Chapter Text
Gladio’s at the bar, well into his third beer and feeling real fucking sorry for himself, when his phone starts to vibrate on the countertop. The display lights up, but he doesn’t bother checking the caller name. It’s probably Ignis, and after all that shit he said back at the apartment, Gladio doesn’t wanna talk to him. Scowling, he turns the phone on its face and returns to his beer, which cost eleven hundred and twenty goddamned gil. It’s worth it, though. He hasn’t had a drink in more than a year, and this is the kind of occasion that calls for a bender.
The reasonable part of him—the part that knows they can get their heads on straight and talk this out like rational adults—wants to pick up the phone. But the part of him that Ignis cut to the core is stronger. Six, it hurts. It hurts a fucking lot. That Ignis would talk to him like he’s some controlling asshole, after everything Gladio’s done for him…
His phone starts buzzing again. Gladio ignores it, downing the rest of his beer in three swallows.
Yet you insist on imprisoning me in Lestallum.
The thing that pisses him off the most about this whole goddamn situation is that he was planning to take Ignis hunting. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but keeping him benched wasn’t a forever thing. He’s known all along how bad Ignis wants to hunt. But Gladio ain’t reckless, and he sure as shit wasn’t gonna put Ignis’s life, and the lives of all the hunters they might’ve worked with, on the line.
The fourth time his phone buzzes, he answers without bothering to check the call display. “What do you want?” he barks.
“Gladdy?” It’s Iris.
“Shit.” He runs a hand through his hair, blowing out his breath in a frustrated sigh. “Sorry. I forgot to call. You can go home now.”
“I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for like forty-five minutes. What’s going on? Are you okay?”
He swallows hard. He’s not okay. This is probably the least okay he’s ever been.
“Are you at the apartment?” Iris presses.
“No.”
She’s silent for a handful of seconds. “Tell me what happened.”
“Nothing to tell. I left.”
“What do you mean, you left?”
“I mean I left.” Saying it out loud makes it feel too real. He swallows again as his throat starts to close, blinking back tears. Fuck. He’s never cried over a breakup before. He’s sure as hell not gonna start now. “He told me to leave, so I left. I left him.”
“Gladdy…”
“I’m fine. I’ll get over it.”
She sighs, and he hears a rustling from her end of the connection. “Where are you?”
“Don’t really want company right now, Iris.”
“Well, that’s too bad. I already have my boots on. Tell me.”
“The Hobgoblin’s Lair. It’s on—”
“That dive just off the market? I know where it is. Man, you’re scraping rock bottom.” He has to smile at that. She’s not wrong. “I’ll be there in ten. Sit tight.”
He’s nursing his fourth beer, his head throbbing from the shitty country rock tune blaring from the bar’s speakers, when she arrives. Her arms go around him, hugging him from behind. Then she slides onto the stool next to him, shrugging out of her leather jacket, and orders a gin and tonic from the bartender.
He should be pissed at her, too, for taking Ignis out when she knew he wasn’t ready to hunt. But he’s worn out. What’s done is done. There’s no point in lecturing her now.
“Start from the top,” she says.
So he does. He fills her in on everything—that Ignis clung to his idealism with bloody fingers, refusing to listen to reason, too fixated on Noct to consider the very real danger he’d face on a hunt. That he twisted Gladio’s concern for him into something bitter and ugly, that he told Gladio to leave. It hurts all over again, like getting punched in the chest, when he repeats the words Ignis spat at him from across the kitchen. I want to be with someone who respects me and my choices, and you’ve made it eminently clear that person isn’t you.
Fuck.
He tells her Ignis thinks Gladio’s been holding him back, been keeping him here in Lestallum out of some kind of malice. As he talks, Iris listens intently, chewing on the black straw in her drink.
“Don’t you think he kind of has a point?” she asks when he’s done. “He’s a grown man, Gladdy. You can’t control him.”
“I’m not trying to control him. I’m trying to keep him alive.” He takes a long swallow of his beer, catching her eye as she frowns at him. “What, you think I’m wrong? You saw what happened tonight.”
She sighs. “Yeah, but it’s not like you’ve never gotten hurt in a fight before, Gladdy.”
“Hurt. Not nearly killed.”
“Uh-huh. And what about that huge scar on your chest?” she counters.
