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Through the narrow hallway, past the bathroom with its bathtub and its overhead shower, the first thing their eyes catch is the queen-sized bed backed up to the cream patterned wall, flanked by a pair of shell lamps. He’s picked out an expensive room for tonight and it’s nice to see all his endless inquiries paying off. The comforter is supposedly made from quality cotton, high thread counts and all, with a bronze palette to fit into the homey, downy mood of the classic, yellow lights. The larger pillows are of the same color, but everything else is white—the fitted sheet, the flat one and the throw pillows. A dark brown coverlet completes the image of the main attraction.
A large, flat screen TV is mounted on the wall across from it, floating over a long and empty cabinet. A mini dining area sits comfortably on the corner between it and the windows, which open out to a gorgeous vista of Insomnia after dinner. On the other side is a complicated cabinet, made from stylish dark wood, for the tea service, the mini fridge, and their clothes.
The smile on Ignis’ face only stretches wider as he inspects the empty closet. “Good choice, sir,” he utters with a delighted voice.
Gladio grins from where he stands by the corridor, watching the man explore their momentary home with his arms folded across his chest. “Toldja to just leave it to me,” he boasts with ease. Even for someone who has known him all his life, it isn’t always easy to capture his boyfriend’s exacting taste and he should feel proud of what he’s achieved.
But he has never wanted to jump out of the window more than this moment.
Ignis brushes his hand over his shoulder as he passes him towards their bags. “Why don’t you go and take a shower first? I will be taking my time, see.” A point he demonstrates by offering a wink.
Gladio feels his nerves jump and sink like a dead body. He offers his own smile before he escapes to the bathroom. It’s his last chance, he thinks.
As soon as the shower is running, Gladio lathers his hand in soap, grabs his dick and starts to pump it. Behind closed eyes, he thinks back to the video he watched last night—two men fucking in the dom’s living room while his wife is making dinner for him and his quote-end-quote-friend. He likes the part when the sub is pinned between the couch and the dom, legs on top of the dom’s shoulders while his frantic hands are playing with his own nipples. When the sub moans, the dom smothers him with his hand and only fucks him harder.
That’s the stuff, Gladio groans to himself, feeling his nipples stiffen with his arousal. He starts to dance into his hand, the way he does when he’s jerking off to his private collection of videos. Thatʼs the stuff, Gladio. That’s the stuff.
He’s almost proud of the hardened shape he comes out with, hidden not-so-discreetly inside his bathrobe, but Ignis’ knowing look is more than he can take.
“I’ll be right back,” Ignis promises him as he disappears into the bathroom, and Gladio wishes he hadn’t.
He sits at the side of the bed, listening to the shower run, and every second that passes chips at his armor until all he can think of is to get dressed and to run away while Ignis is still inside.
Gladio runs out of time, of course. Ignis steps out in his own bathrobe and a coeurl-like smile on his face. Gladio attempts to match it, but the last of his mettle flees when his boyfriend mounts his lap, a warm weight that threatens to suffocate Gladio like a heatstroke.
“Thank you for waiting,” Ignis cooes at him, pulling his belt loose as he gazes at Gladio with half-lidded eyes. “Here’s your reward.” With artful flicks of his hands, he peels his robe back and presents his nipples, taut and pink, inviting Gladio for a taste. He remembers the way the doms pinched and twisted them, bit them between their teeth or flicked their tongue over their subs’ arrested buds.
He flicks his tongue across his own lips, paper on paper, as his nervous eyes descend on Ignis’ flaccid cock, waiting for his large hands to touch it. Gladio thinks about putting it in his mouth, letting his tongue run along its length, squeezing it until, at last, a pearlescent bead peaks through the blushing head.
Touch it, he tells himself, swallowing down a hard spit. Let him feel how much you love him. You gotta tell him how much you love him.
“Gladio?”
Gladio nods to Ignis’ voice on cue, squeezing his eyes tightly as he swallows again and breathes but his boyfriend’s heat is too much and he’s running out of air…
“Gladio, what is it?” Rough hands capture his jaw and tilt his chin up until he’s looking at a pair of green eyes, watching him closely. “What is it, love?” Love, he calls him. But no matter how much Gladio loves him, he can’t…
He can’t…!
—
He never could—had never been able to.
