#flynn isnt here but yuri Pines

[hopeisour4letteredword]

look through your textbook (cause i’m history) ch1

Content warnings: implied/referenced domestic violence

Summary: After dropping out, Yuri’s life is a haze of working and trying not to lose his damn mind. Then he meets Estelle.

Read it here or check the notes for the link to AO3.

It’s late—too late, the community center isn’t supposed to be open at this hour—and there’s a crying young woman with blood on her face holding Yuri’s hand in both of her own.

Yuri really wishes he could say it’s the first and last time this will happen to him. Unfortunately, it’s neither.

“P-please,” the woman stammers. Tears streak down her cheeks, right through the abrasion that mars her cheekbone. Ouch. That must sting. “Please, I just—I can c-clean myself up, I just need a—a first aid kit and, and a place to spend the night—“

“This is a community center, not a shelter,” Yuri says, as gently as he can to soften the blow. Her lower lip trembles. “Hey, none of that. I can help with getting you cleaned up, and when you calm down a little bit we can think together about where to put you up for the night. Alright?”

“Th-thank you so much—“

Yuri waves his free hand dismissively. He fishes through his pockets for his keys so he can unlock the front door.

“Ladies first,” he says, using his captive hand to guide her inside. She sniffles valiantly, releasing his hand and inching inside the dark building. Yuri steps in after her, locking the door behind himself, and flicks on the lights. She flinches away from the sudden glare. “Shit, sorry.”

“It’s n-not your fault.”

“The first aid kit is in the staff room. If you want, you can wait right here—”

“I’m sorry, I d-don’t want to be alone, s-sorry—“

“Hey, you’re fine, that’s cool. Come on, then.”

They troop through the main community room. Yuri kicks in chairs that didn’t get pushed all the way back to their tables at the end of the day. That’s what Hanks gets for letting Ted help close up for the night. At least the kiddie zone got picked up so they won’t slip on any errant toy trains. The young woman flinches with every creaky floorboard and groaning pipe. Poor lady. This isn’t exactly a new building. There’s a lot of those noises.

Yuri unlocks the staff room, and this time has the presence of mind to warn her, “Lights going on.”

“Thank you....”

“So what I need you to do for me is to sit down and try to keep your hair back while I patch you up. Sound good?”

“You don’t—don’t have to—“

“Yeah, but I’m gonna, so quit trying to tell me what to do. Hair back.”

She obediently sinks into one of the shitty folding chairs Hanks keeps in the staff room. Shaking fingers hold her pink hair away from her face. Yuri sits down on an adjacent chair and tries to touch the abrasion as little as possible while he moves away some stray strands that she missed. She trembles, but doesn’t make a peep.

“Okay, what I’ve got here is hydrogen peroxide—“ He shows her the bottle. “And I’m just gonna pour some onto these cotton pads and wipe your scrapes down with it. It’ll sting like a motherfucker, but then it’ll be over with.”

“O-okay.”

“Chin up. You got this.” He holds her face steady while he makes the first pass. She still jerks back so hard that he almost gets her in the eye with the soaked cotton pad. “Whoa there.”

“I’m s-so sorry—!”

“Shit happens. Ready for the next try?”

“Ye-yes....”

Her jaw clenches under his fingers. She whimpers a little when the pad touches her cheek, but doesn’t move. What a trooper.

“There you go. One more pass, okay? We don’t want shit stuck in there when it heals up.”

She nods, firmly, and barely winces with the last pass. Yuri tosses the bloody cotton into the trash and reaches back into the first aid kit.

“Any other scrapes?”

“My—my knuckles.”

“Oh yeah? Let’s see ‘em.” Yuri swipes them down with one pass. They’re not nearly as bad as her face. “You know Neosporin?”

“N-no.”

“Really? Damn. Well, it’s just antibiotic goop. Shouldn’t hurt as much as the last stuff.” She watches as he spreads some onto a gauze pad.  “I’m gonna tape this to your face. Little weird having tape on your face, but in my personal experience, better than having an open bloody wound.”

“Y-yuck.”

