Hello again!

Just wanted to say thank you to all my readers! And a special thanks to A Tale of Brothers for the review/favoriting, and KitKatt0430 for favoriting :) I really appreciate it!

I apologize for taking so long, as I originally wanted to make this a weekly thing, but I'm gonna try a little harder to update quicker. I just feel like I'm trudging through mud with my writing lol. But, without further ado, here's my next chapter :)

Warnings: slight boyxboy

Disclaimer: I do not own Tales of Vesperia.

Characters: Yuri and Flynn (I told you I might show some favoritism lol)

Lock

Yuri always found it amusing how the lock clicking into place on his jail cell door always seemed louder than the last time, like how a parent screams louder in exasperation of their child's antics. Not that Yuri had ever personally experienced having parents, but there were a few people he could think of that probably came quite close to it.

The sound of a heavy door swinging open and the knocking together of metal plates caught Yuri's attention, already knowing who was approaching before they even reached his cell. He sat up on the prison bed, swinging his legs over the side and looking up at his visitor with a playful grin.

"Hello, mother. Come to lecture me again?" Commandant Flynn Scifo frowned from the other side of the jail cell, signaling the two guards standing nearby to leave. Once they had, he turned to Yuri with a slightly more exasperated expression.

"Honestly, Yuri, I feel like two out of three times I wind up talking to you is from behind bars. Do you like being thrown in here all the time?" Yuri smirked, putting his hands above his head as if in surrender.

"You caught me. Actually, I was thinking of redecorating my room this way. I just came to get some ideas." Azure eyes rolled to the ceiling before settling over a frown, slender brows furrowing.

"It's not a joke, Yuri. You could have been hurt-" A chuckle interrupted Flynn's statement, and he watched as Yuri lay back down on the stone slab of a bed, hands tucked behind his head.

"Aw, now you're just insulting me. Come on. We've taken on a lot tougher guys than that. Besides, if I hadn't stepped in that old man would've been swindled out of a lot of money." Yuri's playful gaze narrowed slightly, one leg resting against the raised knee of the other. "Just because this guy was bigger and thought he was being clever." Flynn released a heavy huff of breath, a thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Stepping into things doesn't mean starting a street fight." Yuri shrugged, raising a hand to trace the various scratch marks against the wall beside him. He smirked as he noted that nearly all of them were his own pieces of work.

"Yeah, well, he was asking for it." Flynn felt his jaw clench, fist closing at his side. Why did the damned swordsman always have to be so stubborn? He never seemed to take anything seriously.

"He was armed, Yuri. With accomplices. Why do you always pick the most dangerous situations to involve yourself in?" It wasn't until he stopped talking that Flynn realized that his voice had raised, catching the way the moss along the walls seemed to soak in the lingering vibrations. Yuri's nonchalant smirk faded, his hand falling from the wall as he sat up again and looked towards the blonde knight.

"Flynn, if I hadn't stepped in—" An armored hand gripped one of the prison bars.

"My brigade would have. I would have." Yuri's lips parted out of reflex to retaliate as he stood, but they slipped shut as their stubborn gazes met. A challenging silence settled between them, until Yuri shifted his weight to one foot, crossing his arms over his chest and looking away with a faint hint of a pout. Taking the rare moment of silence from the dark-haired renegade, Flynn took another step forward, pressing closer to the bars.

"Yuri, you have to stop trying to take the law into your own hands."

"But, Flynn-"

"Listen to me!" The sharpness of Flynn's voice caused Yuri's annoyance to falter, surprised by the very slightest hint of something deeper in the knight's voice. "I know you're not happy with how things still are, but you have to understand that for things to get better, you have to let me do my job as well. How am I supposed to prove myself if you won't even give me a chance?" There was another moment of pause before Yuri looked away, frowning lightly at the creeping sense of guilt he could feel within his chest. He knew Flynn was right. Or at least had a point. But when it came to people oppressing others, he couldn't stop himself, even if the law wouldn't approve of his methods. Where Flynn was the light, Yuri remained his shadow, helping him where the knight could not – and had no reason – to be.

Flynn released another heavy sigh, feeling his anger leave him at the solemn look on Yuri's face. He knew he shouldn't have yelled, but Yuri just got him so frustrated at times. Ever since…Flynn shook his head. He watched Yuri quietly for another moment before suddenly pulling a key from his pocket and slipping it into the lock. Yuri looked up as the metal groaned, feeling the familiar teasing smirk touch his lips despite the thoughts running through his head.

"Aw, busting me out? That's so nice of you." Flynn didn't respond at first, simply making his way to stand in front of Yuri before reaching out and grasping the swordsman's left wrist. Yuri immediately pulled it away. "Hey, what're you-"

"Let me see your arm." Yuri scowled stubbornly.

"Why?" Flynn had to grit his teeth to keep from losing his patience again.

"Because it was injured in the fight." Yuri's lips parted. "And don't even think about lying to me." They snapped shut again in another scowl, though it looked more like a pout now. Yuri huffed in defeat before scooting over on the bed, offering his arm to Flynn weakly. Inwardly grateful for his compliance, Flynn quickly sat down and took hold of the offered limb, if only to avoid giving Yuri a chance to change his mind. Pulling the sleeve of Yuri's coat up, he revealed the shallow, but long slash across his forearm. It wasn't fatal, but an infection could be just as fatal as any deep wound in a critical area. Pulling a few bandages and medicated swabs from a pouch attached to the waist of his armor, Flynn tended to Yuri's arm in silence, the lack of noise growing heavier as time passed.