Growing up, he’d always been curious, of course—about the stuff that his classmates read in the bathroom, the things they watched when nobody was looking. He found a discrete source of magazines and videos, kept them under lock and key. Then one afternoon, while he was recuperating from a sprained ankle and his family was out on a party he couldn’t attend, he broke out the goods, pulled out his dick and jerked off to the sounds of a couple fucking at the back of a car.
He’s always enjoyed porn, though it’s a secret that will die with him. Any guy his age would have done what he did but not everyone of them was the future Shield of the King. Imagine the shame he would bring to the Crown if they found out that the next Sworn Protector played with swords during the day and traded them for dildos at night.
His first boyfriend was the only guy who knew about it—an older Crownsguard, one of his seniors, and one of the few men that Cor seemed to deem as being competent. He was a good guy from a wealthy family, decent through and through. Gladio liked being with him.
Things changed while they were hanging out in his boyfriend’s living room, where he found out that Gladio had never engaged in sexual activities with another person. That was also the first night that they kissed, the first time that Gladio ever felt another man’s lips on his. A week later, on that same couch, they made out for the first time.
It lasted all of a minute. Gladio knew, from the videos that he watched, that this was the part where two lovers started stripping off their clothes but they stopped even before they could get to that part.
With a huff, his boyfriend got off from him and moved to the end of the couch, crossing his arms. “Just tell me that I’m not good enough for you.”
Gladio’s instant reaction was to laugh and stammer out a, “What?” He picked himself up and pulled his shirt down, his sweatpants up. He wanted to wipe his neck, where his boyfriend licked him, with the back of his hand but stopped himself. He thought he could smell his boyfriend’s saliva but he pushed it off his mind. It was only natural, of course, this was what happened between couples. “H, hey, you weren’t…bad. I liked it.” He just didn’t know how to show it was all.
Frowning still, his boyfriend asked him, “Did you really? ‘cause it feels like I’m the only one doing the work here.” His eyes fell pointedly at Gladioʼs crotch.
Gladioʼs face burned at the attention, his hand falling naturally to cover his flaccid bulge. By the sounds he was making and the way he ground his hips against him, Gladio could tell that his boyfriend was getting aroused by his sloppy kisses and heavy-handed touches. Him, though…
He smiled shyly at his scorned partner. “Guess I’m just not used to this yet.” That could be the only explanation, right?
His boyfriend’s frown twisted like he’d bitten on a bitter seed. “Damn, I really wanted to feel your body, too…” But then he chased it up with a little smile. “Guess we just gotta keep trying, huh? I don’t mind if it means touching your abs and your pecs again.”
They tried again the next day, and again the weekend after, and damn if Gladio didn’t try his damnedest to satisfy his boyfriend. When his boyfriend slipped his tongue inside his mouth, Gladio silenced himself even when he was nearly choking. When his boyfriend reached inside him to grope his cock, he made all the noises he could think of to convince himself, This is good. I want this. This feels right.
Nothing worked. Everything was just uncomfortable. Every moment spent with his boyfriend just became sessions of dread and nothing more.
His boyfriend wasn’t much bigger than him, but being slammed against the wall still stunned Gladio more than he could admit. “Fuck,” his partner growled, raking his hand up his short-cropped hair before he tossed it to Gladio. “You’re just not trying hard enough, aren’t you?”
Gladio never realized how much he’d come to fear those words until that moment. “Babe,” he started to appeal to him, “I swear I—”
“Do you even love me?” his boyfriend demanded, voice sharp enough to slice through the empty apartment. “‘cause every time I kiss you, every time I touch you, I feel like you just wanna get away from me!”
“Listen,” Gladio winced, putting his hands up, “I’m just…” He’s going to say it again. “Iʼm just not used to this.” Gods damn but why did he say it again?!
His boyfriend gaped at him, and spat out, “Nine months. Gladio, we’ve been dating for nine months! And you’re still not used to it?!” If there was anything that Gladio hated, it was knowing that no matter how hard he tried, he still wasn’t good enough.
Gladio choked but swallowed down a sob before it could escape him. “Look, we can try again. I—I’ll get there, I swear I will!”
“And you still expect me to believe that?” his boyfriend retorted. He flung his hand to him again. “You’re seriously telling me that you’re out here looking like that and you’ve never gotten off on someone else’s hand? Bullshit, you’re just taking me for a ride.”
“Babe—”
“Shut the fuck up, I don’t want to hear your excuses anymore.” His boyfriend turned his back to him grabbing his shirt from where he’d tossed it to the floor. “Just go home and jerk off to your damn pornos, you sick fuck.” Sick. That was what he was.