“That’s the spirit.” He carefully tapes the gauze in place. Luckily, the scrape isn’t too big. Plenty of room to put the tape down without catching her eyelashes or the hair framing her face. He pops open a box of finger bandages and goops up a few to patch over the worst of her knuckles. “All set. We have some pain meds here, too. Want any? I got ibuprofen, naproxen, Tylenol...”

“Can I... ibuprofen.”

“All yours.” Yuri slides her the bottle and rises from his chair to search the cabinets. Where’s the goddamn cups? Oh, hell, that’s right. Hanks moved all of the cups to the kitchen. There’s only mugs in the staff room now. He grabs a “#1 GRANDPA” mug. “Lemme get you some water for that.”

He passes it off to her. She slips a pill into her mouth and drinks it down. Both hands lock around the mug when she lowers it, and she stares down into the leftover water, trembling.

“You cold?”

“H-huh? Oh. Um. A little.”

Yuri opens and closes a few more cabinet doors before he finds Hanks’s old high school letterman jacket neatly folded and stashed. Evidently the blankets they used to keep in here have been relocated, too. “We’ve got this. Might smell a little like mothballs, though.”

“That’s—that’s fine.”

Yuri drapes the jacket over her shoulders. She hunkers down under it without putting her arms through the sleeves.

“Do you want, like. Tea? We got tea, I think. In the kitchen. Not sure what kinds. I’m not really a tea person. I’m a heathen, I drink black coffee because chugging bitter sludge makes me feel like a badass.” She makes a hiccupping noise that’s something like a laugh. “There we go. Feeling a little better?”

“Yes. Thank you—so much. Really.”

“Well, I couldn’t just leave you there.” He scratches at his chin. “I’m gonna need you to get a head start on thinking about where to spend the night. I have to remember why I came here in the first place.”

“Oh, no, I’m s—“

“Don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong.” What did he come here for? He tips his head back, staring at the ceiling. He was home for the evening... bartending ended early tonight... he had already walked Repede... oh, shit. That’s right. “I’m going into the kitchen anyway, so seriously, do you want tea?”

“N-no, thank you.”

“Okay, your call.”

She still scrambles to her feet and follows him, so close that he keeps waiting for her to step on his heels. He’s not gonna be the jackass that tells her off, though.

“I just want to preface this by saying I’m an amateur chef, not a serial killer, and you can hold onto the knife until we go our separate ways if me having it freaks you out,” Yuri tells her, as he turns on the kitchen light. She gives him a horrified look, mouthing knife? He goes to the sink. The meat cleaver is exactly where he thought it would be. He can always trust Hanks and Ted to leave his good knives someplace where they rust and get covered in gross shit. He grabs a scrubber sponge and wipes it down, one side then the other, before drying it and bundling it into a dish cloth.

He offers the bundle to the young lady. She shakes her head, quickly. The mug is still tightly clasped in both hands.

“Why is y-your knife here?”

“I lent it to them,” Yuri says. “To the staff here, I mean. Well, I’m also staff, sometimes, but that’s not the point. They had a few whole chickens to prepare today, and someone made off with their old cleaver a couple weeks ago.”

“That was. Nice of you.”

“Sure, I guess.” Yuri tucks the knife bundle under one arm and leans back against the counter, considering her. Her hair is pulled back with an ornate clasp, aside from the bangs that drape over her abraded cheek. Under Hanks’s jacket, she’s wearing a fancy dress, something sleek and silky and blue that pools around her feet. It is, predictably, covered in dirt, dead leaves and grass stains up to knee-height. Her face is wan, with big, sad green eyes. A bruise is starting to mottle her cheek around the scrape. The very image of an abused socialite. “Can I get your name?”

“I’m...I’m Estellise.”

Yuri whistles. “That’s a mouthful.”

“I g-guess so.”

“How do you feel about ‘Estelle’?”

“Es...Estelle?” She perks up a bit. The moue of her lips twitches up just a little. “That’s nice. I like that.”

“Alright, sweet. So, Estelle. I’m Yuri. Do you want to tell me how you ended up here at one in the morning with your face all banged up?”

