Noctis Lucis Caelum (veggiehater) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-05-13 20:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, ₴ inactive: gladio amicitia, ₴ inactive: ignis scientia (2), ₴ inactive: noctis lucis caelum (2) |
Log: Chocobro Trifecta
But he'd been fine. Really.
Besides, however fine (or not fine) he'd been didn't really matter anymore. Everyone was supposed to be back shortly and he had more pressing matters. Namely that he'd let the apartment become a damn mess after over a week of doing the absolute bare minimum. So he tossed in some laundry, made the beds with fresh linens (plural because he sure as hell had been crawling into Ignis' sheets the past couple days and no he didn't want to talk about it), did some dusting, cleaned the bathrooms, and had settled into tackling the kitchen.
Bass and Henruit circled around his feet, almost as though they could feel his own anticipation. A weird mix of anticipation and worry, excited to have Noct and Ignis back but that gods awful worry that gnawed in the pit of his stomach, that terrible voice in the back of hsi head of what if it doesn't work.
And it was Henruit who tripped him up as he moved a couple of cups from the breakfast nook to the dishwasher. "Shit -" he muttered out as he sidestepped and narrowly avoided dropping the cups precariously held between fingers. He caught his balance and started to put them into the dishwasher.
Ten days in the past had felt like longer to Noct. For good and for bad reasons. The bad - ten days away from Gladio was a constant, brutal ache. He’d tried to remind himself of the four months without Ignis, the additional months without Prompto, and the two years they’d all spent without him as some sort of perspective, but all that did was turn his insides into a hurricane of stress. Also, he was horribly spoiled by modern conveniences and roughing it sucked no matter what his boyfriend thought.
The good though, the good carried weight. Ten days in close proximity with Ignis had dispelled most of the worry that Ignis didn’t have romantic feelings for him. There’d been moment after moment that felt like it had been pulled right from a romance novel. And he’d quieted a worry in his heart that Ignis would ignore his own misgivings if Noct wanted something badly enough. Also he’d watched Ignis’s back, as well as Gladio would have, and with only a fraction of his normal arsenal, so he felt pretty good about that.
He felt better about being home though. Even if the magic dumped them out hard into the hallway and he bounced off a wall. He opened his mouth to say shit and heard the word in Gladio’s voice instead from the other room. His grin bloomed bright and instant and he latched a hand onto Ignis to drag him towards the commotion.
“Are you under attack out here?” Noct teased. He sounded nervous for some dumb reason. His tone shifted to amusement though as he took in the scene. “Astrals. Are you cleaning?”
As Ignis could practically feel that grin from across him, he let himself get pulled and his feet moved at nearly the same speed as Noctis. (Just a hair too close to clipping the heels of his best friend, given his longer stride), and was brought up short right behind him.
In the end, he nudged Noct forward another step, but his own grin bloomed on his face at the sound of cleaning. He’d worried about this - Gladio being left alone - but now that they were back, it was hard to keep that worry. Instead all he felt was relief, relief that they were once again together, the three of them.
He should have felt more worried that he was overstepping a boundary, but-- well. He didn’t. He’d had nearly two weeks to sit on Gladio’s words, to stew over them, to wonder what they meant. Coupled with ten days with Noctis, in close quarters, with more touching than should have felt right (but oh, it felt very right), and feelings that very nearly spilled over in writings to Gladio… Ignis was conflicted, but his heart felt more whole than it had weeks before.
Hearing Gladio cleaning, feeling Noct’s hand under his own-- Iggy kept that dumb smile on his face and tried to picture the scene before him. “Honey, we’re home.” And to Noctis, in a stage-whisper loud enough for Gladio to hear. “How bad is my kitchen?”
He heard the thump still over his own voice, and immediately went on edge. Even if he knew to expect Noctis and Ignis just showing up, a thump out of nowhere was always cause for concern. Concern that was quickly quelled when he heard the familiar voices. Relief flooded him as Noctis and Ignis came into view: looking relatively unscathed, not too worse for wear, and firmly in one piece.
It felt a little like that first moment in Vallo he'd laid eyes on Noctis after the years apart. Though this time it wasn't as wrapped up in the same uncertainty and heaviness. But the relief was the same, the same rush of thank the gods and that feeling of things finally clicking back into place.
