Unbroken Trinity

a Tales of Destiny fic. by Suzume

for spring_kink lj

There was an empty spot in their party now. Rutee hadn't realized how much she would miss the one who filled it until he was gone. How was it, after all, that one grew fond of a boy who shocked you and argued with you and pushed his supposed superiority down your throat day after day? It didn't make any sense, but it had happened.

Their group filled out again and it became easier for Stahn to play tricks on his own mind, telling himself that Leon was just trailing a few steps behind with Mary and Chelsea so he could keep an eye on everyone. But when they sat down to eat at an inn and Garr was there filling the place he had long come to think of as Leon's seat, Stahn could feel the truth choking him up, making a tight lump form in his throat. He looked across the table at Rutee, trembling with mournful, empty feelings he couldn't manage to successfully articulate. She gazed back, her eyes searing into his eyes as she picked at her lukewarm meal. It was then that Stahn knew Rutee felt the same.

For all his stifling feelings of inarticulateness, it turned out that Stahn was better at expressing the grief they shared. It might have been because his position regarding Leon was less complex. He had sincerely liked Leon and considered him a friend, regardless of Leon's cold or snide behavior, or at least his general inability to admit he liked you (even when sharing your dessert or covering your back in a fight or snuggled up beside you because there weren't enough blankets to go around). Rutree shared his stubborn streak. It had intensified their arguments (Stahn, Philia, and Mary were all relatively laid-back types who were likelier to give in than continue the fight).

They had liked one another, in their own begrudging way. Stahn had been sure of it then and he'd heard it since from Rutee's own lips. They both lay limply now, draped across the lumpy mattress. Rutee's arms were thrown back over her head and her fingertips dangled along the edge of the cranberry bedspread to the wooden floor. Stahn's long mop of blond hair swept the ground similarly.

Both kept their eyes fixed firmly on the ceiling. Stahn listened to Rutee's breathing and imagined it was Leon's. When they were the only men in the party they had often shared a room as silently as this.

Stahn closed his eyes and squinted at Rutee. Through his thick blond lashes he could imagine that head of black hair, flipped casually back across the bed, belonged to Leon. He wanted to believe they would meet again. He wanted to believe Leon was still alive. "Leon's...not gone forever, is he?" Stahn sighed. He had hoped that Rutee would understand the way he meant it, but after he finished speaking he was hit with the concern that it was not her sentimental side that would respond, but her sharp and sarcastic one. "Uh, you know-" he tried to clarify.

"I know, Stahn, I know," she stopped him from stumbling all over himself in a haphazard attempt to rephrase his feelings. He swallowed the outbursts she had predicted and his body relaxed slightly. "And he does...As long as we remember him. The sister in Cresta told me that a long time ago." She changed her posture, sitting up straight on the bed and Stahn followed her lead.

"That's a pretty comforting thing to hear."

"Most of all," she leaned closer to him, stroking her long, elegant fingers down the side of his face, "The people you've loved and lost are present when two of you who've loved them are gathered together."

"Rutee." He ventured bravely to capture her lips. They were redder than Leon's, fuller and flushed. He had kissed Leon only once before (he was shy), but Rutee was familiar territory. She knew something about how to use her tongue- it was as tricky as her playfully thieving manner.

Leon, lithe and young and pale between them. Memory and imagination created a specter out of nothing. Whose neck was he kissing? Whose hand was that straying up under his shirt, tickling his ribs? Who was that nibbling his ear? ...Alright, that was definitely Rutee's soft and perky breast.

Still, as they moved on, shedding clothes and rumpling the bed in an exchange of impassioned intimacies, he could've sworn they weren't alone together. Afterward he could even imagine what scathing criticism of his performance Leon would give to cover for the fact that he'd enjoyed it (not that he had any past experience to compare it with).

Rutee leaned her head on his sturdy shoulder. "Leon isn't a virgin any longer." She punctuated her half-joking announcement with an awkward laugh.

"And here he trusted me to treat him nice and I rope him into a kinky threesome," Stahn murmured.

Stahn dreamt that night that he held both of them in his embrace. The following day he awoke to find himself alone, tangled in the sheets and half falling off the bed. Rutee had already dressed and gone, leaving barely a sign that she had been there at all (Stahn found two: several strands of short dark hair on the pillow and 200 gald suspiciously absent from his wallet). As usual, he had overslept.

But even after Karyl and Philia combined their strength to drag him out of bed, Stahn was still left feeling the glow of satisfaction that came from knowing the coming day would prove better than the one that proceeded it. Rutee was right. They had all known Leon and cared about him in one way or another. He didn't want to run the risk of upsetting Philia since he was so sensitive, so Stahn turned to Karyl first, asking about his memories of Leon. When they reminisced about how Leon had stayed behind to keep at eye on Karyl as he played to open the passage at the castle their very conversation breathed a puff more life into the man he was constructing from memories. Mary overhead them and turned away from polishing her axe to join in the conversation with a few choice tidbits.

Previously Stahn had found himself wishing he had some kind of physical memento of his deceased friend, but day by day in talk with others and in and out of bed with Rutee, he discovered sorrow turning to strength. Leon's presence was imprinted firmly on his mind. That light-footed grace, the smug smile masking private insecurities, his reluctance to depend on anyone but himself... He must've remained in the shadows or lived on through the air.

Rutee and Stahn wove their fingers together, walking side by side. To anyone else watching them cross the bridge slowly behind the rest of their party, allowing Garr to let his urge to lead run free, they would've looked like merely a content couple. However, Stahn knew, and Rutee knew, that together they were really three.