Ignis always took his training far too seriously to let nerves affect him — and the surprise, that odd offense he’d taken to those clipped words, didn’t quite make it to his expression. But it flashes in his eyes, briefly and barely noticeable to the unobservant.
He can feel himself withdrawing already, and it takes all his might to combat the urge to pull away, to dismiss it and leave Gladio alone in the tent, accompanied only by whatever odd thoughts occupy his mind. Ignis doesn’t want to admit that he might be foolishly holding out on that hope after all these years, after he thought he’d convinced himself it wouldn’t work, it wouldn’t happen and– for a moment again he can’t find the words.
“How this works,” he intones, and his volume lowers, words… softened, almost. “Is that if you trust me, you tell me. Whatever this is — what this is that’s bothering you, because it is fairly obvious, Gladio. You were never particularly skilled at hiding things. Much less from me.”
Ignis knows that he shouldn’t in good conscious put him, his friend, in that sort of position. But the man is so damned stubborn at times that, in all honesty, the adviser isn’t utterly sure he’s another choice to make.
It pulls his head from where it had hung, eyes finally meeting the other man’s and he lets out a huff of indignance, as if frustrated that Ignis somehow knew exactly what to say, precisely what corner to back him into to get what he wanted out of Gladio and it was infuriating but also one of the endless reasons he loved Ignis so fiercely.
“You’re fucking insufferable sometimes, you know that?”
He relents though, running a hand through knotted hair, brows drawing together as he lowers his voice to an almost whisper. The last thing he wanted was for the others to hear him, to know just how truly weak he was behind that wall he’d fashioned to bear the brunt of his destiny.
“It’s... You.” He lifts a hand to loosely gesture at the man, shaking his head. “Everything about you. Your damned smile, that stupid thing you do with your hair, how you fuss over everyone and ignore yourself and Gods, Ignis, it’s the fact that seven years have passed and I still can’t get past how much I want you.”
There’s a beat and he continues. “And I don’t fucking mean sex, I want you. All the little parts that make up the incredibly infuriating package.”
It hangs in the air, unsaid but just as tangible and Gladio stubbornly looks anywhere but Ignis’s face.
blakekathryn
theartofmadeline
2087
kaledo-art
dededos
pixelskylines
