Triangles

Summary: A triangle has three sides and three corners and that's just how Yuri likes it. Anything worth getting is worth working for, and their triangle is a thousand times better than anyone else's broken pairs. YurixFlynnxEstelle.

AN: I regret nothing, motherfuckers. Long live this OT3.

For as long as he could remember, Yuri had always been a little bit in love with Flynn.

Or maybe a lot, actually.

From the first, it had never been anything strange to him, just a constant in his life like few things were. They were friends, friends and brothers-in-arms and maybe not lovers in the beginning but they didn't have to be, because Yuri was content with what Flynn was content to give him. Growing up, kisses weren't uncommon, hugs even less so, and it was the stability that was most attractive to him.

Yuri trusted Flynn implicitly, to always have his back even when he was wrong, to definitely follow even when he was an idiot, and to accept when he reached out even when he didn't deserve it.

It was never a secret, not to the Lower Quarter and not to the knights, and it was never something that either he or Flynn had ever thought to sit down and discuss like normal people would, because there was never anything to discuss.

They had each other's days and their nights too and there was no reason to discuss anything because it wasn't like they were in a relationship, not like other people were in a relationship.

They were just Yuri and Flynn and they did what they wanted and everyone knew that they loved each other and there was nothing more to it.

It was simple and stable and enough.

And then there was Estelle, who had to change the game.

From the first, Flynn Scifo had known that Yuri Lowell was different and special and his.

He'd never really had to think about it too hard; they'd grown up together and Yuri knew all of the things that Flynn would never let anyone know. They were each other's friends and first kiss and then, a little later on, each others' parents because there wasn't anyone else to do it and no one to say no.

Everyone thought that it had to be Yuri, brash and brave and utterly reckless Yuri, who had first dropped his head forward and kissed Flynn so hard that he couldn't breathe and until tree branches dug into his back, but they'd have been wrong on that front. Flynn was the one who stepped forward and changed the rules just enough that it didn't really matter, just enough that they could keep up, just enough that it had never been strange and neither of them had ever been scared.

It was Flynn who chose, Flynn who took the lead, but that would all have been pointless if Yuri had refused to follow, refused to let him.

It was comfortable and he never felt the need to define it because he was pretty sure that he knew what it was and he was pretty sure that Yuri knew what it was. And if he didn't and didn't care? Well, that was just fine with Flynn.

Yuri had been there from the beginning and Flynn knew implicitly that he would be there to the end, from the good times to the bad times to when they were getting along to when they couldn't stand each other and practically fell into bed hissing and snarling, even after Yuri quit the knights and Flynn was on his own.

And then there was Estelle, who had to go and make Flynn think.

Estelle's earliest memories weren't actually of the castle, which was what she lead people to believe. She was very young, yes, when her parents discovered her ability and gave her away to the Empire, but she was just old enough to remember and just young enough to not understand. So for the longest time, the Empire's precious princess who was just a little girl was by herself.

Yes, she had servants to pick out her clothing for her and chefs to cook for her and maids to clean for her and knights to train her and make sure she didn't get herself killed, but when she said good morning to them, they replied merely with "Good Morning, Lady Estellise" and continued on with their work.

She knew that they didn't dislike her (she went out of her way to not make them work so hard, even though as a curious little girl this was nigh impossible) but they were there to do a job and she couldn't really blame them for being distant, not when she thought about it. And she thought about it a lot. There were always people around and Estelle always had somewhere to be or some lesson to attend or some council meeting (in which she had no input) to sit through, but Estelle was always alone.

She eventually accepted it as fact or fate or something out of her control until she met Flynn Scifo. Flynn Scifo who was still so sour about his good friend (and lover, if Estelle's suspicions were correct) leaving the knights but who, despite it being their very first meeting, treated her like a person rather than a princess. He said the proper things and addressed her in the proper way but Estelle knew instinctively that it was different. He was seeing her, talking to her, interested in her thoughts and ideas and feelings because he just was and not because of her rank. He was kind and interesting and enjoyable to be around and it was the first time she'd felt that way about anyone, like he could talk about himself forever and she might never get enough.

He was someone she hadn't known she'd needed so badly: a legitimate friend, the first she'd ever had.