Estelle looks back down into the mug. “...Do I have to?”

“Nah.”

“Wha—I don’t?”

“Nope. It’s not really my business. I mean, I can make some pretty educated guesses, but you don’t technically need to tell me anything.”

“O-oh.”

“I can just straight-up ask what I really need to. You want me to take you to a domestic abuse women’s shelter?”

“I—“ The mug shakes in her hands. “I d-don’t count.”

“You don’t count?”

“It’s n-not like that. I c-couldn’t—I couldn’t take that space from someone who really n-needed it.”

Yuri sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Uh... I guess you would know your situation better than I would. How about... no offense, but I have no idea how old you are. Are you a very fancy teenager? Should I be thinking more along the lines of children’s shelters?”

“No. I’m eighteen.”

“God, you are a fancy teenager.”

She laughs a little, but it’s hysterical. “Y-yes.”

“I guess... shit. I’m just stuck on women’s shelters. You really don’t want to go? You sure? I can find a lady to drive you if you aren’t comfortable with—“

“N-no! It’s not you. Y-you’re fine.”

“Do you want...did you come here to find Hanks? I can call Hanks.”

“Who’s H-Hanks?”

“Oookay, that answers that question... Not gonna lie, I’m kind of confused about what you want.”

Estelle makes a miserable noise. “I am too.”

Yuri takes a hard look at her. The scrape on her face isn’t so bad she’s bleeding through the gauze right away, and her hands aren’t fucked up too badly. Definitely not a hospital situation. Poor girl probably doesn’t have the money on her to deal with the hospital right now, anyway. The way she’s acting, he’s pretty damn sure there’s some kind of abuse at play, but she doesn’t want to go to the women’s shelter. She’s too old for programs targeted at children. So what exactly is Yuri supposed to do with her?

...Fuck it. He’s tired, she’s tired, he’s overdue for his next scruffy stray. “Look, if you’re comfortable with it, you can come to my place for the night. I’ve got a one-bedroom, not a studio, so you can take the bedroom and lock me out if that makes you feel safer. I can sleep on the couch.”

“I c-couldn’t—!”

“Sure you could. I’ve slept on the couch for stupider reasons.”

“But—“

“If you’re scared, we can call somebody you trust and tell them where you are, so you’ve got witnesses if I decide to murder you.”

“I don’t think you’re going to murder me,” she says, scrunching up her nose at him and then wincing when it pulls at her cheek. “I don’t want to impose.”

“Okay, but I don’t care,” Yuri says. “So I don’t think it really counts as imposing. I’m going to text Hanks—he’s the director of the community center, by the way—that I have a very sad young lady staying at my apartment tonight, so that the next time you ask a total stranger for shelter, you think of that and remember to have some degree of self-preservation.”

“Y-you don’t have to—“

“Yeah, yeah. Oh, minor detail—are you allergic to dogs?”

As it turns out, Estelle is not allergic to dogs, but it’s possible that dogs are allergic to her.

“He’s like that sometimes,” Yuri says, absentmindedly, while Repede staunchly ignores Estelle’s attempts to make friends with him.

“He isn’t friendly?”

When Yuri glances over his shoulder, she’s staring back at him with sad, disappointed eyes. She kneels beside Repede on the floor, bundled into spare clothes Yuri dug out of the community center’s storage for her. Wearing second-hand clothes, making undignified kissy noises at his dog, she looks much younger than she did at the community center. The pouty face she’s making at Repede probably isn’t doing her any favors in the maturity department either.

“He’s not so hot about strangers. Seriously, don’t take it personally.” He gives the chicken soup one last stir. Cooking at 2AM isn’t his favorite, but it is, unfortunately, a frequent occurrence nonetheless. “Alright, there’s soup if you want any.”

She accepts a bowl, but waits until Yuri has his own. She watches and copies him as he lifts it to face-level, carefully blowing across the surface, and drinks some of the broth. He almost snorts some back up laughing when her eyes go wide, and she visibly tries to swish the hot broth around her mouth to cool it.

