Disclaimer – It's Namco Bandai's sandbox; I'm just building sandcastles for so long as I can play here.

A/N – I learned recently that Tales of Symphonia is getting a PS3 re-release. I feel such joyfulness...

Outfit – Theoretical waiter outfit (Yuri)

Waiting

It was bound to happen eventually.

Adjusting his red tie and peering into the mirror, Yuri wondered again why he'd thought this would be a good idea.

Sure, the others were all sick and they were almost out of money to pay for things like rooms at the Inn and food, but surely... surely there was some other job Yuri could have picked up for the evening other than waiting tables. He'd been a waiter before, back at the Comet Tavern, and he'd been moved into the kitchen after his first few days on the job more because of his tendency to piss off the customers than for his cooking skills.

It was somehow worse that this time he had to dress up, just to make the indignity that much more painful. Not only would he have to deal with drunkards who hit on him because they thought he was a woman – or didn't think he was a woman, as the case may be – and assholes who couldn't be bothered to understand that sometimes you had to wait more than five minutes for your food to finish cooking. Somehow, Yuri always managed to attract the worst tippers and he wasn't shy about telling people that they sucked.

He never messed with their food, though. That was a line Yuri thought was beneath him to cross, no matter how much he might want to spit in someone's food or drink.

At least he got to keep on his normal pants and boots. His shirt was a long-sleeved white button-up that, unfortunately, he had buttoned all the way up so the tie would look right. Just the feeling of the itchy fabric against his throat made Yuri want to tug at the collar, though. There was a red band around his right bicep that Yuri didn't really get the point of, but the pub owner thought the outfit needed it, so he was wearing it.

Honestly, Yuri thought he looked like the manager of a public quarter restaurant... or the dealer for an underground poker ring.

"Oh, good, you're changed." The owner grinned at Yuri from the now open door. "Come on, no dawdling. The customers are starting to show up for dinner, so I'll need to show you which tables you'll be working. Oh, that... looks really good on you," she added, when Yuri turned to face her. "You can keep the uniform along with your tips and tonight's wages.

"I'm sorry your friends are sick," she added absently, "but this was definitely good timing. Apparently, the Knights are back in town. We're going to be absolutely packed this evening and I can use all the help I can get."

Yuri blanched as he followed her out of the room. Hopefully he wouldn't be familiar with any of the Knights who showed up that evening...

Naturally, one of his tables was Leblanc, Adecor, and Boccos. It figured, really, that they'd show up and have a chance to ridicule him. They were a slow table, too, which might have been annoying except, for all that the Tweedles teased him, Leblanc seemed genuinely concerned about why Yuri was waiting tables instead of working a mission with his guild.

Yuri ended up admitting the rest had been hit by the flu, something he'd had some days earlier. Since he was the only one not sick now, he was the only one who could add to their dwindling funds without dipping into their savings for buying a guild-house of their own.

"Even Sir Schw... er... Raven is ill?"

"Yeah. He's doing better than Karol, though. The kid's fever was pretty high, last I checked..." Yuri couldn't help the concern he knew was in his voice and on his face. If Karol's fever didn't break soon, all the money Yuri got that evening would be going to a doctor instead of the Inn.

The three Knights actually looked pretty concerned as well, so Yuri figured they just might end up being his best tippers all night. That was definitely worth any aggravation they might otherwise cause.

Yuri also sort of had the impression that those three might also be looking out for him. One of his other tables had been filled with rowdy customers who'd pinched his ass and propositioned him when he'd taken their drink orders. He'd managed to keep from punching the guy who'd pinched him, but only by thinking about how much his friends needed the money.

When Yuri came back out with the drinks, however, that group was suddenly on their best behavior and shooting nervous looks at him and the Schwann Brigade's finest.

As curious as Yuri was about what might have been said, his pride prevented him from asking.

The trio did prove to be his best tippers that evening, closely followed by a group of strange, but oddly endearing, elderly ladies who'd called Yuri 'dear' and giggled every time one of them said something mildly flirtatious to him.

By the time the night finally drew to a close, Yuri was exhausted and ready to collapse. So he only managed to put up a token protest when the bar's owner handed him more money than his tips and wages actually amounted to. She just smiled at him, closed his fingers over the gald, and told him to go take care of his family.

He was sort of aware of the walk back to the Inn and only fuzzily remembered asking Judy how everyone was doing. Karol's fever was the last to break, but it had and now the kid was sleeping peacefully enough. Judy wouldn't hear of Yuri taking her place in watching over the others either; though her fever had ended only that morning, she swore Krityans recovered faster than humans and she'd slept plenty while he was working.

He woke up late the next day, the others having apparently decided to let him oversleep without fuss. The afternoon sun streaming in through the windows, which was rather pretty, but Yuri was far more interested to find Flynn sitting beside his bed. There was a book in the blond's hands and glasses perched on his nose.

"You have reading glasses," Yuri observed sleepily.

"I'm not getting old," Flynn immediately said, sliding a bookmark onto the page he was reading and then snapping the book shut.