And eventually, despite what she wanted (because Flynn was so very clearly besotted with this person he didn't like talking about and Estelle was not a homewrecker, thank you), Estellise Sidos Heurassein fell in love with her knight.

Flynn didn't mean to do it. He really, really didn't.

He knew that he was lonely and that he wasn't expecting the princess (whom he'd never seen before in his life) to be so…different. She was sheltered, that was for sure, but he could see that behind all the naiveté, she had a drive for knowledge and he could see her soak in and remember everything he said, like she was actually interested in his former glory as a peasant. And the thing was… she was interested. Legitimately interested, not politely interested or forcedly interested or any of the other varieties of interest that meant that she didn't really care.

It actually hurt to see the difference between Lady Estellise with him and with anyone else. Not just in the way she reacted but in the way everyone else treated her. Polite, proper, and perfect. Perfectly distant. She was waited on hand and foot and coddled but no one reached out to her. It was like everyone just saw a royal instead of a teenage girl who needed friends and support just like anyone else.

So Flynn decided that he was going to be different for her. He could be her friend just like she needed. And maybe, if he was being completely honest with himself, she could be a friend just like he needed too.

He had heard the word 'princess' and his brain had instantly jumped to someone he'd have to baby, to treat with kid gloves, to chase down. Oh, he had to chase down Lady Estellise but that was because the council had some sort of idea that they could keep her out of the more dangerous libraries and Lady Estellise knew full well that come hell or high water, she would get to all of those places they didn't want her to go and that meant that Flynn was constantly picking his brain on where in the world she could have gotten to this time.

And he liked her.

He never meant to like her. She was his job and somehow she became his friend, and Yuri leaving hurt but then he met this girl that he ended up spending quite a bit of time around, and she was pretty and ridiculous and actually hysterically funny, and he liked her.

Somehow, that felt more like cheating than anything else.

He and Yuri had both been with other people (they didn't keep a monopoly on each other, that just wasn't how they worked) but Flynn had only ever given his body to someone else, never his heart.

And he felt like the most disloyal, traitorous asshole for it.

The funny thing about it was that Estelle knew who Yuri was the moment she mentioned Flynn. It didn't matter that he hadn't mentioned his name or that Flynn had only mentioned Yuri by name once by accident, it was obvious enough simply by the way he acted. Most everyone knew Flynn but Yuri was different, he didn't straighten up out of respect like everyone else but softened instead, relaxing instead of coming to attention.

It was that little gesture that caught Estelle's eye and made her think, more spontaneous than anything she'd ever said or done,

I need to stick with him.

Sure, she might have taken anybody at the time but Estelle couldn't help but think, later, that maybe there was a little more to it than chance. What were the odds of such a meeting anyway? She could have run into absolutely anyone but she found Yuri and grabbed onto that chance and she wouldn't let go.

Yuri was nothing like Flynn.

Flynn had a visible temper and took stress out by hitting things; Yuri simmered and steamed and then got even. Flynn was chatty and Yuri only said what needed to be said, like his every word was a secret that he said only because he had to. Yuri could actually make edible food, in stark contrast to his friend who…couldn't.

Like, at all.

They were both unbelievably stubborn and incredibly brave and kind of boneheaded too, but that was something she could appreciate rather than criticize. There were plenty of smart people in the world, she knew, with so much knowledge coming from books that there was no more room for common sense or street smarts. Estelle wasn't an idiot, she knew she had to classify herself as one of those people, but she was trying and kept trying until she realized, one evening, that she was comfortable.

She was comfortable with Yuri the way she was with Flynn, and they had something in common. Rather than feeling jealous or slighted, she actually felt happy about it. It was wonderful, Estelle decided, that Flynn had someone he cared about so much who cared about him in return. It was something wonderful.

And that night she sat at the campfire later than normal, even past the time that Yuri himself had decided to turn in for the evening, and thought long and hard about what she wanted to do, what she needed to do, and what she should do.

Her conclusion was that what she wanted was best kept to herself, that what she needed most was to avoid lying to herself, and that what she should do was exactly what she would do, which was to keep quiet about the whole thing and let it manage itself.

Love was something beautiful, she thought, and should continue to be so. She wouldn't poison it, wouldn't hurt it, and would protect it with everything she had even if it belonged to someone else.

