Gladiolus Amicitia was born to be the king’s shield. His life had a single devoted purpose, whether he liked the prospect of it at all times or not. But having a set life purpose hardly meant he couldn’t make plans of his own around that and, for what felt like the longest time, his number one plan involved tying down Ignis Scientia in the bonds of holy matrimony because, dammit, they were amazing together, no one could understand him better, and Gladiolus was a romantic and he wanted nothing more than to sweep his partner off his feet in a shower of cherry blossoms and Saxham Rice and let the world know how much he loved this man.
Unfortunately, his first attempt at a proposal had gotten upstaged by Noctis getting engaged to the Oracle at the behest of the Niflheim Empire. Ignis explained over the phone that night that he couldn’t make it over to his place because he now had to sort through a host of court matters related to the treaty, including consoling the newly betrothed Noctis, and Gladiolus blew out the candles, made a half-assed attempt at sweeping up the rose petals, and changed the soaring love ballads to his workout playlist (there, admittedly, was some overlap).
He tried to see the upside of things as he watched his plans flutter indelicately into the trashcan. Realistically, he knew the candles and mood music shit probably wasn’t Ignis’ thing. He had gotten a little too caught up in his own idea of romance in his initial planning fervour. After a few swigs of fancy champagne from the bottle and a two-way text message pep talk from Iris, who also had reason to be put out by the breaking news, Gladiolus mused he now had the opportunity to fine-tune his proposal strategy to make it less about him.
He decided the night before they set out would be perfect. He could pull Ignis aside for a quiet moment that evening, faced with the momentous task before them, and talk at length about their shared responsibilities and how much each other’s support meant, how he wanted them to share a pledge of shouldering each other’s burdens, upholding each other’s goals, and affirming the bonds between them for the rest of their lives. It was definitely a more Ignis-style proposal. It should have been easy to stage. Instead the four of them spent the evening cleaning Noctis’ apartment and playing King’s Knight.
No matter, Gladiolus had thought. Their relationship did change a little once they set out. They no longer had much privacy, sharing the same tent, the four of them constantly working together as a team taking in the sights, dealing with the fallout of the Empire’s attack, fighting daemons, Niffs and the local wildlife. But Gladiolus had been sure the moment would come, whether on the golden shores of Galdin Quay, or the sultry promenade of Lestallum, or just somewhere with a little goddamn atmosphere, he could pull Ignis aside for a ‘them’ moment and make good on his planning. And every time the moment came, something else came along and cockblocked him. At this point in their journey, he had been so regularly thwarted in his attempts to propose he no longer even felt angry when it happened.
So two days ago when the ring of Ignis’ cell phone interrupted a rare moment alone as they watched the sun set from the observation deck of the Caem Lighthouse—two seconds after Gladiolus had decided this was the time to get down on one knee and just go for it—he didn’t even take it out on the brat, despite the fact that Noctis was literally calling from two floors down to tell them Cor had heard some intriguing rumours of an unknown Astral found in the mountains beyond Callatein’s Plunge, so they ought come down to discuss it because Noctis couldn’t be assed to come up.
Naturally, they had decided to investigate said rumours, and now they were fighting the battle of their lives against a dark energy god in bird form (why always the flying bastards?) and more MT ships than Gladiolus could remember seeing at once cruising in for their own go. He looked up at the massive form of Valefor the Energiaen swooping overhead, spitting out fire, lighting and beams of pure energy, and at the waves of magitek troopers coming at them from all directions, and he was pretty sure they were actually going to die.
Well fuck, he already had the rings, stashed away though they were in one of the Regalia’s compartments.
“Hey, Iggy,” Gladiolus said, levelling a squad of MTs with his greatsword attack while trying to dodge incoming fireballs, “Marry me.”
“I think Gladio’s a bit touched,” Ignis said, looking to Noctis as Noctis relinquished his spear, having stabbed Ignis’ and his own into the magitek soldier underneath him.
“Just great,” said Noctis, switching out for a greatsword and warping a short distance into another infantryman.
“Hey! I’m dead serious right now,” Gladiolus growled out as he used his shield to fend off a claw strike from the massive Astral above them with no small amount of difficulty.
“Is he proposing? I think he’s proposing!” Prompto said as he tried to find better cover to shoot from.
Ignis buried his spear in the chest of an imperial swordsman before leveraging it to perform a back handspring toward Gladiolus’ general direction. He started to speak, then suddenly let fly a dagger in the direction of a not-quite-dead-yet scrap pile, unsummoning it once it had done its job.
Sexy as hell, Gladiolus thought.
Back to business, Ignis turned to face him. “Is this really the time, Gladio?”
“Well, you know me.” Gladiolus gave him a winning smile before getting engaged by another attacker. “I did wanna be romantic,” he said, fending off a slash from a magitek axeman. “But every time I’ve tried asking something attacks, someone dies,” he continued, punctuating his words with blows upon the stream of troopers before them, “the kids interrupt, the car breaks down, a crater collapses, chaos ensues, and frankly,” he jumped out of the way of a fireball, his boots feeling a bit singed, “I doubt we’re getting out of this fight alive.”
