![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coley_merrinTime Imperfect
Author: Coley Merrin
Pairing: Conrad/Yuuri
Rating: R
Genre: Romance, Drama
Summary: What if the one you loved would die tomorrow because of a mistake you made almost 10 years before? What if you could go back to correct it, even if going back meant that there was no guarantee that you could return to your rightful time… or to the one you loved?
Chapter 5 – The Mirrored Day – Part Two
AKA = The chapter where the fic actually gets its rating.
*PRESENT – Yuuri*
Yuuri drowsed under the sway of the wagon, jerking up just in time to catch himself from tumbling over as the cart they rode in dipped into a particularly vicious rut. The soft leather of his boots brushed against the side of Conrad’s, and for a moment he stared agape at the familiar soles, before catching himself – but not before color had flooded into his cheeks. He cleared his throat and sat up straight, trying to right his body and his emotions at the same time. That sweet bite of love that wasn’t returned sat heavy on him, and he fished for the stone around his neck. He knew he was fooling no one. Still, he tensed as Conrad rose to his feet and started toward him. He let out the breath he had been holding when, instead of what Yuuri could not place, he laid a hand on Yozak’s shoulders and gave a quick direction to the side of the lane.
They had arrived.
Yuuri felt a strange sense of déjà vu as he peered into the musty shop window. Though he had ridden through this town before, he did not remember stopping. And this shop full of jumble seemed as if it would be something he remembered. He opened his mouth to ask Murata what significance this town had, but he stood by Yozak, speaking in furtive whispers. Conrad stood behind him, leaned against the wagon with folded arms, and a look on his face that would rival any thundercloud. While the conversation went on, none could enter the shop, and Conrad’s eyes leapt from the arguing pair, to Yuuri, to the shop’s sign and back again. It was clear, to Yuuri, that he meant to get on with it.
“Perhaps!” Conrad said, loud enough to stop Yozak in the midst of speaking. “Perhaps Yuuri should wait out here.”
Yozak looked pleased while Murata’s face came nowhere near to the outrage Yuuri had only to glance at his own reflection to see.
“There’s no curse in there that’s going to leap out and accost me!” Yuuri protested.
“There are old things in there, and old things bear old curses,” Yozak said, mirroring Conrad’s position.
“Curses that must be invoked to become active,” Ken said, stepping around the larger man to the door. “This curse was brought about by a gift and an action – Yuuri drinking from the goblet. So long as he doesn’t touch anything, he should be fine. He’s right, there should be nothing here that should ‘leap out.’”
“I could just not breathe if it would make it any easier,” Yuuri muttered.
That brought scowls from them all.
“I promise I won’t touch anything. But as this is my life we’re talking about, there’s no way you’re keeping me out of there.”
Morgif “hur-hurr-ed” in agreement.
“Sir Weller! It has been a while, hasn’t it? Years! You wound me.” Allay greeted Conrad with a clap to the shoulder that Conrad had clearly braced himself for. “What brings you…”
Allay’s eyes trailed from Conrad to Yuuri, who stood a step behind and was struck again by a feeling of wrongness, of familiarity, one that sent a chill down his spine and a prickle at the back of his neck as the blue eyes studied him intensely.
“And the Maou…” Allay said softly.
Conrad turned, glancing at Yuuri because of this strange response.
“You’ve met?”
“No,” Allay answered. “I have not been favored by a visit from the Maou. Once, a gift… the year of his majority. It is a younger face I see, an oddity. Pay no mind to an old man, as time adds to the images in my head!”
Yuuri sent Murata a telling look, and was met with a shrewd look, one of confirmation. There was more to this occurrence than met the eye.
“About that…”
“The goblet has broken,” Allay interrupted Conrad. “Am I right? Perhaps I am more sensitive to events than I thought! A little bit psychic, eh? We have the paper, the log of the research done on the goblet and tracing of etching on the side. Old writing, older than we use now. But fascinating, yes, fascinating.”