He laughed a little at the commotion of them clambering into the living space, half from the spectacle and half just sheer relief. "Your kitchen is fine," Gladio replied to the not so subtle dig. "And yes, I'm cleaning," he added as he shot a mock look of indignation towards Noctis.
Gladio left the dishwasher though in favour of moving closer to Noct and Ignis, and without even so much as a pause, wrapped his arms around the both of them as best he could. And if he sagged a little into the makeshift hug, as though the stress and worry of the past ten days was suddenly just leaving him, well could he really be blamed. "I missed you," he said, muffled in the closeness and more than directed at the both of them.
Noct’s laugh was a little giddy. Relief did that to him sometimes. Ignis joking warmly and Gladio’s faking annoyance were just icing on the cake. He did have just enough time to wonder what the apartment had looked like before Gladio got to work - and to feel that thought twist at his heart - before he was pulled into the hug.
Everything else melted away in the face of this. Noct wrapped his arms tightly around Gladio’s waist and pressed as close as he could get.
“Me too. Us too.” He had no reservations about speaking for Ignis on this one. He shifted so he could wrap an arm around Ignis instead of just being smashed between them. “Don’t let it go to your head but we talked about you a lot.”
“Oh--” Ignis let himself get pulled into the hug, ultimately by both of them. Between Gladio’s large arm being wrapped around him and Noct’s smaller one pulling him in to both of them, he got comfortable.
It should have felt selfish, to intrude on a moment where Gladio and Noct would have? Should have? Wanted some alone time. He would give that to them later, but right now, Ignis felt warm and pleased at being immediately included, and wanted to touch them all the same. One hand clutching at Gladio’s side, the other arm wrapped around Noct’s shoulders, he hoped no one commented about how his head moved to rest against Gladio’s shoulder, just a little.
“He’s right, your large, lumbering presence was most certainly missed.” Ignis made no move to pull away first, as he might have two weeks previously. “I don’t know how we would have fit you in the sleeping bag, however.”
That Ignis didn't immediately step back was - progress? Tugged at something in Gladio and with their letters tucked away in the journal started to finally quiet the self doubt and worry about them all moving forward, together. More than that though it was just nice. Gladio always felt more settled when the people he cared for were close at hand, close enough to protect should the need arise. Having Noctis and Ignis out of reach had felt wrong and awful in so many ways.
He ducked into the top of Noct's head, very aware of Ignis' head on his own shoulder, and in no particular hurry to break up the three way hug. "Hopefully good things," he said lightly as Noctis let it be known he'd been the subject of conversation.
Gladio laughed softly as Ignis brought up the sleeping bag. "Squish? A lot?" he suggested, which was a ridiculous mental image, especially since he knew they would be no way in hell all three of them would have ever fit. He imagined it was a tight enough spot for the two of them to begin with. He was sure there were some who would find jealousy at the idea of their boyfriend in such tight quarters with someone else, but Ignis was not someone else.
It was only when Bass started to claw at his leg to try to get in to see his owner did Gladio let them go and step back a little. "You two hungry or anything? I could - " he paused briefly before saying make something as he remembered the fairly empty fridge "order us something in?"
"We'd have made it work." Noct felt keenly aware of them both. Like he couldn't miss a detail of this even if he tried. He gripped into their shirts for a moment before making himself let go. Even then, he didn't move far, just crouched down to lift Bass up into his arms and nuzzle into his fur.
"Hey buddy, I missed you too." Bass pressed his big head up under Noct's chin, which made Noct smile. He scratched at Bass's head as he spotted some suspicious noodle containers in the trash. "I was going to suggest something easy but it looks like you cleaned us out," he joked. "I'm pretty sure we owe Ignis a nice meal, anyway."
His soft gaze drifted to Ignis and stayed. "He's been stuck baking in terrible conditions and still managed to nail the pastry he's been practicing for me all these years."
Ignis felt warm, and it wasn’t due to the close quarters of the hug. Well, maybe a little from that, but it was a pleasant warmth. He reached over to offer his own pets to Bass, who leaned into his touch and purred against Iggy’s outstretched hand. “I am hungry, but I’d like to see what’s going on in here first.” He made his way to the kitchen, his kitchen, as much as it was Gladio’s, Ignis had taken on partial ownership.
