(no subject)
Title: Trinity
Fandom: Final Fantasy IV (DS, for what minute difference that makes.)
Pairings: Cecil/Kain
Genre: Angst, sap... Kain being a drama queen...
Word Count: 13,421
Notes: Lookit, I wrote something! I wrote the majority of this several weeks ago, actually, but still feel absurdly pleased with myself despite only writing like two paragraphs today to finish it. XD I don't know if I LIKE it, but at least I finished it. The inherent problem with FFIV is that it just naturally leans to melodrama. I dunno, Cecil and Kain don't really go around cracking a lot of jokes.
Summary: Cecil is dense, Kain is emo and stupid, Rosa is the smart one.
VI. ROSA
If Rosa had honestly believed that her part was done when she'd spoken to Cecil about Kain and Golbez and it would all sort itself out after that, it seems that she was sadly mistaken. She had just been walking the castle grounds, minding her own business, when someone had reached out and grabbed her wrist from behind. She'd gasped and spun around, heart racing, but had been surprised to see Kain standing there in bare feet with an expression almost as startled as her own.
"Sorry," he'd said quickly, "I didn't mean to alarm you like that, I just..."
Rosa had just blinked at him for a moment, because Kain usually doesn't so much as remove his visor, let alone walk around without his armour and nothing on his feet or hands, but the thing that had really struck her was the lost and troubled expression on his face. He'd looked so vulnerable without his face hidden; Kain has so many issues with personal boundaries that even she sometimes thinks she'll forget what his face looks like. It has to be uncomfortable for him to be walking around so exposed, and she couldn't think there was any way that he would be here that way by choice.
"No, it's okay," she'd said slowly, and then, struck into inanity by the oddness of the whole situation, "Kain, your hair..."
He'd raised his hand self-consciously to his damp hair before letting it drop again, blinking back at her with eyes that she always forgets are as pretty as they are. "I need to talk to you," he'd said after a moment, not so subtly evading her implied question. "Please."
Which is how they'd ended up where they are now, sitting side by side on the thick castle balustrades.
"So you just left without even waiting to put any shoes on?" Rosa asks when Kain finishes, and he nods miserably. It explains a lot; of course the only reason Kain would leave his room in this state of undress would be to avoid a more imminent threat of conflict.
"He wasn't going to give up," Kain says, a little defensively, but he's staring resolutely down at the ground instead of looking at her. "He wouldn't go, so I left instead."
Rosa sighs, stretching her legs out in front of her. "I didn't tell him to hurt you, Kain," she tells him gently, and he flinches slightly. "Cecil just wants to help. You should talk to him."
Kain is shaking his head before the words have even properly left her mouth.
"He's the last person I wanted to see me like this," he says, a low note of desperate pleading threading through his voice. "Rosa, I can't."
They sit there together in a long moment of silence as Rosa contemplates what to say next. She wants to reach over and put her arms around him, but Kain's shoulders radiate tension and everything about his body language is screaming how much he doesn't want to be touched right now.
"Whatever you blame yourself for," she says eventually, with incredible care, "Cecil isn't upset about that. He's not going to turn his back on you or get disgusted. He's angry for you, not at you."
Kain doesn't respond, but there's something about the slight shift in his posture that makes her think he's waiting, listening.
"You're hurting, Kain," Rosa whispers, turning her head to stare off blindly at the horizon. "I know you want us to think everything's okay, but you're only making it worse by trying to pretend there's nothing wrong. I hate watching you suffer like this. I'm supposed to be a healer, but there's no physical injury for me to heal and there's nothing I can do to help you. It makes me feel so helpless."
Beside her, Kain shifts awkwardly, and Rosa glances at him, a quick flicker of the eyes before she continues.
"I can't help-I'm not the one who can make this better. I told Cecil because he's the only one whose words will make a difference now. Even if you don't like to admit it, he's the one whose opinion matters to you. He's the one who you rely on. He's the one you need, Kain, so please, talk to him. For me, if you can't do it for him and won't do it for yourself."
Rosa knows she's won even before Kain says anything from the way his shoulders drop as he lets his breath escape in a sigh. Maybe it was unfair of her to add that last part; Kain may not love her the way he professed to, but they're still childhood friends and she knows he cares about her. It's for his own good, though, so even if it was a little underhanded she can't find it within herself to regret that.
"I only wish I had half the faith that you seem to," he mutters, sounding a little defeated as he climbs to his feet, and Rosa smiles a little ruefully.
"All the prayer in the world would get me nowhere if I didn't have any conviction in it," she tells him. "One of us has to believe in something. You've got enough scepticism and pessimism for both of us, after all."
