Words
Yuri had been a passive observer in this mockery of a serious situation. Because there was no way Flynn, his long time friend and obstinately straight laced companion, was sitting on top of him confessing love. Like… real love. Not that Yuri supposed there was actually such a thing as fake love (as it wouldn’t be called love at all), but this was serious.
So serious, in fact, that it stunned him into complete silence until the blond was practically running out the door with his ass on fire. What. The. Hell.
Yuri starred at the closed door between them, just willing the wood to catch on fire so he could relieve some of the tension in the room. Because, seriously, what the hell was that? Since when did Flynn of all people decide that today, of all days, was a great day to tell his childhood friend that he felt more about him than he had previous alluded to. That these romantic pondering had apparently been boiling up so long that he felt like would come apart at the seems if he didn’t express his love. And his concern. Don’t die? What did THAT even mean? It’s not like Yuri had ever been particularly good at dying and even if that weren’t the case, he didn’t exactly— wait. Did Flynn just run out the door of his own bedroom? Just where the hell was he going to go? The stables? Fuck that. Stables were Yuri’s thing.
Pushing himself off the bed, Yuri was suddenly filled with indignation. He couldn’t explain it, couldn’t really pin WHY other than he felt like he had been burdened with knowledge and left no room to escape it. Left no option but to accept it and say nothing more on the matter. Yuri was never good with letting anyone else have the last word and he really wasn’t good at taking shit lying down and not fighting back. Not that this was a fight but it sure as hell felt like one. In spite his feverish state (or maybe that was the remains of alcohol still buzzing in his head) and everything else that was wrong in his head, or rather BECAUSE of his feverish state and everything else that was wrong in his head, Yuri ripped open the door to Flynn’s room and stormed down the hall after the slowly retreating blond. Not involved. That was the phrase that had tripped his trigger. Not the love confession. Not expectation that he was going to get himself killed someday. Not even the part where Flynn was certain Yuri wouldn’t feel the same. No, it was that he had the gal to push these things onto Yuri and then have the nerve to tell him he wasn’t involved. Like hell he wasn’t. "Flynn!" Yuri roared, surprised by how loud his own voice sounded in the dimly light hallway. He could see the blond turning to look, could see him shifting to face what he was probably dreading but everything that Yuri could see was painted in shades of anger. So he did what any reasonable friend would do. He hit him.
Because… why not? "Stop running away!" Was the first thing he thought to blurt out in his slightly intoxicated and/or sick state (these things were sometimes hard to tell you know), cheeks red with his rising temper and even faster rising temperature. "You don’t get to say something like that and then just… run away! What do you even mean ‘you’re not involved’? Like hell I am!"
He was running on pure anger and adrenalin. Lord only knows how he was actually still standing.
It's not like Flynn could continue to walk, knowing that the voice of the restless and freshly disturbed had followed his polished and refined footfalls. Turning upon his heels he profiled himself to his friend, now graduated to accoster.
Feet side stepping to unreliable positioning, as a budding explosion of instinct nearly overcame his reaction time, fists closing shut to raise as those same feet scatterd to reliable fixed setting. Stance solid, and cerulean eyes narrowing to slits as his eyebrows furrowed as a crease appeared between them.
"You don’t get to say something like that and then just… run away! What do you even mean ‘you’re not involved’? Like hell I am!"
"Involving yourself by bringing violence into the situation? Yes, yes you very much are now. Don't make it any worse than it already is Yuri!" His jaw, it had been the center point of the strike, which allowed for a smooth cut sensation to strip across his nerves as he spoke determined words. The taste of copper filtered into the blond's senses, followed by anger, that bubbled upwards into him as his fingertips raised to touch the torn flesh of his lower lip from the swelling impact, which would likely bruise into a ugly purple and blue mark that would be a tall-tell to explain, aside from just complicated in nature.
"You're lucky I'm the type to keep this between us, because assault is the last charge I'm going to excuse on my watch."
Flynn's voice was perforated with a deflated sense of righteousness.
Yuri was a loose canon and unpredictable at times, stoic; and private by nature, but the source of the anger was Flynn's own words- words that the blond chose to grace with explanation. Lowering his hands to fall at hip level as the words spilt out from a grating voice box, cold as the repetitive decorative hallway and distant as a lecturing authority.