It was a good way to give them both a few moments of privacy, should they wish it, and just to stay within a reasonable distance so he could figure out what Gladio had been up to while they were gone.
It also helped mask his blush from Noct’s compliments. “Just luck of the draw, really. Maybe I needed something from the past that I couldn’t get here? I hope the taste of that dessert is enough to hold you over for a while, as I can make no promises to replicate it again--” He had opened the fridge, and cut himself off before turning back to Gladio. “Is it empty? Gladiolus.”
It was hard to dwell on the worry and anxiety the past ten days had had him feeling, now that Noctis and Ignis were back. Gladio knew maybe there were a few things in there worth examining at a later date, things he had never even begun to deal with from back home with Noctis' disappearance into the crystal that had come up during the past week and a bit. But he was in no rush right then to dwell on it all. Not when everything in that moment felt so light and warm.
Gladio took a moment to duck his head down and press a kiss to Noct's temple. "I think we can arrange that," he assured Noct at the mention of giving Ignis a good meal. Even if, for now at least, it was one they ordered in. Gladio didn't much feel like taking off to hit up the store to make something, at least not for the immediate future. He dropped a hand on Noct's shoulder and turned to look at him, giving a once over for any injuries.
"I'm sure you'll figure it out again, Iggy," Gladio said to Ignis in the kitchen. He knew well enough how long of a project that one had been, but he'd gotten it once now so that was likely to make it easier going forward. "And hey, pretty nice thing to make up for the lack of modern comforts," he added with a laugh. "But yeah, the fridge is pretty bare, Ignis." At the very least he'd cleared out the leftovers from the first few days that had gone bad. Though aside from condiments and other things that lasted there wasn't much in the way of food.
Noct wanted to laugh at Gladio being scolded for an empty fridge – he knew that Ignis tone better than anybody – but the picture of Gladio here alone still coiled uncomfortably in his gut. He managed a soft smirk and Bass rose up between them and pawed gently at Gladio’s jaw.
“Sounds like you need a good meal too, noodlehead,” Noct murmured, leaning up on his toes to steal a quick kiss. Once he was there, it was harder to pull away. He pressed his forehead to the side of Gladio’s neck and breathed in, feeling more and more of the tension slip free from his muscles. Bass didn’t appreciate being squashed and promptly abandoned them to follow Ignis into the kitchen. It was a good goal and Noct was happy to copy it. He grabbed Gladio by the hand and pulled him back into the kitchen.
“If we could hold off on ordering food, I was thinking we--I mean, I wanted to…there’s something I’ve been trying to figure out how to say to you, Specs.” He frowned petulantly. “And I obviously haven’t gotten there yet but I just keep thinking, what if something happens and you’re the one who gets separated from us next time and I missed my chance to say something.” He shot a quick look at Gladio, an apology in his eyes for throwing him into this conversation without any warning. “We missed our chance.”
Ignis froze, hand still in the fridge, poking around. There wasn’t much more to judge, so he closed the fridge slowly, but didn’t move away from it for a second, just taking in Noct’s words.
They were so similar to the ones rattling around in his brain, the ones that were too hesitant to come out of his mouth. He’d promised Gladio that he had things to say, though, and Ignis was not one to back down from a promise.
So now he was torn between interrupting and saying his own piece, or letting Noct and Gladio continue. He compromised, and crossed his arms over his chest as he turned around to face them. “I have a few things I need to say as well, but since you brought it up first, I suppose the polite thing is to ask you to continue?”
Gladio lingered at the kiss. All too brief really, but he knew they'd make up for it later. A soft chuckle at the terrible nickname. "Hey now, there were a couple burgers thrown in there too it up."
He was easy to drag into the kitchen and dropped Noctis' hand in favour of sliding his arm around Noct's back. He had assumed they'd figure out something to eat, assess the last ten days… he quickly realized he'd assumed wrong.