The first time Yuri had met Estelle, he thought she was crazy. A little bit crazy and possibly a little bit stupid but basically off her rocker, because what could a princess possibly want with a world outside her castle and her servants and her silver platter?

At least, he thought she was crazy, and then he spent some time with her.

The stupidity, he found, was a naiveté that while annoying was harmless and relatively easy to manage; a good dose of life and a shot of disillusion cleared up a good deal of it. So in the end, instead of a foofy princess that he felt rather obligated to keep alive (if only for her skill at healing), he ended up with a ridiculous one who he couldn't help but like.

It was the fact that she tried so hard that started the process.

Sure, she failed half the time, but it wasn't like Yuri could talk all that much about being successful (successful at being a good for nothing hooligan, maybe), and she still kept trying even when it didn't go right, when she fell flat on her face, when she was too slow and had to scramble for anything that would keep them alive. And the thing was, she might have failed but they stayed alive and Yuri knew that in the end, that was all anyone could ever ask for.

Find someone successful and you could probably make it through okay if you do what they say.

Find someone who fails and somehow manages to keep saving you anyway despite what happens? That person was a keeper and Yuri realized one day with a start that Estelle was exactly that kind of person. Cringingly sheltered, horrifyingly stubborn, and ridiculously endearing, Estelle was exactly the kind of person that Yuri seemed to have a previously unknown soft spot for. Or maybe it was just Estelle, because he couldn't think of anyone else in his life who had ever healed him without thinking about it or expecting payment, and had in fact bullied him into sitting still long enough to look him over and make sure she'd gotten every last scratch off of his skin, even the ones that wouldn't scar and barely bled and didn't hurt.

And then they ran into Flynn, and it like was the brightest spotlight in the world got put on the situation.

Estelle liked him. Not just in the way that Yuri liked Repede or Rita liked cream puffs, but liked him the way Yuri liked him, in that way that made her hands twitch and her eyes soften (impressive, considering that Estelle pretty much existed in a state of emoting) and her voice go a little bit higher in a way that he found familiar but couldn't pin down.

And Flynn liked her too, and that was strange and a little bit awful and made Yuri feel slightly sick to his stomach until he looked his friend in the eyes and saw the same love that he always had, but mixed with a shame so intense that it made him hurt to see. He didn't want to see that sort of pain in someone he cared for, even if he ought to be angry and offended.

Flynn was hurting over it and Yuri made sure to tell him, not in words but in touches and looks and gestures that if he wanted someone else, all he needed to do was to go for it because Yuri didn't own him and wouldn't claim to.

Even after that, though, Yuri had the strange and sinking feeling that the melancholy that threatened to take over whenever he thought about it had just as much to do with Estelle as it did with Flynn, and that was a little bit terrifying.

Estelle didn't see a moral issue with being in love with two people. Sure, it'd have the potential to get messy if anything actually came out of it but she had no intention of saying anything, not when it was as obvious as her hair was pink that Flynn tempered Yuri, smooth sides to rough edges, and Yuri sharpened Flynn, forcing him out of the calm box he liked to put himself in to pretend like he didn't have a temper (which he certainly did, and oh, what a temper). It made her happy to see them happy, even though at the same time it left her feeling lonelier than she'd ever been by herself.

So what, she decided, if she thought sometimes how nice it would be to curl up with both of them?

She wasn't an idiot; Estelle knew full well what two people could do together, so why couldn't you do the same with three? It wouldn't be that complicated, as long as the feelings were there.

And that was the thing, she supposed, the rub, the curse. The feelings weren't there and while she wasn't as okay with it as she'd like to be, she was more than okay with the two people she cared for more than anyone being able to be happy even if it was unconventional and frowned upon in some circles. That was how she wanted it to stay, because the idea of resenting Yuri or resenting Flynn for loving someone else was absurd.

It hurt sometimes, definitely, but that was the best thing about travelling with others: there was always someone to talk to, something to help with, or something that needed doing. Estelle took full advantage of that, often working off the anxiety by sparring with Judith and Karol or wheedling Rita into letting her wear her scarves instead of fighting with them.

Love could get warped, she realized, and Estelle didn't want that. Not for those two and certainly not for herself.

Flynn thought that the worst possible part about this was feeling like the biggest jerk to ever live.

