[ After a decade, disorientation no longer takes the hammer to his psyche with impunity. The first time he summoned his daggers in practice, his grip lounged too far up the hilts, sharp contours of metal knifing into the skin in a savage oath of pain, and dropping them didn't register until they'd clattered down, consigned back into nothing. Cuts didn't register; it wasn't the pain, but the slipperiness of the blood that drew attention. How rashly he'd brutalized himself.
These days, his handling over a pair of blade is a little different. More slow and reverential, no longer besotted with bruising knuckles and spraining fingers, trading out confidence for discretion. Ignis wasn't born blind; the halls of the Citadel, however transformed in their remodeling, are consigned to the annals of sense-memory. The cane's not a necessity, but a comfort, charting out the space, the uncertainties. Each and every member of the king's inner retinue know better than to inconvenience a blind man, and his Majesty's de-facto adviser at that. It's a largely superfluous title. Noctis hasn't needed his counseling since the Starscourge was purged (as it stands, reciprocity turned on its head; he's the one who needs direction now).
Today, of all days, has been exceptional in inflaming his temper. His exasperation is a vise that shatters ribs when he retires toward his room with the intent of poring over more jargon-heavy manuscripts and polishing up on Braille. The spill of rushing steps to and fro lets on more than the cadence of fidgety small-talk just outside of the door when he's screwed the knob open, and Ignis is momentarily occupied by the sudden, looming lack of noise, how all of the commotion in the immediate vicinity dies stillborn when he enters, like they've been trained to fall silent on command, no provocation necessary.
Then the servants are hastily dismissing themselves, dispersing in twos and threes past him while doing their damnedest to avoid contact, like he might be rattled off-balance with a touch alone. Familiarity clues him into Noctis's lingering presence even without sharing words, breathing staggered out of its salvo some ways beyond him when he shuts the door. But there's no bare admittance of brassy humor nor rank longing in Ignis when he sets the cane aside, shedding his jacket with little fanfare.
The rigidity of Ignis's jaw is a slow reveal, a premonition of irritation souring his mouth when he turns toward the closet. Reaching for a hanger only takes a second to clue him in, fingers awkward and filmy around a dress shirt instead of the patch of air. ]
What did you do?
[ Impetuosity saws out of him too quick, leaves his words colder. Not fully-realized anger yet, just the rawness of it flaying his question open. ]
[ Noctis senses it seconds only after the servants do, irritation inflamed, simmering underneath that implacably poised facade. There are some things that don't change about Ignis even if just about everything has shifted, evolved, readjusted enough for the both of them to linger on the knife edge of uncertainty and familiarity, the warmth of memory and wounds not yet knitted together. The adage that time heals wounds is little but sweet deception -- left to time, wounds can only fester.
Noctis struggles with the uphill task of attending to his duties in the wake of devastation wrought upon his kingdom, and just about the rest of the world. Beyond Ardyn, beyond Starscourge, lies a greater and more difficult road, because the hardest thing to do in the world is to live in it, and live they do, in all its complicated, convoluted glory. Although these days, it's much less glory as it is a study in skillful maneuvering -- it has never been this tricky interacting with Ignis; it has never been this challenging to love him, when they come back together after a decade -- and it's almost like returning to a cherished home that's had its furniture rearranged; not enough to be wholly alien, but just enough to unsettle.
But he tries, because this is Ignis, the love of his life. Because he's sure that whatever they're going through now, the myriad little things like sandpaper, paring their nerves raw, surely they will pass. Surely they will find shared equilibrium again. So Noctis tries, even when Ignis gently, quietly slips just out of reach, and yet still stays close enough for him to hope.
Today is one of those days, when he eschews duties for the evening to organise a small team of dedicated servants. He has an idea engineered to ease things for Ignis; a system of differently shaped and textured pegs meant for different items and colors of clothing. His lover might have been relatively adept at dressing himself and making sure everything is as dapper as it previously was, but there are still times when it lapses, when Noctis gently corrects him with a quiet word and a soft kiss, working hard not to step on his toes (oftentimes, Ignis is as determined to refuse help from him as much as Noctis is determined to give it). He tries not to let it bother him; how he's ever really seen those scars up close, how Ignis still keeps him at arm's length even if they both pretend otherwise. Some days make it easier to buy into the lie than others -- today is not quite one of those days.
So when the servants hurry off to give them their space, Noctis draws himself up, forces cordiality as his gaze lingers on the set of his jaw (it's trickier when the rawness of Ignis' words betrays the barest touches of cold displeasure -- when did they become like this?). It's been weeks since he's seen a genuine smile touch his mouth, and every day it gets a little worse, as if the rigors of the day (and Noctis) wears on Ignis in ways Noctis can no longer quite placate, a dreadful little truth that lodges itself unpleasantly in the back of his mind.
But Ignis is Ignis, and he is beloved no matter mood or season. The young king gently shift his hand to the small square peg clipped to the dress shirt. ]
I was devising a system to make things easier for you in the morning. [ He explains, wonders if this would loosen the set of his jaw. It seems too much to ask for a smile, these days, and he tries not to think too hard on it. ] See, different shaped pegs mean different items of clothing, the textures mean different colors. [ He smiles, quite pleased with himself. ] I'm working with a team to install little audio markers on these hangers as well. It's quite something.
Edited (oops i had to fix something :') ) 2017-12-13 14:35 (UTC)
[ If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then pretense must be the worst of it. Noct's affections haven't gained a sycophantic edge, but sometimes it grows insufferable when he's close enough to straighten out his collar, softly brushing forward, close enough to the scar jaggedly coursing down one side of his face. There must be a middle ground between concern and coddling, but they've lost their footing, fallen out-of-sync, the rest of their compunctions littered at their feet.
Weight settles on his wrist, a loose manacle made out of Noctis's fitful grip when he presses Ignis's hand up to the square peg. For better or worse, his mouth twists lopsidedly as soon as his fingertip's padded over it just once, neither a smile nor a frown. Inscrutable. None of that gentleness in his Highness hides the languid anagram of apprehension taking shape as forced cordiality within Noct (like he wouldn't notice the first wave of hesitation that stymies his lover, the lapse in his concentration when he gives too much away at once). Ignis thumbs over the shape, unable to see much more than bleak signs of light, enough to discern whether it's day instead of night, what separates a decent hour from an ungodly one. Though it hardly matters anymore, his internal clock keeps to its old, decaying patterns, too broken-in to shed old ritual. Just like this sleight of hand, in fact: straightening out conceals the tremor begrudging one of his hands, shaking to curl into a fist at his side. ]
If you'd be so kind and tell me where the hangers are. I haven't the faintest clue where anything is.
[ This time the strain is audible; there's no warm fondness in his grip, lanky and flat when he peels off Noctis's fingers, absentmindedly drops his wrist. Once, he would've been genuinely pleased by developments like these, but his enthusiasm is a dull echo, so detached from the ambivalence that's holed up in him to stay over time. All of these developments reek of weak mimicry, pretending at normalcy, like he'll ever be anything remotely close to ordinary again if he needs his clothes color-coded by shapes like a child unable to distinguish his slacks from his sleepwear. He did well enough keeping it sorted on his own, without outside involvement, and it'sā€” helplessness in and of itself, letting other people come in and invasively rifle through his things with zero thought to how he'd previously arrayed it. He trusts his king, not outsiders to screw their eyes up over his belongings, fuss over how best to infantilize him. Noctis is either rigid at his side, stiff-limbed and too taut, or he is, overly alert at the sheer wrongness of it all. Paring down his comment into mild censure is all he can do to keep from letting the indignation flare up like some kind of contagion stealing its way over him. ]
... My apologies. I wasn't aware I gave off the impression that I couldn't dress myself well enough without outside involvement. You should have clued me in sooner if it taxed you this extent.
[ So much that Noctis took the inconvenience of sorting through his undoubtedly messy wardrobe upon himself. As the king, it must be difficult (shameful) contending with a man who mixes up color-coordination, buttoning on dress shirts with disproportionate slowness and still ending up one button loose for it. Ignis isn't intentional in his disdain, but his remark isn't any less incapacitating for it. ]
[ Noctis, for all intents and purposes, and despite all efforts to the contrary, does not have a normal childhood, nor does he have any kind of relationship that is even remotely normal, and that's only if people cared to step past the mantle of crown prince to befriend a boy who, despite being surrounded by so many so often, is nearly constantly lonely.
But then there is Prompto, and of course there is always Ignis -- but theirs isn't even remotely normal, not even on a good day. His childhood friend, protector, tutor, advisor, on the occasion even surrogate parent (he tries hard not to think about that one); Ignis had been all that stood between him and isolation. Of late he's become more than that, when Noctis' adolescent crush on him had evolved into something stronger, more pronounced and fiercely undeniable when he grew older.
He has loved Ignis for as long as he can remember, and had pursued him the moment he knew what it was, when jealousy burned red-hot in his chest at one of Ignis' classmates from school, when fevered dreams and fantasies had not abated ever since he first discovered what masturbating was. Shameful at first, embarrassing and wrong -- but he's eighteen now, and he knows better.
Fast forward to today, where it's been nine and a half months since he confessed his love for him, three months since they first slept together the moment he turned eighteen, and four days since he's last seen him. There is a lot of work for a prodigy like Ignis to be doing at the Citadel; lessons and training and important meetings, and while Noctis isn't the most clingy person around, he's still at the age where libidos are more prone to rage out of control, thoughts circling back to frenetic, vigorous copulation with incredible veracity.
Even princes are not immune to shamelessly carnal desires, and he's getting tired of having his hand settle matters. It's not Ignis' hand on his dick, and the apartment is still cold when he comes, when Ignis' kiss is a fevered figment of his imagination. He dreads the moment when reality blots put his fantasies, and the only time he hears Ignis is when he calls him.
So, four days and nine hours on, Noctis decides to do something reckless, something stupid and entirely powered by his libido, desire coiled under his skin and overriding all manner of sensibilities. He's aching for him, hard from when he had been touching himself for the past couple of minutes, unable to find release and inured to even the dirtiest imaginings, the sight of Ignis on his knees and his cock between those full, kiss-bruised lips, when he would tug on his hair and fuck into that hot wet mouth so hard that his older secret boyfriend would be gagging for it.
No, he thinks. He needs him. And so, his dick full and flushed dark, he takes a picture (or ten or twenty, he doesn't want the first dick pic he sends Ignis to be something he can't recognise), and sends him the one that looks the best, a trickle of pearly pre-come easing down a thick shaft. It looks good, his cock. It looks like it's begging for his mouth around it.
[ For what it's worth, his own daydreams are fairly pedestrian. Maybe it's a consequence of the monotony paperwork introduces, making him so starved that his take on romance is the vision of Noctis parading himself around the kitchen in one of his dress shirts and little else, head propped to lean on his shoulder while berating Ignis on the addition of bell peppers to the omelette wallowing in the pan, or how cheekily the dimple at the corner of the prince's mouth presents itself when they forego brushing up on ways to handle foreign disputes in favor of resolving the latest argument (namely, curing a pair of lips in sore need of kissing). The point is that it's all very domestic, all very tame for delusions of grandeur. Noct never developed a liking for vegetables, but his libido's never been left particularly wanting for it, and Ignis can't find fault with the prince's appetite only intensifying as the weeks pile on.
Four days and five hundred and forty minutes since he's last been in Noctis's company and the hours meld. It's not the longest he's been away when he's played diplomat for months upon months several times before, but years ago he wasn't courting King Regis's son, the apple of his father's eye. Sleep-deprivation and those ten successive mugs of Ebony are finally catching up to him, long after they've mutilated his concentration. Currently on stenographer duty in the main conference hall with Gladio's father drafting up another plan for reconciling with the Nibelheim Empire, Ignis nearly misses the ping of phone as it buzzes awake; what alerts him isn't the notification itself, but the chime he's set whenever Noctis expresses chooses to contact him, and he glances over on a stray whim.
And then the next several minutes of Clarus Amicitia's voice are forever lost on him. Transcribing the rest of the speech becomes a pipe dream when Ignis's fingers renounce dictation in favor of twitching in shock over his phone screen. ]
y
[ Incredible. That was supposed to be you haven't left much to the imagination or some such drivel, suave the way he's utterly incapable of affecting right now. Apparently he's so far gone that he's forgotten the rest of the goddamned sentence, what with common sense immediately vacating his body and all, never to be seen again. It takes the announcement of the meeting's adjournment for lunch break to snap out of his trance and steadily, steadily walk in just a way his cock isn't threatening to oust itself from his slacks, gathering enough of his sanity to keep any treacherous desires surrounding Noctis's dick on the down-low until he can slip into the chef's dining quarters (one of his personal retreats from back when he was a mere child learning the intricacies of fine cuisine) and practically topple onto one of the seats in his haste to get away from polite company. Ignis's hard-on, gradually stiffening in his pants, is barely kept at bay as he carefully punches in his text, letter by grueling letter, until he's calmed down enough that he won't go careening into blatant sexual innuendo at the flip of a switch. ]
I scarcely doubt I have a proprietary right to any part of you, Highness.
[ Inversely, all of him belongs to Noctis, especially like this, with his fingers tapping a maddened tempo into the dining table shortly after to distract himself from denouncing self-respect and jerking off right here with the semi-erection he'd rather not acknowledge at all. Absolutely no good will come of the picture he's been sent, there's no way he'll be able to keep it remotely secure on his phone, but he doesn't have the heart to bring about its death sentence right now. The notion of Noct sprawled over upholstery in the sanctity of his apartment and fitfully stroking himself off to thoughts of him is a horribly compelling one, but Noctis can't flay him with guilt any harder than he's flaying himself. ]
[ Ignis, despite fastidious appearances to the contrary, has always been a romantic, and it's one of the things Noctis has always appreciated about him even if the general notion of it sometimes goes over his head. The man is impeccably domestic, preferring small, heartwarming gestures to overblown ones -- all of it suiting the prince just fine (considering how romantically and emotionally inept Noctis can be). And speaking of suiting him, the minutes that drag on is almost unbearable, Noctis waiting by his phone for a response, any response aside from the single letter sent back in response.
So he's seen it, and a cursory glance at the time reveals Ignis' possible location -- Noctis is not the most devoted keeper of Ignis' timetable, not by a long shot, but he's aware that he should be in some sort of meeting right now. Ignis is prodigiously gifted, a quick study and dangerously intelligent; it's no wonder that he had been designated as tutor and companion at such a young age. Even now, he is still fiercely sought after; a lesser man would be jealous, but Noctis is aware that there are times when Ignis works himself to the bone, when he's running on fumes and yet still manages to keep everything in working order, much to Noctis' guilt.
Fingers thumbing over the screen, he mollifies himself by scrolling up to the previous texts, every one of them casual conversations, fitted with frequent requests and regular dispassionate entreaties and peppered with softer moments, fonder moments. Ignis likely deleted them from his phone, those softer moments, but Noctis saves it for moments when he finds himself missing his lover beyond a good, hard fucking. Noctis might find that he has a growing appetite for carnal pleasures thanks to hormones and all that messy shit that happens when you're becoming an adult, but he finds himself smiling at Ignis' quips, the evident thread of concern and care that lines every exchange they have together.