Not in a bad way though, and he hoped the nod he gave Noct when the other glanced over conveyed that while surprised, he wasn't put out by the sudden shift in conversation. He pulled Noctis in a little bit closer too for good measure, dropped a kiss to the top of dark tufts of hair and looked over at Ignis as he talked.
"I think maybe we all have a few things we should say," he said gently. And while he had practically spelled it out twice now to Ignis and not that he expected Ignis to run for the hills, there was still that feeling of nervous anticipation that settled in.
"What Ignis said," he told Noct and turned his attention that way.
"Uhh...right." Noct knew it was only fair that he was at the helm of this, since he'd initiated it, but still. Couldn't one of the gods drop down into the apartment and tell Ignis everything that mattered in a heartfelt and irresistable way? Was that really too much to ask?
Gladio being so close helped ease the anxiety thudding behind his rib cage at least. Noctis took a deep breath.
"Ever since we got here, there's been all this time to actually think about what life I would've picked, if the world didn't need...anything from me. If there was no crown or expectations or duty. And I know all of that shaped who we are and brought us together and I'm not trying to belittle it, I'm just saying…" Noct rubbed a hand over his face, frustrated and embarrassed. He was never any good at this. But he had to try. "If I'm allowed to follow my heart here, Iggy…it doesn't lead me to only Gladio. It leads right to you too."
Ignis stood stone-still, for what felt like hours bit was more like seconds. His heart might have stopped, as well? No, no. It was beating too loud in his ears to have stopped. Maybe that was his breathing. Full organ shutdown?
None of the above, but every nerve ending in his body lit up all at once, and Ignis just stood there. He almost asked for Noct to repeat what he just said, but his brain did eventually catch up, and he took a half step forward.
Control yourself, his internal voice whispered. Was this really so surprising? In a way, no, as it felt like the last few weeks had been building and building and Ignis had been more confident than ever. But all the same, there had been that gap of doubt, the insecurity of it creeping in through the holes.
“Well, that’s anti-climactic.” When he finally spoke, he sounded far more casual than he felt, almost nonchalant. He needed just a little more from them, but Ignis could give as good as he got. “Given that what I was going to say was that I had no intention of trying to come between the two of you nor did I have any expectations of reciprocity, but that my heart might burst straight out of my chest if I wasn’t honest about my wholly inappropriate feelings for you. For either of you.”
Gladio was sure Noctis would be able to feel the moment the tension left his body as Ignis spoke. Like Ignis, he wasn't entirely surprised, but it was a tricky thing. Feelings. Especially when the situation surrounding them was perhaps somewhat complicated. There was a grin as Ignis came clean, that same sort of unabashed happiness he'd felt during that dinner at Galdin when he and Noctis had finally stopped dancing around the obvious.
"Would it really be coming between us if we were inviting you in though?" Gladio said lightly, a bit of a joke. A moment to buy some time to collect himself before following up with something more serious.
"I've been - struggling, I guess?" he started. "Thinking that it made me some kind of greedy asshole for wanting more, for wanting more than one person." He paused, let out a slow breath. "But the idea of continuing the way we have been? Feels like more of a struggle. And I don't want that. I don't want to keep pretending like what I feel for Noctis doesn't extend to you too. I don't want us to keep acting like everything is separate when it feels pretty damn clear that we're not seperate."
Gladio gave Noctis a sort of side hug with the arm around his waist before he stepped closer to Ignis. He lifted a hand and dropped it lightly on Ignis' shoulder. "I've been crazy about you for - gods, longer than I can even really remember, Ignis - and I've spent too damn long putting that away, trying to ignore it and constantly reminding myself it wasn't appropriate. And well, I'm pretty done with that." He hadn't realized how exhausting it was, shoving aside feelings and wants, until he had stopped doing it with Noctis.
That pause before Ignis said anything froze time for Noct too. Only he had the visual of Ignis looking like a deer in headlights. He had a long enough moment to think shit, I got it all wrong, shit shit shit before something changed in Ignis’s face and he moved forward. Noct could feel how wide his own eyes were, how stiff his posture. He frowned at anticlimactic, confusion furrowing his brow, but then everything that came after released the coil of panic in his chest. He breathed out a flustered laugh, both to let out the stress and because Gladio’s joke made his face heat.