He was wrong, actually; the worst part was feeling like the biggest jerk to ever live and then realizing the person you're tearing yourself up over actually likes someone else. He could see the way Estelle watched Yuri, so quiet and content that it physically hurt. It ached in a way he couldn't describe, not just because that meant that he'd never be able to have her, but because he understood why she would watch Yuri like that, because he knew he wore the exact same look.

And then he watched Yuri and understood without saying a word that he wasn't anywhere near as impervious to those same feelings as he'd like to pretend, because he put up with things from Estelle that he wouldn't tolerate from anyone: from suffering through her attempts at cooking (only slightly better than Flynn's own) to sitting still to submit to post-battle healing, where she was meticulous down to the last detail.

He couldn't help but wonder, then, what would happen if he lost his mind and mentioned how torn up he was all the time, how he felt like he was so wrong, and how it was even more wrong that it didn't feel anywhere near as wrong as it should. One of them would leave, he assumed. Probably Yuri, because the stubborn bastard was so used to giving himself up and too prideful to ever say what it cost him.

He wondered what would happen if he ever said how badly he wanted both of them, to the point where his skin burned every time either of them laid a hand on him and dreams of heat and flowers filled his nights.

Sometimes he felt it pulse through him so potent that he was sure that if he looked Yuri in the eyes, he'd see every last detail written across his face just like he knew the details of Flynn's body.

Spirits, but he was so selfish. He didn't just want (and have, he'd always had) one person to love, he had to go and fall for two.

He was so selfish that he didn't ever regret it.

It hit Yuri like a bombshell to realize it…the reason why Estelle's tells were so familiar to him? He saw them when she looked at him, too. She had feelings for the both of them and spirits knew that he had feelings for the both of them and maybe, maybe, Flynn shared those feelings as well.

And that opened up an option that Yuri had never dreamt could possibly be on the table. It was unconventional but maybe…

Maybe he didn't have to choose.

Maybe he could have the two of them and maybe it could be okay.

Maybe he could have the two of them and maybe it could work.

The idea itself was entirely crazy and a little bit exhilarating and Yuri didn't know until it happened just how much of a relief it might be to realize that this could be okay, that they could be functional. If the feelings were there, the only thing that had to go into it was work, and Yuri was used to working hard to get what he wanted.

This wouldn't be an easy one but he always thought (much to Flynn's chagrin and reluctant agreement) that anything worth getting was worth working hard for. And once he started thinking about it, he found that the idea in itself, of himself and Flynn and Estelle being a triad instead of broken pairs, appealed to him and the more that he thought about it, the more he couldn't stop thinking about it.

And once that was settled, the only thing left to do was to do something about it.

How could he not when it was close enough to touch, if only he had the right way to reach out for it?

So Yuri waited until it was just the three of them and chose that moment to lean in and press a familiar kiss to Flynn's mouth just in time to see the look of resigned heartbreak flash across Estelle's face. Flynn proceeded to flail and demand to know what the hell Yuri thought he was doing…only to freeze when Yuri looked him straight in the eyes, grinned, and laced a hand into the princess', tugging her forward to kiss her too, less familiar but just as welcomed.

And something clicked.

This was right, Yuri decided, in a way that so few things in the world were right. This was right and he was never, ever letting this go.

Estelle got it first and Yuri felt her smile against his lips, bright and warm like sunshine and she continued to smile after she pulled away, like Yuri had just given her the most precious secret. Flynn's confusion was still written all over his face and the two others exchanged a look before it was Estelle's turn to move, sidling up to her friend, her knight, her everything else that was important and pulling him down to kiss his temple first, then his cheek, and then a soft brush of the lips until Flynn looked less like he was going to jump out of his skin and more like he'd been handed a puzzle he couldn't quite work.

Yuri might have started it but Estelle was the one to make it clear, by looking between both of them and declaring with a blinding grin that might have been the least dignified thing either of them had ever seen in their lives,

I am never letting go of you. Either of you.

It was cheesy and it was sappy and Yuri would deny to his dying day that the look on his face matched hers entirely when he wrapped an arm around each of them and dragged them close until he couldn't tell whose hands he was holding and who was stepping on his foot. It turned out to be Flynn, who only stepped down harder when Yuri winced, apparently in retaliation for Letting me go on so long feeling the scum of the world, bastard before catching him in a bruising kiss, harder than the first.