Not for the first time, he thinks of how fortunate he is that he possesses the loyalty of a man like Ignis, second to none in almost every way that counts. Exhaling, slowing down on his stroking -- not that it'll help, his own fantasies do very little in the way of courting release at this point -- and he's tempted to send him a follow up text when he responds.
Highness, he says, and Noctis knows this is a thing he usually does when he subconsciously wants to put some distance between them -- meaning he's come too close too quickly. Noctis considers more motivation than deterrent (there is little that's more satisfying that pursuing Ignis and being the reason for his rapidly waning self-control). Has he found somewhere quiet to settle in and text him? Maybe that chef room, perhaps; Noctis has always managed to find him there when they were little. ]
And yet, it only gets hard like this when I'm thinking of you.
[ He sends him another image, cock jutting proudly, slick and nearly glistening with his legs spread. ] If only you know what I'd give to have you between my legs right now.
He shouldn't be one toothbrush in the sink away from practically living with Noctis in his apartment in the city, but here he is anyway, entirely naked in Noctis' bed, spare toothbrush judiciously placed in an unused holder beside Noctis' own by the bathroom sink, and currently asleep beside him. There will be hell to pay if they're caught together, and even though Noctis is half-certain Regis wouldn't take issue with his sexual preference either way, he's almost entirely certain that he would be deeply disappointed. Princes are not made to fall in love with their advisors, and love is a luxury royalty cannot afford.
Even so.
Noctis is asleep on his side, an arm draped possessively over Ignis' waist, as if daring the sandman to snatch him from his hold. This morning, however, he's the first to wake -- a miracle, he knows, and he's aching in all the places from when he'd bent Ignis practically in half and fucked him so hard that the solid oak of his bed almost cracked under the force of it. And then there was the toy they played with, the vibrator Noctis took such pleasure in pushing inside of his older lover. That one was new, exciting, and he finds that he's going to have to ask Ignis to teach him more about it now.
His sex notebook lies open on the chair opposite the bed, and he makes a note to add more entries to the list as he comes awake, slow and groggy. It's not even remotely bright out, but sleep is mysteriously elusive this morning, slipping further out of reach when Noctis carelessly moves his hand to adjust the covers around Ignis when he brushes over something hard.
He pauses, lifts the covers and looks down. Clarification, always important.
Ah.
Moments like these are crucial ones, important ones, heavy with choice and potential, and Noctis hesitates for a few minutes before he slowly, delicately rubs a thumb along the veined, ridged underside of that magnificent morning wood his Ignis sports. ]
[ Today, there's no alarm to shut off. Ignis hadn't thought to set one, in-between peeling off his suspenders and undoing sock garters, belt cast off by the wayside. Dealing with Noctis was enough to distract himā€” insufferably gorgeous, smiling coy and sweet when he came around to part his legs, which really made getting screwed into a state of incognizance its own kind of acute torture. Never mind how obscenely Noctis ducked down once he'd set the rhythm, batting his lashes while he shoved the vibrator inside, bracing him down with a smile that anchored him down to the bed. Much to his own chagrin, even, floored and convulsing underneath his grasp.
Rarely in his life has Ignis ever sounded so overcome than in these moments with Noct, his center of gravity disrupted for the warm focus of palms gliding over him, levering their weight. The anticipation shining through his breath only hitched when Noct eased back to slip inside himā€” and then afterwards, when Ignis was grinding to meet every deep thrust, teeming over with sensation until climax had sent himā€” sent them bothā€” right over the edge.
Even so.
Sleep crashes around him, and for once he hasn't stirred just yet. The ache still lingers, up the curvature of his ribs and nestled inside, but it's immensely soothing that Noct's snug around him. It's unfortunate that his body doesn't know when to quitā€” bleary with exhaustion but stiff under the covers, the ramifications of Noctis crumpled at his side where he made their bones interlock.
Ignis jostles somewhat as Noctis disentangles, alighting fears that he might rouse in a few seconds, but weariness has swathed him too intimately, leaving him entirely incognizant to the hand reaching down to thumb along his erection, stimulating nerves. Something reminiscent of a moan leaks out when Ignis's head lolls forward some, turning to find solace in smudging his cheek along the pillow, mumbling unintelligibly into the fabric. The dream of Noctis eagerly draping his fingers over him again hasn't solidified yet; it just preys on him when he reflexively twists to one side, obscuring his morning wood from view, like his modesty hasn't left him even in sleep. Makes sense. Showing off so much skin's indecent, even unconscious, even after Noct's pored over every inch of him. He's not the sort of bastard that doesn't think twice about setting his toothbrush on just any bathroom counter, after all. ]
[ Ignis is absolutely gorgeous in repose, but even more enthralling when he reacts to Noctis' cautious, gentle ministrations. He doesn't want to wake him all at once, no; it's a personal challenge, really, to see how far and how long he can go without rousing his entirely exhausted older lover. To have Ignis surrender to him so completely is a sweetness that still sits warmly in his stomach, his chest, and Noctis dimly muses that this must be what happiness and bliss is like.
Happiness, he thinks, is waking to a sleeping lover and watching the way their body responds to your explorations -- and when your lover is Ignis Scientia, then it's all the more a privilege to be beside him like this. He doesn't stop, smiling at that softly appreciative little moan, and Noctis wonders what Ignis dreams about, if he dreams at all. He's warmed by that subconciously bid for modesty -- there really isn't anything sexier than when Ignis tries to keep everything under wraps, classy and modest but coming apart under Noctis' attentions all the same. Curling around Ignis' body, fitting around him like he was made just for this, Noctis kisses his shoulder lightly, the rest of his fingers closing around his shaft warmly, delicately, appreciating the shape and width of him, how he feels in his palm.
He will never have enough of this, he thinks; he will never tire of loving a man like Ignis, and in the minutes before dawn it's easy to believe that this isn't something just short of treason, a one-sided punishment that would land wholly on Igis' shoulders, as if Noctis isn't the one who had sought him as well, relentless and willful until Ignis had been overcome, every excuse for propriety flung by the wayside because Ignis is only human, just like his prince. But there is little to worry about - -- Noctis will protect him and their secret, no matter what it takes. Fingers gliding up and down his cock, warm but not stifling, Noctis seeks to stir alight sleeping embers with uncharacteristic patience. ]
I hope you're dreaming of me. [ He whispers so softly in his ear that it could be mistaken for the last dregs of a midnight breeze, and his thumb comes to rub thoughtful little circles over the slit of his cock, the memory of Ignis' come on his tongue a vividly welcome one. Oh, how he had been so completely wrecked and undone, how Noctis had felt like the luckiest man in the world to get to see just how beautiful Ignis looked, open and vulnerable and oh so human. Maybe he should see if he could take care of his morning wood without waking him -- won't that be something? ]
[ The moment his father sent a missive requesting his immediate presence at the Citadel is the moment that Noctis knows nothing good will come out of it. Good news are delivered in the standard time, which leaves only the restrictively personal and devastatingly terrible, and it's with a knot in his throat that Noctis makes straight for where he is asked to meet him, fearing for Regis' health. He has only just recovered from a cold, and is still not in the pink of health, the last thing Noctis needs is for Regis to develop complications.
He discovers that it's nothing of the sort twenty seconds into the meeting. The king's constitution looks much improved, but that's the extent of the young prince's relief when his father looks sympathetic and grim, both. He brings up the last person Noctis expects this meeting to be about, and Noctis learns that apparently he has not been as subtle about his thing with Ignis as he thought he'd been. That there have been whispers in the court, and these whispers, as well as reports in the affirmative, have reached the king's ears. Regis is not angry, but the sadness in his eyes is obvious, as is the firm measured tone he uses when he reminds him of his duty, that love is not something meant for royalty, who have a duty to their people, to the many others who risk their lives for them day after day.
Noctis is quiet at first, a cold dread twisting in his stomach, and he protests when he ought, riled and upset at the unfairness of it all, how even kings and princes are cogs in the grander machinations of royalty. There is a price to pay for such prestige and privilege, and Noctis cannot help but imagine a gilded cage. Regis might have done everything he can to ensure that his son lives out a normal life, but sooner or later the toll comes due, and the fantasy ends. His life is not his own -- his life belongs to his people just as they belong to him. Noctis resists, pushes back, rebellious and disbelieving, only to be cut short by Regis.
And after that comes a bitter understanding of his place, of the fact that he will have to make arrangements to procure a suitable candidate, a young woman to provide an heir and to ensure that the line of Lucis kings continues unbroken. Noctis' love for Ignis has no place here, and it's with churning, unhappy thoughts that he returns to his own apartment in the heart of the sky, where Ignis is bound to be. They're supposed to watch a movie together, and they were going to have the entire apartment to themselves. It's a thought that would have filled Noctis with anticipation and pleasure, but today, it only brings him the barest comfort.
So people already know about him and Ignis, people who had been talking behind his back (not a novel thing, really, you get used to it), and as he parses through everything Regis has so calmly related to him, Noctis finds that he has to swallow the lump in his throat. Nobody gets everything that they want -- not even royalty, and Ignis, the one thing Noctis has wanted all his life, Ignis does not have a place by his side as a lover.
He bites his lip when he unlocks the door and enters, contemplates escaping into the arcades for awhile; but he has a date with Ignis he'd been looking forward to; it's just unfortunate that his father's directives have come down at such a terrible time. He loves Regis, he really does. He just doesn't love the sacrifices he has to make, his love for Ignis chief among them.
Padding into the apartment, he sighs and heads towards the kitchenette where Ignis is busy with something. It's so wonderfully, painfully domestic, Ignis with his sleeves rolled up, looking as elegantly casual as he's ever seen him, and no less gorgeous. ] Iggy. Can we talk?
[ Realistically, keeping up appearances could only go on for so long. It's not hard to draw conclusions given how much time he's spent in Noctis's apartment (and company) as of late, how he's not careful enough to keep just enough distance when their hands brush or his shoulder is angled just shy of Noct's at the farmer's market, or in the checkout line, or maintaining a careful vigil around the batting cage with Prompto or Gladio in tow and jotting down the averages while the rest of their merry band strike out or hit home runs, respectively. Word gets around, and Ignis's natural first course of action is making headway for the Citadel to break the news to Noct's father.
It's been a few days since then, and he's entirely calm and composed, like dating the heir apparent is the most benign thing in the world. (In some respects, it is; there's no challenge to overcome when he's known him all of his life, familiar in a context entirely divorced from duty and obligation.) Currently, he's distracted with cleaning and filleting the halibut in the sink. Shaving off the skin and carving it into sections is thoughtless work; paring off fins and scales, sashaying cuts through the ribs in long, slicing strokes. The pan's searing the meat, and he's whittling away at the paunchy cheek of one fish head when the sound of jangling keys alerts him.
Noct's footsteps carry a particular cadence, an informality hard-pressed to be extracted; just like Ignis, he's a creature of habit, padding with the same casual irreverence he dons all too well. ]
Welcome back.
[ Ignis's posture remains neat and uniform, only betraying a hint of tension in the sudden lapse of the cut, knife dragging a little too heavily on the cutting board, the sound dissonant. But then he's set the blade aside, turning the heat on the stove to a low, low flame, moving to rinse his hands off the scales. ]
Of course. You needn't ask. [ The build-up is the portent of something awful, when Noctis rarely prompts him like this, strange and resigned, but Ignis is as unflappable as ever, no hesitance bruising at his throat when he speaks up. For all that he's wound up right now, braced and cautious, he's never been particularly indecisive. ] What seems to be the issue?
[ It's over. There's no overwrought farewell, however, even when the both of them have somehow spectacularly failed to disentangle themselves from each other's lives. Weeks upon weeks have been building up to a climactic point that falls flat on its face; there is no shouting affair when he packs away his belongings, George's pitiful meowing around Noct's ankles a visceral contrast to the freeze-frame of unbecoming horror on his Highness's when he shuts the door behind him. Maybe Noct would've gotten on his knees and snapped every retort with his teeth to get the last word in, but he loves Ignis more than winning an argument that's misplaced its counterpoint, and perhaps that's why he's helpless to the very last, goading him to cross a distance he won't breach, won't even attempt traversing.
Noctis doesn't deserve this. He knows. He knows. His belligerence should have proved useful to him, if Ignis wasn't so much of a coward, surrendering over to causality. It's not so bad, the gilded knife of Noct's frustration hoisted up over his head and daring the stab for as long as his anger can be held aloft, a feeling so surreal that he can't remember why he'd ever gone without itā€” the hot insistence of Noct's fervor bowed over him, unsparing, galvanizing him to his resolve in a way he'd never intended. The crown prince is gorgeous, as always, even in the deep chasm of his malevolence.
After that is the mishmash of days upon days, preparing for the long trip abroad. He's making up for lost time and going through the motions, charting out the gaps so his visits to the Citadel will be less and less frequent, cemented to the journey like some nomad who's lost sight of the destination, the very reason for leaving. Ignis has gone to scandalizing lengths to avoid Noct all the while, politely deflect the stream of voicemails and harangued texts. He doesn't know how to respond, because he doesn't know what Noctis would prefer to hear, so he sticks to silence, up until Noct announces his arrival in the Citadel, breaking their careful dance of avoidance with one last cutting blow to his conscience.
Ignis, much too late for contriving an excuse for his absence, finds Noct holed up in one corner of his room, legs bunched up on the rolly chair. The face of him is slanted away, but in a show of audacity he's gotten his hands around the satin box he'd left on the table. Inside it, the ring's glinting, cool and faceted, and it's asking too much out of Ignis to relinquish his sudden, intense sympathy for moving targets at the end of a shooting range when Noctis glances up. Sleeplessness brands his eyes, dark and furious and sad. From this close, he's only just registering the stinging quality to them, akin to sharp resentment, or a blade sawing over bone, and it's so strange how terror underscores desire. His fingers drag over the paneling of the door like he's set to rip it, the movement ungainly, dripping with shock. ]
[ The hardest thing to do is to watch Ignis pack all his things. Before that, Noctis' apartment had borne many little signs that another lived there with him, this sleek, lonely apartment that's gained another occupant and is all the more welcome for it. It's the neatly-folded clothes Noctis had haphazardly made space for, it's the neatly arranged books on an unused shelf, a recipe book on the counter, the heartwarming smell of home-cooked food and the sweet richness of baked pastries and confections. It's the way Ignis occupies that space, a presence that lends life to a place Noctis has no real attachment to, because at the end of the day he will return to the Citadel, with all its magnificence and finery and long, long corridors.
It is Ignis who turned this apartment into a home, a place they've spent countless evenings curled up with each other; Ignis fitting himself into his heart, carving his name into the space between his ribs, occupying the silence between heartbeats. And one day, it's Ignis that takes it all away.
A relationship is built on the smallest things, and that is why when it ends, it's not the person-shaped hole in your chest that kills you; it's the thousand little papercuts that comes after he's gone. It's the many little reminders of a presence gouged out, and nothing is more pronounced than an empty space where something beloved used to be. The bed, colder. The kitchenette, waiting to be used. The bathroom sink, missing one toothbrush. The mobile phone, silent, bloated with messages that were read but not responded to, and Noctis never did have the heart to command his responses no matter the degree of hurt, girded by the wind of his anger.
For Noctis, a lesson in love.
For George, a Pyrrhic victory.
