I wrote this story for Hoskky, who also provided all the French translations. Well, Yuri's at least. I put Estelle's through Google translate since she's not supposed to be 100% fluent. Anyway, you don't have to understand French to understand this story, although if you want to know what everybody's saying there's a translation on tumblr, a link to which is on my profile.

Also, this story turned out super Canadian.

French Immersion

Flynn sat at his new desk, typing an e-mail to Estelle. Every few lines, he stopped to look around his room, relishing the newness of it all. He'd only arrived a few hours ago, and even though his university was in the same city he'd grown up in, it felt so new and exciting.

So far, only half of the room was lived in. He'd spent the afternoon unpacking everything, hanging posters of his favourite hockey players, putting all his books away alphabetically by author, and making his bed with military precision, but his roommate had yet to arrive. Flynn was anxious about meeting him; he'd never had to share a room before and now he was going to have to live with a complete stranger for eight months. He only knew a few things about the guy: his name was Yuri Lowell, he was in the Humanities faculty, and he was an international student from France.

The third one was the thing he was most excited about. The furthest Flynn had ever been from Toronto was a long weekend at his friend's cottage a couple of hours north of the city. As soon as he found out his roommate was from France, he'd tried to brush up on his French. It was rather daunting to realize just how much he'd forgotten, since he hadn't studied it since grade nine, but he thought he remembered enough to get by. The fact that he had never been very good at learning languages even when actively studying them didn't deter him.

He finished writing the e-mail to Estelle and clicked send, and then glanced at the clock. It was already almost 10:00; where was Yuri? Classes started tomorrow morning. Just as he was about to shut down his computer and get ready for bed, he heard a key in the lock. There he was!

Flynn twisted around in his chair as the door opened. A young man with lanky black hair trudged into the room and tossed a duffle bag on the bed. He let the door slam shut and then collapsed onto his back.

Flynn wasted no time getting to his feet. This was it, time to put his French to the test. "Bonjour!"

Yuri raised his head, bags under his eyes. "Hm?"

"Um… je m'appelle Flynn. Vous es Yuri, oui?"

Yuri yawned, rubbed his eyes, and sat up. He nodded and then said, "Tu parles Français?"

Flynn nodded hesitantly. He sort of spoke French at the very least. He tried to tell Yuri that he'd learned it in school. "Je apprende Français à école."

Yuri just stared at him and Flynn worried he'd gotten something wrong. "Er… bienvenue au Canada." He approached the bed and held out his hand. "C'est bien to rencontrer vous." Crap, he'd messed up! 'To' was not a French word. This was going to be harder than he thought, and so far all he'd done was welcome him to Canada and told him it was nice to meet him.

Yuri raised an eyebrow. "Ok, alors tu ne parles pas vraiment Français." He stuck out his hand and shook Flynn's briefly. "Ça promet d'être intéressant."

Flynn tried to hide his nervousness as he pulled his hand back. Yuri spoke quickly and he had a strong accent that made it difficult to figure out what he was saying. Flynn just nodded with a persistent smile, determined to make this work. He sat on his bed across from Yuri asked, "So… pourquoi vous arriver so…" Late. Why had Yuri arrived so late. Damn, what was the word for late? "…Latté?"

Yuri frowned in confusion and Flynn smacked his forehead. Hopefully Yuri wouldn't realize latté was a type of drink and just think that was an English word. Wait, was latté French? No… he was pretty sure it came from Italian. He was probably safe.

Yuri seemed to figure out what he was getting at because he let out a stream of French that sounded like an explanation . Flynn couldn't be sure, because he spoke quickly in that heavy accent. He caught a few words like, 'Frankfurt', 'airplane', and 'seventeen hours', but other than that all he had to go on were Yuri's frustrated gestures and angry expression.

He thought Yuri meant he'd had a really long flight with a layover in Frankfurt. Maybe that was the 'seventeen hours' because it certainly didn't take that long to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. A seventeen hour layover in a city the opposite direction of where he wanted to be would put Flynn in a sour mood, too. "Pourquoi Frankfurt? C'est…um, est, et Canada ouest."

Yuri scowled and shrugged one shoulder. "C'était environ huit cent euros moins cher. Je peux difficilement me payer plus."

