Joseph [Kyo Kara Maoh: Wolfram, Conrad]
Wolfram thought that the moment he grew up was this: When he realised that he loved Conrart, and realised that in spite of every cruelty that Wolfram had dealt him, Conrart loved him back.
More powerful than any act of bravery commited by Yuri, by any attempt at reconciliation into which Wolfram had willingly followed him despite his own convictions, this was the moment when everything changed.
Wolfram's heart was cramping as Conrart lay bleeding in his lap, from a wound to his lungs that had been meant for Wolfram. That was a declaration of love as good as any, that was what he was thinking because he was still too numb to acknowledge any emotion to the fact that the heat seeping into his thighs was Conrart's blood because Conrart was on his way to die and had knowingly chosen that in Wolfram's stead.
Wolfram wasn't a healer, and he had never regretted anything in his life as bitterly as he in that moment regretted the way he had scorned Julia's lessons in the art. Wolfram was an unskilled and inexperienced medic, one who knew neither the limits of his own powers nor the specifics of using them for healing something more complex than a fever. But it was the moment where Wolfram's life tipped over and turned another direction entirely, and he didn't think about anything but how much he hated himself as he placed his free hand over the wound on Conrart's chest, the hand that wasn't clutching Conrart's as Conrart clutched it back. The healing magic that poured from his fingers was raw and rough, but as he felt it being received into Conrart's body, it was like a river suddenly freed from the winter's ice. That was how he felt, as if the magic was not magic, but the raw essence of all the feelings he held for his brother.
Later, it wasn't Gwendal who gave him the talking-to of his life on the subject of using his magic for purposes in which he had not been trained; Gwendal merely stood beside Gisela as she did it. She hit him across his face and screamed at him about how close he had been to dying, about how utterly idiotic it was to even try healing a wound like that when he didn't even know how much magic he could use before he himself wouldn't have enough to live.
"You were seconds away from dying of the same thing that killed lady Julia! How do you think that would have made lord Weller feel?!"
"But I didn't die," said Wolfram, "and Conrart would have if I hadn't done something. Are you telling me I should have left my brother to die?"
"I'm telling you to leave the letal sacrifices to those who are incapable of helping themselves!" thundered Gwendal, "If your company had not returned in time, I would have lost two brothers today instead of one! You were about to kill yourself, and dying from foolish use of magic is far less dignified than to take a blade in someone's stead!"
"I won't do it again," said Wolfram sullenly, and that was good enough for Gwendal.
Conrart didn't say a word about it. For all he knew, Conrart hadn't been told. It was three days before Wolfram could walk on his own, and when he could he went to Conrart's room and sat down on his bed, and Conrart woke from his doze to stare at him.
"That was dumb," was all that Wolfram could find to say.
"But we're still both here, aren't we?" said Conrart and sat up with a grimace of pain.
He held out his arms, and nothing in Wolfram's life had ever felt so blissfull as the long, long while that he held Conrart and Conrart held him.