And so he turns up today, curtly informs him of his arrival when he steps foot onto the grounds -- princes, after all, reserve the right not to inform the royal retinue of their intentions to return, no matter the inconvenience caused. After all, Noctis eschews royal receptions, as if they don't already have enough to do in the day-to-day running of the household. He feels rather like a thief in his own house when he slips into the grounds, and makes his way immediately for Ignis' room. His father would be disappointed, surely, but Noctis is a wounded animal, the days without Ignis' warmth wrapped around him lending itself to more sleepless nights, and Noctis is all the more resentful for it.
His room is pristine, carefully arranged to be entirely bereft of any human touch save for the one small black velvet box sitting on the table. Noctis is not normally the invasive sort, but then again, these are not normal circumstances, and against his better judgement he picks it up, opening it to reveal the ring that glitters inside, cloaked in royal colors, designed and crafted by someone whose workmanship could command a king's ransom and then some. This is not a ring to be worn casually, the make of it too masculine to mistake it for a gift to the opposite sex. This box is not brand new, the edges gently smoothed out by long periods of time tucked into a pocket. He pulls out the ring to inspect it, and in doing so stops breathing, staring down at the words gilded onto the band. His name, and more latin he wishes he had paid attention to during one of Ignis' many lessons on the language.
His name.
Noctis stares at it blankly, seating himself on the nearby rolly chair as it hits him all at once, the weight of revelation clenched around his heart. This is -- or perhaps, was -- meant for him. He pulls his legs up and curls around the box and its extracted content, a world of thoughts whirling in his head in a haze of white noise. Shock, fury, sadness, a hope he doesn't allow himself to feel, the reminder that this can never happen, the realisation that perhaps Ignis had not stopped loving him, after all, that once upon a time he had wanted --
-- he looks up from the box when Ignis enters, and if there ever is an astute reimagining of the adage about deers caught in the headlights of resentfully loving speeding vehicles, this moment would be the top contender. Ignis, still so fucking beautiful standing there like that, now unreachable, and no longer his.
Noctis wishes it doesn't still hurt. ]
Sorry, did I ruin your escape plans?
[ These words, with all the potential for exceptional amounts of venom only now half-fulfilled, worn down by a heartache Noctis refuses to acknowledge. The gilded knife of his frustration is halted, just for these few moments. ] Tell me what this is supposed to be.
[ what a jerk! noctis spares the phone a few glances now and then when the 'read' sign pops up, then realises that ignis is making a point, and noctis smiles to himself before he resumes the game and waits for him. he's in the middle of sneaking past the alien nearby, and george perks up from her snooze to pad over to him, sniffing around his calves. ]
I hate aliens.
[ noctis tells him tersely (no he doesn't), curses when the alien gets the jump on him, and then tosses the controller to the couch. he can't even be in a bad mood when ignis is here, and especially with the smell of freshly baked bread. sandwiches! ] You baked the bread at home?
More or less. I did need to scrimp by with the head cook's blessing in hand to use the oven racks, if you were concerned.
[ But he's super cool with the chefs, what with being a cuisine nut among his own kind, so it wasn't any real issue to create the hot steak sandwiches, toasted buns and all, he's retrieving from the bag to sit atop the counter as the television blares on. George comes meandering over from Noctis's side with flighty abandon, and Ignis squats down in an effort to mitigate some of that huge-ass height difference between them. ]
Is this your cohort? Rather a prickly little thing, isn't he? He's taken quite a liking to you. [ The cat (is it a boy? he's just going off Noct's rationale here) meows in response, but it's obviously more taken with the smell of food than Ignis. ] Hello, George. I've no cat food to give you, but I didn't come here empty-handed, should you find yourself fancying a meal.
[ The tupperware of plainly boiled chicken cuts he's towed along is hardly a meal fit for the prince's cat-to-be, but it didn't seem particularly fair to make the feline watch them eat lunch to no avail. There's a moment where the wet point of its nose snuffles at his wrist where he's held his hand out in a sign of peace, and then it's disinterestedly wandered back to Noctis's side, back to sashaying around his legs. Oh, well. You win some, you lose some. ]
How are your ribs faring, Noct?
[ Achy even under the duress of painkillers, he'd presume, considering Noct took a few drunken hits before Ignis arrived on-scene. ]
[ In most cases, responsibility doesn't translate well when put to practice. As the shoddy tutelage of experience has demonstrated to him time and time again, even the best of good intentions sour. The voicemail he receives on Saturday evening from Noctis and Prompto, having apparently renounced all self-preservation to hurl themselves down a mine shaft, is more of the same. The boy-king can't merely warp out from the bottom with his lackey in tow when he can't get any tractionā€” smooth metal all the way up the passage, no chinks to exploit on the fine edge of a blade, and they're not about to risk a rocky cave-in trying to bomb their way out, otherwise. And then, with little more than an abruptly rushed apology, the line peters out and goes dead.
None of it elicits any particular profundityā€” no mind-shattering revelations reach Ignis besides the fact that when faced with a crisis, Noct voluntarily chooses to call his chamberlain with the last of his dying cell battery instead of, say, the actual authorities. He could be proud of that codependence if he wasn't being slowly murdered by it, dialing up the fire-rescue department, can of coffee half-finished, half-abandoned, and roaring off for the outskirts of the Wall, where construction with fortifying the defenses of Lucis against its neighboring enemies is in full-swing.
When he arrives, Gladio's already cozied up to a tree, absurdly delinquent-looking in the hoodie and cap combo, the latter of which he tips with a wave. Prompto called him, but the King's Shield had enough sanity not to try and catapult himself down the death trap the other two members of their merry band of four have launched themselves into. Ten, or maybe fifteen minutes pass in fuming silenceā€” exasperation makes Ignis's grasp of time crawl insensibly, but then the firefighters have arrived, piling out of the trucks, flood lights ablaze in the evening gloom, towing ladders and ropes and all manner of professional bluster.
Ignis, for his grand efforts, sips coffee straight from the can like his temper isn't rising exponentially by the second. Gladio, in a bid to save his own skin, says nothing, peering at his phone like it's a point of intense fascination instead of the disaster in motion unfolding before them.
All things considered, it goes rather well. Prompto is the first to emerge from the shaft, a little dusty and disheveled, but no less worse for the wear. Ostensibly so, considering he survived a warp-strike down from however many meters. He's lost most of the color in his complexion upon sprinting toward Gladio and catching sight of Ignis, but there's nothing he has to fear from an irate adviser, at least. He might have been the instigator, but the one at fault here is being gently hoisted out of the tunnel, and the one who receives the chaotic brunt of Ignis's thoughts from this distance.
Anger's a slow meltdown, hemorrhaging out of him like a newly busted wound for something irreparably worse when he finds that instead of jogging over, Noct's entertaining the firefighters, who've clustered about him like he's a novelty instead of the epitome of recklessness. Ignis's frustration doesn't reach its climactic point, however, until Prompto makes the astute observation that they're all unabashedly hitting on Noct, and then the implication's just crass on a level he can't verbally acknowledge right now.
There's no hiding it though, when the spurt of liquid around his wrist alerts him to the fact he's crushed the can of Ebony in hand. The aluminum's nursing puncture holes and dribbling out where his fingers have dug clean through, much to the ire of Prompto as he physically shrinks back, the fear of divine retribution momentarily put into his heart (whoa there, calm down, Iggy!) and the immediate kickback in Gladio's voice (damn, that sure got your blood boiling!), loud and flippant.
Ignoring the other two hooligans, Ignis stalks forward, the catcalling jeers growing in volume until he's brute-forced his way through the crowd of inordinately handsome firefighters to crumple his unoccupied hand around around Noct's shoulder. ]
If you've finished with your business here, we'll be going, your Highness. I can only hope you've formulated a proper justification that I can pass along to His Majesty before word reaches the public.
[ That gets the rest of the crowd commiserating with the king-to-be going, gazes momentarily flicking over him before one of them pipes up (who's that? your babysitter? butler, right? I think I remember seeing him on the newsā€”) while another devolves into one of the pettiest remarks he's ever heard leave an adult man's mouth (haha, ditch him! you old enough to drink now, Prince Noctis? we got a few cases of liquor back at the station; pretty cheap stuff, but not that bad with club soda, honestlyā€”). Never mind that Noct's still a minor who can't be trusted near beer for as deeply as he can swig it down. Blatant violation of personal space notwithstanding, Ignis is clearly within his rights as Noctis's chamberlain to drag him off, but some more debased part of him remains stationary at his side, waiting for his ward to make the right choice and voluntarily join him back in the Regalia. Better that Ignis has his cooperation than resort to prying it out of him. ]
[ In their defense, someone did say the mine shaft is haunted. And naturally, as curiosities and cats and reckless teenagers go, such an assertion necessitates investigation, especially in person, on a dark and gloomy Saturday night. Frankenstein, after all, did not create his monster on a sunny Monday morning for obvious monster-making reasons, and it's that same logic which finds them at the bottom of a mine shaft with nobody around.
Prompto is the first to freak, but cooler heads (read: Noctis) prevail, and instead of doing the sensible thing, which will be to dial emergency services (most notably the fire rescue department, tasked with firefighting, rescuing cats from all manner of trees, and currently, errant princes and their retainers from abandoned mine shafts in Buttfuck Nowhere), he calls Ignis. He supposes he'd probably call Ignis even if he was trapped on an island and was afforded only one phone call, because Noctis is prepared to swear that Ignis has the tracking skills of a bloodhound, probably has his phone tagged to within one square meter of any given area (not unlike a chip on a pet), and possesses an over-abundance of common sense that Noctis has largely come to depend on.
In short: the prince's unrelenting, unapologetic codependence on the royal chamberlain should probably be reviewed for the sake of the latter's mental health. Attempts to mitigate the matter should probably be made, even though all attempts will be blithely ignored by aforementioned prince. Prompto shares this particular view to a certain extent, if the look he gives him when he calls Ignis is any indication (dude! 911's right there!), but Noctis has all the unshakeable faith of a mountain in Ignis, and it seems like a lifetime before the firemen arrive.
Tall, broad and burly, the lot of them seem to have stepped out from the pages of Firefighters Weekly, and Noctis and Prompto were rescued in under five minutes, pulled up and none the worse for wear. All's well that ends well, right? Noctis might be the prince -- and he might only have eyes for none other than his currently irate adviser glaring daggers at him from practically a yard away, with Gladio very cleverly keeping to himself (which is saying something when the man is as bulky and imposing as they come) -- but it doesn't mean that he doesn't notice just how handsome the firemen are.
Lookers, the lot of them, like they'd just rushed over from a calendar photoshoot or something. And it doesn't hurt that they're milling around him, too. Prompto's slid off somewhere in the span of these couple of minutes, and Noctis is grateful enough to take some time to thank them -- never let it be said that the crown prince lacks manners terribly, even if something in the pit of his stomach very helpfully reminds him that he's going to be in deep trouble with Ignis later.
It takes him up until Ignis' sudden ominous presence, his hand clamped onto his shoulder for Noctis to notice that the men might possibly be flirting with him, and the prince's gratitude and friendliness might also be misconstrued as reciprocation of a strange sort. It's tempting to be invited for drinks at the station, because maybe now Ignis will see him as an older, more mature person (nevermind that he and Prompto needed to be rescued because the thought jumping down a mine shaft at night would be a great idea). But a niggling feeling remains; Ignis smells like coffee and there hints of coffee stains on those pristine cuffs, and come to think of it, he did hear a curious sound of a can being crushed...
... All the same, he knows that Ignis is right, and as much as he doesn't like to be called away, Ignis leaves him the dignity of staying by his side instead of doing the physical herding, a silent request for cooperation instead of prying it from him, and Noctis finds himself more amenable to direction. He leans closer to Ignis just as instinctively, the way he always orients himself towards him when he's close, like Ignis is his true north and Noctis can do nothing but obey.
True north, in every way that counts. So while Noctis is tempted, he's shit at drinking and judging from the tension in Ignis' shoulders, this is a situation better resolved by Noctis not pushing his damn luck. He presses closer to Ignis, a silent capitulation to his adviser's particular gambit (not that it'll alleviate the anger he feels practically emanating from him), gives them polite smiles and declines, because prince or not he's still a minor, and says his thanks before nodding at Ignis, and he's the one that impulsively takes his adviser's hand, making their way to where the Regalia is parked.
Prompto and Gladio seem to have disappeared from where Noctis had earlier spotted them -- and he wonders if it's because Ignis looks so eerily calm that the other two would much rather take their chances with a pack of enraged Coeurls than be in Ignis' immediate vicinity.
Noctis is contemplating that briefly, himself. But Ignis did just pull off an impressive search and rescue expedition and successfully extracted them in under half an hour, and the prince cannot deny being just a little bit turned on by that -- even if that's possibly the last thing on Ignis' mind right now. Stupid decisions involving mine shafts don't often lend themselves to meaningful foreplay. Ah, he'll make it up to him. ]
Thanks, Iggy. [ He chooses to break the silence. Any longer, and there'd be frost in his ears or something. ] You got them here really quick.
[ I've got something new for your sex journal, Ignis said one day, and that, Noctis decides, is how all hell broke loose. Or all hell got contained, depending on how you look at it. And what you think of temporary, involuntary chastity in particular. Noctis, being a trusting fool who believed that Ignis had only the best intentions in mind, with that invitation being a precursor to all manner of carnal pleasures and fulfillment only he can provide, had gone along with it.
There were silk ropes and a blindfold (on hindsight, Noctis should already have known that no good could have come out of it), but there was that one bondage video on RedTube that Noctis had gone back to view more than a couple of times; and Ignis was privy enough to his internet history to get the idea. Who knew such betrayal lay in the wings?
Minutes later, Noctis had come away with a severe case of blue balls and and fucking cock cage, of all things. The cool metal had slid onto his penis, locked and secured before he could even react, and, as it turns out, this is something called motivation to get his grades up because Ignis had somehow noticed that they've been slipping. The last straw came, perhaps, when it had been discovered that Noctis had been skipping some classes with Tiberius, a charmingly roguish, blue-eyed boy with a taste for danger and a reckless friendliness that Noct had taken almost immediately to when he transferred to their school. He didn't care that Noctis was the prince, and he had the kind of free wild spirit that Noctis found both tiring and exhilarating.
He makes for a good friend, and it helps that he knows one hell of a lot about video games, and he got along with Prompto like a house on fire, except that he's always been a little weird about Ignis, a minor detail that he dismisses. What he doesn't dismiss, however, is the fact that Ignis really, really doesn't like Tiberius, and the tension between them of late can be cut with a knife or something, which is annoying when Noctis can't quite figure out why.
Anyway, back to the enactment of the punishment: Noctis had been pissed, then -- his grades were only minimally slipping, he still stood in the A category, so what the hell was it all about with the withholding sex thing until he got his grades up? His grades were already way up!
Noctis tolerates this for two long, long days. The cock cage is relatively uncomfortable, and it makes him brush up against the cloth of his pants more often than it should, inadvertently providing more stimulation than it should -- and let's not even talk about the whole peeing thing, which is a whole world of inconvenience in itself, from adjusted stances in urinals to zipping up in double quick time so that nobody notices the gleam of metal and a soft metallic clink that should not belong anywhere in male bathrooms.
End of day 2, and a frustrated, furiously irate Noctis adds a new entry into his sex journal that Ignis peruses on a perversely regular basis, and the gist of it is this: He's going to kill Ignis Scientia in no uncertain terms, and he's going to enjoy it, the asshole.
