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ajremixLook, I just have Thoughts about that hit Flynn took for Yuri and the lack of explicit let's-tell-you're-best-friend-you're-not-dead that followed.
Title: Harder to Breathe
Fandom: Tales of Vesperia
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2344
Characters: Flynn, Yuri, Estelle, additional appearances by Rita, Sodia and others
Summary: Obligatory post-Zaude fic. It's difficult knowing someone so strong can still be so vulnerable.
The sharp clash of blade on blade filtered through the pain, Flynn clutched at his chest reflexively. It felt raw and when his blastia shifted where Alexei's attack had hit, it left him gasping.
"Sir," Sodia said, her hands on his back, "please don't move!"
"Have to," he was having trouble getting his breath back, "Yuri..." Flynn coughed raggedly. Then coughed harder because he couldn't seem to get enough air. His head was swimming but he could see his sword laying on the ground and, beyond it, Yuri and Alexei fighting. Flynn rolled away from Sodia, arms shaking as he crawled forward.
"Captain, please!" She grabbed at him again, pinning him down. "Lady Estellise!"
"I'm here! Flynn, where did you get-" Estelle placed herself firmly between Flynn and the fight and gasped. "Flynn! Your lips are turning blue!"
"I... I can't..." he tried to pull away again, tried to look around Estelle to see what was happening. He closed his eyes as the warmth of Estelle's healing arte washed over him. He felt marginally better but when he tried to push upright, Flynn collapsed.
"What happened?" Sodia asked, her voice beginning to pitch into panic as Flynn started gasping again. "Did it not work?"
"I don't- it should have!" Estelle tried again. Flynn curled over, fingers digging into his chest around his blastia. "Flynn!"
"Look out!" Judith braced herself over Estelle's back, curling over the younger woman as Sodia reflexively shielded her captain. Beyond them, the apatheia crashed into the platform with a thunderous crack, debris thrown everywhere and it took a moment for the tremors and echoing noise to die down.
When Judith moved back, Estelle's focus zeroed back onto Flynn, sweat beading on his face. She cried desperately, "Flynn, what's wrong? What hurts?"
A hand rolled Flynn onto his back. "Avert your eyes, ladies," Raven said, shouldering into the group, his tone serious despite the lightness of his words. His hands went for Flynn's belt, undoing it with a flick and fingers making quick work of the clasps on Flynn's tabard. Raven tugged the black shirt where it was tucked into Flynn's waist band, slid his dagger underneath, blade-edge up, and said, "Schwann'll pay for it," before sawing through the material.
When Raven moved back, leaving Flynn bare chested, Estelle's hands flew to her face. "Oh, Flynn!" A blister, about palm-sized, lay angry red and bubbled sickly yellow in a starburst shape against his chest. She reached out to him again, hands hesitating because her healing hadn't done much to help him at all.
"This..." Sodia said so softly. "I've never seen a wound like that before..."
"It's a second degree aer burn," Rita said suddenly. "I," she flexed her hand, like she was stopping it from moving, "I'm familiar with it. That hit he took for Yuri must've been a compressed aer blast."
"What do we do?" Estelle asked, looking up at the mage. "How do I fix it?" There were tears in her eyes, hands hovering, wanting to do something but afraid to do more damage.
Sodia moved aside as Rita knelt down by Flynn, examining the wound. Her eyes were intense but unfocused, thoughts moving at lightspeed in her head. "It's that blastia of his," she said. "All blastia has an inscription that draws aer to it automatically to power the core. For bodhi blastia, it's usually a small amount that won't cause harm to the person using it. When that attack hit his blastia, it must have automatically collected the concentrated aer."
"Are you saying he's suffering from aer sickness?" Estelle ask but Rita shook her head.
"If it was just aer sickness, it'd either be effecting all of us or it would have dissipated by now." Rita's fingers clenched on her crossed arms were going white. "I think the aer is trapped in his chest cavity."
"Then... what do I do?"