Kain snorts lightly as his feet touch down on the pebbled floor of the parapet. "Someone has to balance out Cecil's naïve idealism," he says, and hesitates for a moment. "I won't try to completely block him out the next time he brings it up. Other than that, I can't guarantee anything," he adds, and his lips quirk in a bitter smile that hurts her to look at. "I'd rather not break any more promises I can't keep."
"Kain..."
He shakes his head, and anything she might have said dies on her lips half-formed.
"Sorry for bothering you," he says, with a finality that lets her know this conversation is over. "Even if I'd rather you hadn't told Cecil, I appreciate that you're worried about me. Thank you."
With that, he turns and walks away, bare feet barely making any noise on the cold stone, and Rosa watches him go, hoping that she hasn't made a mistake.
VII. KAIN
It's not like Kain is denying that he'd promised Rosa he wouldn't avoid or ignore Cecil the next time Cecil tried to corner him. It wasn't like he'd thought when he'd said that that Cecil would give up, either, because Cecil is nothing if not persistent. Kain had accepted that he'd have to endure the Talk sooner or later.
He just hadn't expected it to be quite this soon.
When he'd headed back towards his room, he'd intended to crawl into bed and pull the covers over his head and deal with all his problems some other day. He had not expected to find Cecil still there waiting for him, and with Kain standing frozen in the doorway to his room with his eyes wide with shock and Cecil himself sitting on the bed, turning Kain's helm over in his hands, it's like some kind of weird role reversal from their encounter several hours earlier.
Any thought of quietly turning around and sneaking away dies when Cecil's head jerks up, pinning him with a single look. "I thought you'd be back eventually," he says, and his tone is almost conversational, but Kain has seen that steely look of determination in Cecil's eyes before and it doesn't bode well for him.
It occurs to him at that moment that if he wanted to avoid this conversation, he'd probably have to disappear again, and even then Cecil would probably hunt him down and tie him to a chair until he listened. Not that that's an option, since it'd fly completely in the face of what he'd told Rosa.
Kain's not quite sure whether he regrets that promise or not, now.
"Yes," he says cautiously, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. "I'm back. And you're still here. Shouldn't you have better things to do... your Majesty?"
Cecil doesn't rise to the bait, just holds Kain's gaze as he sets the helm down on the bed beside him. "You're my best friend," he says calmly. "Even if you keep trying to push me away, I'm not going to give up on you that easily, Kain."
Kain swallows around the lump he can feel in his throat. There's something incredibly bittersweet about hearing Cecil say something like that in that earnest, sincere way he has, and Kain has no choice but to turn his eyes away.
"Why are you here, Cecil?" he says, the internal conflict between his emotions making his voice come out sharper than he'd intended, and in the corner of his vision he sees Cecil's head jerk up, eyes darkening. "What do you want from me?"
"I want you to talk to me," Cecil retorts, and his voice is low and level but there's a hint of an edge there, the slow smoulder that lets Kain hear how frustrated his best friend is getting with him. "I need you to talk to me. Please."
"Talk?" Kain echoes, and scoffs, wrapping his standoffish attitude around himself like a protective cloak. "About what, precisely?"
"Rosa said that Nii-san... that Golbez... that he..." Cecil trails off, the composure he'd been maintaining scattering to pieces as he trips and falls over the awkward ugliness hovering conspicuously between them, and Kain's mouth twists with a contempt aimed mostly inwards. Cecil's discomfort is almost palpable, and something inside of Kain boils over, guilt and shame and frustration and utter helplessness to remove himself from this situation twisting up inside him in a roiling contradiction of defensiveness and self-loathing. He knows that rationally speaking any censure he reads from Cecil is likely nothing more than projection, but rationality has very little to do with this mess.
Cecil says he wants to talk about it, but he can't even say the words, and that feels a lot like condemnation from where Kain is standing.
"That he touched me? Is that what you're trying to say?" Kain spits when it's clear that Cecil isn't going to finish what he'd started, and stalks towards the bed, tension thrumming through his body. Cecil climbs to his feet, perhaps subconsciously intimidated by the height disadvantage, and Kain hadn't meant for this to degenerate so quickly into confrontation, but he'd only promised Rosa that he wouldn't shut Cecil out or avoid him. He's living up to his end of that bargain.
Cecil's gaze falters slightly, but he still raises his chin. "Did he?"
"What do you want me to say? Do you want me to tell you it's not true, that Rosa made a mistake?" Kain demands, letting the viciousness he feels seep into his voice, using his words like sharp-edged weapons to wound. "Do you want me to lie to you, Cecil? Too bad, because I'm going to tell you anyway: yes, he touched me, and I let him. I liked it, I begged for it, I let him use me like a whore. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
Cecil takes a deep, shuddering breath and closes his eyes. "Did he make you want it?" he asks hesitantly, voice cracking like it's breaking his heart to have to ask. Kain isn't sure which answer Cecil is more afraid of, that Kain honestly wanted to let another man do that to him, or that Cecil's brother could have forced his best friend against his will. "Did he... he didn't use his influence over you, did he?"