Beginning of Day 3, a Saturday, and Noctis pushes the door open when he hears Ignis moving about his apartment, sinfully impeccably and obscenely unavailable -- the thwarted morning wood he'd woken up with earlier in the morning pushing him right to the brink -- making him snap, finally. He has a plan, and if this plan works, he'll manage to steal the key from him within the hour. Most probably. ]
Hey, Iggy. [ He yawns and languidly stretches his arms above his head, casually (not really, he planned this one, too) shirtless, because he's more than certain that Ignis likes having sex with him, too, and this bout of abstinence is possibly having some sort of effect on him as well, right? It takes monumental effort to keep his temper and frustration under control, but Noctis is capable of unplumbed depth of pretense when he chooses to apply himself.
He's applying himself now. Aggressively. ] You're here early. Joining me for breakfast?
[ Altogether, he's thoroughly nettled. The offense itself is vague, backwards logic for all of those moments he's spent maiming his words to keep from a verbal backlash whenever Noct's other friend prowls around the prince like a man unhinged, but it's not undeserved. Truthfully, Noctis himself might not see it, for a long while pining for a friend like he used to usurp hours of the night for his father's attention. Companions that stick through thick and thin are awfully hard to come by.
But it's there, latent, in the way Tiberius looks at anyone who isn't his Highness, coddling some kind of inferiority and persecution complex, disdainful of anyone he presumes to be a threat, but friendly otherwise. Prompto gets off none the worse for the wear, by virtue of being harmless as far as he can be thrown, but Ignis deals with the uglier remarks as soon as Noctis is out-of-earshot and this high school boy is eying him down over the kitchen stool, the condescension in his voice correcting itself in his gaze with feeling. Stupidity at its worst, really, when he's scrubbing his hands off on a towel and setting key lime pie on the granite kitchen like a particularly nonchalant housewife. Might've made for better theatrical irony if it'd been a candied fruitcake, though, since they're both fruitcakes for Noct on top of being contenders for the prince's affections.
The thing is, he isn't threatened. There's little to fear in the machinations of a minor who can't so much as harp on him as soon as Noctis is in the immediate vicinity, but in Tiberius's advances toward Noctis: slow and benign at first, tucking up against him, lips suspiciously close to his throat. Then closer, closer, a kind of surety if his fingers drag down to encircle Noct's wrist, each and every almost-kiss narrowly offset by Noct's last-minute turn, or diversion, slipping lithe and calm from his grasp.
And Ignis's patience, however tolerant, runs short at the worst of times; he isn't Noctis's keeper, not at all, but he still ends up holding his key. There's a certain perverseness to it, but it's not all that different from rifling through Noct's sex journal, or tripping him up into a BDSM trap gone horribly awry. Noct's debilitatingly pretty when bound up in rope and left blindly incognizant to the world beyond Ignis, but even better when he's not in risk of being seduced away at a moment's notice. Whatever qualms Ignis might have with this stint in abstinence, or inducing Noct's undying hatred, find solace in the fact he won't find himself under threat of being one of Tiberius's sexual conquests. The embarrassment would kill him before either of their trousers come down; he need only wait for the attempt and failure before liberating Noctis of his temporary (but no less inconvenient) foray into bondage.
So, day three. The timing's no more remiss than Noct's harboring murderous proclivities for him, but he hasn't gone in for the kill yet. Ignis busies around the apartment like usual, cleaning up a storm. He's not unlike a minor tornado equipped with his glasses, a hodgepodge of cleaning supplies, and the will of a man entirely fed up with the dirt and grime that can and will encapsulate an apartment when Noctis comes around, effectively clotheslining him with a mesmerizing sight of his chest.
Maybe there should be something resembling acute terror at the saccharine sweetness Noctis takes on, a touch less angered than the day prior when he spitting out sharp retorts and stranding himself in the bedroom (possibly to devise a way to remove the metal restraints on his own). But Ignis's dubiety doesn't stretch nearly as far as his cattiness, so he merely stops scrubbing at the spot on the window that's accrued a small beehive of mold, smiling languidly like usual. ]
No rest for the wicked, I'm afraid. [ No rest for demons who lock their boyfriends in cock cages out of jealousy and the most flimsy of paper-thin justifications. ] If you'd like me to join you, you need only ask. Would you like me to whip something up for you?
[ Ignis returns today from a two-week stint in Lestallum; Clarus had informed him previously that he had been needed for a conference -- an important meeting of various ministers debating the finer points of foreign policy, and Ignis could do with the experience, another look into how things worked in the upper echelons of the ministries before items were tabled and brought to the Council. Noctis understands, of course; work is work, but it doesn't make him miss him any less.
Texts were at a minimum during the last two weeks; it just so happened that Noctis had three exams to prepare for, and most of his time had been devoted to his studies (with a chunk of it apportioned to Prompto for their arcade outings, arranged to blow off steam), and Ignis' full and undivided attention had been demanded for for that entire stint. He checks in periodically, fond but succinct; occasionally sends over photos of food, George, the new game that had been sent over to Noctis by the developers a full week before its release, who had to sit on his hands to prevent himself from playing it. After all, he'd promised Prompto they'd play it together.
Exams end today, but Noctis doesn't stay long after school -- he swings by a shop to pick up what he's ordered under a nom de guerre, if you will, although there's not very much that's warlike about picking up a lovely piece of lingerie, a confection of mostly silk and lace in sleek black. It's not really his thing; Noctis has never really had a taste for crossdressing so much as an avid curiosity and a potent desire to surprise his returning lover. Two weeks with scant contact is enough to send even the most staunchly independent partner up the wall, much less a young man who likes playing it cool but so often falls short.
It's new, this thing. He knows he's taking a significant risk with this particular endeavor, and as with any new endeavors undertaken on important dates like first anniversaries, the risk of it going wrong, way wrong is exponentially higher. It's fortunate, then, that Noctis doesn't see their first anniversary so much as a do-or-die affair as it is a chance to stretch boundaries, to try out new things to see if they have a taste for them.
He only takes minutes to put it on after a shower, his eye on the clock. It's nearing evening now, Ignis should be around in approximately fifteen minutes or less. George has been deftly handed over to Prompto earlier in the day -- while he's not privy to the low-key battle of wits she and Ignis seem to be constantly engaged in, he knows that having a cat around when you want to try things that need not necessarily be confined to the bedroom can be troublesome. And also embarrassing. He might embarrass himself to a great extent with this whole enterprise already, he thinks, he doesn't need extra help.
So Noctis pulls the slip on, spends the last few minutes fidgeting in the bathroom, adjusting the straps and trying hard not to notice just how flat he is in front. He's filled out nicely, but distinctly not in a feminine way. He's lean, but sessions with Gladio have kept him toned, even packing on just a little muscle -- but that's the extent of it.
This is a bad idea, he thinks as he stares at himself in the mirror, trying not to give in to the flare of panic that grips him. It feels strange and new, and there's a breeze around the privates that makes Noctis wonder just why girls wear things like these when it feels so horribly exposing -- how do you even manage to feel exposed when you're obviously wearing something? Is it the silk? The lace? Is it the whole ensemble that's designed to leave precious little to the imagination? Noctis will never know.
He takes a deep breath, forces himself to calm down. This is Ignis; the man's seen him at his worst, and he's pretty sure that seeing Noctis in lingerie wouldn't even crack the top five, and hell, if he had still been willing to date him after some major doozies, this isn't going to be a dealbreaker, right? Besides, he read somewhere that confidence is key, and he takes another deep breath, squaring his shoulders and dead eyeing himself in the mirror.
All right, confidence. Ignis is coming home and this is the only thing that matters. And thankfully before Noctis can lose his nerve, he hears the key in the lock turn.
[ The coffee stand set outside of the board room has been his only solace for the past two weeks. Given Noct's exams, his correspondence came few and far-between, which has helped him nurture far too heavy of an over-reliance on Ebony, concluding in him quitting the stuff cold turkey for two days. During his stint he's avoided a caffeine-induced death, but the meetings themselves are long, droll affairs with old men and women vested with too much power and a pronounced lack of concern for statutes that deviate even one centimeter from their own.
But even this is no different than all the other countless times he's been called to these meetings since the height of his adolescence, first to merely attend these affairs, then participate in them to a certain, limited degree. The condescension's especially thick when they take him for an overly ambitious man, but he's always been Noctis's chamberlain first and foremost, so nothing to fear. He won't usurp of their long-winded meetings, talking around a solution instead of making strides for it.
There's less time, this jaunt around, to stop by a novelty shop, so Ignis's presents dip below the acceptable margin for tacky shit, mainly composed of terrible shirts that'll never see the outside of the bedroom (specifically ones printed with key phrases like good things come to those who bait and it's about to get reel and paired with stock outlines of salmon and fishing rods). They're a little large, given their one-size-fits-all touristy nature, but the most atrocious of the bunch is probably the hoodie with the word masterbaiter emblazoned right across the front. They're a step down from the tacky Christmas sweaters of several months prior, the ones with fish embroidered right next to the snowflakes, but no less kitschy for it. Noct'll need something he can actually wear in public, though, hence the last-minute addition of fish-shaped sunglasses thrown into the mix, a pair that'll still find most of its use roosting next to the manta ray snow globe he gifted Noctis many weeks before.
All of it's summarily folded and settled in a large gift bag as he jimmies with the key to Noctis's apartment and rolls his luggage behind him, bolting the door behind him. It's odd that the prince hasn't greeted him at the entryway like usual, although the overhead beams twinkle their warm welcome as he sets his bag next to the couch, gifts in tow, but an entirely week of exams might've winded him. It's not unlike Noctis to doze off at the drop of a pin when he's especially tired, so Ignis flips the light switches off as he goes with every intention of chastely kissing Noct's forehead and preparing for bed.
Strange, though, how George hasn't come to assert her dominance in their household yet with a meow and a few raking bats of her paw along his slacks.
Absolutely nothing prepares him for Noctis standing right beside the mirror in lingerie that lavishes its compliments on him and then some. It's an intricate, form-fitting sprawl of fabric that accentuates his legs, already gazelle-like, and coupled with that sooty gaze of his, pierces Ignis right where he stands, skewering him to the floor.
So no, it doesn't crack the top five instances he's seen his Highness naked, intentional or otherwise. It shatters it, and shatters him. Noctis evidently underestimated that Ignis's heart might cut the shit out and go immediately into cardiac arrest at this breathtaking sight, but he manages to salvage the moment by speaking up before he permanently loses his voice. ]
Noct.
[ Eloquent. The novelty gift bag drops beside him with a dull thud, similar to the way Ignis's mind drops logic and renounces all ability to properly function, like the final stages of a collapsing star. ]
[ It's not perception, but cognition that keeps him stranded here, understanding meeting the live wire of Noctis's latest foray into depravity. Ignis would have been just as vulnerable if his reflexes were put to the test, or under tortureā€” like psychosis, anticipating pain and rewarded with a one-sided mental exchange in increments, gradually wearing his equanimity down. He's enamored by it, but he can't exercise some kind of saintly perseverance like he was once capable of; having already waited ten years for his king, so he can hardly be expected to remain biding and silent in wait of the amnesty to speak up. Noctis reduces the world to just this room, and himself, paring Ignis's patience down into something utterly unrecognizable.
His hands tuck into fists, though, knuckles blanched white with the beginnings of tension where they're perched over his knees, knotting up, and he stills himself where he's sunken down on the floor. The room's quiet, otherwiseā€” the light's a wan spill over his pant legs and striping his hands, beating frivolous rays against the armchair he's seated before. Or rather just below it, as it were, when Ignis blandly shuts his eyes and reigns in the shudders that threaten to twist and spasm in him with the excruciating wait. One of his legs have fallen asleep; it's on pins and needles every time he moves fractionally, thus uninhibited by Noctis's orders. Like prostration, or a more callous form of self-immolation, where the burning is internal, but no less scalding for it.
The breakthrough comes with the weight applied just shy of his neck, Noct's heel resting along the bone, and Ignis raises his eyelashes like he's still got coyness mastered even with his heart pounding irascibility into his ribcage. Above is Noctis, draped on the plush upholstery, smug and imperious, his mouth sickled into a grin. He's got to crumple his nails into his soft palms, hard enough to sting, or fall victim to the utterly debauched way His Majesty's oriented one of his own button-up shirts upon himself. It's flimsy, billowy on his lanky frame, hanging limply off one shoulderā€” a section of his chest is bared, as is the smooth skin of one pale forearm, and then his legs suggestively peeking out just beneath the hem, ankles splayed apart just so. It takes real discipline not to offer all of himself into the lunge to topple both chair and king alike, catching Noct (still so young and haphazard and absolutely infuriating) by the arm and taking him in a crime of passion.
Admittedly, his self-control isn't limitless. Finally given pardon to speak up, strain's digging through his voice rather inelegantly, offered the attention for a snappy retort, the room consigning shadows on his face and condemning his silhouette to take a strange look where it's spread across the floor. ]
I could pass the time with trivia, if you're that convinced on whiling away another half-hour in the same manner.
[ He's reverent, even when his shoulders have discernibly bent in barely-expressed restraint, acting unflappable when he might just be a hair-trigger impulse away from divesting Noctis of what little modesty he's claimed for himself, the hot implication of what little he must be wearing underneath currently ripping through the vestiges of Ignis's fraying conscience. ]
Mmm? No, I'm almost done. Gotta roll for these hits first.
[ Noctis is the perfect encapsulation of casual nonchalance and offhand depravity. He's only half-listening, intent on a game he's just about to finish up for the day. There's little that's more delightful than a sense of accomplishment intersected with the much more primal pleasure of obeisance so willingly paid by a man like Ignis. Terrifyingly talented, influential and charming, and yet wholly devoted to him, that he would wait on his knees, a magnificent example of unconditional submission for the better half of the past hour. But impatience churns underneath that placid demeanor, purposeful and intent, like a shark cutting through still waters.
But this shark, for all intents and purposes, belongs wholly to Noctis, restraint pulled taut over potent desire and hair-trigger impulses that chafe at that increasingly fraying self-control -- and the young king sees all of it from his vantage point above him, his foot resting elegantly on his shoulder (as if that would really stop Ignis if he chooses to rise and pounce, shrugging free the rules of their new game like it's too narrow to hold him).
He counts thirty three minutes, the energy bar in his game ticking down to zero. His toes curl with sleepy pleasure as he contemplates his reverence -- it's much like keeping a tiger under his thumb; this Ignis is older, stronger, and so much more in control than the younger one Noctis remembers. Ten years, after all, is a long time; longer still without Ignis by his side, and these days it seems like they're fighting to make up for lost time, each encounter more intense than the last.
Ending the game, he drops the phone onto the space beside him, the gadget forgotten in lieu of Ignis' gentle reminder of his presence. Shifting, entirely comfortable in what scant modesty he's acquired, Noctis is acutely aware of the plush fabric under his bare ass, his borrowed shirt just barely keeping him covered and providing a titillating glimpse of everything beneath, carefully tucked out of sight. After all, imagination is key, and judging from the look in Ignis' impossibly intense green eyes, he's already in overdrive. It's charming, alluring, how he settles himself before him even if it's obviously not on the top of his list of things to do. Such dedication requires its own reward, and Noctis reaches for the strip of leather he'd kept carefully out of sight until now. It's soft, finely crafted and sewn: black leather with a silver buckle behind, with a gleaming silver skull in the front, carved in the likeness of the royal coat of arms.
