A/N: Because Flynn's casual acceptance of Yuri's return for the monster fight at Aurnion is unsatisfying.
On a personal note, I want to say thank you to everyone who has left likes and especially comments on anything I've written. February was a rough month this year, but hearing back about these stories really brightened up some of my days. =') Thank you so much.
Disclaimer: The characters and settings in this story are from Tales of Vesperia and do not belong to me.
"So...some welcome," Yuri said.
He stood a moment beneath the open tent flap. The lamps inside were golden, filling the small space with the illusion of warmth. His grin wasn't fooling either of them, and he gave up waiting for Flynn to either invite him in or come to meet him. For just a moment, he felt a sharp pain in his chest. It hurt to draw breath, but he let the flap fall shut behind him and stepped forward out of the night. The pain passed, but only in the way that a wave swamps a swimmer. He was still adrift, though he was growing used to such feelings. Good thing, too, since he had chosen to save the lives of innocents over making Flynn proud of him. He could take pride in the fact that he knew he would be strong enough to make that same choice again, no matter the personal cost. Too bad that pride wouldn't save him from drowning.
In the awkward quiet, Yuri looked around. As acting Commandant, Flynn had a much nicer tent than any of the knights under his command. There was a cot against one side with a blanket and even a couple of pillows, a chest open to reveal scrolls, bottles of ink, quills, nibs, sheaves of creamy paper, drying sand, envelopes, sealing wax, and candles. Flynn himself sat—slumped, really—in a chair behind a field desk strewn with papers, plans, illustrations, and a single scroll tied with black and blue ribbons. He looked tired and, for once, too small for his armor. There were shadows beneath his eyes that hadn't been there a year ago. They were dark enough that Yuri couldn't pass them off as simply a result of the low light inside the tent. Maybe it was better that way. For so long, he'd seen only what he wanted to see in Flynn. The golden future they wanted to create was Yuri's improbable god, and Flynn its chosen messenger. Back before he had fallen, Yuri had dreamt of standing at Flynn's side to usher in an age of equality and happiness. Falling was no excuse to have left Flynn standing alone on a pedestal. He felt ill now, standing in front of his friend as Flynn showed the strain of the burden Yuri had left on his shoulders.
Across from him, Flynn finally looked up, offering a tired, wavering smile. It looked like simple exhaustion at first, but when Yuri came around the desk and Flynn stood to meet him, he was pulled into the tightest hug of his life, tighter even than when Estelle had welcomed him back to the land of the living in Zaphias. His ribs protested and he started to complain before a quiet sound reached his ears. Flynn's sharp intake of breath, shuddering and wet, told Yuri that it hadn't only been exhaustion that had left Flynn's bright blue eyes shining in the weak light. Alone now, off the battlefield and away from the crowds of soldiers and civilians that had surrounded them through the day, Flynn let the tears come. That hadn't been the welcome Yuri had expected, either. He bit his tongue and ignored the pain in his side, concentrating on hugging Flynn back just as tightly, offering him whatever strength he needed in that moment.
Yuri felt his own eyes begin to burn, and he squeezed them shut against the tears. What did he have to cry about? Alive when he should have been dead, and when you got right down to it, it had only been physical pain, anyway. Wasn't it Flynn who had suffered? Hadn't Estelle told Yuri about Flynn's tireless and increasingly desperate searching? Hadn't she told him about how Flynn had led ships out to sea, made them search for days? That night in Zaphias when she had found him, miraculously alive, she'd described an effort put forth on his behalf that had left hope growing unasked for in Yuri's chest. He'd joked into the heavy pause that had come when she had fallen silent. He'd joked about what she'd told him, let slip a comment that Flynn must have been angry with him over making waves. He'd only said it because he couldn't stand to think of Flynn in anguish over his fate, couldn't stand the false hope that something more than friendship must have been what pushed Flynn so hard.
Estelle had been shocked by his callousness. She'd cried. In the moonlight pouring into Yuri's room where they'd gone to talk quietly, she'd broken down into tears on Flynn's behalf, and on behalf of Yuri, alive when he should have been dead, making jokes because he didn't want to hurt anymore, because hope always let him down. The guilt had made him queasy. He'd bowed his head and stroked her hair as she clung to him and he'd apologized, quietly, over and over, for anything he owed her an apology for. He had tried not to think of Flynn, hollow-eyed, tireless, walking wounded searching for the missing dead.
