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Entry tags:
- character: flynn scifo,
- character: yuri lowell,
- genre: bromance! lol,
- genre: crackfic,
- genre: one-shot,
- genre: request fic,
- label: bff genfic smash!!,
- label: completed story,
- label: fanfic,
- label: not yaoi,
- label: oh god why,
- label: this muse will never forgive me,
- label: trollin 4 lyfe,
- rating: pg-13,
- series: tales of vesperia,
- wordcount: 3000+
"What Goes Around" - Yuri + Flynn (ToV)
~
A/N: This is partly me wanting to write Flynn acting ridiculous, and partly me loving the Yuri + Flynn BFFness too much to be able to resist: 1) an unexpected guerrilla plotbunny, and 2) an amusing prompt over at one of those Tales of Kink Meme things. |D
...And okay, this is also partly me taking…maybe…half a shot at all the Yuri/Flynn Flynn/Yuri shippers. Because…really, they grew up together, and they are both upfront and honest enough with each other that, if there were any sort of ~ROMANTIC INTEREST~ there, they would’ve already been a couple by the start of the game. Which they are not. B| They are FRIENDS and nothing else, get over it already fandumb…
AND lol this is TOTALLY me taking a shot at all those EVERYTHING CHANGED WITH JUST ONE ACCIDENTAL KISS fanfics/songs/what have you. Because…no. It might work that way sometimes, but most of the time, it’s an awkward and unwanted moment of WUT. Then you wipe away the spit and move on.C-C-C-CLICHÉ-BREAKER! B]b ]
[Yuri, Flynn. 'What Goes Around.']
--
…So it wasn’t the most creative prank he could’ve pulled—Yuri admitted that freely. Still, certain things were considered classics because they were simply too good to pass up despite all the inherent clichés.
And getting your unsuspecting, generally far-too-uptight best friend drunk off his ass without his knowledge, just to see what he’d do…well, that was pretty classic. Besides, he owed Flynn big time for the way he’d been acting lately. It seemed like ever since a few months ago, when they’d discussed their old promise to join the Knights together once they both turned eighteen, Flynn had been particularly snappish. He’d always been more responsible, more straight-laced, more inclined to follow the rules and play nice, but lately he’d taken that to a whole new level. They were both still only sixteen, Yuri reasoned, so it wasn’t like they’d be joining up all that soon. There was still plenty of time to have fun and get into trouble…only, Flynn didn’t seem to think that way at all. Over the past few months, he’d become much more of a—well, a hard-ass, as Yuri had called him on more than one occasion. Making Yuri sleep outside because he’d tracked mud all over the floor of their tiny one-room apartment one too many times had caused the dark-haired teen to toy with the idea of payback; replacing his stash of gels with some sort of multicoloured plastic pellets had been taking things entirely too far (though Yuri did have to give him bonus points for unexpected originality).
But no amount of bonus points could save Flynn from the wrath of Yuri’s revenge.
“…I don’ think…yoo're takin’ thish sheriously…” Flynn slurred as he passed the last, now more than half-empty bottle of booze back to his best friend.
Their first experiments with alcohol had been years ago, when they’d managed to nick a crate of Dahngrest Gold from a merchant prone to overcharging his customers. The two eleven-year-olds had worked together to smuggle their spoils through a window into the cellar of the Comet Inn after it had closed for the night--it was a place of warmth and relative safety, somewhere they could both pass out without having to worry about being knifed or kidnapped or worse--and after they were sure the owner and his wife were asleep, they had proceeded to drink their way through the entire crate.
It was a wonder they hadn’t died of alcohol poisoning, Yuri thought with an amused snort and a shake of his head as he recalled the events of that night. But though they’d passed each bottle back and forth, both drinking a roughly equal amount, and though they’d both ended up falling all over themselves and laughing at nothing and lying unconscious on the floor amidst a half-dozen empty glass bottles, the next morning had found them in decidedly different states. Flynn, Yuri had been rather disgusted to find, was bright and cheery as ever; his mouth was a little dry, he said, but otherwise he didn’t seem to have even the slightest traces of a hangover.
Yuri, in contrast, had spent a miserable morning in the Comet’s public washroom, throwing up whenever he so much as looked at a glass of anything stronger than water. He’d felt ill and looked vaguely green for the next three days, though part of that was probably the result of being forced to choke down some of Flynn’s home-made chicken soup. (…At least, that’s what Flynn had called it. Yuri hadn’t known what to call it, other than dangerous and likely toxic. It had done an ace job of cleaning the stains from the washroom's marble sink though, he had been vaguely interested to note.)
If he hadn’t known that Flynn was honest to a fault even at that age, Yuri would’ve suspected that he hadn’t really been drinking his share at all. But then again, that sort of thing was just so typical of Flynn, Yuri hadn’t been able to find it in him to really be surprised.