"Try," Rita said, unusually hesitant, "try to draw on the aer that's inside of him."
"I... I never tried to draw aer from a specific location before." She looked down at Flynn's face, paler than she'd ever seen, eyes swimming, barely conscious. Estelle placed her hands over his chest, just hovering above the blister, and closed her eyes. "Please," she begged no one, her palms glowing and small motes of light rising from Flynn's chest. "Please. I don't want to lose anyone else."
Estelle's brow knitted as she converted the aer into her arte, healing those around her because she was wary of directing it back into Flynn. It took but a few moments, agonizingly stretched for eternity, before his breathing evened out, the blue fading from his skin and the strain eased off his face. Flynn managed to take his first deep breath without coughing and opened his eyes, only then was Estelle comfortable using another healing arte on him. Flynn tilted his head to where the apatheia had fallen. "Yuri?" He asked, voice still feeble but stronger than it had been.
"From what I can tell," Judith called from where she was examining the patch of red leaking out through the cracks in the platform, "the former Commandant is the only one under here."
Karol let out a breath, sitting heavily on his haunches. "Thank goodness."
Flynn wasn't so mollified, trying to push himself upright. "Then where-"
"No." Estelled pushed on his shoulders, forcing him back down. "You need to rest, Flynn."
"But Yuri-"
"I-I don't see him." It took a moment to find Sodia on the edge of the group. Estelle hadn't even notice she left. "I think... he fell." Sodia was pale, fidgeting, looking utterly lost and Estelle would've felt sympathy for her- seeing Flynn like this and unable to help him couldn't be easy on her, it certainly wasn't for Estelle -but she had more important things to worry about because Flynn was trying to get up again.
"Stop it!"
"No," though his color had returned, Flynn's arms were still trembling. "I have to... find-
"You can't even get away from me," Estelle said sternly, putting more weight down on Flynn's shoulders. "You're in no shape to go anywhere!"
He struggled for a moment still but was unable to do anything more without risk of hurting Estelle or himself further. With a shaky sigh, he went limp. "Sodia," he craned his head to look up at his lieutenant, desperation and determination shining through the pain in his eyes. "Please. Find Yuri. He's my family."
She seemed to go even paler, eyes dropping away and body as tight as a string about the snap. "...yessir." Repede bounded off to the other end of the platform, nose to the ground and the others followed after to help in the search, leaving Estelle to watch over Flynn on her own.
"If he really did fall," Flynn's voice was quiet, not really speaking to anyone, "I'll find him. I'll go after him myself. I can't lose him."
"He'll be fine," Estelle said, running her hand through Flynn's hair. Even with Flynn next to her, even with all her friends- all but one -within eyesight, Estelle felt terrifyingly small and alone. "He'll be fine."
~*~*~*~
Yuri was glad Estelle suggested waiting until morning to regather the group. Even though he'd just woken up, he was still exhausted and sore- Estelle may have healed the lingering damage of his wound but there wasn't much she could do about the strain already on his body from trying to heal naturally. On top of that, he was going to have to get some new gear, what with Duke taking back his sword and sea salt having sat in his armor and clothes for a week. He didn't have the time or patience to try and clean it out, best to just get it all replaced. That wasn't even getting into how long it would take to scrub the salt scent from his skin and his hair would take forever to get back to normal.
Though considering the alternative would be some strange guy thinking he had free reign over Yuri's unconscious body for a week, he was grateful for Duke's prudency for just sticking to the wound.
Estelle turned to head back to the palace before stopping. "Oh, do you want to write to Flynn and let him know you're alright? I don't know where he is, but the knights will get it to him."
"Nah, that's alright." Yuri stood and stretched. His side still twinged a little and he'd bet there'd be a scar there when he'd removed Duke's bandage, but it was much better than it had been before.
"Alright. I can write something, then."
"You don't have to."
She looked confused. "Someone should."
"He's got more important things to worry about."
Estelle turned to him fully, her expression tight. "I think it's too late for that."
