Decisive Actions, part 9 by Vanessa S. Quest
"Ah, Conrad, I'm glad you're here. Gisela is fetching the materials for the counter-ritual."
Conrad nodded once then looked at the white-haired man, "The prisoner informed me that Yuuri will awaken, upon awakening the first effects of the poison-spell will present."
"That is what I've feared. If you've finished interrogating the prisoner…"
"Excuse me Gunter, I am going to check on his majesty."
Gunter gave him a look, "Check on? Don't you think you should stay a bit longer than that? If I were able to… I would be spending as much time as possible trying to make his majesty comfortable… Oh, his majesty…"
Conrad decided to back out of the room as he saw the hearts light up in Gunter's eyes. "Then I'll leave you to your noble work." Conrad said, he bowed then proceeded to hurry to Yuuri's room.
Upon entering, Conrad's eyes fell onto Yuuri's form. He seemed to be sprawled across the bed with both of his arms extended outward, though with the proximity of his legs to each other it was apparent that this was more as to how his body landed then any real motion on his behalf. His chest was still exposed, to Conrad's surprise, Yuuri's eyes were fixed on the ceiling, fluttering open then closed in a traceable pattern.
Open, three rapid flutters closed, open, three rapid flutters closed, open… his eyes mirrored obsidian, a glassy sheen on top and flat, lifeless bottom. Yuuri's breathing was so faint as it slipped past his lips that Conrad had to strain to hear it. He contemplated the validity of possibly tying down Yuuri's arms now, thinking of what was just about to come.
He opted to grab a set of towels to fix around Yuuri's forearms and snow-gloves on Yuuri's hands to a baffled Wolfram's surprise.
"Conrad, what are you doing?"
"It's almost noon, isn't it?"
"…Yes, but I don't see how that explains what you're…"
"When he wakes up he'll need that to protect him from himself."
"…When he wakes up? Conrad, you do understand what's happening, don't you?" Wolfram was looking at Conrad as if he'd finally snapped.
"See that symbol on his chest?"
"That one?" Wolfram pointed to the symbol that looked like the silhouette of a sand bear's muzzle.
"Yes. That is a sleep symbol, a temporary one." His finger glided across Yuuri's chest to below his left nipple, "And this one…"
"It looks really ominous."
"That's how they plan to make the spell kill him. It siphons the pain felt from a squirrel bite."
Wolfram's eyes widened, "He has to go through that AGAIN?!"
"…And this symbol here, of the omen-bird claw, is for time displacement." Conrad gently brushed Yuuri's cheek with his hand, "That means that when he wakes up he'll experience that pain until the spell runs out of time."
"…What?"
"He'll be stuck in that sort of pain until the spell is countered or until he dies, whichever comes first." Conrad's face was deathly serious.
Wolfram's face turned to one of empathy and seriousness as he grasped the situation. He looked at the bed, "I really didn't mean what I said, I didn't, Conrad I didn't mean it!" As if he was searching for any sign of forgiveness, he pleaded for mercy from Conrad.
Conrad tightened the belt he used to fix the towel grips. Looking at the bed itself thinking for how to prop Yuuri to it versus him managing to get up… "Wolfram, I know. You're hotheaded, you're not so cold as to wish something like THIS onto anyone, and I'm sure Yuuri knows that, too. Get me a second set of sheets."
Wolfram nodded as he moved to get the linens.
Bringing up a set of black sheets, he handed them off. Conrad slid one set over and the other under Yuuri's body before he began to twist the sides into one strand on each side. He then looped them through the underside of the bed's metal framework and tied it off. As for Yuuri's legs, he tangled them with the top-sheet and attached it to the footboard before glancing at the time again.
"Go, check on Gunter's status."
"…I can't just leave Yuuri like this…"
"You don't really have the physical strength to restrain him if it comes to it, and it will be a very disturbing sight. I'd really prefer to spare you from it."
Wolfram looked down at his feet knowing that Conrad was, of course, right. He was so good at that.
Conrad sat on the bed immediately beside Yuuri's chest, if it was like before, Yuuri will be too far gone in the pain to really reason with too much, so he'd pretty much have to pin his arms if it came to that and try to keep him from thrashing around horribly much.
Yuuri's eyes began to flutter at an asynchronous rate, breeching its well-formed pattern, he was dreaming. It felt real, though, the blood was dripping down the sword, a sickeningly sticky red mingling with rain-water, and yet all he could see was Morgif with blood all over the blade.