But this time would be different. This time, he’d been determined to see Flynn really, truly, absolutely smashed. So this time, he hadn’t taken any chances: he’d swiped some Calabash Potion, and had poured it into several innocuous-looking brown bottles, tempering the taste with some of that trusty old Dahngrest Gold, which Flynn still seemed to like and Yuri would never drink again after that first experience years before.
Yuri wasn’t above cheating, either: while Flynn had been downing the Calabash/Gold mixture, Yuri’s identical brown bottles were full of nothing stronger than ginger ale. He’d put on a good show, of course, and faked sharing that last bottle with Flynn to allay the other teen’s suspicions just in case, and was rather gratified when things worked out perfectly for once, and he found himself grinning at the strange and remarkable sight of a giggling, weaving, red-faced Flynn.
This had been too good an opportunity to pass up: he’d coaxed Flynn into going for a walk, with unspeakably satisfying results. The blonde was swinging around lamp poles, sniggering nearly the whole time--that was, when he wasn’t showing off a surprisingly extensive repertoire of bawdy drinking songs, which he sang at the top of his lungs. Anyone else, Yuri thought, and people would’ve been throwing anything they could find at him. But this was Flynn, and even Yuri had to admit that he didn’t sound too bad--he had a good voice, and was actually managing to stay on key, though some of those lyrics would’ve made even the saltiest old sailors blush with shame. Thankfully Flynn was slurring enough of them that none of the people scurrying or shambling through the twilit streets took any particular notice of it. Besides, the Knights never came to the Lower Quarter anyway, so even if someone did report them, it wouldn’t matter; there wasn’t really all that much peace to be disturbed in the Lower Quarter in the first place.
“Hey, Flynn,” Yuri said with a chuckle as they passed the aque blastia in the middle of the Lower Quarter’s main square. “You look kinda warm. Why don’t you cool off a little?”
And that was all the prodding it took to get Flynn to take off his shirt and dance in the fountain.
It was too bad, Yuri mused to himself as he watched his best friend spin and kick at the water with a whoop, that Flynn probably wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning.
But the look on his face when Hanks scolds him for it tomorrow will be priceless, he thought as Flynn sloshed to a sudden stop. He stared downward for a long moment, transfixed, before leaning forward so quickly, he nearly fell face-first into the water, babbling something about people throwing gald into the fountain and stars and wishes and buried treasure.
It was getting late, and now that the novelty of a totally drunk and tremendously suggestible Flynn had worn off, Yuri just wanted to get home, though he ended up having to forcibly yank Flynn out of the fountain before the blonde would agree to stumble along back to their little apartment. Instead of sobering him up, that dip in the cold fountain only seemed to have made things worse; his feet were slipping around in his waterlogged, too-large secondhand boots, and he couldn’t take more than a few steps without going down in a mad flailing of arms and a renewed outbreak of helpless snickering. With a sigh, Yuri hauled his best friend to his feet for the sixth time in half as many minutes, and this time before the blonde could stagger off again, he slung Flynn’s arm across his shoulders, slipping his own arm around Flynn’s waist to help hold him up. At that, the blonde gave a tittering, tipsy little laugh, peering at him sideways as he asked, “Are yoo tryin’a…pick me up? ‘Caush yoo…are vereh pretteh, but I m’not intereshted…”
“Wow, you sure don’t let a guy down easy, do you?” Yuri deadpanned with a roll of his eyes, though he couldn’t quite hold back an amused snort. “I don’t know if I can stand that sort of flat-out rejection. I think my heart might be breaking. Really.”
Yuri wasn’t sure just what he’d said that was so funny, because he was certain Flynn wasn’t sober enough to recognise, much less understand sarcasm just now, but whatever it was, apparently it was funny enough to send Flynn into another fit of crazy giggling; in moments, the blonde was laughing so hard, his knees buckled. Even so, Yuri still managed to lug Flynn back to the shabby, tumble-down old boardinghouse their apartment was in, though there he stopped. He didn’t want to try dragging him up the stairs just yet--Flynn was little more than dead weight at this point, so Yuri’s arms and back were killing him by now--plus the blonde would probably get hurt on the steep, narrow staircase. And well, there was always a small chance that Flynn might recover a little, at least enough to be a help and not a hindrance in climbing the stairs…
“Whatever, I need a break,” Yuri muttered under his breath as he settled them both against the wall, trusting the deep shadows and late hour would protect them from any serious crazies for the time being.
His ass had hardly made contact with the cold cobblestones before Flynn’s head lolled to the side, coming to rest on Yuri’s shoulder. Absently, Yuri reached over and patted that blonde head, briefly ruffling his friend’s short hair.
