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Author's Notes: And we finally get a little bit of Yuri's backstory...
Good news of two kinds came the next morning. Estellise and Rita had made it into town, and a decision from the Council arrived with Sodia before breakfast. The decision was in his favor, and with their ruling, he was able to immediately draw up a warrant to search Cumore's property. Hopefully, it wasn't too late.
He put Sodia on the task of leading the investigation. He needed to remove himself from it as much as possible. He was already too closely involved and he didn't need his impartiality questioned.
Rita and Estellise's presence was a blessing also. Estellise might be able to get Yuri's spirits up a bit, and Rita might know a way to solve Flynn's current dilemma on how to send Yuri home. As soon as he issued the warrant, he went down to meet them and gave them a briefing on the situation. Both of them knew the sort of horror Yuri had to have experienced. They had been with Flynn the last time. Estellise left to find him and left Flynn and Rita alone to discuss Yuri further.
"Do you know of any way we can send him home?" Flynn's nearly sleepless night had his decision carved in stone and his resolve ever building. It was painful, but it was what needed to be done.
"I'll have to run further tests on him. The results I got earlier were largely inconclusive. Also, I'm going to need that book Estelle told you about."
"Of course."
"Are you sure you want to do this?" She looked out, down the over the snow covered palace gardens.
"Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?" The voice that came out of his mouth didn't sound like his own, but those words were reinforced with his resolve.
"Estelle told me about how close the two of you have become." She sighed a little, watching the cloud of steam that left her mouth. "He doesn't belong here."
"I know. That's why I'm sending him home."
Rita nodded a moment and then started off behind Estellise. "I'll do what I can."
If he had hoped for any sort of reassurance in his decision, he hadn't gotten it. That didn't make it any less the right decision. He had to think of what was best for Yuri.
From his window, he could see Yuri and Estellise walking through the gardens. His steps were slow and labored as if it was taking all his strength just to move. Hunched and quiet, he trudged through the snow behind Estellise. She was talking, smiling, trying to help him. They finally took a break, sitting down on a stone bench in the snowy garden. Her hand touched his arm, and he hunched further, crumpling into himself. Her embrace only broke him further.
Flynn couldn't waver. He couldn't be selfish.
"Sir?"
He turned to find Sodia waiting in the door of his office. "Yes?
"We found something of interest during our investigation of Lord Cumore's mansion."
She wasn't exaggerating. Apparently, Cumore had been in the process of attempting to destroy a wealth of evidence when they had arrived. It seemed that he kept very detailed records of his misdeeds, both involving Heliord and Mantaic. There were correspondences between himself and Ragou and Yeager. But it was more than all that. In the basement, there was a crate. The interior had been clawed at by fingernails and there was a handful of long, black hair. The sight of it sickened him, but it built his case.
With that evidence, he was able to issue another warrant for Cumore's arrest, and Cumore was none too happy about that. When he was taken into custody, his shouting was unmistakable from even the highest levels of the palace. Although that gave Flynn some satisfaction, it wasn't enough.
When that distraction faded and he could no longer bear to watch Estellise trying to get Yuri to open up, he went to the library. Pulling from the shelves any book that might have contained anything to help, he got to work reading. He still had to find Yuri a way home, to protect him from all of this. They had enough evidence now that his testimony wouldn't be needed.
There had to be something, anything to give them a clue, but the wealth of knowledge in those books gave him nothing.
It was late when he resigned his search. Maybe Rita had come up with something, but he wouldn't know until the morning. Shortly after her tests on Yuri, Estellise had stated that Rita had cloistered herself in a room to set up a miniature laboratory and decode her findings. It sounded at least a little hopeful when Flynn's own research had come up empty.
As he readied for bed, he was surprised by the sound of feet across the floor of Yuri's quarters. The first set were heavy and human, bearing a weighty burden, the second set were the pad of a dog. Yuri and Repede. What had prompted Yuri to come upstairs?
He wanted to check on him, he turned to do it, but stopped himself just short of the door. Yuri probably wanted to be left alone. But when the knock come from the other side of the door, he was stunned. Flynn hesitated a moment before opening it, but did it in the end.
Yuri stood there, the closest that Flynn had been to him in hours. He wasn't the same anymore. He didn't even look like the Yuri he had known before. That didn't change how Flynn felt for him.
"You're going to send me back."
"Yuri...."
He pushed past Flynn, treading heavily into Flynn's stateroom.
"Please understand. This is what I should have done in the beginning." Flynn took him by the wrist, but Yuri didn't turn to look at him, his arm held taut between them. His focus was fixed on the floor.
"I see. You don't want me anymore because I'm dirty." There was such venomous disdain in his voice, laced with hurt and icy cold. Those words stung Flynn sharply.
"That's not it at all."
"Then why?" Yuri demanded, his voice raised a little, anger heating it.
"Because I love you."
"Then why do you want to send me away?!"
Yuri was trembling beneath his grip, his heartbeat racing, warming the chilled skin in his hand. Flynn closed the gap between them, folding his arms around Yuri and pulling him in. He pressed his face into the crook of Yuri's neck, and that cold flesh quivered more.