"That would be the convenient excuse, wouldn't it? Just blame everything on mind control," Kain says sardonically, but the rush of vitriolic anger has drained away now, just leaving hollow bitterness. "How much can you really attribute to the control he had over my thoughts? How much was Golbez and Zemus, and how much was my own natural susceptibility? I'm the only one who was affected, after all. Maybe I subconsciously wanted to do everything he made me do, and all he did was remove my inhibitions."
"Kain..." Cecil says unhappily, and reaches out to touch Kain's arm, presumably trying to offer some kind of support, but Kain reacts automatically to the invasion of his personal space, flinching from the touch as his arm flies up to smack Cecil's hand away before conscious thought can stop him. For a moment the two of them freeze in place, staring at each other with wide, horrified eyes.
"I... sorry," Kain says finally, feeling just as shocked as Cecil looks. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."
Cecil swallows, a myriad of emotions Kain can't read flickering across his face. "No, I shouldn't have... I should go," he says faintly, and Kain cringes a little at the wide berth Cecil gives him when he walks around Kain, so careful not to brush against him accidentally. He pauses for a moment at the doorway, hand resting on the frame as he half turns to give Kain a searching look. Kain shifts uncomfortably, not sure what Cecil is looking for.
"What?" he says awkwardly, and Cecil shakes his head, expression inscrutable.
"Nothing, never mind. I'm sorry for bothering you so late, Kain. I'll let you sleep now."
"Wait," Kain finds himself saying when Cecil is about to open the door, and Cecil stops again, blinking at him.
Realising that Cecil is waiting, a little uncertainly, for him to say something, Kain starts to speak, a little haltingly.
"You know, when he wasn't wearing all that armour, he looked a lot like you. I noticed that even at the time," he says, watching the way Cecil's eyes widen slightly, wondering if he's saying too much, letting too much show, but unable to stop himself. "Not just that, either. Something about his aura reminded me of you. You both have the same odd gravitational charisma, like being pulled into orbit. I wasn't really surprised that he turned out to be your brother- I think on some level I already suspected it."
"Kain...?"
"I'm tired," Kain tells him, letting Cecil hear the ring of finality in his voice. "Good night, Cecil."
Cecil hovers in the doorway for a moment like he hasn't quite made up his mind whether to leave or whether he should stay and push it further, but then he sighs, shoulders dropping as he opens the door.
"Good night, Kain," he answers quietly, and the door gives a soft snick when he pulls it closed behind him.
Kain sits down on the edge of the bed, hunching over to tangle his fingers in his still-drying hair, and wonders what the hell he's doing with his life.
VIII. CECIL
For days after his fight with Kain Ceil is distracted, dwelling obsessively over every aspect of their conflict. He sits on his throne and hums vaguely whenever his advisors try to ask his opinion on land taxes, too caught up replaying Kain's words and gestures in his mind to pay attention. Thank heavens Rosa is such a pragmatic queen, or Baron might be getting itself into some real trouble.
Cecil has to admit, this was probably not what the King had in mind when he'd raised Cecil as his foster child.
Even being aware of his own neglect of duty, though, he can't help himself. Trying to force himself to focus is useless; instead he just finds his mind straying off on a tangent without him even noticing until whoever is talking to him suddenly breaks into his thoughts to ask if something's wrong, sire? Why are you gritting your teeth like that? at which point he realises that for the past five, ten, fifteen minutes he's been stewing over the issue all over again.
I let him touch me.
There are so many things wrong that Cecil can barely separate them out, but one of the things that disturbs him the most is his own reaction, this flare of irrational rage that he can't seem to tamp down on. He's furious that Kain's autonomy was violated like that, of course he is, and that's only natural... but just the thought of them together, the mental image of Kain letting Golbez touch him, is enough to make Cecil's nails dig into his palm with a flash of simmering anger. He's a little scared by it, because he's not as certain as he'd like to be that the anger he feels is entirely on Kain's behalf. Part of him wants to believe that Kain wouldn't have let it happen had he been in his right mind, and what does that say about him?
Shouldn't it be easier to think that Kain made that choice from his own free will?
Cecil doesn't believe that such a thing as informed consent can exist where one "both) of the people involved is having their thoughts twisted like that, though, and whether or not Kain really wanted it at the time or if he was just being made to think he did, he's obviously screwed up about it now. It shouldn't have happened.