Flynn heaved a contented little sigh at that, though a glance to the side a moment later showed that he was frowning groggily, his eyes unfocused, trained on something straight ahead, well past the stone wall of the blacksmith’s forge across the alley.
“…Iunno whattodo ‘nymore…” he confessed after a moment.
“Oh? What’s the big problem?” Yuri asked with a faint, crooked little smile.
“Yuri…”
Yuri paused at that, his hand still raised in the middle of giving Flynn’s head another inattentive pat.
“ ‘M worried ‘bout ‘im,” Flynn went on, and Yuri suddenly realised that the blonde was so completely wasted, he had absolutely no idea where he was or who he was talking to at the moment.
“Yeah? What’s there to be worried about?” Yuri pressed, keeping his tone light and only vaguely interested, letting his hand drop back into his lap.
Flynn’s frown deepened at that, though it was an ill-formed sort of scowl, almost nearer to a pout. “ ‘M…bein’ sherioush! Yuri jusht…does wha’ever he thinksh needsh t’be done…‘n’ sometimesh thatsh not sho good…he won’ be able t’do that ‘n th’ Knightsh…” The blonde had to take moment, blinking owlishly as he gathered his thoughts, his eyes narrowing with solemn resolution as he went on, “But…I trusht Yuri…I trusht Yuri more’n anyone! He’sh…ffffam'ly!”
Yuri looked away, shifting a little uncomfortably at that, feeling a pang of undeniable guilt for his flagrant abuse of that trust. But it wasn’t really all that bad, he reassured himself. This was just a prank, a little bit of payback. It wasn’t like anyone was really getting hurt, or like he was really betraying that trust, and it was all in good fun—
His thoughts cut off abruptly as he felt a light tug on his hair. Looking over, he quirked an eyebrow down at Flynn, who just beamed up at him with a guileless smile of total relaxation and gave the lock of long purple-black hair in his hand another gentle tug. “ ‘S niiish,” he said, his voice a hushed, besotted drawl. “Almosht ash nysh ash Yuri’s…” And then he was back to giggling again, letting go of Yuri’s hair in favour of throwing his arms around the other teen. “I jus’ luuuuuff Yuri!” he declared happily as he rubbed his cheek against Yuri’s shoulder, apparently still oblivious to the fact that Yuri was not only present, but the current (and somewhat less than enthusiastic) victim of his tight embrace. “He’sh mah beshtesh friend!”
“Great,” Yuri wheezed, his hands going to Flynn’s shoulders in an effort to push him away, or at least make him loosen his grip just a little; Yuri could almost feel his ribs creaking under the strain. “I’m—ngh—happy to hear that, Flynn—but even best friends need room to breathe, y’know—”
Of course, Flynn being Flynn, even that vice-like hug wasn’t enough: as always, he had to one-up Yuri and himself in a truly spectacular style, albeit unintentionally.
With a cheerfully muddled little chortle, Flynn let Yuri push his arms away--only to smile even wider and lunge forward unexpectedly, planting a wet, sloppy kiss on his very startled best friend. He’d obviously been aiming for Yuri’s cheek, but clumsy and awkward as he was at the moment, he’d come up short, and ended up catching rather more than just the corner of Yuri’s mouth.
For an instant Yuri froze, his mind going utterly blank at this unexpected development; only the continued pressure of Flynn’s mouth kept his jaw from dropping. A fraction of a second later, the shock faded, and Yuri turned his head aside, shoving Flynn away with perhaps a bit more force than was necessary before swiping at his face with the cuff of his long-sleeved shirt.
“Ugh…not interested, huh?” he growled, more annoyed at being caught off-guard than anything else. It was Flynn, after all, and they’d shared silverware and glasses and food and clothing and beds and everything else for years; after all that, one poorly-aimed drunken kiss wasn’t going to faze Yuri. “You’ve sure got a funny way of showing it.”