"My feelings are not your responsibility, in this way; you are excluded from being an involved party. Even if they are directed at you, my /actions/ have not changed, until now. I made a selfish mistake just now in alerting you to alleviate my own burden, and for this I formally apologize. However you and I both know that nothing is to come of fruition if I am interested in continuity of my job, my reputation; and my values."
His jaw stung, fingertips were touched with crimson.
"We all know that I can't simply indulge my heart like that. I'm not like you Yuri."
Although sometimes I wish I were, it's not what the world needs.
His fists came to close firmly, gripping tightly, as his intense azure gaze never faltered, demanding attention from the other male and holding Yuri's eyes with his own.
"I must have control, and a resilient ability to withhold from desires for the priorities I've already set out to accomplish. I'm sorry to have involved you in such a useless affair. Now please, get some sleep..."
Padding along the tiled floor, Flynn's gaze averted, and locked with the predictable precision cut of the color scheme. Bangs hung into his line of sight, as it was difficult to imagine a time in his life where he had been hammered by a sense of shame outside of the current ten minutes or so.
Yuri had given so much to him, but Flynn couldn't even give him the power to choose what he would do with the growing prayer his heart had beat deep within his chest, telling him tim and time again the things that had gone wrong between them.
Wrong because Yuri would be better off without Flynn in this case,
Hadn't that been where he had always been before? To think and to feel? If he had been left to his own devices before all this, his inevitable conclusion had been to keep it all bottled up to himself. His brain was struggling to make sense of what had happened now, that had changed up the game, and it was the fact that now Yuri was a player.
He may as well have been delusional, wondering through projections of his own imagination, he may as well have been professing love to himself, because as fragile and pained as those words felt coming from his mouth, they meant nothing.
It was Yuri's presence that made everything real, it put things on the table that Flynn had not been prepared to set. With Yuri dead and coming back from the grave, so many things had changed in Flynn.
It felt like it was no longer just up to Flynn.
It could make everything so much more important to say /now/ rather than yesterday, rather than the day after Yuri was gone.
Too much time passing.
Rather than after Yuri was dead.
Life was precious and death was unforgivable, it had no mercy, it had taken so many from him in just the past few months, and Yuri being added to that list had weighed the outcome of his future as a dull listless void. It took more than just Yuri, it took Flynn with him.
The reason the blond chose to say something?
The reason he had said anything at all?
Not to benefit, not to receive any response at all- the truth behind why Flynn had said his feelings?
It was because he hadn't.
Because Yuri, in so far as all of Dahngrest knew, in so far as his infallible intelligence units knew, through all networks and communications, in Aspio, in Halure, in Zaphias- had been dead.
And regret was worse and more permanent and all consuming, weighed more- than ANY other feeling that could remain in the wake of such a tragedy.
It was worse than giving away self control; worse than being reckless, and ate away at every part of him. It made the blond insane- worse than embarrassment, or burdening those you cared for with a sense of obligation, worse than anything else no matter how improbable, and how hard it was to believe, being filled with regret, and seeing life taken around you, everywhere you turned- it made everything that much worse. There was a before, there was an after, and that was it.
Yuri could understand that... couldn't he?
I want you to understand me...
In this case- Flynn was better off alone. The damage was done. He would no longer be filled with regret, but now that he had made this choice, the selfishness of it all overwhelmed him.
Blood, crimson and warm touched along his jawline, as the back of his fingertips shakily touched over moist lips. Stepping down the hallway and refusing to raise his head high.
How reckless and self focused had he become in his anxiety? In his sleep deprived lucidity? Since when did he let himself fall prey to such things as exhaustion? No, he was going to sleep- and in his dreams, he was going to be left alone, in another place, free from death, obviously hallucinating at this point, telling Yuri- YURI LOWELL he loved him.
A broken, searching chuckle left a disbalanced shattered heart.
He needed sleep.
Invincible conclusion.
He would wake up from this monstrous mistake whole and revived. Maybe a little more sane- that's all he needed, a little rest to get his head, his brain- straight.
"Straight."
The wordplay had never been more ironic or precise.
