fel:i'm down by almost $1000 after my first attempt of vending for a con and for some reason I want to impale myself. not because i'm sad but because I occasionally go in and out of wanting to eviscerate myself or something

"Flynn's your soul mate isn't he?" Estelle asks him over the campfire.

Yuri looks idly at the mark on his wrists and the catches the way she leers at it.

"Yeah, we're soulmates," He says stoking the flames with a branch. "What about it?"

Estelle looks down at her wrist with a soft solemnness."I just was curious since Flynn never talked about it like you were."

Yuri fidgets a little, "We don't make a big deal about it."

He doesn't like to think about the fact that the last time he visited Flynn there was a pile of pills set aside. When Yuri asked about them Flynn had awkwardly passed a bottle between his hands and explained that he was technically still taking the drugs. His hands shook subtly as he tried to laugh off what was clearly a medical problem.

"It's just to keep me normal while I work."

"You really okay?" They were still friends no matter what may happen between them Yuri and Flynn were still friends. That's something Yuri wants to believe and friends care about the well being of other friends.

"Yeah, I'm okay. It's taken a lot of work but I'm perfectly okay."

"I'm glad." Yuri held up a hand and they gave each other a brief high-five. He wanted Flynn to be all right after everything. The glove covering his wrist at least made it easier to ignore. Yuri couldn't burn or cut the mark away like Flynn to hide it from sight. Doing that does nothing but cause him needless pain and is useless in solving the real problem.

It becomes obvious that he spent too long on those thoughts by the crinkle on Estelle's face. "Sorry."

"It's fine. Flynn does that too. I guess you have that in common." Yuri is both unsurprised by that and disappointed that it still happens. He wants Flynn to be normal and himself again but short of a miracle that's never going to happen. If he's honest the fact that Estelle thinks that it's something they have common is almost insulting but he's not going to be mean and bring it up. Estelle doesn't know any better.

"You know your soulmate?" Yuri asks and watches Estelle clamp her wrist in shame.

"No." She scratches the glove where the mark is. "I- I haven't. I'm told the council knows but they won't tell me for political reasons."

Yuri doesn't want to admit it but there's a hint of jealousy at that statement. Sure, he knows she's in that awful emotional state where the world is out of focus and emotions are wrapped in cotton but she's free. She still hasn't been tied up to another person and it feels cruel to want her to feel like him and the rest of the people he knows. But, it also is beautiful and rare to see someone like her.

Free

"Do you want to?" He asks and watches her body slump a little.

"I… I don't know."

A silence falls for a time until Estelle speaks up again. "Are you happy being in love with Flynn?"

Yuri wonders if he should say it. That he's not or at least has never felt like it. It, as Flynn would always say, never felt like free will. It's not his choice and if Yuri's honest there've been times where kissing or even hand-holding kind of made him want to hurl. "We're not in love."

"But even platonically-"

He holds up a hand. "We're not. We're friends who just ended up being soulmates. But, something you learn sooner than later is that you can just not want to be with your soulmate." The only way to fight system is with apathy and that's fine for a time but it's not a real solution.

Yuri watches for her expression and notes there's a quiet understanding as Estelle scoots a little closer to him. "Say, if soulmates weren't real – say that people could choose anyone, would you still pick Flynn."

Yuri thinks on it and he just shrugs and mumbles, "Who knows. I personally don't care enough to even choose. Why?"

"I guess, I just would like one choice," Estelle says and isn't that the contradiction of the fucking century. Emotionally free from love but physically trapped in a cage. The jealousy fades when he puts it in that perspective.

"You always have the ability to make a choice. It's just a matter of how hard you're going to fight for it." Yuri stretches out on the ground letting his spine relax.

"But what if you make the wrong choice? I mean, when you put it that way it makes perfect sense why we have soulmates. Even if we don't think it's right now it doesn't mean it isn't."

"Part of life is making mistakes. Why should dating Flynn not be one?" Yuri wanted those mistakes and Estelle would figure it out sooner or later that mistakes felt great. Well, not immediately but definitely in the follow through.

There's a joy in the idea that you can not make the right choice when faced with fate pointing a large sign saying which one is the right one. Yuri wanted the unknown in whether what he gets is good because that sign has always yelled and pushed its way to the front of his gaze.

He wanted to break that sign and run away from it and never look back, but he couldn't. Hell, he needed to see Flynn in at least a few weeks so the mark wouldn't hurt them both. It's a part of it all. It's just how it is.

And he hates it. Just let it be a mistake. Let Flynn go and be actually okay and him not have guilt for not being able to help Flynn through his fight. Maybe if Yuri did love Flynn and just gave in they could be happy but that's not him. That's not Yuri either.

That's not anything they can be.

Maybe fate made a mistake. If it did that would be a relief.