Something about money. Flynn nodded, trying to be empathetic. He definitely understood financial trouble. The only reason he could afford university at all was the scholarship he'd gotten. "So, um… vous dans Humanities?"

Yuri nodded. Good; he understood. Flynn wasn't sure if 'Humanities' was called something different in French. La Humanités…?

"Je à… Social Science. Je suis… majoring… à political science." He couldn't even begin to translate that into French, so he hoped Yuri understood. He didn't know too much about Humanities, though. That faculty had a reputation for being for people without a career in mind, like English and Philosophy. "Que vous majoring à?"

Yuri shrugged again. "Je ne sais pas. Je n'ai pas vraiment encore choisi dans quoi je vais me spécialiser. Si ça ne te dérange pas, je vais au lit. J'ai dormi sur un banc de l'aéroport la nuit dernière et je suis crevé."

Yuri got up, threw his duffle bag to the floor, and pulled out some sheets and a pillow. Flynn didn't know what he'd just said, but he understood from his actions that Yuri was going to bed. "Oui, ok, bon nuit." Flynn went back to his desk to turn off his computer, feeling pretty pleased with himself for getting through an entire conversation in French. Maybe this wasn't going to be so hard after all.

At 11:30 the next morning, Flynn arrived home from his first ever university class. The prospect of being a university graduate, with a degree and everything, and going into politics to really make a difference in this country left a bounce in his step. When he walked into his dorm room, he found Yuri towelling his hair dry in front of the mirror on the closet door.

Yuri glanced over his shoulder. "Salut."

"Hey. Sleep well? Er… dormir bon?"

Yuri nodded and tossed the towel to a laundry basket at the foot of his bed. "Pas mal. Comment c'était, les cours?"

Something about class? Flynn nodded and smiled. "Il est bien." To make sure he got his point across he gave Yuri thumbs up. Wait, did they have that gesture in France? Flynn suddenly recalled that in some places in the world, thumbs up was the equivalent of giving someone the middle finger. He quickly lowered his hands and prayed France wasn't one of those places.

Yuri grabbed a shirt from his duffle bag and pulled it over his head. Then he nodded at the posters on Flynn's wall. "Tu aimes le hockey?"

Hockey! He knew that word. He nodded eagerly. "Oui! I played in – I mean, je jouer à école." He'd played all through high school and was looking forward to trying out for the team next week. It wasn't like he had dreams of playing professionally, but it was nice to do something active and get his blood pumping. "Jouer vous?"

Yuri shook his head. " Nan. Et pourquoi tu continues de me dire 'vous'? C'est bizarre."

Flynn just smiled and nodded. "Right… when – quand… vous avez class?"

"T'es vraiment mauvais en français, hein? Bref, je n'ai pas cours jusqu'à deux heures et demie. Tout du moins, je crois que c'est ce que tu essayes de demander."

Flynn really hated it when Yuri let out a long stream. It was hard to break it down. He had picked out a time, though, so that was something. "Two-thirty? Hey, moi aussi!" His next class was also at 2:30, which was perfect timing. "Voulez-vous… uh…" He'd really wanted to get by on his own, but he could tell he was failing. In desperation, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and consulted an English to French dictionary as quickly as possible. He just hoped he was putting the words together in the right order "Um, ok, voulez-vous venir moi à Tim Hortons?"

"C'est qui, Tim Horton?"

"No, no, Tim's isn't a who, it's place. Well, I suppose it used to be a who – he was a hockey player – but he died and now it's a coffee shop. And you didn't understand any of that, did you?" Flynn sighed and consulted his phone again. "C'est café. Je recontrer mon amie." Estelle was taking the subway in and meeting him for lunch.

"Ouais, pourquoi pas? Allons-y."

Flynn took that as an agreement and led the way. As they left the residence building, it occurred to him that Yuri's flight had come in late last night and this was his first day in Canada. Was it scary to come to a new country? He didn't even know what Tim Hortons was; how could he be prepared to deal with Canada? Flynn decided he was going to have to take it upon himself to be Yuri's ambassador to Canada and teach him everything he needed to know.

They walked across the lawn, walking around students laying on the grass or playing football. The September morning was warm and sunny, and Flynn took a moment to wonder how different this school would look come winter, and then if Yuri had much experience with snow. It snowed in France, didn't it? Parts of it, at least. Was Yuri from one of those parts? He should ask.