This, of course, is obvious: Ignis belongs to no one but the King. Noctis' foot falls away, thighs languidly spreading when he finally reveals everything that he isn't wearing underneath the shirt, bare and half-hard, the sensitive tip of his cock brushing against the luxuriously smooth fabric of it. Oh, Ignis really does know how to choose his clothes. ]
I have a gift for you, Iggy. Come, lean forward, right between my thighs.
[ Noctis and Ignis talk about sex whenever it comes up, usually due to the sex journal and all its entries -- see, Noctis has been industrious about listing down the things that catch his attention, the things that they would like to try, and things that Ignis absolutely will not even think of attempting, thank you very much. 'Gunplay' is one of the casualties of that ironclad unwillingness, but Noctis understands, of course -- after all, it's quite troubling to want to have the barrel of a gun right up your ass, and so Noctis has eventually duly consigned it to the 'Sex Fantasy on the High Holidays' section on his journal of carnal proclivities.
Today, however, today is a special day, and one he remembers with all anticipation and excitement, hauling out the memories of an old, half-forgotten conversation months prior -- the question of just when Ignis had had the hots for Noctis had unearthed interesting gems, Noctis 15 and Ignis 17, both still in the throes of puberty, more or less, and it's a wonder that Noctis hadn't known earlier, because he would most definitely have committed some sort of sexual felony with Ignis (is it a felony when both of them are minors?), and that would have been a giant pain in his ass, and not the good kind.
The uniform arrives promptly first thing in the morning after Ignis leaves for the day, and so does Noctis' order of the clothes Ignis used to wear, carefully placed on the bed in the room that they now share together. The feeling of the uniform is strange and familiar all at once, as is the tie around his throat; he's twenty-one, and dressed like a fifteen year old, but he doesn't care. Tonight is the night he means for Ignis to have, and a quick call had ensured that he'll be here as soon as his meetings end in the Citadel, which should be anytime now.
Considering traffic, he supposes it'll be ten, fifteen minutes. And so, thrumming with anticipation and nervousness, as well as an ardent hope that Ignis doesn't just turn right around and leave, Noctis starts up his gaming system and waits for him. If things were different, he'd probably be planning a romantic date, but this works well enough out of the public eye.
George, for another, has been sent to Prompto's for the evening, another mark of Noctis' devotion to this evening's birthday activities. ]
[ The day starts off as it usually does, bedraggled and trapped beneath the sheets with Noctis halfway off the bed, sprawled and incognizant to the waking world. Maneuvering his way off takes coaxing the arm sloppily thrown over his shoulder off with some finesse, then kissing at himā€” the slope of his shoulder, his nape, the soft spot behind his earā€” until Noct's swatted him off in his sleep and turned away, dozing off in due grace, a maneuver only the prince of Lucis is capable of pulling off. It's his birthday, so he's greedy enough to take the last consolation prize of briefly pressing his mouth to his scalp, then fixing his clothes into some level of presentable, combing up his hair and preparing a quick breakfast, the remnants of which he leaves for Noctis to peck over, and gets back around to the usual grind.
The world doesn't differentiate much between a birthday and a normal workday, and for that, Ignis is relieved. There are some greetings from members of the Crownsguard and the few politicians who've taken the time to learn his name, but he's never been one for overwrought affairs. Like Noctis, rather than a showy party with showier pretenses, he prefers a quiet dinner at home among family and friends. King Regis and Gladio aren't without presents, and he's towing them all of them back into the Regalia by late afternoon. Most are cards, since not many people can guess at what he'd prefer in a present, but there's objects like coffee mugs and Ebony packets in the mix, so it's not at all a bad haul at all (considering the plain socks Gladio's gifted him, which is the most thoughtful gift since the last time he gave him the same present last year).
Coming home doesn't alert him to anything, or set off any alarms, keying in the door and not finding Noctis in the doorway. He's expecting their usual bashā€” a cake that's seen better days, a show of Noctis's handiwork, and an exorbitant amount of sex on the kitchen table, but there are none of the usual hallmarks waiting for him as he passes down the corridor, only to stop dead in his tracks in the loft.
Well, hello. You're looking a tad livelier than I remember you being this morning.
[ And that's kind of incongruous to anything, considering Noct's donned a school uniform and Ignis's restraint is slingshotting from firm to paper-thin. ]
Is there something I've missed?
[ The uniform, for one thing, the very same one that fits Noctis in crisp, flowing lines when his old pair should be tugging briskly at his wrists and ankles from his growth spurt and subsequent disuse. ]
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clothes make the man.
These days, his handling over a pair of blade is a little different. More slow and reverential, no longer besotted with bruising knuckles and spraining fingers, trading out confidence for discretion. Ignis wasn't born blind; the halls of the Citadel, however transformed in their remodeling, are consigned to the annals of sense-memory. The cane's not a necessity, but a comfort, charting out the space, the uncertainties. Each and every member of the king's inner retinue know better than to inconvenience a blind man, and his Majesty's de-facto adviser at that. It's a largely superfluous title. Noctis hasn't needed his counseling since the Starscourge was purged (as it stands, reciprocity turned on its head; he's the one who needs direction now).
Today, of all days, has been exceptional in inflaming his temper. His exasperation is a vise that shatters ribs when he retires toward his room with the intent of poring over more jargon-heavy manuscripts and polishing up on Braille. The spill of rushing steps to and fro lets on more than the cadence of fidgety small-talk just outside of the door when he's screwed the knob open, and Ignis is momentarily occupied by the sudden, looming lack of noise, how all of the commotion in the immediate vicinity dies stillborn when he enters, like they've been trained to fall silent on command, no provocation necessary.
Then the servants are hastily dismissing themselves, dispersing in twos and threes past him while doing their damnedest to avoid contact, like he might be rattled off-balance with a touch alone. Familiarity clues him into Noctis's lingering presence even without sharing words, breathing staggered out of its salvo some ways beyond him when he shuts the door. But there's no bare admittance of brassy humor nor rank longing in Ignis when he sets the cane aside, shedding his jacket with little fanfare.
The rigidity of Ignis's jaw is a slow reveal, a premonition of irritation souring his mouth when he turns toward the closet. Reaching for a hanger only takes a second to clue him in, fingers awkward and filmy around a dress shirt instead of the patch of air. ]
What did you do?
[ Impetuosity saws out of him too quick, leaves his words colder. Not fully-realized anger yet, just the rawness of it flaying his question open. ]
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Noctis struggles with the uphill task of attending to his duties in the wake of devastation wrought upon his kingdom, and just about the rest of the world. Beyond Ardyn, beyond Starscourge, lies a greater and more difficult road, because the hardest thing to do in the world is to live in it, and live they do, in all its complicated, convoluted glory. Although these days, it's much less glory as it is a study in skillful maneuvering -- it has never been this tricky interacting with Ignis; it has never been this challenging to love him, when they come back together after a decade -- and it's almost like returning to a cherished home that's had its furniture rearranged; not enough to be wholly alien, but just enough to unsettle.
But he tries, because this is Ignis, the love of his life. Because he's sure that whatever they're going through now, the myriad little things like sandpaper, paring their nerves raw, surely they will pass. Surely they will find shared equilibrium again. So Noctis tries, even when Ignis gently, quietly slips just out of reach, and yet still stays close enough for him to hope.
Today is one of those days, when he eschews duties for the evening to organise a small team of dedicated servants. He has an idea engineered to ease things for Ignis; a system of differently shaped and textured pegs meant for different items and colors of clothing. His lover might have been relatively adept at dressing himself and making sure everything is as dapper as it previously was, but there are still times when it lapses, when Noctis gently corrects him with a quiet word and a soft kiss, working hard not to step on his toes (oftentimes, Ignis is as determined to refuse help from him as much as Noctis is determined to give it). He tries not to let it bother him; how he's ever really seen those scars up close, how Ignis still keeps him at arm's length even if they both pretend otherwise. Some days make it easier to buy into the lie than others -- today is not quite one of those days.
So when the servants hurry off to give them their space, Noctis draws himself up, forces cordiality as his gaze lingers on the set of his jaw (it's trickier when the rawness of Ignis' words betrays the barest touches of cold displeasure -- when did they become like this?). It's been weeks since he's seen a genuine smile touch his mouth, and every day it gets a little worse, as if the rigors of the day (and Noctis) wears on Ignis in ways Noctis can no longer quite placate, a dreadful little truth that lodges itself unpleasantly in the back of his mind.
But Ignis is Ignis, and he is beloved no matter mood or season. The young king gently shift his hand to the small square peg clipped to the dress shirt. ]
I was devising a system to make things easier for you in the morning. [ He explains, wonders if this would loosen the set of his jaw. It seems too much to ask for a smile, these days, and he tries not to think too hard on it. ] See, different shaped pegs mean different items of clothing, the textures mean different colors. [ He smiles, quite pleased with himself. ] I'm working with a team to install little audio markers on these hangers as well. It's quite something.
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Weight settles on his wrist, a loose manacle made out of Noctis's fitful grip when he presses Ignis's hand up to the square peg. For better or worse, his mouth twists lopsidedly as soon as his fingertip's padded over it just once, neither a smile nor a frown. Inscrutable. None of that gentleness in his Highness hides the languid anagram of apprehension taking shape as forced cordiality within Noct (like he wouldn't notice the first wave of hesitation that stymies his lover, the lapse in his concentration when he gives too much away at once). Ignis thumbs over the shape, unable to see much more than bleak signs of light, enough to discern whether it's day instead of night, what separates a decent hour from an ungodly one. Though it hardly matters anymore, his internal clock keeps to its old, decaying patterns, too broken-in to shed old ritual. Just like this sleight of hand, in fact: straightening out conceals the tremor begrudging one of his hands, shaking to curl into a fist at his side. ]
If you'd be so kind and tell me where the hangers are. I haven't the faintest clue where anything is.
[ This time the strain is audible; there's no warm fondness in his grip, lanky and flat when he peels off Noctis's fingers, absentmindedly drops his wrist. Once, he would've been genuinely pleased by developments like these, but his enthusiasm is a dull echo, so detached from the ambivalence that's holed up in him to stay over time. All of these developments reek of weak mimicry, pretending at normalcy, like he'll ever be anything remotely close to ordinary again if he needs his clothes color-coded by shapes like a child unable to distinguish his slacks from his sleepwear. He did well enough keeping it sorted on his own, without outside involvement, and it'sā€” helplessness in and of itself, letting other people come in and invasively rifle through his things with zero thought to how he'd previously arrayed it. He trusts his king, not outsiders to screw their eyes up over his belongings, fuss over how best to infantilize him. Noctis is either rigid at his side, stiff-limbed and too taut, or he is, overly alert at the sheer wrongness of it all. Paring down his comment into mild censure is all he can do to keep from letting the indignation flare up like some kind of contagion stealing its way over him. ]
... My apologies. I wasn't aware I gave off the impression that I couldn't dress myself well enough without outside involvement. You should have clued me in sooner if it taxed you this extent.
[ So much that Noctis took the inconvenience of sorting through his undoubtedly messy wardrobe upon himself. As the king, it must be difficult (shameful) contending with a man who mixes up color-coordination, buttoning on dress shirts with disproportionate slowness and still ending up one button loose for it. Ignis isn't intentional in his disdain, but his remark isn't any less incapacitating for it. ]
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click, click, snap.
But then there is Prompto, and of course there is always Ignis -- but theirs isn't even remotely normal, not even on a good day. His childhood friend, protector, tutor, advisor, on the occasion even surrogate parent (he tries hard not to think about that one); Ignis had been all that stood between him and isolation. Of late he's become more than that, when Noctis' adolescent crush on him had evolved into something stronger, more pronounced and fiercely undeniable when he grew older.
He has loved Ignis for as long as he can remember, and had pursued him the moment he knew what it was, when jealousy burned red-hot in his chest at one of Ignis' classmates from school, when fevered dreams and fantasies had not abated ever since he first discovered what masturbating was. Shameful at first, embarrassing and wrong -- but he's eighteen now, and he knows better.
Fast forward to today, where it's been nine and a half months since he confessed his love for him, three months since they first slept together the moment he turned eighteen, and four days since he's last seen him. There is a lot of work for a prodigy like Ignis to be doing at the Citadel; lessons and training and important meetings, and while Noctis isn't the most clingy person around, he's still at the age where libidos are more prone to rage out of control, thoughts circling back to frenetic, vigorous copulation with incredible veracity.
Even princes are not immune to shamelessly carnal desires, and he's getting tired of having his hand settle matters. It's not Ignis' hand on his dick, and the apartment is still cold when he comes, when Ignis' kiss is a fevered figment of his imagination. He dreads the moment when reality blots put his fantasies, and the only time he hears Ignis is when he calls him.
So, four days and nine hours on, Noctis decides to do something reckless, something stupid and entirely powered by his libido, desire coiled under his skin and overriding all manner of sensibilities. He's aching for him, hard from when he had been touching himself for the past couple of minutes, unable to find release and inured to even the dirtiest imaginings, the sight of Ignis on his knees and his cock between those full, kiss-bruised lips, when he would tug on his hair and fuck into that hot wet mouth so hard that his older secret boyfriend would be gagging for it.
No, he thinks. He needs him. And so, his dick full and flushed dark, he takes a picture (or ten or twenty, he doesn't want the first dick pic he sends Ignis to be something he can't recognise), and sends him the one that looks the best, a trickle of pearly pre-come easing down a thick shaft. It looks good, his cock. It looks like it's begging for his mouth around it.
He sends it before he can lose his nerve. ]
I've got something that belongs to you.
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Four days and five hundred and forty minutes since he's last been in Noctis's company and the hours meld. It's not the longest he's been away when he's played diplomat for months upon months several times before, but years ago he wasn't courting King Regis's son, the apple of his father's eye. Sleep-deprivation and those ten successive mugs of Ebony are finally catching up to him, long after they've mutilated his concentration. Currently on stenographer duty in the main conference hall with Gladio's father drafting up another plan for reconciling with the Nibelheim Empire, Ignis nearly misses the ping of phone as it buzzes awake; what alerts him isn't the notification itself, but the chime he's set whenever Noctis expresses chooses to contact him, and he glances over on a stray whim.
And then the next several minutes of Clarus Amicitia's voice are forever lost on him. Transcribing the rest of the speech becomes a pipe dream when Ignis's fingers renounce dictation in favor of twitching in shock over his phone screen. ]
y
[ Incredible. That was supposed to be you haven't left much to the imagination or some such drivel, suave the way he's utterly incapable of affecting right now. Apparently he's so far gone that he's forgotten the rest of the goddamned sentence, what with common sense immediately vacating his body and all, never to be seen again. It takes the announcement of the meeting's adjournment for lunch break to snap out of his trance and steadily, steadily walk in just a way his cock isn't threatening to oust itself from his slacks, gathering enough of his sanity to keep any treacherous desires surrounding Noctis's dick on the down-low until he can slip into the chef's dining quarters (one of his personal retreats from back when he was a mere child learning the intricacies of fine cuisine) and practically topple onto one of the seats in his haste to get away from polite company. Ignis's hard-on, gradually stiffening in his pants, is barely kept at bay as he carefully punches in his text, letter by grueling letter, until he's calmed down enough that he won't go careening into blatant sexual innuendo at the flip of a switch. ]
I scarcely doubt I have a proprietary right to any part of you, Highness.
