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A hand drags up his arm and Gladio tenses but resists the temptation to yank it right out of her reach.
“And I thought, you know, as soon as it got boring we could just bail. I booked a room at the hotel nearby…” she drawls. Gladio’s only half sure her name is Mila, for how well he knows her and while he knows exactly what she’s getting at he’s entirely not interested.
“I can’t bail,” Gladio says flatly, “I’m technically working because Prince Noctis will be there.” Easier to say this than try and explain the truth, his truth that is never understood, never believed. Dad says it’s because he’s so tactile, so easy with his affection but Gladio hates that hugs and hand holding and fingers untangling someone else’s hair seem exclusively reserved for people that choose to have sex with one another.
“Well after it’s over then,” she says, batting her eyelashes. Gladio’s aware that she’s beautiful, he can appreciate that much, but he’s still not interested.
“No thanks,” Gladio says, perhaps not as kindly as he should have but he’s tired. He’s got final exams coming up and he’s having to fit studying in around an increase in his physical training.
Mila huffs, “You’re no fun.” Spinning on her heel she stalks off and Gladio hears the brief swell of rapid conversation as she joins her friends, petering off as they walk further away.
“Another one?” Ignis says, appearing silently by his side and almost making him jump.
“Yeah,” Gladio says, “She tried last time, too.”
“Nothing to be said for persistence?” Ignis asks, half teasing so his smooth cheek twitches. Gladio snorts.
It’s not even that Gladio doesn’t want to date, he does. He consumes more romantic fiction that someone with his busy schedule has any right to, he dreams about dates and cosy evenings tucked up on a couch debating his latest book with legs twisted together with someone else's under a thick blanket.
Gladio wants a relationship but only up to a certain physical point and he’s yet to find someone that understands and respects that the way he needs.
Mila certainly doesn’t, her intentions obvious and the guy that had slapped his ass in the locker room three days ago and asked if he wanted to go for coffee with a wink definitely had more in mind that Gladio is able and willing to give.
“Why don’t we go together?” Ignis offers, “Noctis will tease me forever if I stay home and do schoolwork instead of attending another school dance.”
Gladio shuts his locker with a firm hand.
“Like, as friends?” Gladio clarifies.
“If you’d like,” Ignis smiles.
- - -
Gladio meets a girl at the library.
Well, he happens to walk into her path as she’s rushing away from the self checkout and she falls right onto the ground, her books skittering away from her. Gladio crouches down to help but she’s embarrassed, grabbing them up quickly but not before he catches the title Asexuality and You on one of the covers.
“Sorry,” she squeaks, tucking them into her chest to hide them from view.
“Hey,” Gladio says, “It’s okay. And I get it.”
Gladio had read that book too. Then his Dad, in an attempt to grasp something about his son he couldn’t quite understand.
“Oh,” she breathes, “I didn’t think -”
“No one ever does,” he says, sticking his hand out, “Gladio.”
“Lianne,” she says, managing to find her smile again.
“You want to grab coffee, Lianne?” Gladio asks, “I can make sure you got the good books. The helpful ones.”
She giggles and nods.
- - -
Ignis is happy that Gladio’s finally met someone like himself, or so he says. Gladio’s inclined to believe him, as Ignis isn’t prone to lying unless it’s completely necessary. But he seems guarded when they talk about her, curious yet unwilling to ask for the information.
“Are you two dating?” Ignis asks after a few weeks, cocking his hip to lean against the desk in Gladio’s new post graduation, welcome to the working force office.
“No,” Gladio says. They’re not and Gladio likes it like that. Lianne is sweet and cute in her own way but she’s not really what he’s looking for in a partner. Gladio had found someone towards the end of high school, managing to find someone that while not like him understood enough to respect his boundaries.
They’d ended up moving out of Insomnia for college and they’d called things off without Gladio being too heartbroken about it. It was for the best in the long run, he's sure. Besides, Ignis didn’t seem to like them and that was always a minor thread of contention that Gladio would rather not deal with.