Now it’s his turn to sigh. “Look, it’s not the same thing. I can watch my own back on a hunt. He can’t. He ain’t just gonna get himself hurt, he’s gonna get someone else hurt, too. Besides, I…”
He trails off. There’s no need to tell her he’s scared of losing Ignis the way he lost his dad and Jared, ‘cause she lost them too, and she’s seen first-hand how much Ignis means to him.
Iris places a hand on his arm. “You love him. I know,” she says softly.
Gladio takes another drink of his beer. Yeah, he loves Ignis. Maybe more than he should. They’ve been living together for nearly three years, and fucking for two of ‘em. Ignis is his best friend, his confidant, his lover. Besides Iris, there’s no one more important—and that’s the problem, ain’t it? Ignis isn’t the one who’s supposed to come first. Ignis isn’t the one he’s supposed to protect. His life’s supposed to be about serving Noct.
If his dad were here, he’d kick Gladio’s ass. Your personal desires don’t matter, he’d say, his voice firm but fatherly. Duty and honour, Gladio—those are what matter. In other words, Gladio shouldn’t want to share the rest of his life with Ignis. He’s supposed to find himself a woman, put a baby in her belly, and raise that kid to be the next Shield of the King. It’s the Amicitia way. All he can think about, though, is Ignis in his arms, and how right it feels to be with him.
“Gladdy?” Iris says, touching his arm again. “Are you okay?”
“Sorry.” He puts his head in his hands, rubbing the heels into his eyes. His skull aches like Titan’s been playing kickball with it. “I don’t know.”
“Talk to me.”
Gladio shakes his head, laughing ruefully. “Dunno what else to say. I love him. He doesn’t love me. Simple as that.”
“Why would you say that?”
“I’m not enough to make him happy, Iris. All he thinks about is Noct. Noct this, Noct that. Shit.” He rolls a bottle cap between his fingers, his despondent gaze scanning the decanters of tequila and rye behind the bar. He’s already thinking about his next drink. “If he loved me, wouldn’t I be enough?”
She frowns at him. “Do you want him to depend on you for everything?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Look at it from his perspective.” She starts to count on her fingers. “You pay the rent. You pay the bills. You buy the groceries. You clean the apartment. You work. You hunt. You have a purpose.” She raises an eyebrow at him and takes a sip of her drink. “What’s his purpose?”
“He cooks.” And sucks my dick. “He loves cooking.”
Iris rolls her eyes. “Get real, Gladdy. He had a job before. An important one. More important than yours, anyway.” He opens his mouth to protest, but she cuts him off. “How could he be happy being your housewife? Would you be happy doing that?”
She’s right. Of course she’s right. But it doesn’t change anything. Once, he tried to leave Ignis behind in Cartanica, not because he didn’t care, but because he cared too much. Maybe all his reassurances that he would take Ignis hunting someday were just lies he told to himself. Maybe a part of him would always choose to leave Ignis behind, as long as it kept him alive.
Iris watches him in silence for a long time. When he doesn’t look up, she sighs and motions to the bartender. “That’s it. We’re breaking out the bourbon.”
*
A week goes by. Then another. Ignis doesn’t call or text, and neither does Gladio. He’s still smarting from all the shit Ignis said to him the night he left, and Iris tells him that Ignis goes out hunting with Dave every other day. It might be petty, but it pisses Gladio off. He can’t believe Ignis would carry on like nothing happened, like Gladio was just a bag of trash that finally had the decency to take itself out to the curb. It hurts so goddamn bad, knowing Ignis could shrug off their relationship like it was nothing.
And anyway, if Ignis won’t admit he was wrong, neither will Gladio.
At first, he stays at the Leville, keeping an eye on the classifieds for a new place to live. When he finally finds one, it’s a bachelor pad shared with a guy named Ethan—another hunter, though they don’t run in the same circles. Gladio sleeps on a futon in the living room, behind a curtain. Not that he needs the privacy. They maintain different schedules, so they only see each other in passing.
Things could be worse. He could be living in a dilapidated warehouse with two hundred refugees, sleeping under his jacket on a concrete floor. But it sure as shit isn’t great, either. It’s definitely not what he expected his life to be at twenty-six.
He throws himself into working and hunting. When he’s not doing that, he’s meeting Iris at the gym or sprawled on his futon reading a book. He fills his every waking hour with activity so he doesn’t have to think about Ignis.