He tried to find the origin of the blood, and as his eyes cast across the room, he finally came across the score of bodies. When he saw the hand outstretched underneath the pile holding Julia's blue pendant, red cuffs of a tan uniform shirt…
Yuuri's eyes shot wide open as the pain hit him, and hard. He began to scream and he couldn't make the ringing in his ears go away.
His head scrolled left and right as his eyes tried to focus, tried to disprove that sight.
He felt something beside the writhing pain of what felt like insects crawling beneath his skin, biting, pushing down on it, all of his nerves felt that, except he felt something else… Something holding him down, his eyes turned left and right at a faster speed then his whipping head, he finally caught a glimpse of tan attached to two arms and one very concerned looking Conrad.
He began to gasp in huffs of air as he watched Conrad leaning over him, his brown eyes looked concerned, his mouth opening and closing, trying to say something, the pain constantly pulling him back before he could decipher what those lips were stay, he shook his head, trying to hear it, to get it before being pulled under in a sea of pain again.
He winced his eyes closed as another set of screams were ripped from his body.
Yuuri's back arched as he tried to pull his arms toward his chest, gods he had to itch it, scratch at them, do something to get them out from under his skin.
He felt a steady pressure unlike the other pain.
Yuuri's eyes cracked open, tears welling at the sides, he tried to focus upward, as if rediscovering Conrad, he let his eyes open fully trying to read Conrad's brown eyes and slightly unhinged, tinted lips.
He actually managed to concentrate enough on those lips, the parts closest to Conrad's mouth had a soft tint of a merlot, purplish red, the outsides were a beautiful, natural fleshy pink-tan. They were saying something…
"Yuuri, I know it hurts, but please, try to stop thrashing around."
His muscles constricted under him, as if convulsing to try to itch themselves, he tried to not raise his arms, after all Conrad would know what to do…
His mind was getting fuzzy around the edges. Why did he hurt like this?!
"That's it Yuuri! Gunter will be here soon to help."
"GYAH!" Yuuri's back arched again as he shook violently, and that concentration, that glimpse of the surface, it was all gone, he was pulled under the wave of pain.
He tried to pull his arms up to each other, tried to pull his legs closer. His bent knees only giving him so much pull. His stomach felt clenched tight until something far worse than he could ever recall started to happen, he felt his insides start pulsating with that jabbing pain, his stomach, liver, kidneys, intestines, lungs, heart…
He tried to suck in air but that was so hard! He sputtered in air, his torso shook as it arched, trying to bring in air. His eyes were rolling back, but he was still awake, oh he felt it. Something told him conscious or not he'd not escape this pain, at least awake there were crests of seeing Conrad.
There was someone to reach for, someone who could pull him out if he could just get close enough…
"YUURI!" Conrad screamed into Yuuri's ear.
His eyes gave up on trying to roll over on him, they weakly fell to their left corners where he spied Conrad from his heavily lidded view. His lips were quivering, not like he could really control that.
"C… Con…rad…" He pulled in a sharp breath, it hurt but not breathing he assumed would hurt more, after all, his chest felt hot each time he failed to push out his used air and replace it with the fresh kind.
He found a shallow range that allowed him to breathe slightly less constricted.
His legs and arms continued to twitch, his body ached and throbbed, gods the pain…
Suddenly, it struck him. A wave of numb, his body went limp. His neck dropped to the side, his head rolled toward the left where he was able to spot Conrad, he smiled faintly which took so much energy that he really just didn't seem to have.
Gunter fanned more smoke over Yuuri, he felt something soft, gentle land on his chest, then felt a burning sensation all over.
"Gyah!" His neck arched back, his larynx made a straight line between his open, gasping mouth and his hungry, starving, deprived, needy little lungs.
It felt like it burnt up and out of his body, and he could have sworn he was hallucinating, but he could see little black worm-leech globs come through his skin and burst from moist squirming whatevers into dust and blow away. When he saw those worm-like things disappear the pain suddenly vanished from the area completely.
He gasped in breaths as he felt his hands through his arms stop feeling pain, then his legs, as it moved to his chest, it ripped out more screams. He had to be hallucinating or these wormies had a final boss because whatever was trying to pull from his stomach and chest was huge, a black mercury-like glob acting like a lava-lamp, as it was almost completely out of his body it was the size of a bowling ball or something.
"AHH, ahh, ah…" He panted in air as the pressure on his lungs released, then his stomach, the only thing left was his liver and heart.
