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A metallic crash from behind the bathroom"s door sends Gladio on his feet and across the threshold before he can think.
Ignis" stands over the sink, shoulders rounded, breathing through his teeth. His straight razor is thrown into the corner, the handle chipped. There’s a thin line of blood crawling down his throat.
"Thought a trooper broke in," Gladio pants. "Jumpy."
"You"d think," Ignis says, ignoring him, "that I"d remember how to shave myself."
The loathing in his voice lodges in Gladio"s throat like a sharp, crawling thing. "Iggy," he says. "It"s..."
Ignis rounds on him - he"s so easily furious those days, and then so easily dejected. Talking to him makes Gladio feel walking drunk, and so he tries not to. No trials, it seems, managed to stop him being a coward.
"Don"t you," Ignis hisses, "dare to patronize me."
"Okay," Gladio says. He shoulders past Ignis, averting his gaze from the scars, picks up the razor, smoothes his finger over the crack in the polished bone. "Then try again," he says. "This razor cost me half my allowance, and you were shit at using it back then too, but at least you didn"t throw tantrums."
He offers it to Ignis, handle first, as close to Ignis" fingers as he can manage without further insult, and abandons all caution. "And stop whining, Six"s sake."
Ignis takes the blade silently. The ruin of his face is unreadable; Gladio swallows. But then Ignis says, calm, "Then help me get around the scarring, please, Gladio," and it"s - of course he knows that Gladio doesn"t like to look. His surrenders always carry a sharp edge.
"Sure, Iggy," Gladio says. He closes his hand around Ignis" cold fingers. "Just like old times."
Ignis, he thinks, can probably smell the salt on his face. It"s okay.