He couldn't have known how hard this was for Flynn. Flynn knew what was right, what he had to do and he was resolved to do it, but that didn't mean that it didn't hurt. He had grown too used to this, he cared too much, he had let himself get too close to and too involved with Yuri. How could he explain that when his mouth felt stuck shut and his nerves frayed and raw? He gripped Yuri tighter, and fought for the words.
"I... I don't want to see you ruined any further."
Yuri turned in his arms, and Flynn could see just a quick flash of those eyes as he did. "You're an idiot."
Flynn kissed him, anger and sadness plain on his lips. Yuri didn't understand. He couldn't. It hurt Flynn too much for words. It stung his eyes and ate away at his resolve and burned like a fire in his chest.
He kissed him again and again and again, hunger devouring his sense and the welling in his chest too strong, to terrible to bear. Their feet moved beneath them, carrying them into Flynn's bedroom. He wasn't sure which of them prompted the movement, but he soon found them tripping over each other onto the bed.
"I love you."
"Don't make it worse."
"I'm so sorry."
"Shut up."
Barely a word more passed between them as they made love for the first time, a pile of sweat slicked flesh and burning hearts. Trembles and moans, harshness and tenderness, pain and pleasure and an aching hunger. It was all too much, sharpening his senses and dulling his mind. They fell apart on the bed, sated by not satisfied. If he had thought their togetherness would make any difference in his mind, he had been wrong. It only made his heart ache more, but he still had his resolve. Nothing had been fixed, nothing had changed. Flynn was still left with his original conclusion, even as Yuri was slipping into sleep beneath the sheets.
Flynn waited until Yuri was sound asleep before he got up. He didn't want to move, he didn't want to leave him there, nestled bare and alone in the bed covers left warm from their combined heat. He still had work to do before he wavered any further.
He dressed quietly and snuck out.
The halls of the palace were cold and hollow and so quiet that it burned in his ears. His footsteps cut through, clopping against the marble and the rugs as he moved up a flight toward the library. The door was open and the light from within fell in a shaft across the floor. Within, Estellise sat over a book. The sight was something of a relief, something commonplace in his troubled world that eased him a little.
She tilted her head up and smiled softly. "Whatever are you doing up so late?"
"I was hoping to hear some word about Rita's findings."
The corners of her mouth turned down in a frown. "Nothing yet, I'm afraid. I know that she's still working on it."
He sighed heavily and sank down to sit at the table with her.
"Flynn, about Yuri--"
"I'm sending him home." Their time spent tangled together only reinforced the truth of his feelings, so hastily spouted in the moment. And that was what was driving him so hard. "It's for the best. He doesn't belong here and I don't want to see him hurt anymore."
"I think Yuri may have been a transient."
His head snapped up to look at her. Her green eyes were firm and sad.
"It's just a theory, but the evidence points to it. The way he described Earth, the strange detachment from society, giving his coat to a little homeless boy, the way he eats, the way that he hates the cold and rainy weather, and sleeps with the animals all lead me to believe that Yuri was without a home on Earth."
He swallowed hard, a sour metallic taste leeching down his throat. It made sense now that she pointed it all out. It explained quite a lot, including his reluctance about going back. All the little pieces fit together so well that it was impossible to ignore. Why hadn't he considered that?
And that put his decision in question. He wanted to send Yuri home to protect him, but what good was that if he had no home to return to and the place he was returning to was even worse? He had been so set and so sure. He couldn't waver, but in the light of new evidence, it was hard not to.
"What should I do?" He hadn't intended to ask that aloud, but he let it slip.
"Maybe you should ask Yuri what he wants to do. This doesn't really seem like a situation where you can decide for him."
"You're right. Thank you, Lady Estellise." He stood.
"Goodnight, Flynn."
"Goodnight."
He found himself moving quickly back to his quarters. He was ready to return to Yuri's side. The question on what to do could wait for the morning, after Yuri confirmed the truth for him.
Slipping into his room quietly, he let his clothes return to the floor where he had found them after Yuri had gone to sleep.
"I was wondering where you'd gone." Yuri's voice pierced the darkness. Flynn turned to see him sit up in bed, the blankets pooling at his waist.
"Sorry. Business called." He slid beside him. "Can we talk?"
"About what?" The annoyance in Yuri's tone told him that this wasn't the best time, but the question was burning in Flynn's throat.
"About Earth--"
"I already told you. I was in a bad place there and I don't want to talk about it."
"Were you homeless?"
"Heh." He chuckled, but there was no humor in his voice. "You figured it out, huh?"
"Lady Estellise suggested it might be the case. I wish you had told me."
"Why? It doesn't matter. I'm not going back."
"Yuri...."
"If you don't want me, I'll go. I'll make my own place in this world."
"It's not like that. I just... I just don't want to see you get hurt anymore."
"I don't need you to protect me." Those eyes, deep wells of storm cloud grey in the moonlight were even more piercing than his voice, a million swords, shredding Flynn apart on the inside. "I can take care of myself."
Flynn reached for his hand, but Yuri stood, pushing past him and gathering up his clothing in one fell swoop of his pale arm.
"Yuri, wait." Flynn fumbled to stand, reaching for him once more.
Yuri slammed the door in his face as Flynn tried to follow him, leaving him standing there. He pressed his forehead against the surface, and heard the soft bump of Yuri's on the other side, a choked breath, a tense tremble.
What was going to happen now, he couldn't say.