But that doesn't change the fact that thinking of Golbez touching Kain like that makes a sick feeling that tastes a lot like jealousy rise in the back of his throat, and Cecil has no idea what to do with it. He was never the kind of child who had trouble sharing or begrudged his friends other people in their lives, so he has no idea where this possessive urge is coming from or how to deal with it.
Even beyond the internal moral crisis he's suffering, there's one thing that scares Cecil more than his own anger, and that is the look on Kain's face after he'd smacked Cecil's hand away.
If he'd thought for a moment that Kain was just irritated with him, it wouldn't have bothered him, but he knows with perfect clarity what he saw. Kain wasn't just angry; he'd flinched when Cecil had tried to touch him. His reaction after it had happened proved all too clearly that he hadn't intended it, hadn't seen it coming any more than Cecil had, and the shock in Kain's eyes is burned into Cecil's memory. It was a reflex action, and that one moment had betrayed so clearly everything Kain had been trying to conceal about how badly affected he was.
He obviously couldn't stand to be touched in such a familiar way without his armour as a buffer, and Cecil can't even begin to figure out how that makes him feel. Their friendship had never been particularly kinetic, but to know that Kain will shy away from even such minor contact... to know that Kain doesn't want Cecil to touch him hurts in an odd, sharp way that can't be quantified or defined.
And then, in amongst all the anger and confusion and hurt, there is the weird, unidentifiable feeling curling around the pit of his stomach, stirred up by Kain's parting shot, words echoing insidiously at the back of his mind. He can't bring himself to think about them too closely, perhaps afraid to contemplate what they might mean.
He looked a lot like you.
So, between the anger, the guilt, the hurt and the weirdness, Cecil is too distracted to do any good to anyone, but too tangled up to face Kain again- and he probably would have continued that way for the foreseeable future if Rosa hadn't decided to intervene on the fourth night since it had happened.
"I take it you talked to Kain," she says, with no preamble at all, and the uncharacteristic bluntness startles Cecil out of his thoughts long enough to actually engage in the conversation.
"I... pardon?" he responds blankly, and Rosa sighs.
"I haven't seen Kain in several days," she says, and there's no hint of accusation in her voice, nothing but slightly exasperated patience, but Cecil still feels a sharp pang of guilt. "And you've clearly got your head lost in the clouds, so I drew the natural conclusion."
Even if he were inclined to protest, it's essentially true. Rosa has always been the smart and insightful one out of the three of them. Since there's not much he can say to refute the basic facts, he says nothing at all, just waits for her to continue instead.
She studies him carefully, pushing a strand of hair back behind her ear with a thoughtful expression.
"Something he said upset you, didn't it?" she ventures after a moment, her eyes searching his for answers. "Something he said... or something he did. You're confused."
Kain's hair, sticking damply to his flushed skin. Kain's deep voice, hoarse and gravelled with exhaustion and anger as it laid out the merciless truth (I let him touch me). Kain flinching away from him, the sharp slap of Kain knocking his hand away, the shocked look in Kain's eyes.
Cecil can't help the small noise that escapes his throat, and from the way Rosa's gaze sharpens, it's all the confirmation she needs.
"You need to talk about it," Rosa tells him, in a tone that brooks no argument. "Obviously something is preying on your mind, Cecil, and if you can't figure out what's going on in your own heart, how can you help Kain?"
That comment hits a little too close to the bone, and Cecil winces. She's right; in his current state, he's worse than useless to Kain.
"If you don't tell me what's wrong," she adds gently, "I can't help you fix it. Please."
Cecil hesitates a moment longer, because he doesn't even understand what he's feeling, so how is he supposed to articulate it? Trying to communicate it ineffectually is still better than bottling it up, though, and after a few seconds elapse he starts to talk, haltingly at first but with increasing confidence as he goes on.
"It... makes me angry. Not just... it makes me angry that Golbez hurt him, but even... just that he... with Kain... I..." Cecil swallows. "I'm angry for Kain, but I'm angry for me, too, and I don't even know why. It's like he took something away from me, but how can I feel like that? That's Kain's right, not mine. If I don't understand myself, how can I expect Kain to rely on me?"
He stops, takes a deep breath before he continues.
"I... tried to reach out, I just wanted to put my hand on his shoulder, but he wasn't expecting it, and he... flinched, he shied away, and it made me realise how much effort he's been putting into pretending he's okay. We're supposed to be best friends, but he'd rather keep something like this to himself and suffer alone than trust me with it. He's always been there, but now there's all this distance and it's like there's an ocean between us. Like I can't reach him, and he's not even trying to reach me."
Rosa doesn't try to interrupt, just listens to the words as they trip and then flow out of his mouth. Cecil falls silent for a moment, staring down at his hands in his lap as he replays the argument in his mind.