While Flynn appreciated silence, he knew that Yuri was a little less comfortable with the lack of sound, especially when combined with sitting still. So, he wasn't all the surprised when the swordsman began to fidget. And as Yuri's leg bounced up and down, fingers drumming against his knee, he sensed Yuri's attempt to speak before he had even opened his mouth.

"You know, I really worry about you sometimes, Yuri. You're too impulsive." Yuri's mouth closed for the third time, and the look on his face made his annoyance at being interrupted yet again clear. However, when he turned to make his annoyance vocal, he paused as he saw that look in Flynn's azure eyes again. That look that always left him feeling puzzled, nervous, and intrigued all at the same time. Not that he hadn't seen concern before. It was just, on Flynn it felt too real. Too…raw. And the fact that it was directed at himself made him feel even stranger. When Flynn looked up, he found he couldn't hold his gaze, looking down at the floor instead. He tried to fix his lips into his usual placid smirk.

"And you're too uptight. It even shows in your normal clothes. If you call turtlenecks normal." Yuri chuckled at the thought of the thin black and blue turtleneck shirts that Flynn tended to favor even on his days off. They didn't look that much different from the shirts the Knights wore under their armor, and part of Yuri wondered if Flynn just did so because at any moment he was expecting to have to throw on said armor.

"That's not the point, and you know it." Yuri winced as the antiseptic stung against his wound, and Flynn muttered a soft apology. "Look, I know your intentions are good, but did you ever think about how your actions affect your friends? Affect me?" Yuri scoffed.

"What? Are they gonna take away your prestigious position as Commandant because you happened to know a Lower Quarter tramp who causes bar fights over groceries?"

"Dammit, Yuri, did you ever even think about how we would feel if anything serious happened to you?! Don't you remember Zaude? You can't even imagine how I-" Flynn's lips snapped shut. But even more surprising was the faintest hint of red against his cheeks. Yuri had to blink a few times to make sure he wasn't just seeing things.

"How you…what?"

"N-nevermind." The pair fell into silence again as Flynn finished up bandaging Yuri's arm, making sure to tie it off tightly enough to stay on but not enough to cut off circulation. He was so focused on his work that Yuri's voice startled him a bit, even more so because of its quietness.

"…You went looking for me. You even made your brigade look. For months. Estelle told me." As Yuri spoke, he kept his eyes on the lighter band of skin where his blastia usually was, the item having been confiscated until his release. Flynn blinked at the confession, not having really thought about Yuri finding out such information, before looking at the ground with the slightest hint of embarrassment against his cheeks. When Flynn didn't answer, Yuri felt a scoff rise to his lips. "And here I was thinking you'd be glad to be rid of me." Despite his embarrassment, Flynn couldn't help but roll his eyes at Yuri's words.

"I'm your friend, Yuri. No matter how much trouble you cause me, or how many times I want to strangle you, you're still important to me." At the commandant's words, Yuri suddenly remembered their first reunion after his disappearance and the relief that had flooded Flynn's gaze, even if the rest of his body had remained the poised, controlled soldier he had been trained as. Flynn had been formal as ever as he expressed his gratitude for Yuri's safety, but it was his eyes that had revealed the knight's true feelings. They were slightly darker, looking more sunken in than usual thanks to the dark circles beneath them. And Yuri knew instinctively that the knight hadn't had a good night's rest in quite a while. He had also been able to tell by the way Flynn's thumb had been tracing invisible patterns against the hilt of his sword, a habit that he had had even when they were younger whenever the blonde was stressed about something.

"I'm sorry."

"Huh?"

"I said I'm sorry. For making you worry." Flynn blinked, looking dumbfounded for long enough that Yuri actually felt a blush creeping onto his own cheeks. He cleared his throat and looked away in attempt to avoid being caught. "Hey, don't make a big deal about this, okay? It was hard enough to say it once." Flynn cleared his own voice, realizing how long he had been staring and the expression that must have been on his face.

"Y-yeah, well…I wasn't that worried." He paused before seeming to catch something he had said. Or didn't say. "A-and I wasn't the only one."

"Right." A rather long moment of silence settled between them, but neither seemed able to decide whether it was comfortable or not. Until Yuri spoke up again, that is.

"Soo…you gonna let me out?" Flynn sent Yuri a pointed look, before standing and walking towards the open cell door again.

"Maybe in a few days." Yuri watched despairingly as the Commandant closed the door behind him, before looking back at him with a teasing smirk. "When you've realized what you've done wrong and promise not to do it again."

And as the lock clicked shut once again and Flynn walked away, Yuri thought he really could've dealt with not knowing what having parents was like.


Alright, so there's chapter 2. A little longer than the first, but I hope you still enjoyed it :) Once again, feel free to leave any comments you may have! My next chapter I'm planning on focusing on another character, but Flynn and Yuri are most likely going to be in it as well lol.