But the nights are hard. Restless, he lies in bed, staring at the shaft of street light on his ceiling, and remembers Ignis’s heat stretched out beside him. Sometimes, in the dreamy space between sleep and waking, he’ll forget himself and reach out for Ignis, only to find the sheets next to him empty. Gladio’s dying to kiss him, to slide a hand under his shirt and feel the reassuring beat of his heart.
There’s a weird emptiness to his life he’s never felt before. He still has his duty, and Iris, and Prompto, on the rare occasions they hunt together. None of that has changed. But being with Ignis gave his life a different kind of meaning, one he didn’t understand until now. With Ignis, he had a home, and a shoulder to lean on, and sex heightened by affection. He misses it, now that he’s jerking off into a sock on a shitty futon in an apartment he rents with a stranger.
After a while, the things they fought about don’t seem to matter so much. Gladio sees a guy get killed on a hunt, crushed under a red giant’s foot, and he realizes that could just as easily be him. He could croak out there in the darkness, without ever telling Ignis how much he loves him, without apologizing for the things he said when they argued. If he dies tomorrow, he doesn’t want their fight to be Ignis’s last memory of him.
And maybe Ignis ain’t his anymore, but Gladio still worries, wondering what he’s getting up to. Do the guys he hunts with watch his back the way Gladio would? Do they care if he makes it back to Lestallum in one piece?
He lasts five weeks before he picks up the phone and dials Ignis’s number, his heartbeat fluttering in his throat. There’s no reason to be so damn nervous, but he feels like a middle schooler calling his crush for the first time, sure he’s about to be shot down, but hopeful anyway. He tucks an arm behind his head and jiggles his foot as he listens to dead air, waiting for the call to connect. Only it doesn’t connect. An automated voice comes up, telling him, “The user you are trying to reach is unavailable. Please leave a message after the tone.”
Gladio doesn’t. He ends the call and drops his phone in his lap, his heart sinking. There are only a few explanations for that: either Ignis’s phone is dead (unlikely, ‘cause Ignis never lets his battery run out if he can possibly help it), he’s ignoring Gladio (more likely), or the mobile network’s down (the explanation he’s hoping for). He picks up his phone again and tries Iris—the call connects, and on the fourth ring, she picks up.
“Hi, Gladdy,” she says, as enthusiastic as always. “What’s up?”
“Hey, kiddo,” he says, a sick feeling settling in the pit of his stomach. Well, now he knows it ain’t the network. “Just wanted to check in. Everything okay over there?”
“Yeah,” she says. “I’m just making some dinner for Talcott. You doing okay?”
“Can’t complain,” he says. He hesitates for a second, licking his lips, before he says, “Is Ignis there?”
“Gladdy…” she says, and the tone of her voice tells him he’s not gonna like what he hears. “He left for Galdin Quay last week. He said he wanted to be closer to Noct.”
Gladio rakes a hand through his hair and lets it drop onto the pillow above his head, blowing out a breath. It shouldn’t surprise him that Ignis isn’t in Lestallum anymore, not with the way he was raring to get out there and do something worthwhile with his time. But he can’t help the sinking feeling in his gut. Here he was, thinking they could patch things up, never realizing Ignis was already getting on with his life.
“Did he say when he was coming back?” Gladio asks.
“Nope.” A pan clatters on the other end of the line. “He left most of his stuff here, though, so I’m guessing he’ll only be gone for a few weeks? Maybe a month? I haven’t been able to reach him. The cell towers near Galdin Quay aren’t the most reliable.”
“Yeah, I just tried to call him. It went to his voicemail.”
“If I can get through to him, do you want me to tell him you called?” she asks.
It’s been five weeks. In all that time, Ignis never tried to contact him. It was easy for Gladio to write that off as obstinance or pride, but now Ignis has left town, and he didn’t even bother to tell Gladio he was going. The message is crystal fucking clear: there’s no putting the pieces back together again. Gladio was an idiot for thinking he could. He’s the one who walked out on Ignis. He’s the one who threw it all away. He shouldn’t have assumed Ignis would be sitting by the phone, waiting for him to call.
“No,” he says finally, swallowing the lump in his throat. “Don’t worry about it.”