It took Flynn a few tries to push himself up off his elbows and back into a sitting position, and he gave a tired little huff before leaning in again just enough for his glassy, dilated eyes to meet Yuri’s now rather wary ones. “Nnnnow…don’ go ‘n’ tell Yuri any a’ that shtuff I toldjoo, ‘kay?” Flynn said in a loud whisper. “Nooo…kish ‘n’ tell… Issa…” Flynn frowned, apparently searching for the right word, then gave a hum and a triumphant little smile as it came to him. “Shecret! Issa shecret. ‘Caush he’d jusht…iunno, hesh jusht toooo…recklesh. Dun’t care ‘bout himshelf…” Flynn snickered a little as his eyes drooped, and he leaned his head back against the wall; he seemed to be talking mostly to himself now. “I godda look out fer ‘im aaaallth’time…he getsh inta lotsha trouble…‘n’ he’d prob’ly get inta lotsh more if I din’t shtopp’im…”
As Yuri watched, Flynn’s eyelids started to sink downwards; before long, they’d eased closed, though not before he gave one last sleepy mumble:
“…But…he alwaysh looksh out fer me, too…”
That guilt from before gave another sharp twist in his gut, this time so severe that Yuri couldn’t help but physically wince. With an almost apologetic sigh, the dark-haired teen looked over at his best friend, who was currently lightly snoring, the side of his face pressed up against Yuri’s shoulder once again. “Yeah…I look out for you, all right,” he muttered to himself sardonically. All of a sudden he was feeling intensely protective of Flynn—like it was his duty to take care of him now. Surely he owed him at least that much for all this…
With a grunt of effort and not a little scrabbling for purchase on his friend’s bonelessly limp form, Yuri managed to get them both on their feet again; but when confronted with all those rickety stairs, the dark-haired youth just gave a screw this snort and shifted his grip on Flynn again, all but slinging the unconscious blonde across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. The stairs creaked rather ominously beneath their combined weight, and Yuri skipped two of them that always gave a little too much under normal circumstances. He was staggering worse than Flynn had been by the time he got them inside their tiny little apartment, but at least he’d made it. With a groan, he dumped Flynn onto the nearest bed—Yuri’s—and then rolled his shoulders in an attempt to get some feeling back into both them and his arms.
Flynn, who was now face-down in Yuri’s pillow and still snoring away, remained blissfully oblivious and entirely unresponsive, though he might’ve started to drool just a bit. After a moment Yuri rolled him onto his side, pulling off his wet, oversized boots before covering him with the rather threadbare blankets from both of their beds. He started to turn away, seriously considering checking to see if there was any of that Calabash Potion left…and stopped. For the space of a half-dozen heartbeats, he just stared down at his best friend’s slack face, a whirl of conflicting emotions crossing his own; then with a sigh, he went around to the other side of the bed, settling himself atop the blankets with his back against the wall. Within easy reach, close enough to keep an eye on Flynn. Just in case.
--
The first thing Flynn noticed as he drifted awake was how heavy his whole body felt, and how dry his mouth was--it felt like he’d been eating sand, or perhaps gargling with rock dust. Sitting up made his head--or was it the room? maybe it was both--spin quite disconcertingly. He wasn’t sure if he dared to open his eyes again to check. That brief glimpse had been more than enough, and it had been very bright…
“Well, look who’s finally awake.”
Flynn only narrowly resisted the urge to clap his hands over his ears. That had been Yuri’s voice. But why was he yelling this early in the morning?
“…What…time is it…?” the blonde managed to croak, experimentally cracking one eye. When Yuri’s smug-looking face swam into hazy focus, Flynn shut his eye to the sight and fought the urge to groan, because he knew that smile. Did he dare ask, or not? He was pretty certain he didn’t want to know, but he soon found himself asking anyway. “What did you do this time, Yuri…”
“Half-past ten,” Yuri said, more quietly this time, and Flynn started, blearily opening both eyes as a warm mug of steaming something-or-other was pressed into his hands. “And 'this time', I made the home-made chicken soup. You look like you could use it…and I thought I’d pay you back for last time.”
Yuri’s cooking was generally quite good, and Flynn had always liked his chicken soup...but right now even the sight, much less the smell of it, made the blonde teen’s stomach give an alarming lurch. Shoving the mug back into Yuri’s hands, Flynn briefly struggled to get out of the bed, across the room, to the window or the washbasin standing in the corner, but his body felt leaden, his limbs too clumsy and uncoordinated, and the sheets had tangled around his legs in the night—
With only a muffled, gargling gulp as a warning, he threw up.
Right in the middle of Yuri’s bed.
For a long moment Yuri just stood there, steaming mug in hand, feeling an odd sense of déjà vu as he stared down at Flynn, who was now coughing into his shirt sleeve, still looking thoroughly wretched. Then, without a word, Yuri set the soup aside and fetched the empty washbasin from across the room, helping Flynn out of the bed, into a clean shirt, and over to the chair by the window, where he could hopefully get some fresh air. The blonde mumbled apologies as he went, which only made Yuri feel worse about it all, though that feeling faded somewhat as he turned to the task of cleaning his sheets. “Just drink some water real slow, okay? I’ll be right back,” he called over his shoulder as he bundled them out the door. But as he shuffled along, heading for the building’s cramped, muggy little washroom, Yuri found he couldn’t keep a wry smile from his face.
Payback really was a bitch.