"C'mon, Estelle," he tried not to think about her words earlier, about Flynn sending out ships to scour the damn ocean for him, "give him a little more credit."
"I saw how much your disappearance effected him."
"I'm sure it wasn't that bad."
"Why are you downplaying this?" Estelle's expression tightened further and Yuri was surprised at the anger on her face. "He took a concentrated aer blast to the chest, Yuri! If Rita wasn't there to help me figure out the problem, his lungs might've collapsed! It missed his heart by inches and he was still willing to dive off Zaude to find you!"
"Look," Yuri said between tight molars, uncomfortable with Estelle's words, "just say what you want to say."
Hands fisted down at her side, Estelle snapped out, "Flynn isn't as strong as you think he is!"
He couldn't help the incredulous look he shot Estelle because that was ridiculous. Flynn had always been the strong one. Asides from the occasional lows of their relationship, he'd always been Yuri's rock, anchor, guiding point- whatever. "He's the most determined, single-minded guy I know." And Yuri was including himself.
Estelle's expression softened, eyes darkening with emotion and voice wavering. "You didn't see him, Yuri. He took command of the knights and he did his job as well as we expected him to but... that was it. It was like he was hollow inside. He was helpless. All he could do was have ships out looking for you and because he couldn't be there himself, all he could do was wait. So he just kept working because if he stopped he'd remember that you weren't there. There was only so much I or Ioder could do for him." Estelle took a deep breath, willing away the tears Yuri could see welling in her eyes. "Flynn needs you the same way you need him."
That... that scared him almost as much as seeing what Flynn was on the verge of becoming in Nordopolica. "I didn't ask him to do all that for me," he said, a little sharper than he meant, but annoyance was a far more welcome emotion than fear.
"You didn't have to, he's your friend!"
"He has better things to spend his energy on than me. The Adephagos, the problems Alexei caused, the damage done to Zaphias- on a list of priorities, I shouldn't even be at the bottom of it!"
"Why do you keep saying things like that?"
"Because personal isn't the same as important!"
Yuri's voice range out for a moment in the empty street. He turned away from Estelle's stunned expression in order to get himself back under control. "We have a dream," he said eventually. "Flynn's in a much better position to achieve it than I am, but he can't do it if he keeps wasting time on me."
"Why can't it both?" Estelle moved over to Yuri, standing in front of him again. "Why can't personal be the same as important sometimes?" Her eyes were hard and jaw firm. "I told you: Flynn needs you the same way you need him. You give him strength, you guide him when he loses his way, you remind him of the promise you two made and motivates him to keep going even when the world keeps trying to beat him back." She took Yuri's hand in both of hers. "No matter what else you might think, you're important to Flynn. And you're important to me, and Rita and Karol and the others. None of us are going to give up on you. Like you wouldn't give up on us."
"Yeah." Yuri turned his hand over so he could squeeze Estelle's before pulling away. "Doesn't make it okay for him to go jumping in front of attacks for me."
"Maybe if you wore armor like he does, he wouldn't have done it," Estelle said a little sourly.
"I know." Yuri shut his eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry," he said in an even and genuine tone.
Estelle bit her lip. "Me, too. I didn't mean to make it sound like I was blaming you."
"Nah, I get it. When someone you care about is hurting and there's nothing you can do to help them, it's only natural that you get angry." Yuri hated being the one to cause his friends pain, especially when it was Flynn. He gave her a small smile, hoping his self-depreciation wasn't showing through. "I'm glad you were there for him."
Estelle smiled back softly.
Silence stretched between them, not quite awkward but not exactly comfortable, before Estelle asked quietly, "Do you still not want me to write to him?"
Yuri sighed, looking down at Repede who looked right back up at him as if he thought Yuri was being ridiculous. He probably was. Everything was probably so much simpler to a dog. "Nah, go ahead. Wouldn't know what to write besides 'Not dead yet' and you know he'll just nag at me about it next time we see him."
Estelle giggled. "He would. I suppose I should do it to save you from being lectured."