*
Time passes in a blur, like scenery on a highway. It’s six months now since he left Ignis. The pain has faded, and Ignis doesn’t take up so much space in his thoughts anymore, but he’ll sometimes catch himself wondering what he’s doing and whether he's okay. He’s too proud to ask Iris for news, and she never volunteers any. So he figures Ignis is still at Galdin, keeping watch over the crystal at Angelgard.
Life’s too busy to dwell a whole lot on his absence. The daemons are multiplying. Resources are scarce. It’s every man for himself out there. Ordinary people are scared and looking to defend themselves, so he’s picked up more hours at the gym, teaching people the basics of self-preservation.
And that’s how he meets her.
Liv.
She comes in with a black eye and a fat, bloody lip, her torn flannel shirt hanging half off her shoulder and a raggedy backpack clutched in one hand. Tangles of strawberry blonde hair cage her pale, freckled face. But there’s determination in her grey eyes. Resolve. Steel. She’s been through hell, but she’s done taking it lying down.
He’s seen that look before, in Ignis and Prompto and Noct.
“Help me,” she says, dropping the backpack at her feet.
So he does. As he teaches her to block and guard, guiding her hand with his own when she doesn’t get the moves quite right, she tells him how she came to be in Lestallum. She moved here eight months ago with her boyfriend, she says, from a village in Leide, abandoning their antique shop for the safety of the lights and setting up shack with a family of six in an old warehouse near the power plant.
The drinking started first. Then, the beatings. He wasn’t always abusive, she says. It’s just that leaving behind everything they built together snapped something inside him.
Gladio can buy that. The darkness tests them all, and some people fail.
“He hit me in the face with a bottle last night,” she says, gesturing at her eye. “That was the last straw.”
They train together every day. He doesn’t know if she goes back to the warehouse where her ex lives when they’re done, or if she’s found somewhere else to stay. He doesn’t ask. He wants to know, but shit, it ain’t his business, not when they’ve only known each other for a couple of weeks. One thing leads to another, though, and she pulls him into a kiss one night as he’s locking up the gym, standing on the tips of her toes, her small hand an insistent pressure on the back of his neck.
He kisses her back. He doesn’t know if it’s because she tastes good or because he’s been burning with six months of pent-up sexual frustration.
They go back to his apartment together. It’s quiet when they stumble through the door, locked at the lips. Ethan must be out. Good fucking thing, too, because Liv doesn’t even hesitate before she pushes him down on the futon, tugging his shirt over his head and fumbling with the drawstring of his sweatpants. She’s about to slip her hand inside when he stops her.
“I don’t have any condoms,” he says.
“Don’t worry,” she murmurs against his mouth, leaning in to kiss him some more, her wild hair falling around them like a curtain, “I’ll just take some pahsana seeds.”
Pahsana seeds. Pahsana seeds. It takes him a second to realize what she’s talking about. Now that condoms ain't easy to come by, women have started using stuff they can scrounge from nature to stop themselves from getting knocked up. Gladio never had to worry about that when he was with Ignis. They were both clean, and they weren’t fucking anyone but each other. They didn’t need condoms.
“I dunno…” he starts to say.
“They work as well as morning-after pills,” she says impatiently, hooking her fingers into his sweatpants and tugging them down just enough to get his dick out. “Been using them for years with…”
She trails off, and they both stare at each other, neither wanting to bring her ex into the middle of this. Slowly, her hand curls around his dick and gives him a stroke. Gladio can’t help it. His hips rock into her touch, chasing that pleasure—even though Ignis is lingering in his head, reminding Gladio that no matter how good this feels, it’ll never compare to the taste of his lips or what it felt like to hold him. Liv’s just a distraction.
“Maybe we should—” he tries again, but she grabs his face with one hand and kisses him hard, shutting him up. It shouldn’t work on him, but it does, and he groans as her tongue slides against his, as her hand slips over the wet head of his cock. “Trust me,” she says.
He doesn’t trust her—he barely knows her—and relying on some medieval form of birth control doesn’t seem like the greatest idea. But he doesn’t get the chance to respond. The next thing he knows, she’s peeling off her leggings and sitting in his lap, her cunt enveloping his cock with a smooth heat that leaves him breathless and brings another soft sound of pleasure out of him. His hands go to her hips, his fingers digging into her skin, not sure if he wants to pull her closer or push her away.
Ignis ain’t here.
He fucked off to Galdin Quay and didn’t even have the balls to say goodbye.
You told him you didn’t want him, and now he’s telling you the same.