"Où dans France est vous… de?"

"Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur."

That didn't help. "Uh… Où est… les?" That was wrong. That was so wrong.

Luckily, Yuri understood his confused expression even if his grammar was atrocious. He pointed toward the ground. "Sud."

South. Ok, southern France. Probably not much snow experience, then. He was certainly going to be in for a shock this winter.

There were five Tim Hortons on campus, but none of them had nice seating areas so instead they crossed the street and walked a block away to the off-campus Tim Hortons. Flynn was pretty sure there was another one a block away from the other side of campus, too. In fact, he had a theory that Tim Hortons were not so much built as grown, and any time an empty lot was left vacant for too long, doughnut seeds would take root and blossom into a brand new coffee shop. In any case, it was pretty much the most Canadian restaurant Flynn could think of, which would be a good introduction for Yuri.

Flynn pushed the glass door of the shop open and held it open for Yuri. "Bienvenue au Tim Hortons." He tried to make it sound grand, but the rows of doughnuts and muffins behind glass at the counter and bored workers in ugly brown uniforms didn't live up to the majesty. "Er, que voulez-vous?"

Yuri eyed the menu hanging on the wall behind the counter. Flynn wondered if he was mostly looking at the pictures, because it was all in English. The only parts in French were the big promotions on the side. "C'est quoi, un Timbit?"

Flynn thought about this for a moment and then realized he had no clue what to call a doughnut hole in French. "Petit… le dough…naut? Oh, I'll just order some and show you. Voulez coffee? Um, café?"

"Oui, s'il te plaît."

"Crème et sucre?"

Yuri nodded again. Flynn smiled, feeling more confident in himself. He could do this. He could take coffee orders in French. They were definitely getting somewhere. He turned to the bored cashier and said, "Two double-doubles and a ten pack of Timbits, please."

When the cashier rang up their order, Yuri hesitated. "En fait… désolé, je viens de réaliser que je n'ai pas encore converti mon argent en dollars canadiens." To make his point clear, he opened his wallet and showed Flynn a few Euro notes and nothing else.

"No, no, it's fine!" Flynn passed a ten dollar bill over and smiled. "C'est mon… treat." He grabbed his phone and tapped a few letters in. "Traiter," he is said proudly. "C'est mon traiter."

Yuri looked amused, and Flynn wondered if he'd managed to screw up again. In any case, he grabbed his drink and the cardboard box of Timbits and led Yuri to a table by the window. He faced the door, so he'd see Estelle as soon as she arrived and then pushed the box toward Yuri. "Bon appetite."

Yuri opened the box and pulled out a glazed chocolate Timbit. He inspected it for a few seconds and then popped it in his mouth. His eyes lit up as he chewed. "Mmmm!"

Flynn smiled; some words, at least, were universal. "So, que class avez vous?" They were in different faculties so they probably wouldn't have any classes in common, but there was always the chance of a common elective.

"History 1A03."

Reciting the course title was the closest Yuri had come to English yet, and Flynn found it exciting. During their year of living together, he hoped to help Yuri with his English as much as possible to help him adapt to living in Canada. "Oh, that's good! Très bien."

Yuri nodded, grabbing a powdered, jam-filled Timbit. "J'ai essayé de m'inscrire à un cours de Français pour débutants, histoire de ramasser un A facilement, mais ils n'ont pas voulu pour une raison ou pour une autre."

Flynn nodded vacantly. "Oh… ok." Should he tell Yuri he had a moustache of white powder? Flynn was about to speak up and gesture at his lip when another person sidled up to the table. For a moment Flynn hoped it was Estelle, but instead it was a middle-aged man with a creepy grin.

"Hey there. You two first years?"

"Yes," Flynn said stiffly. The man had messy brown hair in a ponytail and wore a collared shirt that he hadn't bothered tucking in. "Can I help you?"

"Nice ta meet ya! I happen ta be a prof here."

This guy was a professor? Flynn found it hard to believe. "I see. What precisely do you teach?"