“You have to blow like you mean it.”

“I don’t want to spill!”

“Just don’t burn yourself.”

Yuri has a table, because he isn’t a complete disaster. He and Estelle stand around next to the stove anyway, slurping soup directly out of the bowls. When the broth-to-solids ratio declines enough, they break out the spoons.

“You’re a really good cook,” Estelle says, sounding wistful. “I wish I could make stuff like this.”

“Keep in touch with me when you get your feet back under you and maybe I can teach you someday.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

“Thank you!”

Once they’ve drained their bowls, Yuri does a lick-and-spit clean-up job on the kitchen while Estelle does a circuit of his living room, snooping through his stuff. He hears her pause over the rush of the tap and doesn’t think anything of it until she ventures to say, “Is... is this Flynn? Flynn Scifo?”

“Probably,” Yuri says. He cranks the faucet off and turns to see what she’s looking at. It’s the picture Coach Niren took of the two of them at their first fencing tournament. Yuri’s still got the last chub of baby fat rounding out his cheeks, and he’s laughing with delight over some stupid shit Flynn had said. Flynn grins back at him, gangly and awkward with adolescence. He has his arm thrown aroun d Yuri’s shoulders. He looks like a damn puppy; he still needs to grow into his limbs. Yuri would die before he told anybody, but it’s one of his favorite pictures. Flynn was grouchy as shit in high school. Every smile Yuri could wrangle out of him was a privilege. “Yeah, that’s Flynn. You know him?”

“Yes... He’s, um, a student of my guardian’s.”

“Your guardian works at the university, then?”

Estelle fidgets a bit, wringing her hands. “Yes....”

Yuri mentally stores her nervous response for later discussion. He can give her a break at ass o’ clock in the morning. “You and Flynn get on well?”

“Yes! He’s very well-read. We talk about books together.”

“Ah, nerd club. Of course. Sounds just like him.”

“Are you...” Estelle glances over at him. “You know, I didn’t think of it until I saw this picture, but I think he’s mentioned you. Yuri? You’re his best friend, aren’t you?”

Yuri doesn’t answer her for a moment because he’s too startled by the fact that Flynn is, apparently, still calling Yuri his best friend even though they haven’t seen each other in a year and almost got in a fistfight last time they ran into each other. Not that Yuri doesn’t also still consider Flynn his best friend, but, like. Standards, Flynn. Have some. “Huh. Yeah.”

A shy smile spreads over her face. “You’re just like he described you.”

“Oh, geez. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll try to be on my best behavior from here out.”

“What are you talking about? There’s nothing wrong with your behavior.”

Yuri stares at her again. “...I think we’re having two different conversations. How does Flynn describe me? Because I assumed he told you I was a pain in the ass.”

“What? No! He said you’ve got a big heart and you always try to help others.”

This is too much for Yuri to deal with at 2AM in front of a stranger. Or friend of a friend, apparently. Dammit. It’s always Flynn.

“Well, um. He did also say you were trouble.”

Oh, thank God, stable ground. “That sounds more like it. Come on, I’ll lend you some pajamas. We should both get to sleep. In the morning—like the real morning, not the fake morning right now—we can go back to the community center and talk to Hanks about your options.”

A week later, Estelle is still in his apartment. Yuri thinks she’s starting to grow on him. Not like a fungus, because Estelle is one of the only people he’s ever met that he would wholeheartedly describe as lovely. Terribly naive, mind-bogglingly sheltered, but lovely. So maybe like some kind of nice moss or something? He’s lost the trail of this metaphor.

He has bartending in the evening, these days, but when he’s at the community center in the mornings he tries to give her his attention. She seems overwhelmed by all the things she needs to find solutions for: housing, income, banking, emergency medical care... At least a few of those, he can help with. Hanks is a bigger asset. He’s got a lifetime of experience with helping uprooted young adults. Yuri is happy to put Estelle up for as long as it takes them to sort her shit out.