“Not with that attitude, we aren’t,” Noctis grunted, before summoning his spear and launching into an aerial battle with the Astral while the rest of the party covered the ground fight.
“So let’s just do it,” Gladiolus said, dodging the blows of an imperial assassin and landing his own series of strikes on the bastard as quickly as he could manage, until it was a twitching heap on the ground. As Ignis wrested his spear from the eye-socket of a robotic corpse, Gladiolus met his partner’s gaze across the battlefield and tried to put every ounce of sincerity he could spare into the look. “Whaddaya say? Let me die an honest man?”
“I’m not sure that’s possible,” said Ignis, adjusting his glasses.
Prompto’s traitorous laugh could be heard from behind the bush he was trying to use as cover. There was hardly time to notice though, for as Ignis spoke, the Energiaen had opened its beak and spat out a beam of pure elemental power that tore open a crevice in the ground and would have split Ignis in half had Gladiolus not jumped to force him out of harm’s way, pushing him down to the ground a few paces back. The position was rather intimate, overlooking the circumstances.
“C’mon, Iggy,” Gladiolus said, ignoring the chaos around them to look deeply into the eyes of the man he loved with everything he had, “When it comes to this whole love and protect until death do us part thing, I know who I’ve chosen. You?”
Ignis met his gaze for a moment, before looking off to the distance, “Noctis!”
“Ouch, babe,” said Gladiolus. Not that it was unexpected, but ouch.
Ignis pushed his hand against Gladiolus’ chest to move out of their vulnerable and borderline inappropriate position. What followed mended the wound quite quickly.
“We humbly request your services as officiant over this extremely ill-advised ceremony.”
“What!? No way. Ask blondie,” Noctis said as he returned to the ground.
In the meantime they scrambled to their feet and Gladiolus looked at his partner—covered in dirt and soot, glasses slightly cracked from a glancing blow, all business and cool intelligence, and yet somehow, underneath all that, a loving warmth that didn’t easily reveal itself—like he was falling for him all over again.
“As the highest authority in the vicinity and indeed, this land, if I may remind you, this one falls to you,” Ignis said.
“Right. Well, fuck,” Noctis said as he warped into an MT who had him in their laser sights. “How’s this even go?”
“Dude, you’re supposed to be getting married and you don’t know how this goes?” said Prompto, stumbling as he landed a few good shots and some not so great ones on the squad in front of him.
Distracted, Noctis turned to make his retort, only to be knocked down as a bullet glanced his shoulder. Within seconds Ignis was standing to his right performing emergency first aid to get him back on his feet as quickly as possible, while Gladiolus moved to his left, a human shield against the oncoming troopers. Noctis took a moment, while he recovered, to really look at them.
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timeasmymeasure
FILL: Marry in Haste, Regen at Leisure 1/2
Date: 2017-03-05 07:11 pm (UTC)Unfortunately, his first attempt at a proposal had gotten upstaged by Noctis getting engaged to the Oracle at the behest of the Niflheim Empire. Ignis explained over the phone that night that he couldn’t make it over to his place because he now had to sort through a host of court matters related to the treaty, including consoling the newly betrothed Noctis, and Gladiolus blew out the candles, made a half-assed attempt at sweeping up the rose petals, and changed the soaring love ballads to his workout playlist (there, admittedly, was some overlap).
He tried to see the upside of things as he watched his plans flutter indelicately into the trashcan. Realistically, he knew the candles and mood music shit probably wasn’t Ignis’ thing. He had gotten a little too caught up in his own idea of romance in his initial planning fervour. After a few swigs of fancy champagne from the bottle and a two-way text message pep talk from Iris, who also had reason to be put out by the breaking news, Gladiolus mused he now had the opportunity to fine-tune his proposal strategy to make it less about him.
He decided the night before they set out would be perfect. He could pull Ignis aside for a quiet moment that evening, faced with the momentous task before them, and talk at length about their shared responsibilities and how much each other’s support meant, how he wanted them to share a pledge of shouldering each other’s burdens, upholding each other’s goals, and affirming the bonds between them for the rest of their lives. It was definitely a more Ignis-style proposal. It should have been easy to stage. Instead the four of them spent the evening cleaning Noctis’ apartment and playing King’s Knight.
No matter, Gladiolus had thought. Their relationship did change a little once they set out. They no longer had much privacy, sharing the same tent, the four of them constantly working together as a team taking in the sights, dealing with the fallout of the Empire’s attack, fighting daemons, Niffs and the local wildlife. But Gladiolus had been sure the moment would come, whether on the golden shores of Galdin Quay, or the sultry promenade of Lestallum, or just somewhere with a little goddamn atmosphere, he could pull Ignis aside for a ‘them’ moment and make good on his planning. And every time the moment came, something else came along and cockblocked him. At this point in their journey, he had been so regularly thwarted in his attempts to propose he no longer even felt angry when it happened.