A/N: This is partly me wanting to write Flynn acting ridiculous, and partly me loving the Yuri + Flynn BFFness too much to be able to resist: 1) an unexpected guerrilla plotbunny, and 2) an amusing prompt over at one of those Tales of Kink Meme things. |D
...And okay, this is also partly me taking…maybe…half a shot at all the Yuri/Flynn Flynn/Yuri shippers. Because…really, they grew up together, and they are both upfront and honest enough with each other that, if there were any sort of ~ROMANTIC INTEREST~ there, they would’ve already been a couple by the start of the game. Which they are not. B| They are FRIENDS and nothing else, get over it already fandumb…
AND lol this is TOTALLY me taking a shot at all those EVERYTHING CHANGED WITH JUST ONE ACCIDENTAL KISS fanfics/songs/what have you. Because…no. It might work that way sometimes, but most of the time, it’s an awkward and unwanted moment of WUT. Then you wipe away the spit and move on.
[Yuri, Flynn. 'What Goes Around.']
--
…So it wasn’t the most creative prank he could’ve pulled—Yuri admitted that freely. Still, certain things were considered classics because they were simply too good to pass up despite all the inherent clichés.
And getting your unsuspecting, generally far-too-uptight best friend drunk off his ass without his knowledge, just to see what he’d do…well, that was pretty classic. Besides, he owed Flynn big time for the way he’d been acting lately. It seemed like ever since a few months ago, when they’d discussed their old promise to join the Knights together once they both turned eighteen, Flynn had been particularly snappish. He’d always been more responsible, more straight-laced, more inclined to follow the rules and play nice, but lately he’d taken that to a whole new level. They were both still only sixteen, Yuri reasoned, so it wasn’t like they’d be joining up all that soon. There was still plenty of time to have fun and get into trouble…only, Flynn didn’t seem to think that way at all. Over the past few months, he’d become much more of a—well, a hard-ass, as Yuri had called him on more than one occasion. Making Yuri sleep outside because he’d tracked mud all over the floor of their tiny one-room apartment one too many times had caused the dark-haired teen to toy with the idea of payback; replacing his stash of gels with some sort of multicoloured plastic pellets had been taking things entirely too far (though Yuri did have to give him bonus points for unexpected originality).
But no amount of bonus points could save Flynn from the wrath of Yuri’s revenge.
“…I don’ think…yoo're takin’ thish sheriously…” Flynn slurred as he passed the last, now more than half-empty bottle of booze back to his best friend.
Their first experiments with alcohol had been years ago, when they’d managed to nick a crate of Dahngrest Gold from a merchant prone to overcharging his customers. The two eleven-year-olds had worked together to smuggle their spoils through a window into the cellar of the Comet Inn after it had closed for the night--it was a place of warmth and relative safety, somewhere they could both pass out without having to worry about being knifed or kidnapped or worse--and after they were sure the owner and his wife were asleep, they had proceeded to drink their way through the entire crate.
It was a wonder they hadn’t died of alcohol poisoning, Yuri thought with an amused snort and a shake of his head as he recalled the events of that night. But though they’d passed each bottle back and forth, both drinking a roughly equal amount, and though they’d both ended up falling all over themselves and laughing at nothing and lying unconscious on the floor amidst a half-dozen empty glass bottles, the next morning had found them in decidedly different states. Flynn, Yuri had been rather disgusted to find, was bright and cheery as ever; his mouth was a little dry, he said, but otherwise he didn’t seem to have even the slightest traces of a hangover.
Yuri, in contrast, had spent a miserable morning in the Comet’s public washroom, throwing up whenever he so much as looked at a glass of anything stronger than water. He’d felt ill and looked vaguely green for the next three days, though part of that was probably the result of being forced to choke down some of Flynn’s home-made chicken soup. (…At least, that’s what Flynn had called it. Yuri hadn’t known what to call it, other than dangerous and likely toxic. It had done an ace job of cleaning the stains from the washroom's marble sink though, he had been vaguely interested to note.)
If he hadn’t known that Flynn was honest to a fault even at that age, Yuri would’ve suspected that he hadn’t really been drinking his share at all. But then again, that sort of thing was just so typical of Flynn, Yuri hadn’t been able to find it in him to really be surprised.
But this time would be different. This time, he’d been determined to see Flynn really, truly, absolutely smashed. So this time, he hadn’t taken any chances: he’d swiped some Calabash Potion, and had poured it into several innocuous-looking brown bottles, tempering the taste with some of that trusty old Dahngrest Gold, which Flynn still seemed to like and Yuri would never drink again after that first experience years before.