He puffed himself up and held a hand over his chest. "Professor Raven, French teacher extraordinaire!" He leaned his elbows on the table and smiled at Yuri. In soft, seductive tones he said, "Et pour te dire la vérité, ma belle, j'ai appris le Français parce que ces dames trouvent ça irrésistible. Je pourrais te dire que ma couleur favorite est le bleu et tu te pâmerais."

Flynn opened his mouth, not sure what to say because he wasn't sure what Raven had said either. Yuri, though, spoke first.

"Désolé mon pote, je suis volontiers célibataire pour l'instant."

Raven jolted away from the table. "You speak French?"

"Je suis Français."

"You're a guy?!"

Yuri stared at him for couple seconds, and Flynn was about to jump in to try to translate but apparently Yuri understood enough English to know what Raven meant. "Vous êtes aveugle ou juste idiot?"

Raven backed away from the table. "I've made a huge mistake."

Flynn wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but he put enough pieces together to work out the general idea. "Professor Raven, were you trying to hit on a student?"

"Er…"

"That's against university policy, isn't it?"

"He's not my student. And – and it was a mistake! I thought – I mean, at first glance ya look kinda like a girl."

Yuri leaned forward and rested his chin on his fist. "Tranquille, le vieux. Tu peux admettre que t'es plutôt gay. Je ne te jugerai pas."

"No, no!" Raven shook his hands. "It was an honest mistake. I'll just… I'll be leavin' now."

Raven scurried away, the bell over the door jingling as he burst out. Once he was gone, Flynn noticed the girl who'd come up behind him, and was now watching with a smile.

"Who was that?" Estelle asked.

Flynn scowled at the door. "Some professor. Sit down." He motioned to the bench beside him. "Estelle, this is Yuri. Yuri, um… C'est mon amie Estelle."

She slid into the side next to him and wrapped her hands around a hot chocolate. "Hello, Yuri. Flynn said you're from France, right? It's nice to meet you."

"I'm not sure how much English he understands," Flynn said quickly. "Let me try to translate-"

"No, it's fine." Estelle smiled at him and then turned her eyes on Yuri. "Enchantée. Comment était ton vol?"

"Long. Il y a eu une affreuse escale à Francfort et je suis arrivé tard la nuit dernière."

"Oh, quelle horreur. Je suppose que tu n'as pas encore vu beaucoup du Canada, alors?"

"Nan. C'est la première fois que je visite en plein jour. Tu parles Français bien mieux que Flynn, hein?"

Flynn watched them talk with confusion. He'd been rather pleased with his French ability, but then Estelle had to go and show him up. He should have known better. Unlike him, she hadn't stopped studying it in grade nine, and was still taking French class even now in her final year of high school. He wished he had the faintest clue what they were talking about, but it went by far too quickly for him.

"Je ne suis pas parfait, mais j'ai plus d'expérience." Estelle smiled and grabbed a honey Timbit from the box. "You don't mind, do you, Flynn?"

Flynn leaned against the wall and waved his hand. "Help yourself." She was already stealing his thunder as French translator, what did it matter if she stole his doughnuts?

After Yuri ate another, Estelle said, "They're good, eh?"

Yuri gave her a thumbs up. "Très bons!"

They continued going off at each other in French, and Flynn gave up trying to follow the conversation and tried to sulk in the corner of the booth. This was difficult, because it was hard to feel sorry for yourself while eating powdery doughnut holes.

When the box was empty, Yuri rubbed his hands together to rid them of powdered sugar and stickiness.

Estelle hesitated. "Ah, Yuri you have – on your face - tu dois laver ton visage."

Yuri held his hands out and looked around for a napkin. Flynn sat up from his corner. "Sorry, I forgot to grab some. There's napkins by the cash register. Um, les serviettes là." He pointed to get the meaning across.

Estelle laughed a bit. "I'm not sure a napkin will be enough." Yuri had managed to get powdered sugar all over his face like a child pretending he was growing a beard. "Yuri, les toilettes est à l'arrière" She pointed to the washroom sign in the back corner of the shop.

Yuri rubbed his face and then looked down at the sugary residue left on his hand. "C'est sûrement une bonne idée. Je reviens." He slid out of the booth and headed to the washroom.

When he was gone, Estelle said, "He seems nice."

"What were you guys talking about?"