Yuuri gasped. “There’s a copy of the etching? A copy that was made before you sold the goblet?”
“Yes, of course. My nephew, he was interested in these things. He liked to get to them before I sold them, because people are ever so careless when they take these trinkets away.” Allay sent an amused glance at Conrad. “As we can see here in this case.”
Yuuri breathed a sigh of relief, relaxing for the first time since he had entered the shop.
“Can I sent home a trinket with you as a gift?” Allay asked with hope.
The other three answered before Yuuri could open his mouth.
“No!”
***
Yuuri held the paper with the etching on it that they had made themselves carefully, his desk spread with books in the ancient tongue. Others had taken copies as well with orders to find the best translation before morning. One way or another he would find out what was written on this goblet, and one way or another… Conrad had found it, too. He was as sure of that as he was of the weight of the paper in his hands.
“Come in,” he called absently, as a knock resounded in the room.
“Yuuri.”
For a quick moment Yuuri’s heart leapt to his throat at the sound of his name in that solemn voice. For just a moment. There must have been something raw and naked on his face when he looked at Conrad this time, something in his eyes that made Conrad move from his stiff position beside the closed door.
He took Yuuri’s shoulders, making him jump as he tried to compose himself.
“I’m sorry. Sorry, I can’t…”
“Don’t be ashamed of these feelings,” Conrad chided. “It’s bad enough that you feel lonely and abandoned… betrayed… But you don’t have to hide them from me.”
“Never betrayal. Never.”
Against his will, against all reason, Yuuri felt a sob escape before he could take a calming breath and quell it. Just one, and he breathed, his hand fisting on the back of Conrad’s jacket.
“Will you remember any of this when you go back?”
Conrad smiled against his hair, he could feel it.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Good!”
Conrad chuckled, and he smoothed Yuuri’s shirt. “But if I did, I would still wait for this.”
Yuuri’s eyes stung. “Why do you always know the right thing to say?”
“You and I, we’ve been together a long time. We’ll bring back the version of me who will love you as you deserve to be loved.”
“Are you… disappointed?”
“Yuuri.” The light censure was back in his voice. “Who could look into their own future and be disappointed in seeing happiness? Consort to the Maou.”
Yuuri chortled. “Consort to the Maou indeed. And the Maou isn’t so very displeased about it himself.”
“That’s the happiest I’ve heard you.”
Yuuri smiled, pressing his face to the hollow of Conrad’s throat, breathing deep. “Just being near you. Just to touch you…” He pressed a gentle kiss to Conrad’s neck, felt him shudder. “Oh, Conrad, I love you so much.”
He blinked, shook his head vigorously as he leaned away. “I mean…”
He felt Conrad’s hand slide up over his heart, felt gentle fingers caress the pendant stone, and felt his heart stutter in his chest as two images, two men, he had kept apart merged. That was the only reason he had to explain why he returned the gentle kiss, why his arms raised and he opened his body to press against Conrad’s, why he didn’t hesitate.
He didn’t now… Conrad’s lips met his with insistence, molding their mouths together before nipping with an urgency that Yuuri’s fevered brain crested with. He moaned at Conrad’s thrusting tongue, met it, fed on it.
He tore at Conrad’s jacket, feeling it fall as Conrad’s hands raced back to sweep over him from shoulder blade to thigh and pressed him closer still as they stumbled blindly toward the bed. Deftly, Yuuri’s buttons were undone, his pants loosened, and Yuuri moaned as Conrad slipped down the back and gripped him with both hands, held him tightly as they moved together. He barely missed sitting on Conrad’s hands as he dropped like a stone onto the mattress, a flailing hand the only thing that kept him from falling all the way back.
Conrad knelt, stalling Yuuri’s brain entirely and merely the lightest stroke on his thighs had them trembling open, and he gulped.
The sound that escaped his throat as Conrad’s mouth closed around him was distressingly desperate.
Through the haze of lust all he could see was the face he loved, and the pleasure… His hips jerked as Conrad’s hand caressed him.
