Chapter Text
He bends his fingers at the knuckle, back as he stretched his palms and sighed through his teeth. The muscle there was taut, tendons at a tension shaped rigid and raw, metacarpals squeeze and release.
Gladiolus can only circle for so long, shifting to rest back on two elbows, slant of the roof the pair sat upon granting support. With his chin tipped skyward he watched the stars, the light that needled through the Stygian darkness. Its clandestine pitch launched him inward, turned his prismatic body manifold as he burst color beside Ignis, red and yet returned him to that wordless mouth of his.
Lips that would not shape to his liking, only the tip of a pink tongue to wet them as the silence between them was arid, hung to ashen in the moonlight, the same weathering of a building. Even stone could give way to the rain with enough time.
If only to stoke the fire, what embers between them that still flickered, Gladio quietly suggests, “What if we just slow down? We don’t have to call it quits.” As if this could still the waters, which rippled at his baritone, his brow wrinkling in thought.
But he can see Ignis stiffen out of the corner of his eye, whose shoulders lift as he inhales.
Ignis sits with a knee bent, his forearm propped and resting there, twirling the stem of the carnation Gladiolus had picked for him earlier, as they walked side-by-side through the castle’s garden. How numerous the flowers were there, luminous in their radiance, though not even the sun could compare to what light his companion gave.
His halo and its shining spires, killed by an angel, crushed by his wings and the incandescence that it carried. Or, the crunching gears of their metallic past, the chromatic future ahead of them, or its inky black specter. A premonition, a ghostly flame along his spinal cord, Gladio’s words hit Ignis like a whip.
Ignis pulls his other leg up, hugging his knees to his chest as he curled inward, his other hand leaving Gladiolus’ fingers as he retracted. “This is nothing but a distraction. We have priorities,” his voice is weak despite his best effort, his throat tightening, and there’s a pause before he continues.
“It had to end at some point, Gladiolus.”
The named flinches as though Ignis had just moved to strike him, his lip curling at the statement, teeth clenching, the glaive casts his gaze down. What response could he possibly glean from that? What ruby seed of knowledge could he take the knifepoint to? Wedging words from the diluted speech, he replies, “You don’t mean that.”
He stares at his empty hand as he opens his palm, and then closes it, repeating this, continuing on an exhale. “I... I’m not shirking my responsibilities to be with you. Noctis always comes first, but who says I can’t have a close second?” His fingers contract into a fist as he immediately regrets the confession, knowing that it was something Ignis would not want to hear- nor was it something that would change his mind.
If anything, he would set the embers ablaze, the turbulent uproar of emotion burning crimson kinetic between the two of them.