All this time, he’d always been sick.
—
He couldnʼt face himself in the mirror that night. Couldnʼt even face anyone the next day in the Citadel—Noct, his dad, the marshal, Dustin or the entire Crownsguard. He wasn’t normally so paranoid about his private interests, but that was before he was called a sick fuck. And he wasn’t wrong—any normal guy would know how to get off when someone else was touching them but not Gladio. Not the future Shield of the King.
Sad. Perverted. Sick. Weird. There was a part in Gladio that knew he was just imagining voices from Monica’s smile and his buddies’ casual glances but that didn’t make them any quieter. It’s okay. I know it’s just me. It’s okay. At least that was what he told himself.
That wall he was building for himself crumbled when the door to the council room opened just as he came to stand next to it. Gladio had come there to wait for his father for their next engagement but of all the people who could find him first, it was his boyfriend…or rather his ex-boyfriend. They didn’t really break up…
But he looked Gladio up and down…and sneered at him. You sick fuck, his voice said in his head. Then he passed him by without a breath of a word or a second look—and Gladio knew that was it. He never wanted to see him again.
As soon as the last of his meetings were done, Gladio flew to the training room and burned his time there. He broke swords from swinging them too hard, drove holes into punching bags…for no other reason than he didn’t know what to do. He felt sick, he felt scared and he felt sad. He didn’t want to think because all the thoughts in his head were only making him sink lower.
“So is this some kind of test on yourself or on the quality of the punching bags we’ve been getting of late?”
The sudden voice, cutting through the crackling punches like a knife, stunned Gladio out of his blind fury. When he looked around, like a man resurfacing from the water and wondering which part of the sea he was in, he found that the lights were flickering on, and Ignis stood by the door, hand on the switch.
He looked like he’d just witnessed quite the spectacle, eyes round and blinking and all. He was dressed in a simple tank top from the Crownsguard, his gym bag hanging on one shoulder.
Gladio had no excuses he could make. And really, it was traumatizing, coming up with all sorts of them just so he could look a little less broken and defective than he really was. “I erm…” He tossed his hand to the punching bag, where the birth of a new hole was staring him in the face. “No, I just…uh…”
Ignis’ chuckle stole his attention again, finally marching into the empty room to join him. He shrugged off the strap of his gym bag and left the fat thing on one of the benches near the wall. “Donʼt bother. I know.”
Gladio blanched at his words. You sick fuck, Ignis said. You sick pervert.
“I’m having one of those days myself,” Ignis went on, pulling open the cabinet closest to them to produce a pair of broadswords made from beech. “Noct didn’t do his homework. Lady Flamenca got what she wanted with that asinine policy of hers. Lord Castrator will be out for a week so it falls on me to pick up his work again.”
“You mean Lord Castor?” Gladio hoped it wasn’t obvious how relieved he was to find out it wasn’t him.
“The one and only,” Ignis sighed, passing him one of the swords, hilt first. Gladio took it from him and pinned it against his side while he pulled his hands free from his gloves. “He’s retiring before the end of this year, but I do wish he would change his mind and do it sooner.”
“You could arrange for that.” Gladio cocked a brow. He tossed his mitts to the floor and unraveled the straps from his hands. “You know where to find all sorts of paperwork and how to fill ‘em up.”
“I’m a busy man, Gladio. I do not have time to be forging documents if I want to still maintain some semblance of a life outside of work.” Ignis did offer him a weary smile for his efforts. “In any case, that makes you and I the perfect sparring partners, yes? I am itching to fight dirty,” he nodded to the pile of snapped up blades Gladio had consigned to the corner, “and you look like you could break a few bones here and there.”
“On the contrary,” Gladio crossed his arms, though he was already nursing a timid smirk, “I actually value my life. And Noct’s first in line for bones to break, please wait your turn.”
Ignis laughed at his jest, leading Gladio to the center of the room. “Why don’t we spar for that? If I win, I get to break Noct’s bones first.”
“Donʼt I at least get ta dibs on a limb?” Gladio quipped along. This could be fun, he thought. It would be nice to think of something else that wasn’t his defect, something else he might still be good at. He gestured to Ignis with his sword. “There’s no way teaching that punk a lesson is a one-man job.”
“Winner gets to choose,” Ignis decided with an arrogant smile tilted to his cheek. He spread out his feet and planted himself to the floor by the soles of his shoes.