Yuri wasn’t above cheating, either: while Flynn had been downing the Calabash/Gold mixture, Yuri’s identical brown bottles were full of nothing stronger than ginger ale. He’d put on a good show, of course, and faked sharing that last bottle with Flynn to allay the other teen’s suspicions just in case, and was rather gratified when things worked out perfectly for once, and he found himself grinning at the strange and remarkable sight of a giggling, weaving, red-faced Flynn.
This had been too good an opportunity to pass up: he’d coaxed Flynn into going for a walk, with unspeakably satisfying results. The blonde was swinging around lamp poles, sniggering nearly the whole time--that was, when he wasn’t showing off a surprisingly extensive repertoire of bawdy drinking songs, which he sang at the top of his lungs. Anyone else, Yuri thought, and people would’ve been throwing anything they could find at him. But this was Flynn, and even Yuri had to admit that he didn’t sound too bad--he had a good voice, and was actually managing to stay on key, though some of those lyrics would’ve made even the saltiest old sailors blush with shame. Thankfully Flynn was slurring enough of them that none of the people scurrying or shambling through the twilit streets took any particular notice of it. Besides, the Knights never came to the Lower Quarter anyway, so even if someone did report them, it wouldn’t matter; there wasn’t really all that much peace to be disturbed in the Lower Quarter in the first place.
“Hey, Flynn,” Yuri said with a chuckle as they passed the aque blastia in the middle of the Lower Quarter’s main square. “You look kinda warm. Why don’t you cool off a little?”
And that was all the prodding it took to get Flynn to take off his shirt and dance in the fountain.
It was too bad, Yuri mused to himself as he watched his best friend spin and kick at the water with a whoop, that Flynn probably wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning.
But the look on his face when Hanks scolds him for it tomorrow will be priceless, he thought as Flynn sloshed to a sudden stop. He stared downward for a long moment, transfixed, before leaning forward so quickly, he nearly fell face-first into the water, babbling something about people throwing gald into the fountain and stars and wishes and buried treasure.
It was getting late, and now that the novelty of a totally drunk and tremendously suggestible Flynn had worn off, Yuri just wanted to get home, though he ended up having to forcibly yank Flynn out of the fountain before the blonde would agree to stumble along back to their little apartment. Instead of sobering him up, that dip in the cold fountain only seemed to have made things worse; his feet were slipping around in his waterlogged, too-large secondhand boots, and he couldn’t take more than a few steps without going down in a mad flailing of arms and a renewed outbreak of helpless snickering. With a sigh, Yuri hauled his best friend to his feet for the sixth time in half as many minutes, and this time before the blonde could stagger off again, he slung Flynn’s arm across his shoulders, slipping his own arm around Flynn’s waist to help hold him up. At that, the blonde gave a tittering, tipsy little laugh, peering at him sideways as he asked, “Are yoo tryin’a…pick me up? ‘Caush yoo…are vereh pretteh, but I m’not intereshted…”
“Wow, you sure don’t let a guy down easy, do you?” Yuri deadpanned with a roll of his eyes, though he couldn’t quite hold back an amused snort. “I don’t know if I can stand that sort of flat-out rejection. I think my heart might be breaking. Really.”
Yuri wasn’t sure just what he’d said that was so funny, because he was certain Flynn wasn’t sober enough to recognise, much less understand sarcasm just now, but whatever it was, apparently it was funny enough to send Flynn into another fit of crazy giggling; in moments, the blonde was laughing so hard, his knees buckled. Even so, Yuri still managed to lug Flynn back to the shabby, tumble-down old boardinghouse their apartment was in, though there he stopped. He didn’t want to try dragging him up the stairs just yet--Flynn was little more than dead weight at this point, so Yuri’s arms and back were killing him by now--plus the blonde would probably get hurt on the steep, narrow staircase. And well, there was always a small chance that Flynn might recover a little, at least enough to be a help and not a hindrance in climbing the stairs…
“Whatever, I need a break,” Yuri muttered under his breath as he settled them both against the wall, trusting the deep shadows and late hour would protect them from any serious crazies for the time being.
His ass had hardly made contact with the cold cobblestones before Flynn’s head lolled to the side, coming to rest on Yuri’s shoulder. Absently, Yuri reached over and patted that blonde head, briefly ruffling his friend’s short hair.
Flynn heaved a contented little sigh at that, though a glance to the side a moment later showed that he was frowning groggily, his eyes unfocused, trained on something straight ahead, well past the stone wall of the blacksmith’s forge across the alley.
“…Iunno whattodo ‘nymore…” he confessed after a moment.
“Oh? What’s the big problem?” Yuri asked with a faint, crooked little smile.
“Yuri…”
Yuri paused at that, his hand still raised in the middle of giving Flynn’s head another inattentive pat.
“ ‘M worried ‘bout ‘im,” Flynn went on, and Yuri suddenly realised that the blonde was so completely wasted, he had absolutely no idea where he was or who he was talking to at the moment.