"I'd forgotten how narrow his wrists are," he says abruptly, choking a little over it. It sounds like a total non-sequitur, but he'd flashed back on the almost jarring surprise of seeing Kain out of his armour for the first time in months, and the thought had suddenly struck him. Kain is strong and he could easily match Cecil in a fight- for a start, he has both the height and speed advantages- so sometimes it's easy to forget how much lighter his build is. "I... Nii-san was so much bigger than him. Kain's the one who's always protected me, he was always stronger than me when we were kids, it just... it didn't occur to me, that maybe Kain is the one who needed my protection."
It wasn't as though the muscle strength in Kain's arms and legs had been any less plainly visible, and yet he'd looked so vulnerable without all his metal encasings protecting him that Cecil had been shaken.
"I feel like I failed him," Cecil finishes, sighing. "I feel like I could have done something, maybe... I don't know. I feel helpless that I can't make it better, angry that Kain was treated like that, frustrated and upset that he won't talk to me... and all of that makes sense, but there's also this weird hurt, this anger that he'd let someone... that someone took him away like that. I feel like a spoilt brat screaming when someone else touches their favourite toy, like I have some kind of right of ownership, and I don't understand why."
"I... see," Rosa says slowly, nodding. "So even if Kain wasn't under mind control, you'd be upset about Golbez touching him like that?"
"... Essentially," Cecil admits, a little reluctantly. "Yes."
"Hm," she hums to herself, and then, suddenly: "Does the thought of Kain letting another man touch him like that disgust you?"
"Huh?" Cecil says, startled, and flushes red as he's assaulted by another mental image, this one of Kain writhing and moaning under decidedly masculine hands that look an awful lot like Cecil's own. "N-no, not exactly... I..."
"So it's not the fact that Golbez is another man that disturbs you," Rosa concludes, narrowing her eyes in a look that sees right through him and makes Cecil's mouth turn dry with nervousness. "You just don't like him touching Kain."
Cecil doesn't know how to respond to that, so he just chews on his lower lip in helpless indecision. Rosa shakes her head, smiling ruefully.
"Let me ask you something. If I told you I was in love with Edward, how would you react?"
Cecil frowns a little at the apparent change in topics, but doesn't question it. "I don't know," he says honestly. "I suppose... it's your choice, I have no right to stop you. Just so long as you were happy..."
"And if Kain kissed Edge?" she continues calmly, and Cecil stares at her, brain refusing to process this.
"W-what? But Edge would never... Kain wouldn't..."
"But if he did? Or let's say it was Golbez. How would you feel if Kain had decided to go with Golbez back to the Moon? If they'd kissed goodbye?"
The mental image springs unbidden to his mind and for a moment Cecil's vision almost goes red, fists clenching and teeth gritting down hard. "I don't care if he's my brother," he says heatedly, and even though he never saw them together, never even saw his brother without full armour, it's all too easy to imagine. "He can't- I won't let him- I..."
Rosa says nothing, just watches him with solemn, knowing eyes, and Cecil trails off, rage draining away into a sheepish bewilderment.
"It's just. He doesn't have the right, not after what happened," he mutters, but even he can hear the uncertainty in his own voice and from Rosa's pitying expression, she's less convinced than he is.
"And if it were me?" she prompts him. "Rydia? Someone else, touching Kain?"
"I... don't want that," Cecil says slowly, revelation dawning over him. "I don't want people touching him."
"Because you're jealous, Cecil," she tells him gently. "Do you see now? You love me and you want me to be happy, but it's entirely different to the way you feel about Kain. If I fell in love with someone else you'd give me your blessing, but if Kain did the same thing you'd be hurt and angry, because you don't like the idea of him being with someone else. You want him to be happy too, of course you do, but you want him to be happy with you."
Cecil stares at her with wide eyes, feeling like the foundations of his world view are crumbling under his feet.
"But I," he says weakly, "but Kain-"
"Cecil, you're the one person on this planet for whom Kain would do anything. He may have tried to delude himself into thinking he was in love with me, but that was just his way of protecting himself- I was the ‘safe' option. He could bear rejection by me with no more than a little wounded pride, but if you'd rejected him, or worse, abandoned him... that would have crushed him, Cecil. You're everything to him."
He looked a lot like you, Kain's voice whispers in his ears again, and Cecil's eyes widen. Is that what...? But did he really...?
"Rosa..." he starts, but Rosa's smile, wistful but strong, stops him in his tracks.
"No, let me finish," she says. "You're everything to him, and he's everything to you. Don't let him down."
"But what about you?" he asks hopelessly. "What about us? Everything we've been through together? I always thought... I love you, isn't that how it's supposed to be?"