He’s ready to get violent, Gladio surmised, judging by his form as he resolved himself into one that was more defensive. This could be fun.
“On my count—” Gladio said—
Ignis shook his head. “Donʼt bother.” With hardly even a grunt, he lunged at Gladio with a wild swing of his sword.
—
“You came to me at a time when I needed you most,” Gladio tells Ignis at the end of his brief tale. Ignis has since changed out of his bathrobe and into his preferred silken pyjamas. Gladio himself has slipped on a pair of sweatpants, which he wouldn’t have escaped to if Ignis hadn’t tossed it to his face.
It’s a miracle, he thinks, that Ignis is still sitting next to him, and holding his hands as if he isn’t defective. Or perhaps that is why Ignis is holding him—Ignis has always been the caring kind despite his harsh exterior. Perhaps in his eyes, he’s like some broken cup of sorts that he rescued from the yard sale. He wouldn’t be wrong, anyway.
“I ainʼt saying I forgot all about my ex and I,” Gladio goes on, stealing a glance at Ignis who is looking at him with such soft eyes, like dewy grass in the morning. He wants to look at them and own them but he’s afraid to be denied them, to be told in the face that he isn’t deserving of such tenderness. “But…when you and I got together…it felt like getting a bone picked, y’know?” He hazards a smile, and he’s almost scared of the relief that washes over him when Ignis offers the same. “And I thought my ex just didn’t really love me. And I never really loved my ex either. That’s why I couldn’t…” He gesticulates to his lap.
“You couldn’t be aroused when he’s touching you so intimately,” Ignis gives voice to his shame, in such a gentle voice that Gladio thinks, until then, is only reserved for Noct.
A smile flickers on Gladioʼs face, afraid and wary.
Ignis clears his throat, shifting where he sits at the side of the bed to put a little space between them. “What would you say…if I touched you now?” His face is kind when he offers, and Gladio should feel relief but he only remembers his ex’s contemptuous frown when he thinks of Ignis’ hand around his penis. “We both know I have been with someone else before us. I like to think I gave them pleasure with my hands.”
Gladio attempts another smile but it cracks even before he can make it, and in a moment of boyishness, all he wants to do now is to hide his face in shame and weep. “I,” even his voice breaks, and Ignis’ kind look falls apart into one of alarm. “I want to,” he confesses, just a little desperately. He retrieves his hands from Ignis so he can squeeze his fingers. Ignis chases them to lay his hand on his quaking fist. “That night…that night our reservation was canceled so we decided to just date in your apartment and watch a movie, I wanted to have sex with you so badly, too!”
But he couldn’t—as always, he felt nothing but discomfort and a crippling fear that he was a sick excuse of a man. Ignis was such a good kisser, too—warm and tender, even when his eager hands were groping his pecs and his dick so attentively.
When Gladio felt like he was about to faint from all that kissing and petting, he begged out of Ignis’ affections, and mumbled like a coward, “Sorry, I’m just…tired tonight.”
And Ignis believed him, and wrapped his arms around Gladioʼs one instead to rest his head on his shoulder like a pillow. Gladioʼs relief, then, had been short-lived. How much longer can I lie to him? he gasps in crippling horror. How much longer until he realizes I’m no good for him?
“You said you were tired that night,” Ignis recalls easily. Him and his brilliant mind which, unfortunately, Gladio loves.
“I was just makin’ excuses,” Gladio confesses finally, voice small and feeble. “I know how it’s like to get aroused, Ignis. I’ve played with my ass, too, but,” he rubs his nape, “for some reason, when other people try, I just…it just ain’t the same, you know? It feels awkward when they’re touching my dick and suckling my teats, and I get scared when I feel their fingers getting closer to my asshole.”
“So why are we here?” With furrowed brows, Ignis is searching him for the elusive answer.
“Because I wanted to make love with you,” Gladio tells him, honesty practically reeking out of every pore of his and it’s sad how much he hopes that is enough to make up for his lack, and how much it embarrasses him. “I, I wanted to prove to you that I loved you, too, in spite of my damn defect, ‘cause I do and I’m scared that I would lose you—”
“Love?” Ignis barks in surprise, eyes as wide as saucers. “Y, you think this is love? You think forcing yourself to have sex with me is love?”
Gladio nods. “Y, you gotta sacrifice yourself for the ones you love.”