Maybe Liv’s the distraction he needs. Gladio tangles a hand in her hair and tugs her down into a hungry kiss. Anything to shut up his brain, to bury his thoughts of Ignis. Liv starts to rock on top of him, bracing her hands on his chest, and then they’re moving together, frantic and ravenous. It’s too late to hit the brakes. Too late to worry about whether he’s willing to gamble with the consequences.
So he lets her ride him hard, panting into his ear, until his orgasm takes him.
*
“I’m pregnant,” Liv tells him, before he’s even had a chance to invite her in. She stands in his doorway, her backpack slung over her shoulder, the defiance in her eyes tempered by fear and uncertainty. “Pretty sure you’re the father.”
Gladio doesn’t say anything, not at first. He just stares at her. It’s been three weeks since they had sex on his futon, and they haven’t done it since. It was a mistake he didn’t want to repeat, a mistake that’s coming back to bite him in the ass. Why the fuck was he so stupid? Why the fuck didn’t he put a stop to it? A handjob would’ve been fine. More than fine. But she was so insistent…
“You’re positive?” he finally says. It could be her ex’s kid. The timing makes things a little murky.
She nods, her grey eyes sober. “Pretty positive.”
Shit.
One thing’s for sure—he can’t leave her standing out in the hallway, staring at him with that lost expression on her face. Numbly, he stands back, pulling the door all the way open to give her passage.
She drops onto the futon, raking a hand through her wild mane of hair. “What are we going to do? I can’t have a kid. Not in this fucked up world.”
“I guess those pahsana seeds didn’t work,” he says slowly, closing the door.
The look in her eyes turns guilty, and she shakes her head, avoiding his gaze. “I thought I had some left, but I must’ve used them all when I was with…” She trails off, biting her lip. “You know. Anyway, I couldn’t find any more. All the vendors were sold out.”
Gladio leans against the wall, rubbing a hand over his face. Why didn’t he see this coming? Why the hell did he take her at her word? No. As tempting as it is to blame her, it’s his own goddamn fault for not asking questions, for being so irresponsible.
“You could get rid of it,” he says.
“Abort it, you mean?” She laughs a little at the suggestion. “With what? A coat hanger?”
“I was thinking we could see a doctor.”
She frowns at him. “Gladio, the doctors we have left are too busy saving lives to deal with this shit. They’d laugh me out of the clinic.”
“Not if we gave them enough gil.”
This time, her laughter comes out like a bark. “Now you think you can pay to make your problems go away?”
Sighing, he puts up his hands in surrender, wishing he’d kept his damn mouth shut. What the hell does she want him to say, anyway? This ain’t what he wants from life—not with her, anyway, and not like this—but Gladio’s not a total asshole. He takes care of his business. He’ll provide for her and the kid.
“Sorry,” she says. She leans back against the futon and laces her fingers over her belly, frowning down at it like it can give her the answers she’s looking for. “You didn’t deserve that. It’s hard not to be on the defensive after all the shit I’ve been through.”
“We’ve all been through shit,” he says, sitting heavily on the futon next to her. “I was just agreeing that it ain’t a great idea to have a kid at a time like this. But I’ll support you, if you wanna keep it.”
Liv bites her lip, lifting her eyes to meet his. “I kind of do want to keep it. Despite everything.”
Liv and this unborn kid ain’t the family he wants. He already had a family—Iris, Ignis, Prompto, Talcott—but he gave all that up the night he left Ignis. Sure, he still sees most of ‘em now and then, but it’s been a long time since they were all together, and fuck knows if they ever will be again. A pang of longing grips him, squeezing sharp and sudden in his chest. If only he could go home. If only he could take back every last one of his shitty choices.
But he can’t. And life ain’t always about getting what you want. Mostly, it’s about making the best of what you have. That’s what he tells himself, anyway—and he tries to believe it.
So Gladio looks at her, and she looks back. Then he sighs and leans back against the futon. “All right. I guess we’re doing this.”
*
The phone rings when he’s digging in his duffel bag for the keys to the gym, which seem to have disappeared into another fucking dimension. Or maybe he left them on the kitchen counter. It’s hard to say. Two days ago, Ethan moved out and Liv moved in, and between work, hunts, and unpacking, he’s barely had time to sleep. He ain’t exactly thinking at maximum efficiency.