"I love you too, Cecil, and that'll never change," Rosa says, blinking away the suspicious glitter on her lashes. "But there's more than one way to love somebody. We don't have to be together to care about each. I love you- both of you, so I want you to be happy."
Cecil is struck anew by Rosa's strength, awed all over again by her courage and compassion. She's so beautiful, head held high and proud, and Cecil feels a wave of affection wash over him. His pretty, perfect queen, so smart and giving and determined.
And in that moment, overwhelmed by tenderness for her, he realises with absolute clarity that she's right: he loves her and he always will, but it's not the kind of love that he thought it was.
"And Baron?" he asks, voice hoarse and eyes prickling. "What about Baron?"
"I don't see why there should be any change," Rosa answers, fingers curling lightly in her dress as she glances down, breaking his gaze for the first time. "It's not like this has changed how we feel about each other, not really. I still love you, and I still respect you. If Troia can manage to be ruled by a council of eight, I'm sure we can manage with two."
"Rosa... I..."
"Don't worry about me, or Baron, or any of that. Kain needs you, and you have my blessing," she tells him, catching his hand lightly. "Now go to him."
"No one could ever be good enough for you, but I hope you find someone who makes you happy," Cecil says unsteadily, love and sincerity and deep gratitude filling him as he leans over to kiss her on the cheek. "Thank you. I don't deserve you."
"Go," Rosa repeats softly, releasing his hand, and Cecil goes.
IX. KAIN
Kain has had several days now to regret letting his frustration get the better of him. He'd intended to keep Cecil as far from his own mess as he could, but in the end he'd lost his temper and done the exact opposite. Cecil knows, now, in far more detail than the vague hints Rosa would have given him, what Kain had let Golbez do to him.
What's worse is the way he'd kept going, even after the anger had drained away and left him tired. It was like some kind of compulsion, an irresistible urge to tell Cecil, make him understand, push him away, something, while at the same time it's the last thing he'd ever wanted Cecil to know. Once the words had been said, though, it was already too late; things said cannot be unsaid, and Kain knows that yet again, he's changed their relationship irrevocably. Cecil can be pretty oblivious, but he's not stupid. Even he can figure out the implications of what Kain told him.
(He looked like you. Something about his aura reminded me of you.)
Kain's attraction towards him is something Cecil was never supposed to know about, the secret Kain had held closer than any other and would have taken to his grave. It's the secret that was so dangerous Kain had tried to conceal it even from himself; the secret that had the power to destroy everything between them. Kain wants more, maybe even needs more, but he would never have done anything about it, because he's not strong enough to take that kind of gamble. He would never risk losing Cecil's friendship on the small chance of gaining something more.
But now, thanks to his own self-sabotaging stupidity, that choice has been taken out of his hands.
Kain still isn't sure how to act around Cecil after that slip, not least because he has no idea about Cecil's own reaction once he'd put the pieces together. It hasn't exactly been hard to avoid him, and on the one hand that's something of a blessing, because it's given Kain a temporary reprieve without needing to go to the extreme of disappearing again (he had been tempted, but he'd promised Rosa). On the other hand, Cecil isn't trying to seek him out, and Kain had no idea what that means, but he thinks there's a high likelihood that it's nothing good.
All in all, though, when he returns to his room from the barrack showers to find Cecil already waiting, illuminated by the moonlight falling in through the window he's standing by, Kain thinks maybe he'd preferred the uncertainty.
"Twice is starting to form a habit," he says, as impassively as he can. "Shouldn't you be busy running the country? Your Majesty."
"It's the only place I know you'll end up coming sooner or later," Cecil tells him, and there's something deliberate about the way he doesn't add so long as you don't run away again, like maybe saying it would make the possibility more real. "And Rosa and I agree there's no need for both of us to be there all the time. Sometimes she goes to visit her mother while I take over."
"I... see," Kain says, although he really doesn't. It seems a strange way for a King and Queen to govern, but the former King had never married, so he doesn't really have much of a point of reference to judge from.
There's a stretch of silence where Kain stares at Cecil with expectant nervousness and Cecil's expression shifts like he's struggling to say something but can't find the words, and after a moment Kain sighs, realising that if he doesn't say anything they'll be trapped in stalemate.
"Why are you here?" he asks reluctantly, and watches as Cecil's eyes flicker away to the side, a childhood nervous trait he'd never grown out of.
"I... need to know," Cecil says haltingly, and Kain had already been fairly certain that this would be another conversation he didn't want to have, but now he knows that there's no way this can end well. "You said that Golbez... Nii-san... was like me, but..."