This time Yuri's smile was genuine, saying all the things he couldn't say. "Thanks, Estelle."
Title: Harder to Breathe
Fandom: Tales of Vesperia
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2344
Characters: Flynn, Yuri, Estelle, additional appearances by Rita, Sodia and others
Summary: Obligatory post-Zaude fic. It's difficult knowing someone so strong can still be so vulnerable.
The sharp clash of blade on blade filtered through the pain, Flynn clutched at his chest reflexively. It felt raw and when his blastia shifted where Alexei's attack had hit, it left him gasping.
"Sir," Sodia said, her hands on his back, "please don't move!"
"Have to," he was having trouble getting his breath back, "Yuri..." Flynn coughed raggedly. Then coughed harder because he couldn't seem to get enough air. His head was swimming but he could see his sword laying on the ground and, beyond it, Yuri and Alexei fighting. Flynn rolled away from Sodia, arms shaking as he crawled forward.
"Captain, please!" She grabbed at him again, pinning him down. "Lady Estellise!"
"I'm here! Flynn, where did you get-" Estelle placed herself firmly between Flynn and the fight and gasped. "Flynn! Your lips are turning blue!"
"I... I can't..." he tried to pull away again, tried to look around Estelle to see what was happening. He closed his eyes as the warmth of Estelle's healing arte washed over him. He felt marginally better but when he tried to push upright, Flynn collapsed.
"What happened?" Sodia asked, her voice beginning to pitch into panic as Flynn started gasping again. "Did it not work?"
"I don't- it should have!" Estelle tried again. Flynn curled over, fingers digging into his chest around his blastia. "Flynn!"
"Look out!" Judith braced herself over Estelle's back, curling over the younger woman as Sodia reflexively shielded her captain. Beyond them, the apatheia crashed into the platform with a thunderous crack, debris thrown everywhere and it took a moment for the tremors and echoing noise to die down.
When Judith moved back, Estelle's focus zeroed back onto Flynn, sweat beading on his face. She cried desperately, "Flynn, what's wrong? What hurts?"
A hand rolled Flynn onto his back. "Avert your eyes, ladies," Raven said, shouldering into the group, his tone serious despite the lightness of his words. His hands went for Flynn's belt, undoing it with a flick and fingers making quick work of the clasps on Flynn's tabard. Raven tugged the black shirt where it was tucked into Flynn's waist band, slid his dagger underneath, blade-edge up, and said, "Schwann'll pay for it," before sawing through the material.
When Raven moved back, leaving Flynn bare chested, Estelle's hands flew to her face. "Oh, Flynn!" A blister, about palm-sized, lay angry red and bubbled sickly yellow in a starburst shape against his chest. She reached out to him again, hands hesitating because her healing hadn't done much to help him at all.
"This..." Sodia said so softly. "I've never seen a wound like that before..."
"It's a second degree aer burn," Rita said suddenly. "I," she flexed her hand, like she was stopping it from moving, "I'm familiar with it. That hit he took for Yuri must've been a compressed aer blast."
"What do we do?" Estelle asked, looking up at the mage. "How do I fix it?" There were tears in her eyes, hands hovering, wanting to do something but afraid to do more damage.
Sodia moved aside as Rita knelt down by Flynn, examining the wound. Her eyes were intense but unfocused, thoughts moving at lightspeed in her head. "It's that blastia of his," she said. "All blastia has an inscription that draws aer to it automatically to power the core. For bodhi blastia, it's usually a small amount that won't cause harm to the person using it. When that attack hit his blastia, it must have automatically collected the concentrated aer."
"Are you saying he's suffering from aer sickness?" Estelle ask but Rita shook her head.
"If it was just aer sickness, it'd either be effecting all of us or it would have dissipated by now." Rita's fingers clenched on her crossed arms were going white. "I think the aer is trapped in his chest cavity."
"Then... what do I do?"
"Try," Rita said, unusually hesitant, "try to draw on the aer that's inside of him."