It’s because he’s so tired that he picks up the phone without looking at the call display.
“Yeah?” he grunts.
“Gladio.”
Gladio freezes, the keys completely forgotten. It’s Ignis on the other end of the line. The sound of his voice floods him with a sudden warmth, like a straight shot of whiskey.
“Iggy,” he breathes, leaning heavily against the wall.
“I hope this isn’t an imposition,” Ignis says, his voice weirdly stiff and formal.
“No. No.”
Gladio licks his lips, lost for what to say. As much as he’s dreamt of this moment, he wasn’t expecting it. He didn’t think Ignis would call him out of the blue like this.
“I’m back from Galdin Quay,” Ignis says, filling the silence. “I was there—”
“To be closer to Noct. I know,” Gladio says. “Iris told me.”
“I see.” There’s a pause on the other end of the line. It goes on long enough that it starts to turn awkward. Gladio figures he should rescue the situation, but just as he’s about to speak, Ignis goes on, voice halting, “I had a lot of time to think while was there. I have…regrets. About the way we parted.”
“Yeah,” Gladio says, his pulse hammering in his throat. “Me too.” Then he hesitates. After all these months, it’s like talking to a stranger, and that breaks his heart a little more. They used to be so close. “Iggy, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left that night.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t stop you,” Ignis says. “I let my anger get the better of me.”
Gladio laughs softly. “You weren’t the only one.”
They both go quiet. Gladio wants to hear more of his voice—honestly, he never wants this call to end—but Ignis ain’t offering anything more in the way of conversation, and he isn’t sure what to say. Asking Ignis how he is would be too much like small talk, and Gladio can’t exactly tell him what he’s been up to. The last thing he wants to discuss right now is Liv and his colossal fuck-up.
“So…how’s Noct?” he finally asks.
“The same as when we left him,” Ignis says. “Angelgard is undisturbed. The glaives are manning Galdin Quay well enough. All told, I’d say he’s in good care.”
“That’s good to hear. Sorry I couldn’t be there.”
“Think nothing of it,” Ignis says. “You’ve plenty of your own priorities to keep you busy in Lestallum. Besides…” Gladio can almost hear his lips curving into a smile on the other end of the line. “Noct isn’t going anywhere. You can visit whenever you like.”
“Guess I can.” Gladio can’t help grinning. With Ignis making light of the situation, it feels a little like old times. “Why’d you come back?”
There’s a heavy pause before Ignis says, “Surely you already know.”
Gladio’s breath catches. He spent months longing for Ignis, then a bunch more trying to get over him. He thought Ignis wanted nothing more to do with him. He believed it so completely that he went and got someone else knocked up while he was trying to stop the pain. And now, Ignis is about to tell him he was wrong.
“Iggy…” he starts to say, but Ignis cuts him off.
“I still care for you, Gladio.” The words come out in a rush, like Iggy’s gonna lose his nerve if he doesn’t blurt it all at once. “Hardly a day goes by without the thought of you crossing my mind. I was hoping you’d be open to the possibility of picking up where we left off.” He goes quiet again, clearly expecting Gladio to answer. “Please say you’ll think about it, at least.”
But Gladio doesn’t know what the hell to say. Just like that, all the lightness of reconnecting with Ignis gets sucked away, leaving him hollow. He wishes he could tell Ignis yes. He wishes he could run over to the apartment and gather Ignis up in his arms, and promise they’ll never be apart again. It’s what he’s wanted for so long.
Liv, though. The kid in her belly.
“Iggy, I can’t,” he says.
The silence on the other end of the line isn’t awkward this time. It’s excruciating. Gladio rests his forehead against the cool brick of the gym’s wall, closing his eyes, his chest tight and aching. How the hell is he supposed to explain this?
Ignis clears his throat. “I see,” he says. “I’ll take up no more of your time, then.”
“Wait,” Gladio says, his voice raw with desperation. “I want to, Iggy, I do. I just—”
“I understand, Gladio—”
“I met someone, I slept with her—”
“You don’t need to explain.”
“—and we didn’t use a condom—”
“Goodbye, Gladio.” The line goes dead.
—But I still love you.