“Yes, but—!” Ignis makes a noise, and Gladio can’t understand his face. He thinks he looks angry, he thinks he’s ready to cry, he thinks he wants to laugh…
“Oh, love,” Ignis whispers before he moves himself to Gladioʼs lap and captures him in his arms. Gladio, for a second, thinks he wants to punish him for his incapacity but Ignis’ lips on his forehead changes his mind.
Gladio feels like jelly when he lashes his own arms around his boyfriend’s waist, presses his face to his shirt and sobs a little.
“You know what love is, love?” Ignis asks him. “This is love,” he tells him, his fingers kneading gently on Gladioʼs scalp while they rock each other. “You making me laugh in the middle of a headache is love. You taking me out to a 24/7 ramen shop after a breakdown in the office is love.”
Gladio comes up to look at him, brows tight with uncertainty even when Ignis smiles and wipes his cheeks dry with his rough palms. “I…but Ignis, you don’t have to settle for that…you shouldn’t have ta just ‘cause I couldn’t deliver.”
Ignis holds his jaw under arrest as he looks closely into his eyes. “No one is settling for anything here. And gods know I won’t settle just for anyone.” He leans back a little to run his hands up and down Gladioʼs arms. “I have had sex with a cock multiple times in the past. It feels wonderful when it’s inside you, or when you’re ejaculating inside someone else.” His hands scale up to the column of Gladioʼs neck as he tells him, “But none of that will ever compare to a surprise visit from your boyfriend because he found a grocery store selling Peppermint Ebony and decided I needed a box of that stuff.”
“Hey, I thought I did a great job with that,” Gladio laughs briefly, smiling easily at the memory. He’d surprised Ignis while he was vacuuming his flat and had to catch him when he launched himself into a spider hug.
“You did,” Ignis agrees with him. “I ended up giving away the entire box after two cans but I’m sure you’ve seen that can of Peppermint Ebony I keep in my office desk.”
“The one you put a plastic gladiolus flower in, yeah?”
Ignis smiles and nods.
Gladio wants to smile back, but he’s scared enough to eat it off his face. There’s hope and relief soaring in his chest but he doesn’t know if he’s reading the room right to deserve to feel that way. What if Ignis is only telling him these things so he won’t feel so bad? What if Ignis has decided to break up with him after tonight?
So the frown settles back nicely on his lips. “D, don’t you…want to know what it feels like, though? T, to have sex with me…”
“With a gorgeous body like yours?” Ignis leans back to admire it, brushing the head of his tat lightly with the back of his finger. “Of course, I’m curious. I want to know how it feels like to have you inside me. I want to know if you will fit.” He cocks a brow at Gladio. “But I’ve lived 20 and more years of my life without your penis inside me so I think I’ll manage just fine.”
“Ignis…” Gladio caves and chuckles as he shakes his head.
Ignis captures his jaw and presses a quick kiss on his lips, then meets him with his forehead. “I have been dreaming about our first night together. I dream about your penis stretching me inside, I dream about your hands caressing my ass as I sigh your name and you reply with mine. I dream about lazy sex with you, soft and unhurried and full of nothing but love and bliss. If I can’t have that kind of sex with you, then I don’t want to have sex with you.”
“I’m sorry,” Gladio sighs, tilting down to hide his face from Ignis. “I want that, too, but…”
Ignis shushes him, stroking his lips with his thumb.
“And you were really excited about tonight, too.”
“Well, if you’ve spent more days in the office than at home this past week, you would be, too,” Ignis chuckles, coaxing a smile out of Gladio with his own. “We can still cuddle. We’ll order room service, watch another old movie, then I’ll fall asleep on your shoulder again while you’re massaging mine.”
“You’ll end up drooling all over me again.”
Ignis shrugs. “Comes with the package.” It does, and Gladio loves that part about him, too.
He kisses him on his lips again, but pulls back with a gasp before Gladio can respond. “Is kissing okay?”
Gladio’s mouth falls open in surprise. Nobody has ever asked him, and he’d never thought about it before since everyone was really into it, but, “I, y, yeah…yeah, kissing’s fine. Don’t worry about that much…” He combs idly at Ignis’ fringes with his fingers. “You can do whatever you want, okay?”
He’s a little surprised when it causes Ignis to huff and raise a brow at him. “We are going to have to talk about your boundaries in a relationship. But, we’ll deal with that tomorrow. Tonight…” Ignis rakes at Gladioʼs thick hair with his fingers, smiling again. “Tonight, I think I would like to show you how it feels to truly be loved.”