“Yeah? What’s there to be worried about?” Yuri pressed, keeping his tone light and only vaguely interested, letting his hand drop back into his lap.
Flynn’s frown deepened at that, though it was an ill-formed sort of scowl, almost nearer to a pout. “ ‘M…bein’ sherioush! Yuri jusht…does wha’ever he thinksh needsh t’be done…‘n’ sometimesh thatsh not sho good…he won’ be able t’do that ‘n th’ Knightsh…” The blonde had to take moment, blinking owlishly as he gathered his thoughts, his eyes narrowing with solemn resolution as he went on, “But…I trusht Yuri…I trusht Yuri more’n anyone! He’sh…ffffam'ly!”
Yuri looked away, shifting a little uncomfortably at that, feeling a pang of undeniable guilt for his flagrant abuse of that trust. But it wasn’t really all that bad, he reassured himself. This was just a prank, a little bit of payback. It wasn’t like anyone was really getting hurt, or like he was really betraying that trust, and it was all in good fun—
His thoughts cut off abruptly as he felt a light tug on his hair. Looking over, he quirked an eyebrow down at Flynn, who just beamed up at him with a guileless smile of total relaxation and gave the lock of long purple-black hair in his hand another gentle tug. “ ‘S niiish,” he said, his voice a hushed, besotted drawl. “Almosht ash nysh ash Yuri’s…” And then he was back to giggling again, letting go of Yuri’s hair in favour of throwing his arms around the other teen. “I jus’ luuuuuff Yuri!” he declared happily as he rubbed his cheek against Yuri’s shoulder, apparently still oblivious to the fact that Yuri was not only present, but the current (and somewhat less than enthusiastic) victim of his tight embrace. “He’sh mah beshtesh friend!”
“Great,” Yuri wheezed, his hands going to Flynn’s shoulders in an effort to push him away, or at least make him loosen his grip just a little; Yuri could almost feel his ribs creaking under the strain. “I’m—ngh—happy to hear that, Flynn—but even best friends need room to breathe, y’know—”
Of course, Flynn being Flynn, even that vice-like hug wasn’t enough: as always, he had to one-up Yuri and himself in a truly spectacular style, albeit unintentionally.
With a cheerfully muddled little chortle, Flynn let Yuri push his arms away--only to smile even wider and lunge forward unexpectedly, planting a wet, sloppy kiss on his very startled best friend. He’d obviously been aiming for Yuri’s cheek, but clumsy and awkward as he was at the moment, he’d come up short, and ended up catching rather more than just the corner of Yuri’s mouth.
For an instant Yuri froze, his mind going utterly blank at this unexpected development; only the continued pressure of Flynn’s mouth kept his jaw from dropping. A fraction of a second later, the shock faded, and Yuri turned his head aside, shoving Flynn away with perhaps a bit more force than was necessary before swiping at his face with the cuff of his long-sleeved shirt.
“Ugh…not interested, huh?” he growled, more annoyed at being caught off-guard than anything else. It was Flynn, after all, and they’d shared silverware and glasses and food and clothing and beds and everything else for years; after all that, one poorly-aimed drunken kiss wasn’t going to faze Yuri. “You’ve sure got a funny way of showing it.”
It took Flynn a few tries to push himself up off his elbows and back into a sitting position, and he gave a tired little huff before leaning in again just enough for his glassy, dilated eyes to meet Yuri’s now rather wary ones. “Nnnnow…don’ go ‘n’ tell Yuri any a’ that shtuff I toldjoo, ‘kay?” Flynn said in a loud whisper. “Nooo…kish ‘n’ tell… Issa…” Flynn frowned, apparently searching for the right word, then gave a hum and a triumphant little smile as it came to him. “Shecret! Issa shecret. ‘Caush he’d jusht…iunno, hesh jusht toooo…recklesh. Dun’t care ‘bout himshelf…” Flynn snickered a little as his eyes drooped, and he leaned his head back against the wall; he seemed to be talking mostly to himself now. “I godda look out fer ‘im aaaallth’time…he getsh inta lotsha trouble…‘n’ he’d prob’ly get inta lotsh more if I din’t shtopp’im…”
As Yuri watched, Flynn’s eyelids started to sink downwards; before long, they’d eased closed, though not before he gave one last sleepy mumble:
“…But…he alwaysh looksh out fer me, too…”
That guilt from before gave another sharp twist in his gut, this time so severe that Yuri couldn’t help but physically wince. With an almost apologetic sigh, the dark-haired teen looked over at his best friend, who was currently lightly snoring, the side of his face pressed up against Yuri’s shoulder once again. “Yeah…I look out for you, all right,” he muttered to himself sardonically. All of a sudden he was feeling intensely protective of Flynn—like it was his duty to take care of him now. Surely he owed him at least that much for all this…
With a grunt of effort and not a little scrabbling for purchase on his friend’s bonelessly limp form, Yuri managed to get them both on their feet again; but when confronted with all those rickety stairs, the dark-haired youth just gave a screw this snort and shifted his grip on Flynn again, all but slinging the unconscious blonde across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. The stairs creaked rather ominously beneath their combined weight, and Yuri skipped two of them that always gave a little too much under normal circumstances. He was staggering worse than Flynn had been by the time he got them inside their tiny little apartment, but at least he’d made it. With a groan, he dumped Flynn onto the nearest bed—Yuri’s—and then rolled his shoulders in an attempt to get some feeling back into both them and his arms.