“Why not?” Ignis asks.
Gladio frowns.
“Noct’s gay,” Gladio snaps, “Why aren’t you dating him?”
Ignis flushes across his fine cheekbones and ducks his head.
“I’m sorry,” Ignis says, “Of course, that was thoughtless of me.”
“It’s okay,” Gladio says, having already forgiven him, “We thought about it you know, or at least pretending to date.”
“Hmm?” Ignis says, lifting his head again.
“Just to take some of the pressure off. But we’d both like to meet someone eventually, and having even a fake partner would put a dampener on that.”
Ignis nods, almost seeming a little distracted.
“So you’re not bringing Lianne to the Crownsguard social next week?” Ignis asks.
Gladio shakes his head, “I wouldn’t even if it was appropriate, she’d hate it.”
“Did you want to go together?” Ignis asks, talking faster than normal.
“As friends?”
“If you’d like,” Ignis whispers.
- - -
Gladio and Ignis get measured for their official Crownsguard fatigues side by side. The tailor makes a comment about Gladio’s body and he goes to shrug it off but Ignis lays into him about professionalism.
When they go back for their final fitting someone else attends to them and something about that helps quash down the niggling annoyance that Ignis has once again, on a technicality, beat him across the finish line. Ignis managing to graduate High School early wasn’t something that had affected Gladio’s pride much at all but Ignis honing his physical skills so fast he trimmed a full year out of his Crownsguard training maybe stings a little.
Ignis smooths his gloved hands down the front of his purple patterned shirt and Gladio follows the movement with his eyes until he realises what he’s doing and drags them away again.
That's not how you look at a friend, Gladio reminds himself. Stop it.
“I couldn’t have done it without you,” Ignis says out of the blue.
“Huh?”
“Finished early,” Ignis says, “After all, who trained me?”
And that just about takes the sting out of it entirely.
- - -
“I can’t believe he’s eighteen,” Gladio grumbles, turning the fancy invitation over in his hand three times. Pointless to send him one, considering he has to be there as Noctis’ Shield but it’s nice to be included anyway.
Ignis hums in agreement, “I almost wish he weren’t. Give him a little longer just to be.”
“I know,” Gladio says, “How do we make him fifteen forever?”
Ignis laughs.
Gladio looks over the invitation, eyes lingering where it says Gladiolus Amicitia and Guest.
Shit, he thinks, not this again.
- - -
Despite previous attempts and a reputation that Gladio is not up for a good time it feels like half the Crownsguard crawl out of the woodwork in an attempt to scrawl their name over where Gladio’s invitation says guest.
Gladio fends them all off with refusals that grow snippier as the event draws closer.
None of them want him, only the idea of him they have in their heads.
It’s the end of an almost hellish day and the only thing he has left to do is deliver some files to Ignis and then he can go home. Maybe convince his friend to do the same, if he can dig out that famous charm of his.
“Thank you,” Ignis says when Gladio passes him the bundle of documents, sounding just as exhausted as Gladio feels. Ignis sets them down and shuffles some things around on his desk. A single piece of card almost skitters right off the edge of the desk and Gladio reaches out to catch it before it can tumble to the floor, turning it over in his hand when he realises it’s the invitation to Noct’s birthday gala.
“Are you still looking for a plus-one?” Gladio asks him.
Ignis looks up and blinks a couple times. After a lengthy exhale he says, “I suppose. Though, I rather stopped looking.”
“Do you want to go together?” Gladio blurts without really thinking about it and hastily taking on, “As friends.”
There’s a long pause, stretching so far that Gladio starts to feel almost uncomfortable before Ignis says, “If you’d like.”
And Gladio feels better all at once. It's simply good sense to go together when they’re both working. Moreover, and more enticingly, Gladio has never not enjoyed an evening spent with Ignis and there have been many. Gladio doesn’t anticipate starting now.