"Wasn't going to say anything like that," Yuri assured him, smiling in amusement and resisting the urge to tease him. "You look good. Kind of like a sexy librarian, but with battle armor."

Blushing, Flynn set the book on Yuri's bedside table and plucked the glasses off his face to place them atop the novel. "You slept in your clothes from last night."

"Did I?" Yuri peeled off the covers to see that, though he'd ditched the tie and his boots and undone a few buttons on the shirt, he was definitely still wearing his waiter's outfit. "I was really tired," he admitted. "When did you get here?"

"This morning. The Schwann Brigade showed up and started telling me all about how apparently everyone in your guild but you had the flu... and that there were a lot of people hitting on you in your waiter's outfit." Flynn's eyes trailed over Yuri's body, bringing a blush to the guildman's cheeks. "Mmm... even rumpled, it looks good on you," he declared.

"Bet it'd look better scattered on the floor," Yuri offered innocently, hands reaching to undo the rest of his shirt's buttons. Flynn, however, practically flew from the chair to the bed in his haste to replace Yuri's hands with his own.

Yuri laughed and then moaned as Flynn's mouth descended upon his. He didn't notice, until his shirt was lying on the ground with the red band and Flynn was pressing him back down against the sheets, that Flynn had the tie in his hands. Well, actually, what made Yuri notice was how Flynn looped the tie around the headboard – and Yuri's hands – and was tying it in a firm slip-knot.

Testing the tie, Yuri knew he could undo it if he wanted, but... Flynn was being kind of kinky. Yuri wanted to see where this was going.

"Must have been frustrating," Flynn opined, drawing back with an amused expression, "putting up with waiting tables again last night while worrying about how everyone else was doing."

"Yeah...?" Yuri pouted a little as all Flynn stared down at Yuri, eyes darkening with lust at the sight. Squirming a little in irritation, Yuri asked, "is all you plan to do stare at me?"

Flynn smirked and then tugged off his own shirt, tossing it aside. "All in good time," he murmured, crawling onto the bed and running the tips of his fingers lightly over Yuri's chest. "You really deserve a treat, after everything you put up with last night," he added, taking a peaked nipple between his fingers and twisting.

Yuri yelped and his back arched, pushing into Flynn's hand. "This is certainly a promising start," he gasped out.

Running his hand down Yuri's chest again, Flynn murmured, "tell me what you want me to do."

"Tell you..." Yuri's eyes widened and his mouth went dry at the smirking expression that lit Flynn's face. "I want you to take my pants and underwear off."

So Flynn did. In the slowest – agonizingly slow – way imaginable, brushing his fingertips along Yuri's thighs and under sensitive knees while raining kisses along behind those fingers. By the time Flynn finished pulling off Yuri's pants, Yuri's mind was in a haze.

"Now what?" Flynn asked, tracing randomly along Yuri's inner thighs.

"Y-you're wearing too much," Yuri complained.

"That doesn't sound like an order."

"Strip."

Flynn smirked and undressed. "Now what?"

"You're really going to make me tell you what to do every step of the way?" Yuri sounded as incredulous as he felt. This was... this was actually incredibly erotic. Flynn was Commandant of the Imperial Knights, far more likely to give orders than take them. Moreover, Flynn had always had as much difficulty with Yuri's leadership as Yuri had with his. Their differences often led to difficulties with agreeing or compromising and had resulted in their numerous duels over the years and a set rules for those duels that they hadn't needed to renegotiate since they were seventeen.

"I want to hear you tell me what you want."

Yuri tugged his wrists against the fabric binding him to the headboard in order to remind himself that he was tied to the bed. It wasn't so much that Flynn wanted to be ordered around; Flynn wanted to hear Yuri talk dirty.

It was still incredibly arousing to be telling Flynn what to do like this.

Fuck.

So Yuri told Flynn to lick and suck and nip at his nipples and then twisted in the sheets, writhing in pleasure as Flynn did exactly that. Yuri told Flynn to mark up his neck, groaning throatily at the feeling of Flynn's teeth and mouth leaving a trail of love bites. He told Flynn to do the same to his thighs and then – he'd deny it was begging – he managed to stammer out his need for Flynn to finger him and suck him off.

Then, dazed and his arms a little numb, he quietly asked Flynn to untie him. Leaning into Flynn's touch, he waited for Flynn to massage feeling back into each arm and then started to reach down to touch Flynn.

Taking Yuri's hands in his own, Flynn said, "I got off when you did." He smirked and then licked a marked spot on Yuri's collar bone. "So... what did you like more? Being tied up? Or telling me what to do?"

"Both," Yuri muttered, snuggling against Flynn. "I hope my clothes aren't too rumpled," he muttered. "I was going to do another shift waiting tables tonight. We still need the extra money."

"The tie has seen better days," Flynn told him. "I think you tore it a little when you came."

"I did? Huh... I didn't even notice." He hadn't liked that tie too much anyway. At least, not until Flynn re-purposed it. If it was torn...

Maybe he'd get a new one. He might not like it around his neck, but around his wrists...

Yeah. He'd get a new one.