Notes: I do not own Tales of Vesperia.

See below for details.

Prologue

Throughout the years Yuri has become a lot of things to Flynn. Childhood friend, fellow knight, colleague. Maybe something more, even.

But after today, Yuri has also become a murderer.

Flynn stared down at the lush green carpet now stained with red congealed blood. The body of Sir Homs lay dead; beheaded and stabbed through the heart. Such a death a portrait of malice and hate. On the other side of the room sat Yuri, on the floor, drenched in blood not his own. Flynn felt the breath in his lungs punch out of him.

"Sir Scifo!" A young noble lady, Clara, scurried from across the room and swooned into his arms. She was followed by a gaggle of her ladies-in-waiting gathering to cowering behind him.

"He killed him!" Lady Clara shrieked, her gloved finger pointed at Yuri, who still has not raised his eyes at them. "Came through the window! Call the knights! Someone arrest him!"

Yuri stared at his own lap, motionless.

"Yuri..." breathed Flynn. His face is slack with disbelief. "What is the meaning of this-?"

A commotion can be heard downstairs. The Imperial Knights have arrived.

Lady Clara wrenched herself from his grasp, "He's out of control! He's a madman! Guards! Guards!" she cried. Flynn did not turn to watch her leave.

"Yuri… You can't…" whispered Flynn, taking a step.

Finally Yuri tilted his head back on the wall behind him. He lifted his sword into the moonlight. It was covered in black blood.

"No," Flynn's stomach dropped and his heart stopped. He stared at Yuri but his eyes looked ahead unseeingly. Flynn's body all of the sudden felt too heavy, as if his body has given up its resistance to gravity. "What have you done?"

"Milord! Milord! Protect Lord Scifo!" Four knights charged into the room, immediately grabbing at him and manhandling him into the corner. Flynn lets them, the axis of his world has tilted. He cannot walk, much less stand. Why would he-? How could he-?

This does not make any sense!

His lieutenant, Sir Valiant turned his sword to Yuri. "You! You are under arrest for trespassing and the murder of a lord. You will come with us to face the court of law!"

Yuri stood with great difficulty. "I'm not going anywhere."

Sir Valiant gripped his sword tightly and adjusted his stance. "Don't force me to kill you, boy! Although I as well should! How dare you make a mockery of my lord's friendship in his own home! How dare you betray his trust?!"

He couldn't have. No.

Yuri cleaned the blood from his sword with a flick of his wrist. "Your lord is too trusting, it seems. He's going to get himself killed."

"You filth! How dare you!" yelled Sir Valiant and met Yuri's sword with his own with a clash.

Sir Valiant and the knights were certainly no match. "Curse the day you were born, Yuri Lowell." snarled Sir Valiant, as he fell to his knees.

No.

Yuri stood over Sir Valiant with his sword above his head and swung down.

"NO!"

The clang of of his' and Yuri's swords was deafening and powerful enough to force Flynn onto his knees. Flynn looked back to find Sir Valiant has lost conscious and now lay on the carpet bleeding sluggishly. Flynn turned to find Yuri staring down at him and he imagined he saw flash of something before settling into apathy.

"Yuri, please," gasped Flynn, "Do not do this."

Yuri snarled and bore down harder. "Don't you get it? I killed someone. Why do you always give your trust away so carelessly! How can you let people in so easily? This is all your fault!"

"My fault?!" Flynn felt his insides give way to something colder and harsher. Like frost crystallizing his heart into jagged ice; the edges cutting deeply into his chest.

Flynn bodily threw Yuri off of him. He swung his sword across Yuri's arm, slicing through cloth and cutting shallowly into skin. "This is my fault?!"

Yuri doubled back, but immediately darted forward into a thrust. Flynn easily parried, twisting his body to avoid a fist to the head. However, he could not avoid a hard knee in the stomach. Flynn grunted, but used Yuri's shift in balance to knock his feet from underneath him, sending them both tumbling to the ground, grappling.

Fueled by hot anger, Flynn gripped Yuri's wrists and bodily pinned him down into the lush green carpet. Yuri struggled violently at their closeness, but Flynn only clenched his fists harder. "No!" snarled Flynn, his voice broken and wavering, "How could you do this? How could you-!"

The anger, confusion, and horror which fueled his limbs to fight drained from Flynn's body. He let his body fall flush onto Yuri's; chest pressing onto chest and hips pressing onto hips. A position Flynn often find himself naked and tangled with Yuri well into the dark of the night, the soft glow of candles, illuminating the sweat on skin and his beautiful friend. But, while that one was filled with a sweet ache of carnal pleasure and longing, this one felt like an empty casket. Dead, filled with regrets, and waiting to be buried.

Exhausted and heartsick, Flynn pressed his forehead onto Yuri's shoulder. Yuri had all but stopped struggling, both of them breathing heavily. Flynn turned his face towards Yuri's neck, and breathed him in for what he believed as the last time. "My only fault is have to let you in. My only fault was to have given you my trust; my heart." His voice broke on the last word.

Silence.

Flynn let himself hold Yuri for a few more moments and then moved to lift himself off, releasing Yuri's wrists. As soon as he did, Yuri flipped him onto his back, reversing their position. A hard mouth pressed onto his own, scorching. Indignant, Flynn flinched away. But Yuri is nonplussed, his hands roaming his side and chest.

Flynn gasps and Yuri deepens their kiss, both of them breathing heavily into each other's mouth. Flynn's arms found themselves surrounding his former friend's shoulders, his hips rising to meet Yuri's. Flynn lets his head fall back onto the carpet with a thud and moans to the ceiling, because despite what has happened, despite the bodies that now litters the floor of his own home, dead or simply unconscious, Flynn can never deny Yuri Lowell.

Afterwards, they lay tangled up in each other in the moonlight like every night. But the morning after will be so very different.

a/n: This will become multi-chaptered.