Flynn, who was now face-down in Yuri’s pillow and still snoring away, remained blissfully oblivious and entirely unresponsive, though he might’ve started to drool just a bit. After a moment Yuri rolled him onto his side, pulling off his wet, oversized boots before covering him with the rather threadbare blankets from both of their beds. He started to turn away, seriously considering checking to see if there was any of that Calabash Potion left…and stopped. For the space of a half-dozen heartbeats, he just stared down at his best friend’s slack face, a whirl of conflicting emotions crossing his own; then with a sigh, he went around to the other side of the bed, settling himself atop the blankets with his back against the wall. Within easy reach, close enough to keep an eye on Flynn. Just in case.
--
The first thing Flynn noticed as he drifted awake was how heavy his whole body felt, and how dry his mouth was--it felt like he’d been eating sand, or perhaps gargling with rock dust. Sitting up made his head--or was it the room? maybe it was both--spin quite disconcertingly. He wasn’t sure if he dared to open his eyes again to check. That brief glimpse had been more than enough, and it had been very bright…
“Well, look who’s finally awake.”
Flynn only narrowly resisted the urge to clap his hands over his ears. That had been Yuri’s voice. But why was he yelling this early in the morning?
“…What…time is it…?” the blonde managed to croak, experimentally cracking one eye. When Yuri’s smug-looking face swam into hazy focus, Flynn shut his eye to the sight and fought the urge to groan, because he knew that smile. Did he dare ask, or not? He was pretty certain he didn’t want to know, but he soon found himself asking anyway. “What did you do this time, Yuri…”
“Half-past ten,” Yuri said, more quietly this time, and Flynn started, blearily opening both eyes as a warm mug of steaming something-or-other was pressed into his hands. “And 'this time', I made the home-made chicken soup. You look like you could use it…and I thought I’d pay you back for last time.”
Yuri’s cooking was generally quite good, and Flynn had always liked his chicken soup...but right now even the sight, much less the smell of it, made the blonde teen’s stomach give an alarming lurch. Shoving the mug back into Yuri’s hands, Flynn briefly struggled to get out of the bed, across the room, to the window or the washbasin standing in the corner, but his body felt leaden, his limbs too clumsy and uncoordinated, and the sheets had tangled around his legs in the night—
With only a muffled, gargling gulp as a warning, he threw up.
Right in the middle of Yuri’s bed.
For a long moment Yuri just stood there, steaming mug in hand, feeling an odd sense of déjà vu as he stared down at Flynn, who was now coughing into his shirt sleeve, still looking thoroughly wretched. Then, without a word, Yuri set the soup aside and fetched the empty washbasin from across the room, helping Flynn out of the bed, into a clean shirt, and over to the chair by the window, where he could hopefully get some fresh air. The blonde mumbled apologies as he went, which only made Yuri feel worse about it all, though that feeling faded somewhat as he turned to the task of cleaning his sheets. “Just drink some water real slow, okay? I’ll be right back,” he called over his shoulder as he bundled them out the door. But as he shuffled along, heading for the building’s cramped, muggy little washroom, Yuri found he couldn’t keep a wry smile from his face.
Payback really was a bitch.
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(btw, I'm home. I can has Bekahz?)
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IDEC
KEEP GOING. FOREVER. |DDDD
It was Flynn, after all, and they’d shared silverware and glasses and food and clothing and beds and everything else for years; after all that, one poorly-aimed drunken kiss wasn’t going to faze Yuri.
/HIGH FIVES IN AN OBNOXIOUSLY HARD MANNER. ENOUGH TO STING.
BECAUSE YEAAAAAH YOU WIN FOREVER TY.
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IN THAT CASE
/VICTORY DAAAAAANCE X'D
...lol FLYNN-MUSE IS STILL SORTA MAD AT ME THOUGH |D;;
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Y THAT ONLY MEANS U R DOIN IT RIGHT O COURSE