For Flynn to be crying now meant that he really must have believed the worst after all his futile searching. Yuri gritted his teeth, squeezed Flynn tighter, pressed his cheek against choppy hair, and tried to hold back his own selfish tears. What did he have to cry about?
Hugging Flynn back, Yuri banished a nightmare of armored footsteps and cold steel. He wrapped himself in the safety of Flynn's arms, his beating heart and ragged breaths, the tickle of his hair and smell of his sweat and the familiar, bittersweet heartache of being so near, so close, and so fully aware that Flynn deserved better.
"Sorry," Yuri managed. His voice nearly broke on the word, and he sniffed, giving himself away.
Flynn shook with a wet, breathy sound that Yuri mistook for a sob before recognizing it as a laugh. It became suddenly easier to breathe as Flynn eased his arms from around his back. He didn't let Yuri go anywhere, however. Now freed, his hands rose to cup Yuri's cheeks and hold his face steady. Blue eyes, puffy and red-rimmed, still brimming with tears held Yuri's for a moment. They took in the whole of his face, relieved and incredulous, and it was too much. Yuri closed his eyes, unable to look at Flynn as his own tears began to fall. What did he have to cry about? He was alive, wasn't he?
Their foreheads knocked together as Flynn pressed closer. Their noses bumped, their breath mingled. Heat pooled between them, faces burning, hot tears falling unchecked.
Alive. Alive. Alive. Yuri's heart beat with the awareness, blood roaring in his ears. Alive. Safe. Alive. Warm. Alive. Missed. Mourned. Alive.
Loved.
There was a moment. There must have been, though Yuri missed it. A single, fleeting moment made up of everything they meant to each other. It would have been a moment of childhood friendship, pure and simple and bright like shining drops of water: laughter, mischief, arguments and fights, skinned knees, races through the Lower Quarter, cuffs 'round the ears and shared blame, explorations through night-dark streets, the splash of cold water from the creek on a hot summer day, the clatter of wooden swords, calluses, bruises, sore muscles, the feeling of growing stronger together. It would have held the hard times, too: the feeling of growing apart as the world's ills became more complex and grew fangs and claws, the pain of following different paths, the betrayal of a broken promise, the fearsome freedom of being on their own to grow. It was a moment built on trials and travels, on justice brought and vengeance wrought, on the fear of losing each other to corruption, to the death of the spirit more than any mortal doom. It was unexpected death. It was a second chance. It was heavy and dense and it collapsed in on them, pulling them along in its gravitational wake until their lips met, soft and unhurried, inevitable.
Maybe he hadn't been saved. Maybe this was all part of the last dream, the unraveling of everything he was, the playing out of his desires as he died. The world spun around Yuri's mind, off-kilter, nonsensical. He wasn't meant to be by Flynn's side. He was the second place screw up, the fallen one, the disappointment, the betrayal of Flynn's dream. He had left the golden path of his own volition, so how had his steps led him back here? Incorrigible hope filled him, forcing the tears out faster. Yuri was too dizzy to care about the show of weakness.
The kiss ended, as it had to. Reluctant to wake from the dream, Yuri kept his eyes shut. He waited for Flynn's warmth to leave him, but when Flynn lowered his hands from where he had held Yuri's face it was only to wrap him up in a hug again. He didn't seem inclined to ever let go, and, for the moment, Yuri could admit that he didn't want him to.
"I never told you," Flynn murmured. He pressed his face against the crook of Yuri's neck. "I kept thinking that over and over...that I had never told you."
Flynn drew a shuddering breath and squeezed tighter. He'd always been the stronger of them, strong enough to always come out on top, strong enough to follow his convictions without dirtying his hands, strong enough to carry on against Yuri and then without him, strong enough to be the Commandant in the field and save his tears for later. Yuri kissed the crown of Flynn's head.
Whispered over Yuri's collarbone so that Flynn's breath carried them in a wash of heat over his skin, beneath his shirt, straight to his heart, Flynn's next words brought fresh tears and a helpless, shaky smile to Yuri's face.
"I love you."