Oh, this was going to be good, Yuri decided, and he was so excited to see where this could go.

Yuri loved triangles.

How could he not when they're all angles and linchpins? How could he not when he knew that Estelle loved the two of them more than anyone else in the world but neither more than the other? He was Flynn's equal in every sense of the word and somehow, he loved Estelle even more for being able to love them together as equals but for different reasons.

How could he not when he knew that now, Flynn had someone on his other side, the one that Yuri couldn't look out for?

There was a different dynamic with Estelle than with Flynn and that was exactly the way he liked it. They were so very different in very different ways and it would be an insult to expect it to be the same. With Flynn he could be a little more slipshod because they'd been together for so long already; Flynn knew him too well to take him seriously about half the time and the other half was mostly blow and bluster.

With Estelle he had to be more careful, mostly because they didn't have that history. She was a little more sensitive and a little more tentative and sometimes, Yuri found out too late that he'd hurt her feelings over something he hadn't even thought about. It was bound to happen; it was hard enough to manage a relationship with one person but to manage one with two?

Well, it was a good thing that he loved them a hell of a lot, otherwise he'd be telling them to hit the road from the sheer amount of double-teamed mother-henning suddenly present in his life.

It wasn't easy but he wouldn't complain, not when he got twice the kisses and twice the support and twice the love, even though he'd deny to the end that that kind of schmoop didn't matter to him. It also didn't hurt when, on a day that held no particular significance, the three of them tumbled into bed in a tangle of limbs and didn't leave for a good long time, until Estelle was brushing sweaty dark hair behind Yuri's ears and Flynn was dropping slightly dazed kisses to her shoulder, his hands settled comfortably at her hips like they belonged there.

They did belong there, Yuri thought with immense satisfaction when he rolled over and hooked an ankle into the crook of someone's knee, and it would never not be worth it.

Flynn didn't know how he'd gotten so lucky but he did know that it was a double edged sword, because when Yuri was gone he always missed him, but when Yuri and Estelle were gone, he missed them twice as much.

It wasn't anyone's fault, he knew full well, that sort of thing just happened, especially when you were a knight and your lovers consisted of a princess (who might not be a princess for much longer if the way Estelle's tolerance for bull crap was shortening by the day) and a guild leader (whose infamy now attracted people to him instead of repelling them), and he understood that but it didn't mean he had to like it.

He wasn't alone in this, as he discovered one night when Yuri was at the guild headquarters in Dahngrest and he was curled up in bed with Estelle, and she kept stiffening against him every time she reached out to his other side and found nothing there. It made him hold her tighter and it was a testament to how good of an idea this had been that they ached for him as much as they would have had it only been the two of them.

The entire thing required a certain creativity because Estelle was still a princess and he was still the leader of the knights and under no circumstances could he been seen entering or leaving her bedroom in the castle at night or early in the morning, but they found ways to make it work because Yuri knew all of the ways in and out of the castle and had, of course, found all of the best ways to get into said bedroom, and Estelle got better at dodging the guards to pop over to Yuri's home in the Lower Quarter whenever she wanted, which was most of the time. Flynn had it easiest of all of them; no one batted an eye when he meandered around the Lower Quarter, not like the attention Estelle garnered when she was spotted down there and not like Yuri when he traversed through the Upper and Royal districts.

And he knew that there were plenty of times that he was out traveling and doing his duties for the Empire and he always hoped that his lovers would be able to be together on those nights.

It had gotten harder to sleep alone, Flynn knew, and he had adapted to one extra person in his bed like a bird to the sky. To be down two when one was already strange was almost painful. Inevitable but painful, even though Yuri slept like an octopus and Estelle preferred being the big spoon at all times and Flynn would have thought that there might be times where it would be nice to have the bed to himself.

He was wrong because before he knew it, his bed was too big with just him and he tossed and turned all night.

Estelle wished someone, at least, would have been surprised.

Oh, they were surprised that all three of them had agreed to the arrangement, but that the feelings existed? Not one speck of shock.

Which was actually a little bit annoying because Estelle hadn't seen it coming at all.

That's not to say that the reactions were the same. Karol stared in shock like he couldn't quite wrap his head around the idea and Rita sputtered for a good while but Raven alternated affectionate shoulder claps with exaggerated winks and Judith merely smiled serenely, like she'd seen it coming all along.