As Conrad’s tongue swirled around the tip, Yuuri’s hands vised in the shaggy hair. But then Conrad sealed his mouth around him and sucked… and thought was no more.
The heat and warmth undid him as the pressure of Conrad’s mouth around him became unbearable.
He swallowed Conrad’s name as he inhaled, strangling his cry before it emerged as a shout the whole castle would hear. When his eyes cleared, and he remembered to breathe, Conrad’s hands were on his hips, his breathing quick and shallow against Yuuri’s stomach. And he was hard, pressed against his leg that had been trapped between Conrad’s thighs.
Legs trembling he half stood, tugging on Conrad with a strength he barely knew he possessed, shifting until their positions were reversed, and it was his hands that fumbled with Conrad’s belt, Conrad’s pants, until Conrad sat on the bed, until his hands could feel, could grasp and touch, and his mouth could worship. He let his palm drift slowly up it. So familiar… Conrad’s knuckles were white, gripping the edge of the bed with an intensity that Yuuri saw through his lashes, as his lips trailed the length of him, taking little licks while his fingers teased where his mouth could not.
Close… so close.
Yuuri pried Conrad’s hand from the edge of the bed, spreading the tense fingers and wrapping them gently around the shaft in front of him.
He looked up into the well-loved face, flushed, gorgeous in a heady way that had his lips curving.
“Let me see you,” Yuuri murmured.
Conrad gasped.
*PAST – Conrad*
“Yuuri!”
Conrad rose from sleep like a drowning man out of water, the mattress unsteady beneath his rigid body, his hand reaching for what was already hard and aching while the taste of Yuuri lay sweet on his lips. It took barely a stroke before he trembled, his body ready for the aching rush of pleasure as his dazed eyes saw only Yuuri’s face.
As he lay back, panting, Conrad’s hands reached for the dark hair he could see only in his mind’s eye. “Yuuri.”
***
Chapter Six
Author: Coley Merrin
Pairing: Conrad/Yuuri
Rating: R
Genre: Romance, Drama
Summary: What if the one you loved would die tomorrow because of a mistake you made almost 10 years before? What if you could go back to correct it, even if going back meant that there was no guarantee that you could return to your rightful time… or to the one you loved?
Chapter 5 – The Mirrored Day – Part Two
AKA = The chapter where the fic actually gets its rating.
*PRESENT – Yuuri*
Yuuri drowsed under the sway of the wagon, jerking up just in time to catch himself from tumbling over as the cart they rode in dipped into a particularly vicious rut. The soft leather of his boots brushed against the side of Conrad’s, and for a moment he stared agape at the familiar soles, before catching himself – but not before color had flooded into his cheeks. He cleared his throat and sat up straight, trying to right his body and his emotions at the same time. That sweet bite of love that wasn’t returned sat heavy on him, and he fished for the stone around his neck. He knew he was fooling no one. Still, he tensed as Conrad rose to his feet and started toward him. He let out the breath he had been holding when, instead of what Yuuri could not place, he laid a hand on Yozak’s shoulders and gave a quick direction to the side of the lane.
They had arrived.
Yuuri felt a strange sense of déjà vu as he peered into the musty shop window. Though he had ridden through this town before, he did not remember stopping. And this shop full of jumble seemed as if it would be something he remembered. He opened his mouth to ask Murata what significance this town had, but he stood by Yozak, speaking in furtive whispers. Conrad stood behind him, leaned against the wagon with folded arms, and a look on his face that would rival any thundercloud. While the conversation went on, none could enter the shop, and Conrad’s eyes leapt from the arguing pair, to Yuuri, to the shop’s sign and back again. It was clear, to Yuuri, that he meant to get on with it.
“Perhaps!” Conrad said, loud enough to stop Yozak in the midst of speaking. “Perhaps Yuuri should wait out here.”
Yozak looked pleased while Murata’s face came nowhere near to the outrage Yuuri had only to glance at his own reflection to see.