"I... I never tried to draw aer from a specific location before." She looked down at Flynn's face, paler than she'd ever seen, eyes swimming, barely conscious. Estelle placed her hands over his chest, just hovering above the blister, and closed her eyes. "Please," she begged no one, her palms glowing and small motes of light rising from Flynn's chest. "Please. I don't want to lose anyone else."
Estelle's brow knitted as she converted the aer into her arte, healing those around her because she was wary of directing it back into Flynn. It took but a few moments, agonizingly stretched for eternity, before his breathing evened out, the blue fading from his skin and the strain eased off his face. Flynn managed to take his first deep breath without coughing and opened his eyes, only then was Estelle comfortable using another healing arte on him. Flynn tilted his head to where the apatheia had fallen. "Yuri?" He asked, voice still feeble but stronger than it had been.
"From what I can tell," Judith called from where she was examining the patch of red leaking out through the cracks in the platform, "the former Commandant is the only one under here."
Karol let out a breath, sitting heavily on his haunches. "Thank goodness."
Flynn wasn't so mollified, trying to push himself upright. "Then where-"
"No." Estelled pushed on his shoulders, forcing him back down. "You need to rest, Flynn."
"But Yuri-"
"I-I don't see him." It took a moment to find Sodia on the edge of the group. Estelle hadn't even notice she left. "I think... he fell." Sodia was pale, fidgeting, looking utterly lost and Estelle would've felt sympathy for her- seeing Flynn like this and unable to help him couldn't be easy on her, it certainly wasn't for Estelle -but she had more important things to worry about because Flynn was trying to get up again.
"Stop it!"
"No," though his color had returned, Flynn's arms were still trembling. "I have to... find-
"You can't even get away from me," Estelle said sternly, putting more weight down on Flynn's shoulders. "You're in no shape to go anywhere!"
He struggled for a moment still but was unable to do anything more without risk of hurting Estelle or himself further. With a shaky sigh, he went limp. "Sodia," he craned his head to look up at his lieutenant, desperation and determination shining through the pain in his eyes. "Please. Find Yuri. He's my family."
She seemed to go even paler, eyes dropping away and body as tight as a string about the snap. "...yessir." Repede bounded off to the other end of the platform, nose to the ground and the others followed after to help in the search, leaving Estelle to watch over Flynn on her own.
"If he really did fall," Flynn's voice was quiet, not really speaking to anyone, "I'll find him. I'll go after him myself. I can't lose him."
"He'll be fine," Estelle said, running her hand through Flynn's hair. Even with Flynn next to her, even with all her friends- all but one -within eyesight, Estelle felt terrifyingly small and alone. "He'll be fine."
~*~*~*~
Yuri was glad Estelle suggested waiting until morning to regather the group. Even though he'd just woken up, he was still exhausted and sore- Estelle may have healed the lingering damage of his wound but there wasn't much she could do about the strain already on his body from trying to heal naturally. On top of that, he was going to have to get some new gear, what with Duke taking back his sword and sea salt having sat in his armor and clothes for a week. He didn't have the time or patience to try and clean it out, best to just get it all replaced. That wasn't even getting into how long it would take to scrub the salt scent from his skin and his hair would take forever to get back to normal.
Though considering the alternative would be some strange guy thinking he had free reign over Yuri's unconscious body for a week, he was grateful for Duke's prudency for just sticking to the wound.
Estelle turned to head back to the palace before stopping. "Oh, do you want to write to Flynn and let him know you're alright? I don't know where he is, but the knights will get it to him."
"Nah, that's alright." Yuri stood and stretched. His side still twinged a little and he'd bet there'd be a scar there when he'd removed Duke's bandage, but it was much better than it had been before.
"Alright. I can write something, then."
"You don't have to."
She looked confused. "Someone should."
"He's got more important things to worry about."
Estelle turned to him fully, her expression tight. "I think it's too late for that."
"C'mon, Estelle," he tried not to think about her words earlier, about Flynn sending out ships to scour the damn ocean for him, "give him a little more credit."