Kain wonders if he can just turn around and walk away now, before Cecil says any more and they have to acknowledge anything ever happened, but when he takes a step away Cecil catches his wrist, almost painfully tight. It seems Cecil's discovered a talent for finding him at his most vulnerable, when they're alone and there's no armour to hide behind. Maybe Cecil knew he'd gone to have a shower and had timed it like this on purpose.
"I need to know," Cecil repeats, with more conviction. "How you feel about me."
"Cecil..." Kain says, voice cracking a little, and stops, swallowing hard as he feels Cecil's forehead press between his shoulders, his head leaning against the back of Kain's neck. It's the middle of the night and his room feels cold and eerie, all deep gloomy shadows and blue highlights.
"I love Rosa," Cecil says softly, and Kain flinches before he can help himself, knowing Cecil can feel it but unable to stop himself from reacting. He makes a weak, aborted attempt to pull away, but Cecil's grip only tightens.
"I love Rosa," he says again, and Kain shivers, distracted by the moist warmth of Cecil's breath against his skin. "But she made me realise that I need you."
Kain's eyes widen, body stiffening with shock and confusion. In every possible scenario he'd envisioned, this had never occurred to him. He'd never dared imagine that Cecil would say something like that, and now he has no idea how to react to something so completely unexpected.
"I want to be the one you rely on," Cecil continues, low and desperate, and his fingers unwrap slowly from Kain's wrist, leaving stark white imprints behind as he slides his hand down to tangle with Kain's instead. "I want to be the one who can make this better. I don't want to live my life without you, or let anyone else be with you. I want to know you'll always be by my side, and I want to be able to reach out and touch you. So I need to know, Kain: how do you feel about me?"
Cecil's lips graze his neck and Kain lets out a small noise, more of a gasp than a whimper. Cecil's fingers squeeze around Kain's, his free hand curling around Kain's hip, and Kain reflexively relaxes back against him.
"Tell me you want this," Cecil says quietly, sounding just as unsure and edgy as Kain feels. "Tell me it was because you want me, and not just because you wanted to get back at me or because of coincidence. I need to hear you say it."
Kain opens his mouth in automatic denial, but the lie catches in his throat when he realises there's no need. He blinks, eyes falling briefly shut as he starts to speak, and the words tumble out of his mouth before he can think about them, for once not taking care to censor himself.
"He looked like you," he says unsteadily, the tips of his fingers curling into Cecil's, subconsciously seeking reassurance. "His hair and eyes... the atmosphere around him, it was almost like being near you. But he didn't have your smile, he was so much bigger than you... he wasn't you. I knew that, but there were parts of him that reminded me- and he wanted me. Even if it was just to use me, he wanted me and you didn't. I thought it wouldn't matter that it wasn't you, if he was almost... but it did, and I can't even decide if it's worse thinking that maybe he controlled me, or knowing that even if he did that part of me must have wanted it for it to work."
There's a frozen second of tense stillness, and Kain's heart almost stops when he feels Cecil stepping away. Cecil doesn't let go of his hand, though, his right hand still linked with Kain's left behind Kain's back; instead he tugs, gentle but insistent, guiding Kain around to face him.
Cecil isn't pulling hard and Kain could resist without much effort, but his natural instinct is to follow where Cecil leads, and he lets himself be turned around. They face each other with less than a foot between them, Cecil slowly releasing Kain's hand with a grave, unreadable expression. Kain wants to look away, but Cecil's eyes hold his with irresistible gravity.
"I was jealous," he admits softly, moving forward so they're breathing the same air, tilting his head up so his lips almost brush Kain's when he speaks, and Kain stays frozen, pinned and almost hypnotised by Cecil's gaze. "That you'd let him touch you like that. That you'd choose him over me."
"Cecil-" Kain starts, but breaks off, anything he might have said forgotten when Cecil reaches up, tangling his hands in the loose strands of Kain's hair to hold him in place as he leans up to press their mouths together, at first hesitant but with growing confidence. It's completely different to when Golbez had kissed him, gentle instead of demanding, and although Kain can feel the strength in Cecil's body like he could from Golbez, Cecil is a few inches shorter than him where Golbez had towered.
Even though the kiss had started slowly, it gains momentum, underscored by a hint of desperation and almost pleading. Cecil's centre of balance is tilted forward, his heels lifting slightly off the ground to make up the height difference, and, perhaps without realising it, the energy of the kiss and his weight combined are pushing Kain backwards. Kain lets himself stumble back a few steps without fighting, yielding like the tide drawn by the phases of the moon.