Gladio knocks his forehead lightly against the wall, his breath shaking, frustrated tears pricking his eyes. Fuck, it hurts. Talking to Ignis has brought back all those memories of the night he left, and the long, hollow days that followed. But having to turn him down is worse. Ignis could have been his again, if only he wasn’t so goddamn stupid, so goddamn principled. Part of him wants to call Ignis back, tell him he’ll leave her so they can be together, but that wouldn’t be the right thing to do.
So he’s gonna lie in this bed he’s made for himself.
Even if it’s empty and loveless, and he never finds a moment’s peace in it.
*
Liv is sixteen weeks into her pregnancy when her agonized sobbing brings Gladio to the bathroom door. He hovers outside for a minute, listening, concern gnawing at him, before he knocks politely.
“Everything okay in there?” he asks.
She doesn’t answer. He tries the knob, finding it locked. Inside, Liv sobs harder. He decides to kick in the door. It slams open, bouncing off the wall.
Liv’s sitting on the toilet, her skirt hiked up and her underwear around her ankles. It takes him a minute to realize they’re soaked with blood. There are drops on the floor, too, and a bloody handprint on the counter.
“Fucking Six, Liv!” He goes to his knees in front of her, grabs her by the arms, and searches her mascara-streaked face. He should take her to the clinic. There’s so much blood. “Are you okay?”
Liv shakes her head and presses her face into his shoulder, her body racked with sobs. “I lost it,” she wails.
Understanding dawns on him. The bloody smears on the floor and countertop are all that’s left of the life he put inside her. He should feel something, shouldn’t he? Sadness? Denial? Loss? Something besides this numbness?
Her tears soak through his t-shirt. Automatically, he puts an arm around her, hushing her as he cradles her head to his chest. “It’s gonna be okay,” he says.
She cries harder.
But all he feels is relief.
*
After that, he can’t exactly leave her.
They settle into a domestic groove. Gladio doesn’t know how it happens. At first, he tells himself he’ll leave after six weeks. Then eight. Then twelve. But as the weeks turn into months, and the months turn into years, it never seems like the right time to go. Eventually, he stops thinking of escape. This is his life now. He and Liv carry on playing house, sleeping and eating and existing together. He keeps working at the gym; she takes on some shifts at the refugee shelter in the market, helping people find places to live and food for their families.
Gladio doesn’t love her. But she loves him. He tells himself it’s enough.
Though he hunts often with Prompto, Ignis keeps his distance. Iris must tell him about the miscarriage, because Ignis sends him a single text a month later. I’m sorry, it says. Gladio thanks him, and that’s the end of it. It would be an asshole move to grovel now, and Ignis never texts him again.
The rare times they encounter each other, it’s on a mission with a dozen other hunters, and Ignis is always politely detached. They don’t talk about the past. They don’t talk about their lives. They only talk about Noct, and their duty, and how the hell they’re gonna get past the next daemon nest in one piece. Bit by bit, he feels the wall going up between them.
Bit by bit, the hope that Ignis still feels anything for him dims, until at last it flickers out completely.
*
Ten years into the darkness, Gladio receives a call from Prompto.
“Hey, buddy,” he says when Gladio answers, “we could use your help out at the garage. Cindy’s got a flan situation on her hands. You in?”
Gladio grunts. He glances at the kitchen, where Liv stands at the counter studying a dog-eared cookbook, her arms crossed over her chest. It would be good to get away. It’s been months since a hunt took him from Lestallum overnight, and he and Liv have been fighting. They’re always fighting now. “You workin’ alone?” he asks.
“Nah. Got Ignis here too.”
Ignis. They don’t see each other much these days. It’s been nearly two years, if Gladio’s counting right—ever since Cor handed over the Crownsguard to his command. It’s a huge honour, but it’s kept him out of the field. Mostly, he’s been stuck in Lestallum—home base—where he trains recruits and helps Monica strategize. As for Ignis, Iris tells him he’s been crawling ruins with Talcott, looking for more information about the Starscourge. Neither of them hunt much anymore. Their paths don’t intersect.
Gladio wants to see him, though. He’s gotten on with life, but he’s never stopped thinking about him. He still remembers how Ignis felt in his arms, back when they were together and things were good. Still remembers the smell of his hair and the taste of his skin. It’s over between them, but at least they’ll get to fight together again, the way they used to do. At least Gladio will be there to protect him.
He glances at Liv. She’s glaring at him, her mouth pinched and eyes narrowed.
“Yeah,” he says, pushing himself up off the futon. “I’m in.”