"I saw how much your disappearance effected him."
"I'm sure it wasn't that bad."
"Why are you downplaying this?" Estelle's expression tightened further and Yuri was surprised at the anger on her face. "He took a concentrated aer blast to the chest, Yuri! If Rita wasn't there to help me figure out the problem, his lungs might've collapsed! It missed his heart by inches and he was still willing to dive off Zaude to find you!"
"Look," Yuri said between tight molars, uncomfortable with Estelle's words, "just say what you want to say."
Hands fisted down at her side, Estelle snapped out, "Flynn isn't as strong as you think he is!"
He couldn't help the incredulous look he shot Estelle because that was ridiculous. Flynn had always been the strong one. Asides from the occasional lows of their relationship, he'd always been Yuri's rock, anchor, guiding point- whatever. "He's the most determined, single-minded guy I know." And Yuri was including himself.
Estelle's expression softened, eyes darkening with emotion and voice wavering. "You didn't see him, Yuri. He took command of the knights and he did his job as well as we expected him to but... that was it. It was like he was hollow inside. He was helpless. All he could do was have ships out looking for you and because he couldn't be there himself, all he could do was wait. So he just kept working because if he stopped he'd remember that you weren't there. There was only so much I or Ioder could do for him." Estelle took a deep breath, willing away the tears Yuri could see welling in her eyes. "Flynn needs you the same way you need him."
That... that scared him almost as much as seeing what Flynn was on the verge of becoming in Nordopolica. "I didn't ask him to do all that for me," he said, a little sharper than he meant, but annoyance was a far more welcome emotion than fear.
"You didn't have to, he's your friend!"
"He has better things to spend his energy on than me. The Adephagos, the problems Alexei caused, the damage done to Zaphias- on a list of priorities, I shouldn't even be at the bottom of it!"
"Why do you keep saying things like that?"
"Because personal isn't the same as important!"
Yuri's voice range out for a moment in the empty street. He turned away from Estelle's stunned expression in order to get himself back under control. "We have a dream," he said eventually. "Flynn's in a much better position to achieve it than I am, but he can't do it if he keeps wasting time on me."
"Why can't it both?" Estelle moved over to Yuri, standing in front of him again. "Why can't personal be the same as important sometimes?" Her eyes were hard and jaw firm. "I told you: Flynn needs you the same way you need him. You give him strength, you guide him when he loses his way, you remind him of the promise you two made and motivates him to keep going even when the world keeps trying to beat him back." She took Yuri's hand in both of hers. "No matter what else you might think, you're important to Flynn. And you're important to me, and Rita and Karol and the others. None of us are going to give up on you. Like you wouldn't give up on us."
"Yeah." Yuri turned his hand over so he could squeeze Estelle's before pulling away. "Doesn't make it okay for him to go jumping in front of attacks for me."
"Maybe if you wore armor like he does, he wouldn't have done it," Estelle said a little sourly.
"I know." Yuri shut his eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry," he said in an even and genuine tone.
Estelle bit her lip. "Me, too. I didn't mean to make it sound like I was blaming you."
"Nah, I get it. When someone you care about is hurting and there's nothing you can do to help them, it's only natural that you get angry." Yuri hated being the one to cause his friends pain, especially when it was Flynn. He gave her a small smile, hoping his self-depreciation wasn't showing through. "I'm glad you were there for him."
Estelle smiled back softly.
Silence stretched between them, not quite awkward but not exactly comfortable, before Estelle asked quietly, "Do you still not want me to write to him?"
Yuri sighed, looking down at Repede who looked right back up at him as if he thought Yuri was being ridiculous. He probably was. Everything was probably so much simpler to a dog. "Nah, go ahead. Wouldn't know what to write besides 'Not dead yet' and you know he'll just nag at me about it next time we see him."
Estelle giggled. "He would. I suppose I should do it to save you from being lectured."
This time Yuri's smile was genuine, saying all the things he couldn't say. "Thanks, Estelle."