"Oh, nothing much. He told me about where he's from and asked if I knew any good places to hang out in Toronto."

"Oh, really?" Flynn smiled, because he couldn't imagine sweet, straight-A student Estelle having much to tell about Toronto's club scene. "And what did you tell him?"

She giggled, clearly reading the doubt in his eyes. "That I had no idea but that I was pretty sure there were a lot of bars on Yonge Street."

Flynn sighed and took another sip of coffee. "Estelle, I'm going to need you to skip your final year of high school and join me here right now, because I am in desperate need of a translator. I thought I'd be able to get by, but this is harder than I thought."

"Aw, I'm sure you'll be fine. Besides, Flynn, um… I'm not sure I'm going to apply here. I want to go to school someplace new, get out of Toronto…"

"Oh. Right." He should have figured. Estelle had been itching to see the world and move away from the city for as long as he'd known her. It was going to be hard enough not seeing her every day at school, but at least for this year she would still live in the same city. "Where are you going to apply?"

"I was thinking of McGill."

"But that's in Quebec!" It took Estelle just under an hour to come downtown to meet with him, but if she went all the way to Montreal for school it would take over five hours and he'd probably never see her. He scowled into his coffee. "Yuri's the one who should have gone there. He'd fit right in. Do you think he decided to come here because he heard they speak French in Canada and then picked a province at random thinking they spoke French everywhere?"

Estelle shrugged. "Maybe. But maybe he wanted to challenge himself? Immersing yourself in a foreign language is the best way to learn it."

"I'm definitely immersing myself in French. It's really frustrating, because I want to be friends with him but how can I when we can barely have a conversation?" Flynn glared at the French slogan on his coffee cup as if the language had personally offended him.

Yuri returned, interrupting Flynn's seething hatred for all things French. "Yo. Mieux?"

Estelle laughed and nodded. "Oui, tu regardes beaucoup plus présentable maintenant."

Flynn leaned back, ready for more listening hopelessly in an attempt to pick out words he knew. This was going to be a long afternoon.

After hugging Estelle goodbye, she headed home and Flynn led Yuri back to campus to go to class. They separated, and Flynn spent the entire lecture relishing how nice it was to listen to English.

Yuri came back to their room that evening. Flynn wasn't sure where he'd been all afternoon, and hoped he hadn't gotten lost and been unable to ask for directions or something like that. In any case, Flynn nearly crashed into Yuri when he entered because he was on his way out to get dinner at the cafeteria. "Ah, sorry!"

"Oh là, doucement!" Yuri stumbled back into the hallway.

"Sorry, sorry, désolé!"

"T'inquiète. Tu sors?"

"Er…" Flynn wasn't sure what Yuri said but he might as well invite him to dinner. "Je suis… aller… les, um, les cafeteria. Voulez-vous avec moi… bon appetite?"

Yuri thought about this for a moment, probably trying to piece together Flynn's garbled French. Presumably he figured it out, because he nodded and said, "Bien sûr."

They walked to the cafeteria in silence, because Flynn didn't know what to say. There were lots of things he wanted to talk about but he didn't know how to say any of them in French. Luckily, the menus in the cafeteria had pictures so Flynn didn't have to worry about translating food names for Yuri.

After grabbing some burgers and fries, they went to the cashier. Flynn reached for his wallet but Yuri grabbed his arm and shook his head. "Tu m'as offert le déjeuner, je me charge du dîner."

"Pardon?"

"Je vais payer pour toi."

"Oh! No, no, I can pay for myself. It's fine, coffee wasn't expensive."

Yuri grabbed Flynn's plate and set both on the counter by the cashier. He gestured to both of them and pulled out his wallet, which now contained Canadian bills. Perhaps that was what he'd been doing this afternoon.

Flynn decided not to cause a scene in line to pay, so he let Yuri pay for his dinner. The cashier handed him a couple of coins and then they headed to a table. After sitting down, Yuri examined the coins in his hand.

"Est-ce qu'elle m'a vraiment rendu assez?"

Flynn lowered the burger from his mouth. "Pardon?"

"J'aurais dû recevoir plus de quatre dollars de monnaie mais elle m'a seulement donné trois pièces."