[ Inversely, all of him belongs to Noctis, especially like this, with his fingers tapping a maddened tempo into the dining table shortly after to distract himself from denouncing self-respect and jerking off right here with the semi-erection he'd rather not acknowledge at all. Absolutely no good will come of the picture he's been sent, there's no way he'll be able to keep it remotely secure on his phone, but he doesn't have the heart to bring about its death sentence right now. The notion of Noct sprawled over upholstery in the sanctity of his apartment and fitfully stroking himself off to thoughts of him is a horribly compelling one, but Noctis can't flay him with guilt any harder than he's flaying himself. ]
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So he's seen it, and a cursory glance at the time reveals Ignis' possible location -- Noctis is not the most devoted keeper of Ignis' timetable, not by a long shot, but he's aware that he should be in some sort of meeting right now. Ignis is prodigiously gifted, a quick study and dangerously intelligent; it's no wonder that he had been designated as tutor and companion at such a young age. Even now, he is still fiercely sought after; a lesser man would be jealous, but Noctis is aware that there are times when Ignis works himself to the bone, when he's running on fumes and yet still manages to keep everything in working order, much to Noctis' guilt.
Fingers thumbing over the screen, he mollifies himself by scrolling up to the previous texts, every one of them casual conversations, fitted with frequent requests and regular dispassionate entreaties and peppered with softer moments, fonder moments. Ignis likely deleted them from his phone, those softer moments, but Noctis saves it for moments when he finds himself missing his lover beyond a good, hard fucking. Noctis might find that he has a growing appetite for carnal pleasures thanks to hormones and all that messy shit that happens when you're becoming an adult, but he finds himself smiling at Ignis' quips, the evident thread of concern and care that lines every exchange they have together.
Not for the first time, he thinks of how fortunate he is that he possesses the loyalty of a man like Ignis, second to none in almost every way that counts. Exhaling, slowing down on his stroking -- not that it'll help, his own fantasies do very little in the way of courting release at this point -- and he's tempted to send him a follow up text when he responds.
Highness, he says, and Noctis knows this is a thing he usually does when he subconsciously wants to put some distance between them -- meaning he's come too close too quickly. Noctis considers more motivation than deterrent (there is little that's more satisfying that pursuing Ignis and being the reason for his rapidly waning self-control). Has he found somewhere quiet to settle in and text him? Maybe that chef room, perhaps; Noctis has always managed to find him there when they were little. ]
And yet, it only gets hard like this when I'm thinking of you.
[ He sends him another image, cock jutting proudly, slick and nearly glistening with his legs spread. ] If only you know what I'd give to have you between my legs right now.
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sweet dreams are made of these.
He shouldn't be one toothbrush in the sink away from practically living with Noctis in his apartment in the city, but here he is anyway, entirely naked in Noctis' bed, spare toothbrush judiciously placed in an unused holder beside Noctis' own by the bathroom sink, and currently asleep beside him. There will be hell to pay if they're caught together, and even though Noctis is half-certain Regis wouldn't take issue with his sexual preference either way, he's almost entirely certain that he would be deeply disappointed. Princes are not made to fall in love with their advisors, and love is a luxury royalty cannot afford.
Even so.
Noctis is asleep on his side, an arm draped possessively over Ignis' waist, as if daring the sandman to snatch him from his hold. This morning, however, he's the first to wake -- a miracle, he knows, and he's aching in all the places from when he'd bent Ignis practically in half and fucked him so hard that the solid oak of his bed almost cracked under the force of it. And then there was the toy they played with, the vibrator Noctis took such pleasure in pushing inside of his older lover. That one was new, exciting, and he finds that he's going to have to ask Ignis to teach him more about it now.
His sex notebook lies open on the chair opposite the bed, and he makes a note to add more entries to the list as he comes awake, slow and groggy. It's not even remotely bright out, but sleep is mysteriously elusive this morning, slipping further out of reach when Noctis carelessly moves his hand to adjust the covers around Ignis when he brushes over something hard.
He pauses, lifts the covers and looks down. Clarification, always important.
Ah.
Moments like these are crucial ones, important ones, heavy with choice and potential, and Noctis hesitates for a few minutes before he slowly, delicately rubs a thumb along the veined, ridged underside of that magnificent morning wood his Ignis sports. ]
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Rarely in his life has Ignis ever sounded so overcome than in these moments with Noct, his center of gravity disrupted for the warm focus of palms gliding over him, levering their weight. The anticipation shining through his breath only hitched when Noct eased back to slip inside himā€” and then afterwards, when Ignis was grinding to meet every deep thrust, teeming over with sensation until climax had sent himā€” sent them bothā€” right over the edge.
Even so.
Sleep crashes around him, and for once he hasn't stirred just yet. The ache still lingers, up the curvature of his ribs and nestled inside, but it's immensely soothing that Noct's snug around him. It's unfortunate that his body doesn't know when to quitā€” bleary with exhaustion but stiff under the covers, the ramifications of Noctis crumpled at his side where he made their bones interlock.
Ignis jostles somewhat as Noctis disentangles, alighting fears that he might rouse in a few seconds, but weariness has swathed him too intimately, leaving him entirely incognizant to the hand reaching down to thumb along his erection, stimulating nerves. Something reminiscent of a moan leaks out when Ignis's head lolls forward some, turning to find solace in smudging his cheek along the pillow, mumbling unintelligibly into the fabric. The dream of Noctis eagerly draping his fingers over him again hasn't solidified yet; it just preys on him when he reflexively twists to one side, obscuring his morning wood from view, like his modesty hasn't left him even in sleep. Makes sense. Showing off so much skin's indecent, even unconscious, even after Noct's pored over every inch of him. He's not the sort of bastard that doesn't think twice about setting his toothbrush on just any bathroom counter, after all. ]
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Happiness, he thinks, is waking to a sleeping lover and watching the way their body responds to your explorations -- and when your lover is Ignis Scientia, then it's all the more a privilege to be beside him like this. He doesn't stop, smiling at that softly appreciative little moan, and Noctis wonders what Ignis dreams about, if he dreams at all. He's warmed by that subconciously bid for modesty -- there really isn't anything sexier than when Ignis tries to keep everything under wraps, classy and modest but coming apart under Noctis' attentions all the same. Curling around Ignis' body, fitting around him like he was made just for this, Noctis kisses his shoulder lightly, the rest of his fingers closing around his shaft warmly, delicately, appreciating the shape and width of him, how he feels in his palm.
He will never have enough of this, he thinks; he will never tire of loving a man like Ignis, and in the minutes before dawn it's easy to believe that this isn't something just short of treason, a one-sided punishment that would land wholly on Igis' shoulders, as if Noctis isn't the one who had sought him as well, relentless and willful until Ignis had been overcome, every excuse for propriety flung by the wayside because Ignis is only human, just like his prince. But there is little to worry about -
-- Noctis will protect him and their secret, no matter what it takes. Fingers gliding up and down his cock, warm but not stifling, Noctis seeks to stir alight sleeping embers with uncharacteristic patience. ]
I hope you're dreaming of me. [ He whispers so softly in his ear that it could be mistaken for the last dregs of a midnight breeze, and his thumb comes to rub thoughtful little circles over the slit of his cock, the memory of Ignis' come on his tongue a vividly welcome one. Oh, how he had been so completely wrecked and undone, how Noctis had felt like the luckiest man in the world to get to see just how beautiful Ignis looked, open and vulnerable and oh so human. Maybe he should see if he could take care of his morning wood without waking him -- won't that be something? ]
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there is a price for everything.
He discovers that it's nothing of the sort twenty seconds into the meeting. The king's constitution looks much improved, but that's the extent of the young prince's relief when his father looks sympathetic and grim, both. He brings up the last person Noctis expects this meeting to be about, and Noctis learns that apparently he has not been as subtle about his thing with Ignis as he thought he'd been. That there have been whispers in the court, and these whispers, as well as reports in the affirmative, have reached the king's ears. Regis is not angry, but the sadness in his eyes is obvious, as is the firm measured tone he uses when he reminds him of his duty, that love is not something meant for royalty, who have a duty to their people, to the many others who risk their lives for them day after day.
Noctis is quiet at first, a cold dread twisting in his stomach, and he protests when he ought, riled and upset at the unfairness of it all, how even kings and princes are cogs in the grander machinations of royalty. There is a price to pay for such prestige and privilege, and Noctis cannot help but imagine a gilded cage. Regis might have done everything he can to ensure that his son lives out a normal life, but sooner or later the toll comes due, and the fantasy ends. His life is not his own -- his life belongs to his people just as they belong to him. Noctis resists, pushes back, rebellious and disbelieving, only to be cut short by Regis.
And after that comes a bitter understanding of his place, of the fact that he will have to make arrangements to procure a suitable candidate, a young woman to provide an heir and to ensure that the line of Lucis kings continues unbroken. Noctis' love for Ignis has no place here, and it's with churning, unhappy thoughts that he returns to his own apartment in the heart of the sky, where Ignis is bound to be. They're supposed to watch a movie together, and they were going to have the entire apartment to themselves. It's a thought that would have filled Noctis with anticipation and pleasure, but today, it only brings him the barest comfort.
So people already know about him and Ignis, people who had been talking behind his back (not a novel thing, really, you get used to it), and as he parses through everything Regis has so calmly related to him, Noctis finds that he has to swallow the lump in his throat. Nobody gets everything that they want -- not even royalty, and Ignis, the one thing Noctis has wanted all his life, Ignis does not have a place by his side as a lover.
He bites his lip when he unlocks the door and enters, contemplates escaping into the arcades for awhile; but he has a date with Ignis he'd been looking forward to; it's just unfortunate that his father's directives have come down at such a terrible time. He loves Regis, he really does. He just doesn't love the sacrifices he has to make, his love for Ignis chief among them.
Padding into the apartment, he sighs and heads towards the kitchenette where Ignis is busy with something. It's so wonderfully, painfully domestic, Ignis with his sleeves rolled up, looking as elegantly casual as he's ever seen him, and no less gorgeous. ] Iggy. Can we talk?
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It's been a few days since then, and he's entirely calm and composed, like dating the heir apparent is the most benign thing in the world. (In some respects, it is; there's no challenge to overcome when he's known him all of his life, familiar in a context entirely divorced from duty and obligation.) Currently, he's distracted with cleaning and filleting the halibut in the sink. Shaving off the skin and carving it into sections is thoughtless work; paring off fins and scales, sashaying cuts through the ribs in long, slicing strokes. The pan's searing the meat, and he's whittling away at the paunchy cheek of one fish head when the sound of jangling keys alerts him.
Noct's footsteps carry a particular cadence, an informality hard-pressed to be extracted; just like Ignis, he's a creature of habit, padding with the same casual irreverence he dons all too well. ]
Welcome back.
[ Ignis's posture remains neat and uniform, only betraying a hint of tension in the sudden lapse of the cut, knife dragging a little too heavily on the cutting board, the sound dissonant. But then he's set the blade aside, turning the heat on the stove to a low, low flame, moving to rinse his hands off the scales. ]
Of course. You needn't ask. [ The build-up is the portent of something awful, when Noctis rarely prompts him like this, strange and resigned, but Ignis is as unflappable as ever, no hesitance bruising at his throat when he speaks up. For all that he's wound up right now, braced and cautious, he's never been particularly indecisive. ] What seems to be the issue?
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the life pursuit.
Noctis doesn't deserve this. He knows. He knows. His belligerence should have proved useful to him, if Ignis wasn't so much of a coward, surrendering over to causality. It's not so bad, the gilded knife of Noct's frustration hoisted up over his head and daring the stab for as long as his anger can be held aloft, a feeling so surreal that he can't remember why he'd ever gone without itā€” the hot insistence of Noct's fervor bowed over him, unsparing, galvanizing him to his resolve in a way he'd never intended. The crown prince is gorgeous, as always, even in the deep chasm of his malevolence.
After that is the mishmash of days upon days, preparing for the long trip abroad. He's making up for lost time and going through the motions, charting out the gaps so his visits to the Citadel will be less and less frequent, cemented to the journey like some nomad who's lost sight of the destination, the very reason for leaving. Ignis has gone to scandalizing lengths to avoid Noct all the while, politely deflect the stream of voicemails and harangued texts. He doesn't know how to respond, because he doesn't know what Noctis would prefer to hear, so he sticks to silence, up until Noct announces his arrival in the Citadel, breaking their careful dance of avoidance with one last cutting blow to his conscience.
Ignis, much too late for contriving an excuse for his absence, finds Noct holed up in one corner of his room, legs bunched up on the rolly chair. The face of him is slanted away, but in a show of audacity he's gotten his hands around the satin box he'd left on the table. Inside it, the ring's glinting, cool and faceted, and it's asking too much out of Ignis to relinquish his sudden, intense sympathy for moving targets at the end of a shooting range when Noctis glances up. Sleeplessness brands his eyes, dark and furious and sad. From this close, he's only just registering the stinging quality to them, akin to sharp resentment, or a blade sawing over bone, and it's so strange how terror underscores desire. His fingers drag over the paneling of the door like he's set to rip it, the movement ungainly, dripping with shock. ]
I wasn't expecting you to arrive nearly so soon.
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It is Ignis who turned this apartment into a home, a place they've spent countless evenings curled up with each other; Ignis fitting himself into his heart, carving his name into the space between his ribs, occupying the silence between heartbeats. And one day, it's Ignis that takes it all away.
A relationship is built on the smallest things, and that is why when it ends, it's not the person-shaped hole in your chest that kills you; it's the thousand little papercuts that comes after he's gone. It's the many little reminders of a presence gouged out, and nothing is more pronounced than an empty space where something beloved used to be. The bed, colder. The kitchenette, waiting to be used. The bathroom sink, missing one toothbrush. The mobile phone, silent, bloated with messages that were read but not responded to, and Noctis never did have the heart to command his responses no matter the degree of hurt, girded by the wind of his anger.
For Noctis, a lesson in love.
For George, a Pyrrhic victory.
And so he turns up today, curtly informs him of his arrival when he steps foot onto the grounds -- princes, after all, reserve the right not to inform the royal retinue of their intentions to return, no matter the inconvenience caused. After all, Noctis eschews royal receptions, as if they don't already have enough to do in the day-to-day running of the household. He feels rather like a thief in his own house when he slips into the grounds, and makes his way immediately for Ignis' room. His father would be disappointed, surely, but Noctis is a wounded animal, the days without Ignis' warmth wrapped around him lending itself to more sleepless nights, and Noctis is all the more resentful for it.
His room is pristine, carefully arranged to be entirely bereft of any human touch save for the one small black velvet box sitting on the table. Noctis is not normally the invasive sort, but then again, these are not normal circumstances, and against his better judgement he picks it up, opening it to reveal the ring that glitters inside, cloaked in royal colors, designed and crafted by someone whose workmanship could command a king's ransom and then some. This is not a ring to be worn casually, the make of it too masculine to mistake it for a gift to the opposite sex. This box is not brand new, the edges gently smoothed out by long periods of time tucked into a pocket. He pulls out the ring to inspect it, and in doing so stops breathing, staring down at the words gilded onto the band. His name, and more latin he wishes he had paid attention to during one of Ignis' many lessons on the language.