When the back of Kain's knees hits the edge of the mattress and buckle, breaking the kiss, it's Cecil who wavers, standing between Kain's legs and looking down at Kain uncertainly from his reversed height advantage. There's something troubled in his eyes, and Kain doesn't know whether Cecil is undecided of his own feelings or if it's Kain he's worried about, but when his hands slowly drop away from Kain's face like he's about to step away, Kain realises with sudden clarity that it's his turn to take the leap of faith. Cecil is the one who brought them here, but he can't carry this by himself; for once in his life, Kain has to act, not just react.
"Stay," he tells Cecil hoarsely, and catches his hand. "It doesn't have to be anything else, just... stay. Please."
Cecil hesitates, eyes wide and uncertain, but Kain doesn't look away and after a moment Cecil laces their fingers together once more and smiles, the same gorgeous, tender smile Kain had first become infatuated with as an awkward teenager.
"For as long as you'll let me," he agrees, and sinks down onto the bed with Kain, curled around him and over him like a blanket of warmth. His face is buried against Kain's neck, his breath hot against Kain's collarbone. Cecil's weight pins him down into the mattress, secure and real, and for the first time in years, Kain doesn't feel alone.
Staring out the window at the night sky, the moon for once somehow seems beautiful and filled with promise rather than cold and far away.
X. ROSA
When Rosa still hasn't seen Cecil or Kain by the next morning, she's concerned enough to pay a visit first to Cecil's royal chambers and then to Kain's quarters to find out what had happened after she'd spoken to Cecil the day before. It's not that she doesn't accept that they have their own lives or trust them to sort things out for themselves-
Well, actually, she has to admit it's a lot like that, but they're her childhood friends and they have a tendency to overcomplicate things. She can't be blamed for worrying.
Cecil's room had been empty, but the reason for that becomes very apparent when she goes to find Kain. She's quiet entering the room, but it's still enough to disturb Kain into alertness, and from the way his eyes snap open and his body vibrates with tension, she's certain he would have rolled out of bed and had a weapon in hand by now if not for Cecil's dead weight pinning him to the bed.
In a total reverse of the way Kain had sprung awake at the mere hint of another presence, Cecil is still asleep. Rosa is fairly certain that if there were an actual threat he'd have reacted, but it's still surprising for a trained warrior to be so trusting. On reflection, though, she supposes that Kain has more than enough paranoid instincts for both of them anyway.
Rosa and Kain both remain perfectly frozen after the initial shock, Kain's wariness quickly fading away to a nervous awkwardness that makes her think his default impulse is still to roll off the bed, although probably to hide rather than reach for a weapon.
"Rosa," he starts, in what sounds like it might be a this isn't what it looks like tone of voice, but then he stops with an expression like someone who can't swim floundering around in a carp pool. (This isn't mere speculation. It's the exact same expression of bewildered and confused panic that Cecil had had when Kain had pushed him into the fish pond in Baron when they were children before he'd realised how shallow it was.)
Rosa covers her smile with her hand, taking brief guilty amusement in the usually stoic man she grew up with flailing around desperately for something to say before she takes pity and waves him off.
"It's okay," she says, as soothing as she can. "I just wanted to make sure, that's all."
Kain looks a little less panicked, but possibly even more confused. "Of what?" he asks suspiciously, and Rosa shakes her head, feeling her curls sway heavily against her back.
"That you worked it out," she tells him, walking quietly over to the bed to sit down on the edge next to him. "That you didn't let your stubborn pride get in the way and ruin things."
Kain frowns lightly. "I don't know what you're talking about," he retorts, and he's using his stiff, formal brush off but Rosa has known him longer than anyone and she can hear the undertone of sullenness lurking beneath. She gives him a reproachful look and he flushes slightly, looking down at Cecil's tousled hair to avoid her gaze.
"All I want," she says, "is to know that you're happy. And that everything is okay now."
"I..." Kain starts, and hesitates, evidently searching for the right words. She doesn't really need to hear his answer to know the truth, though; the two of them almost glow in the morning light, a perfectly balanced silver and gold yin-yang. Rosa can feel her heart swell with the rightness of them together, her beautiful boys, and the lingering sadness of letting go is all but washed away by a tide of conviction.
"It will be," he finishes eventually, and she has to lean over and hug him, then, sliding her arms around his neck over Cecil's head. Cecil has always been a silent, ghost-like presence between them, distancing them from each other like an invisible barrier without ever even being there, but now he's reassuringly tangible and real, warm and solid like a bridge binding them all together instead of pushing them further apart.
"I'm glad," she whispers, burying her face in the curve of Kain's shoulder, and she can feel Kain's lips move in a smile brushing the side of her face; she can feel the slow rise and fall of Cecil's body against her chest, can feel the warmth of sunlight and their combined body heat against her skin, and Rosa is suddenly certain, without a shadow of a doubt, that everything is going to be okay.