Still, he does sort of wonder if he’s gotten ahead of himself when Hanks texts him asking to talk to him and Estelle in private at his house. Hanks is usually fine with having personal conversations at the community center. Whatever he has to say must be serious.

“Should we have brought him something?” Estelle asks, a little nervously. She’s wearing clothes loaned from one of Yuri’s coworkers with Hanks’s jacket thrown over them. The ol d man refused to take it back from her when they met, and she’s barely taken it off since. She throws herself into hand-me-downs with an eagerness Yuri wouldn’t have expected, given her clothes the night they met.

“What? No. Why would we bring him something?”

“Well, you’re supposed to give your host a gift when you visit someone, aren’t you? Like a bottle of wine?”

“I know you grew up in the fancy rich high society life or some shit, but this is the Lower Quarter, princess. We don’t have the money for that kind of etiquette here. The only ‘wine’ Hanks is getting is the kind that comes out of my mouth.”

Estelle laughs quietly as Yuri knocks on the door and then shoves it open without waiting for a response.

“I’m in the kitchen,” Hanks calls, gruffly. Yuri shepherds Estelle in the right direction. Hanks has his back to them as he puts the finishing touches on a couple bowls of salad.

“Wow, breaking out the fresh vegetables for us and everything.”

“Someone has to make sure you kids get vitamins,” Hanks says, without looking up. He offers one of the bowls to Estelle. She peers into it curiously. “Spinach, bacon, cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes. I’ve got salad dressing in the fridge if you want some.”

“Yes, please,” Estelle says. Hanks waves her toward the small kitchen table while he goes to the fridge.

“Both of you have a seat. Estelle, what kind of dressing do you want?”

“Um. I’ll have whatever Yuri’s having.”

“Don’t let Yuri be your role model for everything,” Hanks warns her, even as he passes her the Italian dressing. “He’s a troublemaker.”

“I think he’s nice,” Estelle mumbles.

“You poor, misguided soul,” Yuri says. He takes the bottle from her when she’s done. “Hanks, you needed something from us?”

Hanks eases himself down into a chair across from them, groaning the whole way. The stubborn old man is going to hurt himself one of these days if he doesn’t give in and get a cane. “I did. Well, there’s not really a good way to get into this. Here. Take a look.”

He takes a piece of paper out of his breast pocket and unfolds it, dropping it on the table in front of them. It’s a flyer, the kind small local businesses will have on community boards or that gets slapped up on light posts on the street. It reads:

MISSING PERSON: ESTELLISE SIDOS HEURASSEIN

LAST SEEN AT ZAPHIAS UNIVERSITY, NEAR MEDICAL SCHOOL

18 YEARS OLD; 5’5” TALL; PINK HAIR AND GREEN EYES

CONTACT ZPD [(XXX) XXX-XXXX] OR DEAN ALEXEI DINOIA [ dr.a.dinoia@zaphias.edu ] WITH INFORMATION. REWARD IF FOUND.

In the middle of the page is a poor-quality, grainy picture of Estelle. It’s water-stained, with the colors distorted so that her face is barely recognizable. Yuri’s not convinced he would recognize her if he didn’t already know who it was. The flyer must have been outside. Along the bottom are tear-off tabs with the police number and the Dean’s email on them. Yuri recognizes the domain; it’s the official university mail service, so it must be the Dean’s professional email. It seems like an odd choice for a missing person ad. Looks like a few tabs have been taken.

Yuri glances sideways at Estelle. She stares down at the flyer, pale and scared like Yuri hasn’t seen her since their first encounter. They just stopped gooping up the scrape, so it’s scabbing over now , and the bruising has turned a sickly green as it heals.

“I...” She swallows, hard, putting her fork down. “I don’t...”

“Listen,” Hanks says, with a sigh. “I’m not about to turn you in. I don’t think Yuri will, either.”

“Fuck, no.”

“But I can’t promise nobody in the Lower Quarter will. Folks here are hurting for cash. Someone who sees you at the community center might take them up on it, even if they aren’t proud of it, so they can put food on the table.”

“...Yes. I understand.”