His name.
Noctis stares at it blankly, seating himself on the nearby rolly chair as it hits him all at once, the weight of revelation clenched around his heart. This is -- or perhaps, was -- meant for him. He pulls his legs up and curls around the box and its extracted content, a world of thoughts whirling in his head in a haze of white noise. Shock, fury, sadness, a hope he doesn't allow himself to feel, the reminder that this can never happen, the realisation that perhaps Ignis had not stopped loving him, after all, that once upon a time he had wanted --
-- he looks up from the box when Ignis enters, and if there ever is an astute reimagining of the adage about deers caught in the headlights of resentfully loving speeding vehicles, this moment would be the top contender. Ignis, still so fucking beautiful standing there like that, now unreachable, and no longer his.
Noctis wishes it doesn't still hurt. ]
Sorry, did I ruin your escape plans?
[ These words, with all the potential for exceptional amounts of venom only now half-fulfilled, worn down by a heartache Noctis refuses to acknowledge. The gilded knife of his frustration is halted, just for these few moments. ] Tell me what this is supposed to be.
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tfln cont;
[ what a jerk! noctis spares the phone a few glances now and then when the 'read' sign pops up, then realises that ignis is making a point, and noctis smiles to himself before he resumes the game and waits for him. he's in the middle of sneaking past the alien nearby, and george perks up from her snooze to pad over to him, sniffing around his calves. ]
I hate aliens.
[ noctis tells him tersely (no he doesn't), curses when the alien gets the jump on him, and then tosses the controller to the couch. he can't even be in a bad mood when ignis is here, and especially with the smell of freshly baked bread. sandwiches! ] You baked the bread at home?
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[ But he's super cool with the chefs, what with being a cuisine nut among his own kind, so it wasn't any real issue to create the hot steak sandwiches, toasted buns and all, he's retrieving from the bag to sit atop the counter as the television blares on. George comes meandering over from Noctis's side with flighty abandon, and Ignis squats down in an effort to mitigate some of that huge-ass height difference between them. ]
Is this your cohort? Rather a prickly little thing, isn't he? He's taken quite a liking to you. [ The cat (is it a boy? he's just going off Noct's rationale here) meows in response, but it's obviously more taken with the smell of food than Ignis. ] Hello, George. I've no cat food to give you, but I didn't come here empty-handed, should you find yourself fancying a meal.
[ The tupperware of plainly boiled chicken cuts he's towed along is hardly a meal fit for the prince's cat-to-be, but it didn't seem particularly fair to make the feline watch them eat lunch to no avail. There's a moment where the wet point of its nose snuffles at his wrist where he's held his hand out in a sign of peace, and then it's disinterestedly wandered back to Noctis's side, back to sashaying around his legs. Oh, well. You win some, you lose some. ]
How are your ribs faring, Noct?
[ Achy even under the duress of painkillers, he'd presume, considering Noct took a few drunken hits before Ignis arrived on-scene. ]
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...
you might as well be walking on the sun.
None of it elicits any particular profundityā€” no mind-shattering revelations reach Ignis besides the fact that when faced with a crisis, Noct voluntarily chooses to call his chamberlain with the last of his dying cell battery instead of, say, the actual authorities. He could be proud of that codependence if he wasn't being slowly murdered by it, dialing up the fire-rescue department, can of coffee half-finished, half-abandoned, and roaring off for the outskirts of the Wall, where construction with fortifying the defenses of Lucis against its neighboring enemies is in full-swing.
When he arrives, Gladio's already cozied up to a tree, absurdly delinquent-looking in the hoodie and cap combo, the latter of which he tips with a wave. Prompto called him, but the King's Shield had enough sanity not to try and catapult himself down the death trap the other two members of their merry band of four have launched themselves into. Ten, or maybe fifteen minutes pass in fuming silenceā€” exasperation makes Ignis's grasp of time crawl insensibly, but then the firefighters have arrived, piling out of the trucks, flood lights ablaze in the evening gloom, towing ladders and ropes and all manner of professional bluster.
Ignis, for his grand efforts, sips coffee straight from the can like his temper isn't rising exponentially by the second. Gladio, in a bid to save his own skin, says nothing, peering at his phone like it's a point of intense fascination instead of the disaster in motion unfolding before them.
All things considered, it goes rather well. Prompto is the first to emerge from the shaft, a little dusty and disheveled, but no less worse for the wear. Ostensibly so, considering he survived a warp-strike down from however many meters. He's lost most of the color in his complexion upon sprinting toward Gladio and catching sight of Ignis, but there's nothing he has to fear from an irate adviser, at least. He might have been the instigator, but the one at fault here is being gently hoisted out of the tunnel, and the one who receives the chaotic brunt of Ignis's thoughts from this distance.
Anger's a slow meltdown, hemorrhaging out of him like a newly busted wound for something irreparably worse when he finds that instead of jogging over, Noct's entertaining the firefighters, who've clustered about him like he's a novelty instead of the epitome of recklessness. Ignis's frustration doesn't reach its climactic point, however, until Prompto makes the astute observation that they're all unabashedly hitting on Noct, and then the implication's just crass on a level he can't verbally acknowledge right now.
There's no hiding it though, when the spurt of liquid around his wrist alerts him to the fact he's crushed the can of Ebony in hand. The aluminum's nursing puncture holes and dribbling out where his fingers have dug clean through, much to the ire of Prompto as he physically shrinks back, the fear of divine retribution momentarily put into his heart (whoa there, calm down, Iggy!) and the immediate kickback in Gladio's voice (damn, that sure got your blood boiling!), loud and flippant.
Ignoring the other two hooligans, Ignis stalks forward, the catcalling jeers growing in volume until he's brute-forced his way through the crowd of inordinately handsome firefighters to crumple his unoccupied hand around around Noct's shoulder. ]
If you've finished with your business here, we'll be going, your Highness. I can only hope you've formulated a proper justification that I can pass along to His Majesty before word reaches the public.
[ That gets the rest of the crowd commiserating with the king-to-be going, gazes momentarily flicking over him before one of them pipes up (who's that? your babysitter? butler, right? I think I remember seeing him on the newsā€”) while another devolves into one of the pettiest remarks he's ever heard leave an adult man's mouth (haha, ditch him! you old enough to drink now, Prince Noctis? we got a few cases of liquor back at the station; pretty cheap stuff, but not that bad with club soda, honestlyā€”). Never mind that Noct's still a minor who can't be trusted near beer for as deeply as he can swig it down. Blatant violation of personal space notwithstanding, Ignis is clearly within his rights as Noctis's chamberlain to drag him off, but some more debased part of him remains stationary at his side, waiting for his ward to make the right choice and voluntarily join him back in the Regalia. Better that Ignis has his cooperation than resort to prying it out of him. ]
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Prompto is the first to freak, but cooler heads (read: Noctis) prevail, and instead of doing the sensible thing, which will be to dial emergency services (most notably the fire rescue department, tasked with firefighting, rescuing cats from all manner of trees, and currently, errant princes and their retainers from abandoned mine shafts in Buttfuck Nowhere), he calls Ignis. He supposes he'd probably call Ignis even if he was trapped on an island and was afforded only one phone call, because Noctis is prepared to swear that Ignis has the tracking skills of a bloodhound, probably has his phone tagged to within one square meter of any given area (not unlike a chip on a pet), and possesses an over-abundance of common sense that Noctis has largely come to depend on.
In short: the prince's unrelenting, unapologetic codependence on the royal chamberlain should probably be reviewed for the sake of the latter's mental health. Attempts to mitigate the matter should probably be made, even though all attempts will be blithely ignored by aforementioned prince. Prompto shares this particular view to a certain extent, if the look he gives him when he calls Ignis is any indication (dude! 911's right there!), but Noctis has all the unshakeable faith of a mountain in Ignis, and it seems like a lifetime before the firemen arrive.
Tall, broad and burly, the lot of them seem to have stepped out from the pages of Firefighters Weekly, and Noctis and Prompto were rescued in under five minutes, pulled up and none the worse for wear. All's well that ends well, right? Noctis might be the prince -- and he might only have eyes for none other than his currently irate adviser glaring daggers at him from practically a yard away, with Gladio very cleverly keeping to himself (which is saying something when the man is as bulky and imposing as they come) -- but it doesn't mean that he doesn't notice just how handsome the firemen are.
Lookers, the lot of them, like they'd just rushed over from a calendar photoshoot or something. And it doesn't hurt that they're milling around him, too. Prompto's slid off somewhere in the span of these couple of minutes, and Noctis is grateful enough to take some time to thank them -- never let it be said that the crown prince lacks manners terribly, even if something in the pit of his stomach very helpfully reminds him that he's going to be in deep trouble with Ignis later.
It takes him up until Ignis' sudden ominous presence, his hand clamped onto his shoulder for Noctis to notice that the men might possibly be flirting with him, and the prince's gratitude and friendliness might also be misconstrued as reciprocation of a strange sort. It's tempting to be invited for drinks at the station, because maybe now Ignis will see him as an older, more mature person (nevermind that he and Prompto needed to be rescued because the thought jumping down a mine shaft at night would be a great idea). But a niggling feeling remains; Ignis smells like coffee and there hints of coffee stains on those pristine cuffs, and come to think of it, he did hear a curious sound of a can being crushed...
... All the same, he knows that Ignis is right, and as much as he doesn't like to be called away, Ignis leaves him the dignity of staying by his side instead of doing the physical herding, a silent request for cooperation instead of prying it from him, and Noctis finds himself more amenable to direction. He leans closer to Ignis just as instinctively, the way he always orients himself towards him when he's close, like Ignis is his true north and Noctis can do nothing but obey.
True north, in every way that counts. So while Noctis is tempted, he's shit at drinking and judging from the tension in Ignis' shoulders, this is a situation better resolved by Noctis not pushing his damn luck. He presses closer to Ignis, a silent capitulation to his adviser's particular gambit (not that it'll alleviate the anger he feels practically emanating from him), gives them polite smiles and declines, because prince or not he's still a minor, and says his thanks before nodding at Ignis, and he's the one that impulsively takes his adviser's hand, making their way to where the Regalia is parked.
Prompto and Gladio seem to have disappeared from where Noctis had earlier spotted them -- and he wonders if it's because Ignis looks so eerily calm that the other two would much rather take their chances with a pack of enraged Coeurls than be in Ignis' immediate vicinity.
Noctis is contemplating that briefly, himself. But Ignis did just pull off an impressive search and rescue expedition and successfully extracted them in under half an hour, and the prince cannot deny being just a little bit turned on by that -- even if that's possibly the last thing on Ignis' mind right now. Stupid decisions involving mine shafts don't often lend themselves to meaningful foreplay. Ah, he'll make it up to him. ]
Thanks, Iggy. [ He chooses to break the silence. Any longer, and there'd be frost in his ears or something. ] You got them here really quick.
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ignis is why we need death notes.
There were silk ropes and a blindfold (on hindsight, Noctis should already have known that no good could have come out of it), but there was that one bondage video on RedTube that Noctis had gone back to view more than a couple of times; and Ignis was privy enough to his internet history to get the idea. Who knew such betrayal lay in the wings?
Minutes later, Noctis had come away with a severe case of blue balls and and fucking cock cage, of all things. The cool metal had slid onto his penis, locked and secured before he could even react, and, as it turns out, this is something called motivation to get his grades up because Ignis had somehow noticed that they've been slipping. The last straw came, perhaps, when it had been discovered that Noctis had been skipping some classes with Tiberius, a charmingly roguish, blue-eyed boy with a taste for danger and a reckless friendliness that Noct had taken almost immediately to when he transferred to their school. He didn't care that Noctis was the prince, and he had the kind of free wild spirit that Noctis found both tiring and exhilarating.
He makes for a good friend, and it helps that he knows one hell of a lot about video games, and he got along with Prompto like a house on fire, except that he's always been a little weird about Ignis, a minor detail that he dismisses. What he doesn't dismiss, however, is the fact that Ignis really, really doesn't like Tiberius, and the tension between them of late can be cut with a knife or something, which is annoying when Noctis can't quite figure out why.
Anyway, back to the enactment of the punishment: Noctis had been pissed, then -- his grades were only minimally slipping, he still stood in the A category, so what the hell was it all about with the withholding sex thing until he got his grades up? His grades were already way up!
Noctis tolerates this for two long, long days. The cock cage is relatively uncomfortable, and it makes him brush up against the cloth of his pants more often than it should, inadvertently providing more stimulation than it should -- and let's not even talk about the whole peeing thing, which is a whole world of inconvenience in itself, from adjusted stances in urinals to zipping up in double quick time so that nobody notices the gleam of metal and a soft metallic clink that should not belong anywhere in male bathrooms.
End of day 2, and a frustrated, furiously irate Noctis adds a new entry into his sex journal that Ignis peruses on a perversely regular basis, and the gist of it is this: He's going to kill Ignis Scientia in no uncertain terms, and he's going to enjoy it, the asshole.
Beginning of Day 3, a Saturday, and Noctis pushes the door open when he hears Ignis moving about his apartment, sinfully impeccably and obscenely unavailable -- the thwarted morning wood he'd woken up with earlier in the morning pushing him right to the brink -- making him snap, finally. He has a plan, and if this plan works, he'll manage to steal the key from him within the hour. Most probably. ]
Hey, Iggy. [ He yawns and languidly stretches his arms above his head, casually (not really, he planned this one, too) shirtless, because he's more than certain that Ignis likes having sex with him, too, and this bout of abstinence is possibly having some sort of effect on him as well, right? It takes monumental effort to keep his temper and frustration under control, but Noctis is capable of unplumbed depth of pretense when he chooses to apply himself.
He's applying himself now. Aggressively. ] You're here early. Joining me for breakfast?
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But it's there, latent, in the way Tiberius looks at anyone who isn't his Highness, coddling some kind of inferiority and persecution complex, disdainful of anyone he presumes to be a threat, but friendly otherwise. Prompto gets off none the worse for the wear, by virtue of being harmless as far as he can be thrown, but Ignis deals with the uglier remarks as soon as Noctis is out-of-earshot and this high school boy is eying him down over the kitchen stool, the condescension in his voice correcting itself in his gaze with feeling. Stupidity at its worst, really, when he's scrubbing his hands off on a towel and setting key lime pie on the granite kitchen like a particularly nonchalant housewife. Might've made for better theatrical irony if it'd been a candied fruitcake, though, since they're both fruitcakes for Noct on top of being contenders for the prince's affections.
The thing is, he isn't threatened. There's little to fear in the machinations of a minor who can't so much as harp on him as soon as Noctis is in the immediate vicinity, but in Tiberius's advances toward Noctis: slow and benign at first, tucking up against him, lips suspiciously close to his throat. Then closer, closer, a kind of surety if his fingers drag down to encircle Noct's wrist, each and every almost-kiss narrowly offset by Noct's last-minute turn, or diversion, slipping lithe and calm from his grasp.
And Ignis's patience, however tolerant, runs short at the worst of times; he isn't Noctis's keeper, not at all, but he still ends up holding his key. There's a certain perverseness to it, but it's not all that different from rifling through Noct's sex journal, or tripping him up into a BDSM trap gone horribly awry. Noct's debilitatingly pretty when bound up in rope and left blindly incognizant to the world beyond Ignis, but even better when he's not in risk of being seduced away at a moment's notice. Whatever qualms Ignis might have with this stint in abstinence, or inducing Noct's undying hatred, find solace in the fact he won't find himself under threat of being one of Tiberius's sexual conquests. The embarrassment would kill him before either of their trousers come down; he need only wait for the attempt and failure before liberating Noctis of his temporary (but no less inconvenient) foray into bondage.