As it came off his heart he felt faint, it was so great feeling something other than pain, well, actually he felt pretty close to numb. He saw the last few strains slipping out then suddenly, that was it, nothing else was coming out of his chest, but he still saw 15 little strings around his chest and that ominous bowling-ball above his chest. He figured it would hurt if that dropped onto his solar plexis.
The room was getting pretty smoky, and he was getting really tired, he turned to see if Conrad was still there…
He saw those black worms crawling an invisible wall between him and the air, like a picture frame separating the image from gunk, the more time that past the more of those glob-worms were disappearing until he could clearly see Conrad's face.
Smiling weakly, his view returned to his own chest.
Gunter was holding something over his stomach, a white, glowing crystal. The crystal looked like it was getting mucked up with grey, then as his chest finally felt free the crystal turned red.
The white-haired bishounen snapped the crystal back and into a wooden box to be taken from the room immediately, Gisela took it and exited the room, that was the last thing Yuuri's eyes could focus on before he fainted.
"Yuuri?" Conrad squeezed Yuuri's hand as he saw him go under. "…Yuuri!"
He felt something steamy, something warm on his face, it felt wonderful. He opened his eyes to see Conrad wiping his arms down with a heated cloth.
"Cah…ad…" Yuuri's own voice had cut out, making the name in his mind fall short before leaving his tongue.
"Yuuri, good morning." Conrad said in a soothing tone, though he seemed to be in a sort of zen-like calmness. He continued to move the cloth along Yuuri's hand, pulling it over and in between his fingers.
He closed his eyes to take in the pleasant feeling of warmth on his hands, the warmth fading from his arms to be replaced with a nice, tingly cool like after using mouthwash, that refreshed sort of feeling. "M'rnin."
His own mind was in a haze, was this a dream, was that other dream a dream, or was that real or a real dream? His brain was really hazy as he realized all of that was just a jumbled use of the word dream four times. He put his hand over his face to rub it.
"What day is it?"
"You've been unconscious for a day."
"…Huh? Why would I be that tired?"
Conrad stopped what he was doing to look at him strangely.
"…You mean that wasn't a nightmare?" He groaned, "I didn't get bitten again did I?"
"It was the result of an assassination attempt. It seems that when they had made their first attempt, he wound up using a poisoning spell on you."
Yuuri gave him a dirty look, "Was that the last time or do I have to go that again?"
"Gunter countered it, that was the last time."
"Good. 'Cause that was horrible!" Yuuri pouted before leaning himself into Conrad's shoulder, throwing the other man a bit of a surprise.
He put the warm cloth down and put his thumb under Yuuri's chin, tilting his face upward to kiss him. Yuuri closed his eyes after a few moments, that felt so good. It was refreshing, rejuvenating.
Conrad pulled back, "I love you Conrad." Yuuri mentioned.
"Of course, your majesty." Conrad winked playfully as Yuuri gave him an incredulous look.
"You know just because you're perfect doesn't mean you get to get away with not telling me--"
"I love you Yuuri." His hand ran down Yuuri's cheek before he locked eyes. "Would you like to go on a picnic?"
"You mean like a date?" Yuuri smiled, a bit smug himself.
"No." Conrad said, it was so easy to goad Yuuri, though he supposed he should treat Yuuri with kid gloves, well at least baby him a bit more after this. "It IS a date."
"You seem in a good mood. Are you having a good day, or something?" Yuuri noted, of course, he couldn't mind that as it was of course positively contagious.
"Any time I get to spend with you is a good day." He beamed.
Yuuri grabbed Conrad's arm and pulled him down, landing the older man on top of him, embracing him. He bent his elbows framing Yuuri's face with his forearms. He kissed him in succession of five rounds before sitting back up.
"Propriety says we end it there for now."
"Boo."
"You're not well yet, besides, after that comes another phase of the relationship, lets have fun with this phase first, before we move ahead."
Yuuri smiled, "Don't make me wait so long next time." He blinked at himself, a little confused. Was that his own feelings or was Julia…? He looked at Conrad who was giving him a bit of a baffled look himself.
"Ha… ha… ah… uh, so where should we go on a picnic? Off the grounds, right?" He smiled suggestively, after all, when he smiled like that Conrad almost always gave in to his will.
"We could go to one of the villages, take a tour of Shin Madoku, then after sight-seeing, play some baseball, eat under the shade of a tree…"
Yuuri smiled, "That sounds just like you."
"…Sentimental?"
Yuuri blushed wondering if someone had said something, "Ah, no… I was going to say perfect."
--The End-- by Vanessa S. Quest