yuuri was at the entrance, too breathless to be breathless.
"Where's Wolfram?"
Ah. Meet the Brothers Grim. Neither Gwen nor Conrad said a word, eyes wide with worry, lips thin with the suppression of panic.
"Missing"
Not for long. Obviously not for long. Yuuri's muscles tensed in preparation for a swift ride to wherever, because he could find Wolfram, better than he could find Gwen.
And Gwen was standing right in front of him.
Yuuri had Wimp Senses, and they weren't dull (not now, not ever, never, no)
"Wolfram!"
"Wolfram!"
"WOLFRAM!"
As if we haven't been doing that for the past half hour, thought Lysbet, Wolfram's second-in-command, uncharitably.
With louder voices too. Petty officer Langue was a veritable operatic tenor in his own right.
Yuuri waved them quiet, sat in the middle of the carnage, and couldn't give less of a damn about the blood staining his pants, as long as the blood wasn't Wolfram's. He should run a test to make sure.
Wolfram!
It was a mind-shout, because Wolfram had his Yuuri-senses too, and if he couldn't hear them, he could at least hear Yuuri.
There was a soft, gurgling song carried by the wind, and a dozen heads whipped in its direction.
The sound of tendons cracking decorated the air.
"The badger has not died"
Yuuri turned to face a tall man with an honest face and sandy eyes.
"What badger?"
"I heard one calling out sorrowfully as I was searching for his lordship. I tried to find it, but it stopped making sounds after that first time"
And Yuuri knew, because few people were obstinate enough to survive being hurt as badly as Wolfram was, and he knew Wolfram was hurt just because.
He sprinted, because worried-husband/lover-muscles really were made of awesome when they needed to be, and now Yuuri really needed them to be, so they were.
A dark slash in the brown earth, so dark the bottom was black, was found.
Hold your breath, take the plunge.
And ignoring the shouts, Yuuri automatically pinched his nose closed and dived into the crack.
Onwards, downwards soldier. We await you.
Wolfram was halfway done (he would rest a bit after he was done, he could die after that) with his will, written with the blood wiped from his mouth, absorbed from the soggy mess of rags about his ribs, onto the pretty embroidered handkerchief he had secretly made Gwendal teach him make.
Gwendal could keep the hanky.
Then there was the thump that sounded like the world was shaking, and then the world really was shaking, and his hurt was like a thousand camels had jumped on him.
Camel toes were painful, weren't they? His mother always said so.
If the world was shaking, his bangs should hardly flutter so much, should they? Wisely, light-headedly Wolfram deduced that it was, in fact, he who was being shook.
Who by? The voice-not-spoken was familiar, and familiarity was suddenly a giant cat rubbing against his neck and face, because obviously it was Yuuri when green fat sparks flew into him to make him all warm and happy and better.
Wolfram giggled softly to himself. The feeling of being healed was always incomparably better to healing himself.
It was like sex, wasn't it-
"Wolfram, say something if you're still alive!"
"Took you a while, wimp"
And Yuuri just smiled his stupid grin, and Wolfram could see him now. He thought it was a divine glow at first, until brother Gwendal's scowl caught the corner of his eye, and tilting his face upwards he could see his eldest brother, coat swaying and flapping, summoning the ground he was sitting on upwards.
"What's this?"
Yuuri flapped the hanky in his face, but healing (also like sex, how odd) made him sleepy, and Wolfram was slumped against Yuuri now, yawning so widely his jaw was being dislocated.
"'s my will, Yuuuuuuriiii" he slurred, words a lazy honey syrup spilling from his lips.
And on it, written in words of blood (how morbid) were Wolfram's final will and testament. Not so final now, of course, after all, he was a ball of gold, blue and red fluff curled up against Yuuri, the other boy holding tight but too exhausted to lift, carry and away.
He spied his name, and directly below it, Greta's.
The words?
To Yuuri= all my love, divided by half, multiplied by infinity's infinity
Greta= everything left after your wimpy father takes what I give
Wolfram had been a lucid insane man. He didn't have much in the way of material things to give (the country had what heart, body and soul he had that he had not promised other people), so he gave what he could.
Amazing, really. Yuuri had noticed the terrible extent of Wolfram's injuries; Questions would be Asked after the blond was safe in their bed, warm, clean and fed.
Amazing, really, how painfully noble and loving his priorities were in the face of broken ribs, and a breaking mind.
Yuuri kissed the top of the golden head in appreciation, and fell back in a dead faint, as asleep to the world as the Wolfram sprawled all over him.
The brothers now-not-so-grim could barely be offended when Gwen realised all he got bequeathed was his hanky and a few spools of yarn, and Conrad the pair of trekking boots Wolfram had borrowed years and years and years ago.
No one could keep a grudge when two people sleeping looked like that, so everyone, show's over.
Pack up, clasp your hands in thanks, and for home we head.
Welcome back, soldier.
End.
Been reading DGM fanfiction, and this style of writing caught my fancy XD I like the frantic, half-insane way it's written... Plus it's SHORT, so that's awesome. Update for long fic shall probably be in late June, because my exams have started and I'm incredibly busy. Anyone want a one-shot AU fic about Yuuri and Wolfram? Review fast enough, and I could have it up by tomorrow, before my self-imposed computer ban!