So, day three. The timing's no more remiss than Noct's harboring murderous proclivities for him, but he hasn't gone in for the kill yet. Ignis busies around the apartment like usual, cleaning up a storm. He's not unlike a minor tornado equipped with his glasses, a hodgepodge of cleaning supplies, and the will of a man entirely fed up with the dirt and grime that can and will encapsulate an apartment when Noctis comes around, effectively clotheslining him with a mesmerizing sight of his chest.
Maybe there should be something resembling acute terror at the saccharine sweetness Noctis takes on, a touch less angered than the day prior when he spitting out sharp retorts and stranding himself in the bedroom (possibly to devise a way to remove the metal restraints on his own). But Ignis's dubiety doesn't stretch nearly as far as his cattiness, so he merely stops scrubbing at the spot on the window that's accrued a small beehive of mold, smiling languidly like usual. ]
No rest for the wicked, I'm afraid. [ No rest for demons who lock their boyfriends in cock cages out of jealousy and the most flimsy of paper-thin justifications. ] If you'd like me to join you, you need only ask. Would you like me to whip something up for you?
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anniversary.
[ Ignis returns today from a two-week stint in Lestallum; Clarus had informed him previously that he had been needed for a conference -- an important meeting of various ministers debating the finer points of foreign policy, and Ignis could do with the experience, another look into how things worked in the upper echelons of the ministries before items were tabled and brought to the Council. Noctis understands, of course; work is work, but it doesn't make him miss him any less.
Texts were at a minimum during the last two weeks; it just so happened that Noctis had three exams to prepare for, and most of his time had been devoted to his studies (with a chunk of it apportioned to Prompto for their arcade outings, arranged to blow off steam), and Ignis' full and undivided attention had been demanded for for that entire stint. He checks in periodically, fond but succinct; occasionally sends over photos of food, George, the new game that had been sent over to Noctis by the developers a full week before its release, who had to sit on his hands to prevent himself from playing it. After all, he'd promised Prompto they'd play it together.
Exams end today, but Noctis doesn't stay long after school -- he swings by a shop to pick up what he's ordered under a nom de guerre, if you will, although there's not very much that's warlike about picking up a lovely piece of lingerie, a confection of mostly silk and lace in sleek black. It's not really his thing; Noctis has never really had a taste for crossdressing so much as an avid curiosity and a potent desire to surprise his returning lover. Two weeks with scant contact is enough to send even the most staunchly independent partner up the wall, much less a young man who likes playing it cool but so often falls short.
It's new, this thing. He knows he's taking a significant risk with this particular endeavor, and as with any new endeavors undertaken on important dates like first anniversaries, the risk of it going wrong, way wrong is exponentially higher. It's fortunate, then, that Noctis doesn't see their first anniversary so much as a do-or-die affair as it is a chance to stretch boundaries, to try out new things to see if they have a taste for them.
He only takes minutes to put it on after a shower, his eye on the clock. It's nearing evening now, Ignis should be around in approximately fifteen minutes or less. George has been deftly handed over to Prompto earlier in the day -- while he's not privy to the low-key battle of wits she and Ignis seem to be constantly engaged in, he knows that having a cat around when you want to try things that need not necessarily be confined to the bedroom can be troublesome. And also embarrassing. He might embarrass himself to a great extent with this whole enterprise already, he thinks, he doesn't need extra help.
So Noctis pulls the slip on, spends the last few minutes fidgeting in the bathroom, adjusting the straps and trying hard not to notice just how flat he is in front. He's filled out nicely, but distinctly not in a feminine way. He's lean, but sessions with Gladio have kept him toned, even packing on just a little muscle -- but that's the extent of it.
This is a bad idea, he thinks as he stares at himself in the mirror, trying not to give in to the flare of panic that grips him. It feels strange and new, and there's a breeze around the privates that makes Noctis wonder just why girls wear things like these when it feels so horribly exposing -- how do you even manage to feel exposed when you're obviously wearing something? Is it the silk? The lace? Is it the whole ensemble that's designed to leave precious little to the imagination? Noctis will never know.
He takes a deep breath, forces himself to calm down. This is Ignis; the man's seen him at his worst, and he's pretty sure that seeing Noctis in lingerie wouldn't even crack the top five, and hell, if he had still been willing to date him after some major doozies, this isn't going to be a dealbreaker, right? Besides, he read somewhere that confidence is key, and he takes another deep breath, squaring his shoulders and dead eyeing himself in the mirror.
All right, confidence. Ignis is coming home and this is the only thing that matters. And thankfully before Noctis can lose his nerve, he hears the key in the lock turn.
Right on time. ]
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But even this is no different than all the other countless times he's been called to these meetings since the height of his adolescence, first to merely attend these affairs, then participate in them to a certain, limited degree. The condescension's especially thick when they take him for an overly ambitious man, but he's always been Noctis's chamberlain first and foremost, so nothing to fear. He won't usurp of their long-winded meetings, talking around a solution instead of making strides for it.
There's less time, this jaunt around, to stop by a novelty shop, so Ignis's presents dip below the acceptable margin for tacky shit, mainly composed of terrible shirts that'll never see the outside of the bedroom (specifically ones printed with key phrases like good things come to those who bait and it's about to get reel and paired with stock outlines of salmon and fishing rods). They're a little large, given their one-size-fits-all touristy nature, but the most atrocious of the bunch is probably the hoodie with the word masterbaiter emblazoned right across the front. They're a step down from the tacky Christmas sweaters of several months prior, the ones with fish embroidered right next to the snowflakes, but no less kitschy for it. Noct'll need something he can actually wear in public, though, hence the last-minute addition of fish-shaped sunglasses thrown into the mix, a pair that'll still find most of its use roosting next to the manta ray snow globe he gifted Noctis many weeks before.
All of it's summarily folded and settled in a large gift bag as he jimmies with the key to Noctis's apartment and rolls his luggage behind him, bolting the door behind him. It's odd that the prince hasn't greeted him at the entryway like usual, although the overhead beams twinkle their warm welcome as he sets his bag next to the couch, gifts in tow, but an entirely week of exams might've winded him. It's not unlike Noctis to doze off at the drop of a pin when he's especially tired, so Ignis flips the light switches off as he goes with every intention of chastely kissing Noct's forehead and preparing for bed.
Strange, though, how George hasn't come to assert her dominance in their household yet with a meow and a few raking bats of her paw along his slacks.
Absolutely nothing prepares him for Noctis standing right beside the mirror in lingerie that lavishes its compliments on him and then some. It's an intricate, form-fitting sprawl of fabric that accentuates his legs, already gazelle-like, and coupled with that sooty gaze of his, pierces Ignis right where he stands, skewering him to the floor.
So no, it doesn't crack the top five instances he's seen his Highness naked, intentional or otherwise. It shatters it, and shatters him. Noctis evidently underestimated that Ignis's heart might cut the shit out and go immediately into cardiac arrest at this breathtaking sight, but he manages to salvage the moment by speaking up before he permanently loses his voice. ]
Noct.
[ Eloquent. The novelty gift bag drops beside him with a dull thud, similar to the way Ignis's mind drops logic and renounces all ability to properly function, like the final stages of a collapsing star. ]
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hedonism like a pair of hands around the throat.
His hands tuck into fists, though, knuckles blanched white with the beginnings of tension where they're perched over his knees, knotting up, and he stills himself where he's sunken down on the floor. The room's quiet, otherwiseā€” the light's a wan spill over his pant legs and striping his hands, beating frivolous rays against the armchair he's seated before. Or rather just below it, as it were, when Ignis blandly shuts his eyes and reigns in the shudders that threaten to twist and spasm in him with the excruciating wait. One of his legs have fallen asleep; it's on pins and needles every time he moves fractionally, thus uninhibited by Noctis's orders. Like prostration, or a more callous form of self-immolation, where the burning is internal, but no less scalding for it.
The breakthrough comes with the weight applied just shy of his neck, Noct's heel resting along the bone, and Ignis raises his eyelashes like he's still got coyness mastered even with his heart pounding irascibility into his ribcage. Above is Noctis, draped on the plush upholstery, smug and imperious, his mouth sickled into a grin. He's got to crumple his nails into his soft palms, hard enough to sting, or fall victim to the utterly debauched way His Majesty's oriented one of his own button-up shirts upon himself. It's flimsy, billowy on his lanky frame, hanging limply off one shoulderā€” a section of his chest is bared, as is the smooth skin of one pale forearm, and then his legs suggestively peeking out just beneath the hem, ankles splayed apart just so. It takes real discipline not to offer all of himself into the lunge to topple both chair and king alike, catching Noct (still so young and haphazard and absolutely infuriating) by the arm and taking him in a crime of passion.
Admittedly, his self-control isn't limitless. Finally given pardon to speak up, strain's digging through his voice rather inelegantly, offered the attention for a snappy retort, the room consigning shadows on his face and condemning his silhouette to take a strange look where it's spread across the floor. ]
I could pass the time with trivia, if you're that convinced on whiling away another half-hour in the same manner.
[ He's reverent, even when his shoulders have discernibly bent in barely-expressed restraint, acting unflappable when he might just be a hair-trigger impulse away from divesting Noctis of what little modesty he's claimed for himself, the hot implication of what little he must be wearing underneath currently ripping through the vestiges of Ignis's fraying conscience. ]
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[ Noctis is the perfect encapsulation of casual nonchalance and offhand depravity. He's only half-listening, intent on a game he's just about to finish up for the day. There's little that's more delightful than a sense of accomplishment intersected with the much more primal pleasure of obeisance so willingly paid by a man like Ignis. Terrifyingly talented, influential and charming, and yet wholly devoted to him, that he would wait on his knees, a magnificent example of unconditional submission for the better half of the past hour. But impatience churns underneath that placid demeanor, purposeful and intent, like a shark cutting through still waters.
But this shark, for all intents and purposes, belongs wholly to Noctis, restraint pulled taut over potent desire and hair-trigger impulses that chafe at that increasingly fraying self-control -- and the young king sees all of it from his vantage point above him, his foot resting elegantly on his shoulder (as if that would really stop Ignis if he chooses to rise and pounce, shrugging free the rules of their new game like it's too narrow to hold him).
He counts thirty three minutes, the energy bar in his game ticking down to zero. His toes curl with sleepy pleasure as he contemplates his reverence -- it's much like keeping a tiger under his thumb; this Ignis is older, stronger, and so much more in control than the younger one Noctis remembers. Ten years, after all, is a long time; longer still without Ignis by his side, and these days it seems like they're fighting to make up for lost time, each encounter more intense than the last.
Ending the game, he drops the phone onto the space beside him, the gadget forgotten in lieu of Ignis' gentle reminder of his presence. Shifting, entirely comfortable in what scant modesty he's acquired, Noctis is acutely aware of the plush fabric under his bare ass, his borrowed shirt just barely keeping him covered and providing a titillating glimpse of everything beneath, carefully tucked out of sight. After all, imagination is key, and judging from the look in Ignis' impossibly intense green eyes, he's already in overdrive. It's charming, alluring, how he settles himself before him even if it's obviously not on the top of his list of things to do. Such dedication requires its own reward, and Noctis reaches for the strip of leather he'd kept carefully out of sight until now. It's soft, finely crafted and sewn: black leather with a silver buckle behind, with a gleaming silver skull in the front, carved in the likeness of the royal coat of arms.
This, of course, is obvious: Ignis belongs to no one but the King. Noctis' foot falls away, thighs languidly spreading when he finally reveals everything that he isn't wearing underneath the shirt, bare and half-hard, the sensitive tip of his cock brushing against the luxuriously smooth fabric of it. Oh, Ignis really does know how to choose his clothes. ]
I have a gift for you, Iggy. Come, lean forward, right between my thighs.
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happy birthday.
Today, however, today is a special day, and one he remembers with all anticipation and excitement, hauling out the memories of an old, half-forgotten conversation months prior -- the question of just when Ignis had had the hots for Noctis had unearthed interesting gems, Noctis 15 and Ignis 17, both still in the throes of puberty, more or less, and it's a wonder that Noctis hadn't known earlier, because he would most definitely have committed some sort of sexual felony with Ignis (is it a felony when both of them are minors?), and that would have been a giant pain in his ass, and not the good kind.
The uniform arrives promptly first thing in the morning after Ignis leaves for the day, and so does Noctis' order of the clothes Ignis used to wear, carefully placed on the bed in the room that they now share together. The feeling of the uniform is strange and familiar all at once, as is the tie around his throat; he's twenty-one, and dressed like a fifteen year old, but he doesn't care. Tonight is the night he means for Ignis to have, and a quick call had ensured that he'll be here as soon as his meetings end in the Citadel, which should be anytime now.
Considering traffic, he supposes it'll be ten, fifteen minutes. And so, thrumming with anticipation and nervousness, as well as an ardent hope that Ignis doesn't just turn right around and leave, Noctis starts up his gaming system and waits for him. If things were different, he'd probably be planning a romantic date, but this works well enough out of the public eye.
George, for another, has been sent to Prompto's for the evening, another mark of Noctis' devotion to this evening's birthday activities. ]
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The world doesn't differentiate much between a birthday and a normal workday, and for that, Ignis is relieved. There are some greetings from members of the Crownsguard and the few politicians who've taken the time to learn his name, but he's never been one for overwrought affairs. Like Noctis, rather than a showy party with showier pretenses, he prefers a quiet dinner at home among family and friends. King Regis and Gladio aren't without presents, and he's towing them all of them back into the Regalia by late afternoon. Most are cards, since not many people can guess at what he'd prefer in a present, but there's objects like coffee mugs and Ebony packets in the mix, so it's not at all a bad haul at all (considering the plain socks Gladio's gifted him, which is the most thoughtful gift since the last time he gave him the same present last year).
Coming home doesn't alert him to anything, or set off any alarms, keying in the door and not finding Noctis in the doorway. He's expecting their usual bashā€” a cake that's seen better days, a show of Noctis's handiwork, and an exorbitant amount of sex on the kitchen table, but there are none of the usual hallmarks waiting for him as he passes down the corridor, only to stop dead in his tracks in the loft.
For a moment, he's got this long-distance emotion jostling at him, dĆ©jĆ vu forcing its way into his consciousness. Noctis might be an adult capable of drinking now, even if he's still got all the tolerance of a small child for vegetables, but staring at him fixed over the gaming console now, he's just like he was back then. His hair's even ruffled up the same way, though not quite as well-kept, and Ignis audibly swallows, rooted to the floor. The pull's irresistible, and it takes so much out of him to affect his usual nonchalance, jacket tucked over one arm, puzzled beyond belief. ]
Well, hello. You're looking a tad livelier than I remember you being this morning.
[ And that's kind of incongruous to anything, considering Noct's donned a school uniform and Ignis's restraint is slingshotting from firm to paper-thin. ]
Is there something I've missed?
[ The uniform, for one thing, the very same one that fits Noctis in crisp, flowing lines when his old pair should be tugging briskly at his wrists and ankles from his growth spurt and subsequent disuse. ]
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