Flynn surmised he was confused about the money. "No, that's…" he reached for his pocket and realized he'd forgotten his phone in his room. Damn, he was going to have to rely on his existing knowledge to explain this. "C'est… toony. Deux dollars." He held up two fingers.

Yuri held up one of the large coins, turning it around in his fingers. "Ça à l'air cool. Pourquoi il y a un ours dessus?"

Was he asking about the picture on the back? "C'est a… um… le bear polaire. Canada avec beaucoup le bears polaire. Well, non here. Up nord. And, uh… 'toony' rhymes… le rhymés? Avec 'loony'." Flynn pulled a shiny gold coin out of his pocket. "See , c'est un dollar." He held up one finger. "And avec la loon." He pointed to the bird on the coin.

Yuri watched his struggles with what Flynn swore was amusement. "Dis m'en plus. J'adorerais t'entendre tenter d'expliquer."

Flynn didn't even bother trying to make sense of that. His frustration reached its limit and he shouted, "Just – just appetite vous les burger!" He gnashed his teeth into his own burger. He officially gave up. He'd drag Estelle down here and force her to translate for him for the rest of the school year.

Yuri raised his eyebrows. "Quelque chose ne va pas?"

Flynn swallowed forcefully. "I can't do this! I'm trying to be a good roommate but I'm not cut out for this. Just go to Quebec if you want to speak French! Or go back to France! Apprende Anglais!"

They stared at each other for a long moment, Yuri in surprise and Flynn with horror that he'd burst like that. It was a good thing Yuri didn't speak English because that had been very rude.

Yuri cracked first. His cheeks rose, he covered his mouth with his hand, and then he dropped his face to the table. His shoulders shook, and at first Flynn feared he was crying before realizing it was smothered laughter.

"Yuri…?"

Yuri pulled his head up. "I'm sorry. Oh, man, I'm sorry."

Flynn stared for a second. Then: "You speak English!?"

Yuri rubbed a tear from his eye and sat up straight. "Of course I do."

"But…"

"They make you pass an English proficiency exam to get accepted here. How else do you think I'm going to take any classes?" He had a strong accent, but it was definitely understandable English.

"But.. but… why did you let me go an entire day thinking you didn't speak English?"

"Your attempts at French were hilarious."

"Do you mean you've been laughing at me this entire time?"

"Sorry. If it makes you feel better, I did understand what you were getting at… for the most part."

Yuri had been laughing at him behind his back for the entire day. Flynn narrowed his eyes. "That's not funny. I was trying to be nice but you've been making a fool out of me for you own amusement."

Yuri's smiled dropped. "Hey, you're the one who started it. You just assumed I wouldn't speak English before you even met me."

Flynn was going to keep arguing, but Yuri did have a point. In hindsight, it seemed pretty obvious that Yuri would have to have at least a basic grasp of English to come to school here. He ate a French fry in dejection. "I'm sorry I assumed you didn't speak English."

After a short pause, Yuri said, "Sorry I let you keep thinking that."

Flynn stuck out his hand. "Let's try this again, in English this time. My name's Flynn Scifo; it's nice to meet you. Welcome to Canada."

Yuri reached across the table to shake his hand. "Yuri Lowell. Nice to meet you, too." He dropped his hand and went back to eating. "Hey, I meant to ask, what was that guy talking about earlier today at the café?"

"You mean the professor?"

Yuri nodded and spoke between bites. "Yeah, the one who tried hitting on me. He told me he only learned French because girls find it irresistible. What's that about?"

"Oh, um…" Flynn swirled a fry in his ketchup. "It's just, to English speakers, French sounds… I don't know, it's really romantic."

"Huh?"

"It's just considered a really sexy language. I don't know why, but it is."

"Tu as une tête de cafard. Did that sound romantic?"

Flynn had to admit, it kind of did. "Well…" He hoped if he kept his face down Yuri wouldn't notice the pink creeping onto his cheeks.

"Seriously? I told you your face looks like a cockroach."

Flynn snapped his head up. "What?"

Yuri flippantly waved his hand. "Just an example. So, really, I could literally say anything and people here will think it's the sexiest thing around?"

"Yeah, basically."

"Hé. On dirait que te faire du gringue va être plus simple que prévu."

"Pardon?"

Yuri just smirked. "Nothing."