So two days ago when the ring of Ignis’ cell phone interrupted a rare moment alone as they watched the sun set from the observation deck of the Caem Lighthouse—two seconds after Gladiolus had decided this was the time to get down on one knee and just go for it—he didn’t even take it out on the brat, despite the fact that Noctis was literally calling from two floors down to tell them Cor had heard some intriguing rumours of an unknown Astral found in the mountains beyond Callatein’s Plunge, so they ought come down to discuss it because Noctis couldn’t be assed to come up.
Naturally, they had decided to investigate said rumours, and now they were fighting the battle of their lives against a dark energy god in bird form (why always the flying bastards?) and more MT ships than Gladiolus could remember seeing at once cruising in for their own go. He looked up at the massive form of Valefor the Energiaen swooping overhead, spitting out fire, lighting and beams of pure energy, and at the waves of magitek troopers coming at them from all directions, and he was pretty sure they were actually going to die.
Well fuck, he already had the rings, stashed away though they were in one of the Regalia’s compartments.
“Hey, Iggy,” Gladiolus said, levelling a squad of MTs with his greatsword attack while trying to dodge incoming fireballs, “Marry me.”
“I think Gladio’s a bit touched,” Ignis said, looking to Noctis as Noctis relinquished his spear, having stabbed Ignis’ and his own into the magitek soldier underneath him.
“Just great,” said Noctis, switching out for a greatsword and warping a short distance into another infantryman.
“Hey! I’m dead serious right now,” Gladiolus growled out as he used his shield to fend off a claw strike from the massive Astral above them with no small amount of difficulty.
“Is he proposing? I think he’s proposing!” Prompto said as he tried to find better cover to shoot from.
Ignis buried his spear in the chest of an imperial swordsman before leveraging it to perform a back handspring toward Gladiolus’ general direction. He started to speak, then suddenly let fly a dagger in the direction of a not-quite-dead-yet scrap pile, unsummoning it once it had done its job.
Sexy as hell, Gladiolus thought.
Back to business, Ignis turned to face him. “Is this really the time, Gladio?”
“Well, you know me.” Gladiolus gave him a winning smile before getting engaged by another attacker. “I did wanna be romantic,” he said, fending off a slash from a magitek axeman. “But every time I’ve tried asking something attacks, someone dies,” he continued, punctuating his words with blows upon the stream of troopers before them, “the kids interrupt, the car breaks down, a crater collapses, chaos ensues, and frankly,” he jumped out of the way of a fireball, his boots feeling a bit singed, “I doubt we’re getting out of this fight alive.”
“Not with that attitude, we aren’t,” Noctis grunted, before summoning his spear and launching into an aerial battle with the Astral while the rest of the party covered the ground fight.
“So let’s just do it,” Gladiolus said, dodging the blows of an imperial assassin and landing his own series of strikes on the bastard as quickly as he could manage, until it was a twitching heap on the ground. As Ignis wrested his spear from the eye-socket of a robotic corpse, Gladiolus met his partner’s gaze across the battlefield and tried to put every ounce of sincerity he could spare into the look. “Whaddaya say? Let me die an honest man?”
“I’m not sure that’s possible,” said Ignis, adjusting his glasses.
Prompto’s traitorous laugh could be heard from behind the bush he was trying to use as cover. There was hardly time to notice though, for as Ignis spoke, the Energiaen had opened its beak and spat out a beam of pure elemental power that tore open a crevice in the ground and would have split Ignis in half had Gladiolus not jumped to force him out of harm’s way, pushing him down to the ground a few paces back. The position was rather intimate, overlooking the circumstances.
“C’mon, Iggy,” Gladiolus said, ignoring the chaos around them to look deeply into the eyes of the man he loved with everything he had, “When it comes to this whole love and protect until death do us part thing, I know who I’ve chosen. You?”
Ignis met his gaze for a moment, before looking off to the distance, “Noctis!”
“Ouch, babe,” said Gladiolus. Not that it was unexpected, but ouch.
Ignis pushed his hand against Gladiolus’ chest to move out of their vulnerable and borderline inappropriate position. What followed mended the wound quite quickly.
“We humbly request your services as officiant over this extremely ill-advised ceremony.”
“What!? No way. Ask blondie,” Noctis said as he returned to the ground.
In the meantime they scrambled to their feet and Gladiolus looked at his partner—covered in dirt and soot, glasses slightly cracked from a glancing blow, all business and cool intelligence, and yet somehow, underneath all that, a loving warmth that didn’t easily reveal itself—like he was falling for him all over again.
“As the highest authority in the vicinity and indeed, this land, if I may remind you, this one falls to you,” Ignis said.
“Right. Well, fuck,” Noctis said as he warped into an MT who had him in their laser sights. “How’s this even go?”
“Dude, you’re supposed to be getting married and you don’t know how this goes?” said Prompto, stumbling as he landed a few good shots and some not so great ones on the squad in front of him.
Distracted, Noctis turned to make his retort, only to be knocked down as a bullet glanced his shoulder. Within seconds Ignis was standing to his right performing emergency first aid to get him back on his feet as quickly as possible, while Gladiolus moved to his left, a human shield against the oncoming troopers. Noctis took a moment, while he recovered, to really look at them.