“There’s no curse in there that’s going to leap out and accost me!” Yuuri protested.
“There are old things in there, and old things bear old curses,” Yozak said, mirroring Conrad’s position.
“Curses that must be invoked to become active,” Ken said, stepping around the larger man to the door. “This curse was brought about by a gift and an action – Yuuri drinking from the goblet. So long as he doesn’t touch anything, he should be fine. He’s right, there should be nothing here that should ‘leap out.’”
“I could just not breathe if it would make it any easier,” Yuuri muttered.
That brought scowls from them all.
“I promise I won’t touch anything. But as this is my life we’re talking about, there’s no way you’re keeping me out of there.”
Morgif “hur-hurr-ed” in agreement.
“Sir Weller! It has been a while, hasn’t it? Years! You wound me.” Allay greeted Conrad with a clap to the shoulder that Conrad had clearly braced himself for. “What brings you…”
Allay’s eyes trailed from Conrad to Yuuri, who stood a step behind and was struck again by a feeling of wrongness, of familiarity, one that sent a chill down his spine and a prickle at the back of his neck as the blue eyes studied him intensely.
“And the Maou…” Allay said softly.
Conrad turned, glancing at Yuuri because of this strange response.
“You’ve met?”
“No,” Allay answered. “I have not been favored by a visit from the Maou. Once, a gift… the year of his majority. It is a younger face I see, an oddity. Pay no mind to an old man, as time adds to the images in my head!”
Yuuri sent Murata a telling look, and was met with a shrewd look, one of confirmation. There was more to this occurrence than met the eye.
“About that…”
“The goblet has broken,” Allay interrupted Conrad. “Am I right? Perhaps I am more sensitive to events than I thought! A little bit psychic, eh? We have the paper, the log of the research done on the goblet and tracing of etching on the side. Old writing, older than we use now. But fascinating, yes, fascinating.”
Yuuri gasped. “There’s a copy of the etching? A copy that was made before you sold the goblet?”
“Yes, of course. My nephew, he was interested in these things. He liked to get to them before I sold them, because people are ever so careless when they take these trinkets away.” Allay sent an amused glance at Conrad. “As we can see here in this case.”
Yuuri breathed a sigh of relief, relaxing for the first time since he had entered the shop.
“Can I sent home a trinket with you as a gift?” Allay asked with hope.
The other three answered before Yuuri could open his mouth.
“No!”
***
Yuuri held the paper with the etching on it that they had made themselves carefully, his desk spread with books in the ancient tongue. Others had taken copies as well with orders to find the best translation before morning. One way or another he would find out what was written on this goblet, and one way or another… Conrad had found it, too. He was as sure of that as he was of the weight of the paper in his hands.
“Come in,” he called absently, as a knock resounded in the room.
“Yuuri.”
For a quick moment Yuuri’s heart leapt to his throat at the sound of his name in that solemn voice. For just a moment. There must have been something raw and naked on his face when he looked at Conrad this time, something in his eyes that made Conrad move from his stiff position beside the closed door.
He took Yuuri’s shoulders, making him jump as he tried to compose himself.
“I’m sorry. Sorry, I can’t…”
“Don’t be ashamed of these feelings,” Conrad chided. “It’s bad enough that you feel lonely and abandoned… betrayed… But you don’t have to hide them from me.”
“Never betrayal. Never.”
Against his will, against all reason, Yuuri felt a sob escape before he could take a calming breath and quell it. Just one, and he breathed, his hand fisting on the back of Conrad’s jacket.
“Will you remember any of this when you go back?”
Conrad smiled against his hair, he could feel it.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Good!”
Conrad chuckled, and he smoothed Yuuri’s shirt. “But if I did, I would still wait for this.”
Yuuri’s eyes stung. “Why do you always know the right thing to say?”
“You and I, we’ve been together a long time. We’ll bring back the version of me who will love you as you deserve to be loved.”
“Are you… disappointed?”