“Astrals, Specs. You scared me.” He watched Gladio move closer to touch Ignis and instinctively followed. "Gladio's right though. I don't know if we've really been separate in a long time." With the good kind of nerves giving everything a dizzying buzz, Noct took Ignis's hand in both of his and stroked his thumbs up over his knuckles, up to his wrist and then back down again. He rested his head against Gladio's shoulder while he did it, like he was completing a circuit. "I--it's a lot. It's asking a lot. It's risking everything. But...I wouldn't risk you two for anything if I didn't think it would work. We've always fit just right. Even when we were butting heads, we were crashing into each other, not away from each other."
Ignis felt the onslaught of words and feelings coming at him from both directions. But it wasn’t overwhelming, it felt good and right and it made him want to step into their arms. He held off, restrained as usual, but when Noct ran his hand across Iggy’s wrist, Ignis reached out to hold onto his arm a little firmer, his hand curving around Noct’s bicep. His other, on Gladio’s waist, flexing fingers against the firm muscle he felt there.
He took a deep breath, a smile gracing his lips in a look of contentment as he shifted his head between the two. “We’ve already lived through the years of impropriety, of the distance, and we’ve risked it all and then some. We’ve lost. We’ve won. We’ve lost again. I think at this point, ignoring it or pretending things are normal for us would be a grave mistake.”
Ignis hoped he wasn’t overstepping boundaries, but pushed onward. “I would rather not step backward, and I would rather not spend more time pretending to be any less infatuated with you two than I already have for the last several years. Is that alright?”
While Gladio knew it wouldn't perhaps be as simple to change the nature of their relationship as it had been when it was just him and Noctis, it was nice to at least be honest about the things they felt. The rest? The ins and outs of what a relationship between all three of them would be, how it would work, who was even ready for what past their initial confessions? Well, they could figure that out.
But for the first time since Ignis showed up it felt truly whole, and Gladio was content to bask in that feeling for as long as he could. Not tip toeing around complicated emotions and that he and Noctis had gotten a chance to sort things out first, the awkwardness of one part of the equation not quite being a part of it. Ignis' hand on his waist, Noct's head on his shoulder… he'd be content to stay in Vallo forever if he got to keep that.
"Infatuated" he repeated to Noctis with a soft laugh. "Damn we're going to have to up our game here," was added, a light teasing tone to his words.
"I don't want to step backwards either," he said, more serious. His hand on Ignis' shoulder moved to the side of his face, his thumb brushing against Ignis' cheekbone. Gladio wondered if Ignis could feel the intensity of the gaze, the warmth that exuded from his eyes. "And I don't want to waste the chance we have here, to be honest with each other and see what could be, because I think it could be something really amazing."
Noctis Lucis Caelum - one hundred and fourteenth in line for the Lucian throne, supposed future savior of the world of Eos – grinned like a dope at Ignis using the word infatuated. Gladio repeating it and touched Ignis’s face just made the smile grow. He slapped his hands over his beet red face and then threw his hands out in an explosive gesture that jostled the pair of them.
“I can’t believe it was this easy! Gods. We could’ve pulled our heads out of our asses ages ago.” No reference was made to how scared he’d been about being wrong; Noct was a firm believer in taking a good result and running for the freaking hills with it. His heart galloped in his chest as he stood up on his tip-toes and looped an arm around Ignis’s shoulder. He pressed a kiss to the line of his jaw. Another, closer to his mouth. His bravery was rarely in question, but he still paused there and clamped a hand in Gladio’s shirt to pull him closer to them both. “No going back, Specs. Promise.”
Ignis swallowed heavily with his heart racing and his cheeks flushed. He was usually full of a calm bravado but that seemed to go out of the window with the two of them so close, where he could feel Gladio’s eyes on him and then he could feel Noct’s mouth on him. It was utter perfection wrapped up in just a few moments.
“Ha. I look forward to seeing you both try,” Ignis’s teasing words were just a hair towards taunting, he grinned and leaned right back to them. Tilted his head, made himself more accessible to both of them, even unable to pinpoint exactly where mouths were. He sought Noct out, and Gladio, overwhelmed and feeling whole all at once.
He didn’t stutter, or sound anything less than sure of this. “Promise.”