Hanks scratches at his beard. “I guess all I’m askin’ is that you think about stopping by the police station yourself. I don’t want Yuri to get charged with kidnapping.”

That makes Estelle jerk her head up, eyes wide. “Yuri could get in trouble?”

“Sure. He’s been on the wrong side of the law before—“

“The tweedles deserved to get pushed into the canal, you know that—“

“I do, son, but the police still weren’t none too happy about it. They aren’t much fond of him, and now he’s got a missing person stashed in his apartment. Ain’t a hard case to make.”

“But he’s not making me stay there!”

Hanks shrugs. “They could argue coercion if they get a bee in their bonnet. That’s why I’m suggesting you stop by the police station yourself, to let them know that you left under your own will and you aren’t missing. It doesn’t mean you have to go back to your old life. The community’s happy to help you figure something else out, like we have been.”

Estelle wrings her hands under the table. She looks down at the flyer again.

“I don’t want to go back,” she says, voice small.

“I’m telling you, you don’t have to.”

“If I talk to the police, they’ll make me go back.”

“You’re eighteen,” Yuri says. “You can go wherever the hell you want. They can’t make you go back if you don’t want to.”

“Will you come with me? To the police station?”

“Probably not a good idea,” Hanks says. “Remember, we want to show them that you’re staying in the Lower Quarter under your own free will.”

“I can still drive you there and wait nearby, though,” Yuri says. “I’ll hang out in a parking lot or something. Just scream real loud and I’ll come grab you.”

“Don’t scream unless you have no other choice, the police don’t like that.”

“Who cares what the police like? If they try to mess with you, break their eardrums.”

“Yuri, for God’s sake, don’t get the poor girl in trouble.”

Estelle giggles a little, high and anxious. The smile slides back off her face quickly, though. “I can... can I still stay with you? After I talk to the police?”

“Sure.”

“Really? I promise I’ll—I’ll stop by the bank, and get a new account set up. Then I can try to find a job and pay you b—“

“Estelle, chill. There’s no rush.”

“But—!”

“We’ll get it sorted out. Might take a bit, but we’ll get you there. You don’t need to freak out.”

“I just—“ Estelle sniffles a bit. Oh, God, no. No crying. Please no more crying. Yuri is terrible at comforting people. “You’ve been so kind, both of you, and I haven’t even told you anything and you’re still helping me, and I feel so bad, and—“

Yuri fidgets with a lock of his own hair. “I mean. This isn’t exactly a huge mystery. You’ve got big bruises on your face and you don’t want to go back somewhere. I might not have a fancy education, but I can put two and two together.”

“I... I guess that’s...”

“We don’t really need more information than that. Anyway, you’re a friend of Flynn’s. He would kick my ass if he found out I didn’t look out for you.”

“But you offered to let me stay with you before you knew—“

Hanks reaches across the table to pat her shoulder. “Don’t bother, miss. Let Yuri believe the rest of us think he’s a tough guy. We all know he’s really a big softie.”

Yuri splutters indignantly. “Hey!”

“He climbs trees to get children’s cats down for them,” Hanks stage-whispers to Estelle. She giggles, more genuinely this time. Yuri would be pleased if it weren’t at his goddamn expense.

“One time! Was I just supposed to leave Ted’s cat stranded?! He had a broken leg!”

“One time? Son, you’ve done that twice in the last year.”

“Tell Ted to get a better cat! I swear, next time I’m leaving the damn thing up there.”

“Yesterday,” Estelle tells Hanks, solemnly, wiping a tear away from the corner of her eye, “He held two babies for a busy mom. At once.”

Hanks chortles. Yuri groans, aggrieved. “I changed my mind, you can’t stay with me. You’re a menace.”

“No, no. You’re right, we can’t risk Flynn’s wrath. The young lady is here to stay.”

Estelle catches Yuri’s eye again and gives him that small, shy smile again. Yuri shakes his head, fond despite himself. He returns a wry smile. Of course she’s staying. He never should have expected anything different. On some level, he thinks he didn’t.

“Alright, princess. I guess I’m stuck with you.”

“I’m in your care!”