“Yuuri.” The light censure was back in his voice. “Who could look into their own future and be disappointed in seeing happiness? Consort to the Maou.”
Yuuri chortled. “Consort to the Maou indeed. And the Maou isn’t so very displeased about it himself.”
“That’s the happiest I’ve heard you.”
Yuuri smiled, pressing his face to the hollow of Conrad’s throat, breathing deep. “Just being near you. Just to touch you…” He pressed a gentle kiss to Conrad’s neck, felt him shudder. “Oh, Conrad, I love you so much.”
He blinked, shook his head vigorously as he leaned away. “I mean…”
He felt Conrad’s hand slide up over his heart, felt gentle fingers caress the pendant stone, and felt his heart stutter in his chest as two images, two men, he had kept apart merged. That was the only reason he had to explain why he returned the gentle kiss, why his arms raised and he opened his body to press against Conrad’s, why he didn’t hesitate.
He didn’t now… Conrad’s lips met his with insistence, molding their mouths together before nipping with an urgency that Yuuri’s fevered brain crested with. He moaned at Conrad’s thrusting tongue, met it, fed on it.
He tore at Conrad’s jacket, feeling it fall as Conrad’s hands raced back to sweep over him from shoulder blade to thigh and pressed him closer still as they stumbled blindly toward the bed. Deftly, Yuuri’s buttons were undone, his pants loosened, and Yuuri moaned as Conrad slipped down the back and gripped him with both hands, held him tightly as they moved together. He barely missed sitting on Conrad’s hands as he dropped like a stone onto the mattress, a flailing hand the only thing that kept him from falling all the way back.
Conrad knelt, stalling Yuuri’s brain entirely and merely the lightest stroke on his thighs had them trembling open, and he gulped.
The sound that escaped his throat as Conrad’s mouth closed around him was distressingly desperate.
Through the haze of lust all he could see was the face he loved, and the pleasure… His hips jerked as Conrad’s hand caressed him.
As Conrad’s tongue swirled around the tip, Yuuri’s hands vised in the shaggy hair. But then Conrad sealed his mouth around him and sucked… and thought was no more.
The heat and warmth undid him as the pressure of Conrad’s mouth around him became unbearable.
He swallowed Conrad’s name as he inhaled, strangling his cry before it emerged as a shout the whole castle would hear. When his eyes cleared, and he remembered to breathe, Conrad’s hands were on his hips, his breathing quick and shallow against Yuuri’s stomach. And he was hard, pressed against his leg that had been trapped between Conrad’s thighs.
Legs trembling he half stood, tugging on Conrad with a strength he barely knew he possessed, shifting until their positions were reversed, and it was his hands that fumbled with Conrad’s belt, Conrad’s pants, until Conrad sat on the bed, until his hands could feel, could grasp and touch, and his mouth could worship. He let his palm drift slowly up it. So familiar… Conrad’s knuckles were white, gripping the edge of the bed with an intensity that Yuuri saw through his lashes, as his lips trailed the length of him, taking little licks while his fingers teased where his mouth could not.
Close… so close.
Yuuri pried Conrad’s hand from the edge of the bed, spreading the tense fingers and wrapping them gently around the shaft in front of him.
He looked up into the well-loved face, flushed, gorgeous in a heady way that had his lips curving.
“Let me see you,” Yuuri murmured.
Conrad gasped.
*PAST – Conrad*
“Yuuri!”
Conrad rose from sleep like a drowning man out of water, the mattress unsteady beneath his rigid body, his hand reaching for what was already hard and aching while the taste of Yuuri lay sweet on his lips. It took barely a stroke before he trembled, his body ready for the aching rush of pleasure as his dazed eyes saw only Yuuri’s face.
As he lay back, panting, Conrad’s hands reached for the dark hair he could see only in his mind’s eye. “Yuuri.”
***
Chapter Six
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-03-25 07:43 am (UTC)I didn't want you to stop... XD
no subject
Date: 2008-03-26 02:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-27 02:41 am (UTC)