#feat proud dad-brother Yuri for Karol chomping up jobs like a champ

[bravewolfvesperia]

It would be late in the afternoon before a messenger from Zaphias had managed to wave Yuri down in order to carefully hand over a tiny parsel into his hands.

By the time the small bag of cookies had made it Dahngrest, a good majority of them had crumbled into pieces. The mail carrier would insist that they had treated the package with care which was probably the reason why the cookies were now just tiny bits instead of being entirely reduced to a bag full of crumbs and cookie dust instead.

Despite the chocolate (?) cookies barely hanging in there, the white parcel had definitely been treated with care and had been tied closed with a silk purple ribbon and a string that had a note attached, which when opened, would reveal neat but familiar handwriting.

"Yuri,

Unfortunately I am unable to leave Zaphias this week due to work piling up but I still wanted to send this to you to let you know that you are in my thoughts always and I eagerly await the next time we are able to see each other. Perhaps we could celebrate a belated Valentine's Day then, if you were interested. Until then, I hope these cookies will suffice. Lady Estellise tried to insist on helping me but I thought it would mean more if I made them myself. I hope you enjoy them.

I miss you and hope to see you soon. -Flynn"

If Yuri were to try one of the cookies, it would be clear that Flynn tried to make the cookies extremely sweet for Yuri but.... truly, it's amazing how someone could make a cookie that's SO sweet that the taste began to circle back around to tasting bitter instead.

... at least he tried?

@mistralxsoul

Talk about having very mixed feelings.

On one hand Flynn was thinking about him even in the middle of all of his work. Things weren't completely smooth sailing yet, so it was probably a whole lot.

On the other hand... Flynn... made this? Without, Yuri would assume, supervision?

Unfortunately Yuri did not have it in him to toss the cookies. Flynn made them with him in mind, and when he considered how stupidly happy Flynn was when he was cooking or baking, Yuri simply did not want throwing these out on his conscience. He would never be able to face Flynn if Flynn asked him about them and he had to lie about it when he'd really gotten rid of them. All he could do was suck it up and risk his life for Flynn's happiness.

Still, at least... Flynn was missing him. That did make him happy. Culinary disasters aside, it was always difficult being so far apart from Flynn. It was especially difficult to deal with after they'd really, truly patched up that array of problems along that journey. Really, it was Alexei who had formed that wedge between them, but the whole time was still excruciating for Yuri.

If the consequence of having his normal Flynn back was a classic Flynn attempt at cookies, he'd take that over all those hurt feelings. He really needed to sit with Flynn and really teach him to cook if he wasn't going to strictly follow recipes... Maybe he would do that one day; once things calmed down or once Ioder officially forced Flynn to take a week off. If Ioder had even a hint of Flynn's feelings, he was probably already making plans for Flynn's next vacation if their shared history together was anything to go by.

And, well, okay, sure. Flynn was right. It did mean more if he made it himself. Even if it was a poison in its own right, at least he happily, loving, carefully, preciously developed that poison without even realizing the damage it would do to Yuri's stomach. It was the least nefarious poison ever concocted.

Might wanna eat those cookies with a panacea bottle on hand... or a life bottle...

Granted, he completely left all that out in the letter he wrote back.

Flynn,

I guess it'll be a bit then. We're busy here too. Our boss found a whole list of jobs he wants to take on. The pay is good too so we'll have extra spending money. You should see the looks on the faces of the people who used to bully him in this town. They practically sulk when they see how tall he stands now. Seeing his success as a guild leader is a nice smack in the face that they all needed.

If you can't get here in a week or so I can probably stop by for a bit on a job at least. We've got our choices for the time being and there were at least two of them around Zaphias. It won't be a particularly long visit, but I can at least pop in.

I miss you too. Thanks for thinking of me.

-Yuri

Man, it was so much easier to write words like that than to actually say them.

And as a present for Flynn, he and Repede got the dog's paw wet just enough to stamp Flynn a little paw mark on the letter. Nothing enough to damage the whole letter, but enough for Flynn to know Repede missed him too. The paper would hopefully dry in the shape of the paw print. Yuri wasn't going to dip the poor pooch's paw into literal ink.

Well, Yuri supposed that meant he needed to get planning for White Day.