- - -
Noctis is dancing.
Haphazardly and in what is mostly a little wiggle with Prompto clutching one of his wrists but he's dancing.
It’s the perfect cover Gladio needs, however, to hold his hand out to Ignis and ask him to dance, all under the guise of being closer to Noct and making it easier to do their jobs.
Really he simply thinks it would be nice to dance with Ignis, to stand close and to hold him for the length of a song. Maybe two songs, or longer, if Ignis will allow him.
Gladio's not been able to stop thinking about Ignis since he asked him to this damn gala. Something about the words leaving his mouth crumbling the obviously weak wall he'd erected between the concept of Ignis his friend and Ignis his something else.
It’s not that Gladio has never thought about Ignis like this before but Gladio's always cut the thoughts off as soon as it appeared, a little snip snip with an imaginary pair of scissors labelled incompatible.
Ignis takes his hand, leather of his gloves warm where their palms press together and drags him onto the dance floor. Close enough to Noctis to be seen but not enough to chafe at his every growing need for independence. Ignis’ waist is small under Gladio's palm as he steps into the circle of Gladio's hold. Gladio dares drag him a little closer than he's ever dared before.
They fall into an easy step, much more coordinated than their friends and when Gladio catches Ignis’ eye the adviser looks away quickly, turning a truly beautiful soft pink.
“Are you alright?” Gladio asks.
Ignis nods, then buries his teeth into his bottom lip and shakes his head.
“Ignis -”
“I wonder if next time there’s an event of some sort we could save ourselves the stress of finding and avoiding dates by agreeing now that we’ll attend together,” Ignis says, words leaving him in a rush.
“Sure,” Gladio says easily, liking the idea of that maybe more than he should.
“Only,” Ignis starts and quickly stops.
“Only?”
“Next time I would like us to come not as friends,” Ignis says.
It takes Gladio’s mind an almost embarrassingly long time to parse together what Ignis intends with this statement.
“Like a date?”
The colour on Ignis’ cheeks deepens and Gladio wouldn't look away if Noctis suddenly cried out in pain.
“If you’d like,” Ignis says softly.
Gladio presses his lips together for a moment. He reminds Ignis, “You like sex.”
“I like you,” Ignis says with a wry grin, “I’ve thought about it for - well years at this point - and I know which of those two things I’d rather be without.”
Gladio thinks about it, thinks about tangling his legs with Ignis on the couch and making him listen as he reads corny passages from a cliche romance novel. Thinks about Ignis pottering around in his kitchen and sleeping warm against his chest, brushing a kiss on the edge of his jaw as they separate for work in the morning.
But he thinks about Ignis giving up a part of him that Gladio can’t fulfil, thinks about the potential for Ignis to come to resent him, to regret his choice to be together.
“Wouldn’t that make you unhappy?” Gladio asks, “I can’t ask you -”
“You’re not asking. I’m offering,” Ignis says, “And I promise, if it ever becomes a problem we’ll talk about it. Worse comes to worse I start taking extra long showers.”
Gladio laughs, feeling a little delirious and Ignis presses himself closer, forehead resting against Gladio’s jaw. Gladio turns to brush a kiss over his hairline without thinking about it.
“Okay,” Gladio says.
“Please sound less excited,” Ignis says flatly, “You wouldn’t want me to think you like me too much.”
Gladio laughs and digs his fingers into Ignis’ waist a little firmer.
“I like you a lot,” Gladio assures him, “I just never thought…”
“It’s okay,” Ignis says, “We’ll work it all out later.”
Gladio transfers Ignis’ other hand to his shoulder so he can wrap both arms around his slender waist.
“You can kiss me, if you want,” Gladio whispers to his partner. Gladio likes that part at least, limited experience tells him.
“Now?” Ignis asks, lifting his head and fully meeting his eye this time.
“We’ll work that out later, too,” Gladio promises.