Knowing Judy, she probably had.

Actually, knowing Judy, she'd probably had a betting pool set up for the last year and had just come into a good load of gald on her wagers.

Point being, Estelle knew that she was incredibly lucky to be blessed with friends who not only supported her but who rolled their eyes like they couldn't believe it took so long, and who teased her and Yuri in equal measure until she blushed and he escaped to abandon her to their tender mercies.

She'd hugged them all so hard for it anyway.

Other people wouldn't be so accepting but she decided that they didn't matter. Who she loved or decided to be with had nothing to do with her potential ability or lack of to rule and she wouldn't think about it. Whether Yuri or Flynn worried about it she didn't know, because Estelle didn't ask. Because she didn't think it mattered much whether she ended up becoming empress or not and she hoped that they knew that it didn't matter.

She had a feeling, as she had always had, that eventually it would be Ioder on the throne rather than herself, and it was a thought that almost comforted her now in a way that it hadn't before. Not because she wasn't prepared for it or because she was afraid of it, but because for the first time, she knew with all her heart that either she or Ioder would be fine for the job.

She just thought that he would be better at it.

So she stayed quiet and didn't speak a word of her suspicions or her feelings or her worries and buried them instead in the juncture of Yuri's shoulder and the sturdy set of Flynn's hips and when they held her on those nights that they could all be together, she felt like she could be unafraid.

The council had an absolute fit when they found out.

Flynn was one thing. Oh, it was inappropriate, sure, but it could be worse. He was at least a knight, it was romantic for a princess to fall in love with her knight— Moreover, it was entirely improper that she wouldn't even deny that she was sleeping with him. A princess, they informed her, was to behave with decorum and modesty and decorum and modesty did not involve engaging in such loose behavior before marriage. How could she possibly rule with dignity and pride if the people suspected that their empress was easy? She could, they supposed, eventually marry the commandant (and only the commandant), but not for a few years yet.

And then, for them, it did get worse.

Yuri? Yuri Lowell? The guy who'd been in jail so many times that he had his very own cell? Never in a thousand years would they ever, ever—

And then Estelle, because she could and would a thousand times more if she had to, cut off all of their protests and said with a despicable, honey-sweet smile and a bat of her eyes -to cover up the shaking rage- that fooled absolutely no one, Then it's a good thing that I don't require anyone's permission to love who I want, isn't it?

She was the only one who'd ever be able to get away with that, because instead of being the shy, reclusive figurehead of a princess that she'd started out as, Estelle had decided that if she was going to be put in a position of power then she was going to use that power for good and those who didn't know any better could go to hell in a handbasket. Flynn told Yuri one day that they'd created a monster and Yuri's response was merely to shrug and reply that he adored that monster, and Flynn couldn't help but agree whole heartedly.

It didn't matter if she did need anyone's permission, because at her worst Estelle was the most stubborn creature to ever walk the planet and she was very good at getting what she wanted, even if she had to take the long way around. Once she decided that she was going to hold onto something? The best thing to do was the either sit back and wait or to follow after her.

It worked out well for Yuri, who heard it secondhand from Flynn who'd been just outside the door and in perfect earshot for eavesdropping.

It had been beautiful, he'd said as he relayed the story later over cups of coffee in Yuri's kitchen, absolutely beautiful. None of the old coots had a clue of what to do with her now that she had her own agenda and had turned, eventually, to Ioder for aid. Ioder, who had been sitting at the head of the table, watching all of it with such a lack of expression that it lowered the room temperature.

Ioder, who eventually had to drop his poker face to grin from ear to ear and hold up both of his thumbs in response, a gesture that earned him a bouncing hug from the princess in question and a shocked, horrified silence from the council.

It worked out well for Yuri in another way too, because not long after Flynn had completed his story had there been a knock on his door, and the only warning he got was a flash of pink before he was being tackled to the ground in a combination of kisses and breathless words, and Flynn was rolling his eyes to usher the both of them into the bedroom because this, well…

This required a celebration of the highest caliber and he knew just how to celebrate.

AN2: Oh man, so this is pretty unlike my usual subject matter. Seriously, if you have anything to say about it, anything at all, please leave me something in the comments, or even in a PM. I'd love to hear what you think.