*sweats nervously* this is the most explicit thing ive written in 2 and a half years and i wouldn't even call it smut
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By the time Ignis materialises in the Amicitia household to whisk Noctis and Prompto back to their apartments, Gladio is exhausted. Knocking the Prince around the training field had only temporarily relieved his unexplainable light-headed spell, but Gladio is the Sworn Shield for a reason, and he powered through the evening despite how his stomach writhed and churned. He isn’t sure how he looks, but if Noct’s side-eyed glances and Prompto’s tight-lipped silence weren’t enough, Ignis descends upon him as the two friends throw together their belongings and shuffle into their shoes.
“Are you unwell?” Ignis asks, swooping down like a goddamn eagle and laying a palm against Gladio’s forehead before he can get a word in otherwise. Big enough to take care of himself, Gladio is scarcely on the receiving end of Ignis’ fussing - a privilege reserved for the Prince. Ignis’ sharp eye and librarian-scary, glasses-on-his-nose kind of look are disconcerting to say the least, and Gladio understands in a horrifying moment of clarity why Noctis both secretly-appreciates and fears Ignis’ concern.
Gladio doubts that Noctis is aware of just how good Ignis smells though - just as Gladio, himself, had never paid much attention to his scent before, just as he had never felt dizzy looking at an Alpha’s goofy smiles, or unsettled and yet oddly warm at the centre of their attention before.
“Perhaps you should rest early tonight,” Ignis is saying, not that Gladio is really aware of anything except the lingering touch of the Alpha’s hand against his forehead. “Do you require me to visit the pharmacy for anything?”
“Err,” Gladio replies, trying to focus on the question and not the tingling of his skin or the restlessness of his stomach - and definitely not Noctis and Prompto bickering in the entrance hallway or the few strands of Ignis’ hair that are sticking up by his ears. “Nah, I’ll just hit the hay, I think. Get some shut eye.”
“If you’re sure,” Ignis replies, conceding with his I think you’re an idiot tone.
Right now, the only thing Gladio is sure of is that he needs to not be in the presence of three incredibly irresistible - come on, he’s not blind - Alphas, one of which being the Crown Prince of Lucis.
Thankfully - blissfully - Ignis ushers the twerps out without any fanfare, allowing Gladio to tidy up the last of the mess, shoot Iris a text, and then faceplant onto his bed with a groan. He hopes that he’ll feel better come tomorrow, when he can take another suppressant. Unless the problem is with the suppressants themselves, but they’ve never made him feel queasy before, and he’s used the same brand since he Presented at fifteen. He vaguely remembers the list of side effects that the nurse recited to him those few years ago, but Gladio can’t recall anything about his head feeling empty and his skin itching like a burn. The itching is reminiscent of that dreadful week before his Presentation, though, and given that he had totally wanted to follow Ignis out of the house just to keep on smelling him, Gladio has a rough idea what might be going on.
The nurse had advised him to experience a couple of heats a year - Gladio hasn’t had any. Guess his body’s decided that it’s had enough of that.
“Fuck,” he grumbles into the pillow, hoping against hope that his heat will go away and he’ll feel better in the morning.
He doesn’t. The itching is a scalding rash now, and the first thing Gladio does upon waking is stagger into the bathroom and throw up his dinner. Iris knocks on the door just as Gladio almost concusses himself on the sink, so he mumbles some excuse in the hope that she’ll leave. When she only pokes her tiny head around into the bathroom and asks if he needs any help, he lobs the tube of toothpaste at the door. He regrets it immediately, but it does the trick in dissuading her from entering to see him in his miserable state.
He hopes she won’t be back.
Splashing water on his face does fuck all, but he can’t bring himself to shower. He’s sweaty in places that he’s never sweated before, and that’s an achievement considering he hits the gym (and the Prince) on a daily basis. With another groan, he slobs back into the bedroom to locate his suppressants, but another awful twist of his gut has him hesitating before popping the morning’s pill.
Since he had started feeling sick while the suppressants should have been in effect, there’s no telling if they’ll work now. He could try, but Gladio has a hunch that it’ll be a futile effort. Then he’ll be wasting a tablet and he’ll have to put up with his friends’ fussing for the rest of the day, and Gladio decides that if he has to suffer, then he’d rather be in his bedroom, away from concerned eyes.
“Bahamut end me.”
He shoves the suppressants back into the drawer.
The next two days are some of the worst of Gladio’s life. For the first few hours, he tries to make himself comfortable and go back to sleep, but a primal restlessness eventually implores him to move. Thoughts and reason beset by burning instinct, Gladio apparently decides that his bed isn’t good enough and strips the mattress of the duvet and sheets, only to then heave the mattress away from the frame and drag it across his room. There isn’t anywhere in the room that seems an acceptable relocation for the mattress, but Gladio doesn’t let that stop him. The solution is simple: rearrange the furniture until he is satisfied with his new ‘bed’, which he builds in a newly-established corner of the room between the old bed-frame and the wardrobe. He dumps the duvet and the sheets in their new home, tosses over the pillows, and then this fails to quell his restive mind, he adds the towels from the bathroom, some his clothes, a half-empty bottle of water and a packet of crisps, and then, lastly, pulls his favourite shield out of Noctis’ arsenal.
Anybody else would weep at the mess, but Gladio isn’t picky.
The rest of his heat isn’t nearly so dependent on Gladio’s artistic prowess, but it is, arguably, just as physically taxing. Questionably snug but undeniably safe within the hazardous blanket-fort-den-bed he has created, Gladio won’t remember much of the second day of his heat. He’ll recall craving neither food nor water, but wish that either could satisfy the almost sickening need that afflicts him. His mobile will sound countless times but his bedroom door will never once open, and he’ll be relieved for that mercy as he sweats to death in the tangles of the duvet, mumbling nonsense-words of pain amidst even less sensible pleas to be touched and cared for, kissed and rolled over and bedded, held down and fucked like there’s no tomorrow, as though he’s an animal with no sense of time or duty or want for anything but to spread his legs and feel good as he’s loved and filled up and bred.
“What the fuck,” is Gladio’s first reasonable after it’s over, his mouth a desert and saliva sticking his cheek to the pillow, recollecting in fragments how he fingered himself with a frenzy beyond all rational pleasure, and yet reaching his peak four, five, or astrals, how many times still hadn’t been enough. There are no words for the shame that he feels - and words he cannot bear to say for the bone-tired ache that his body has been reduced to. Everything is sore, even his fingers are sore, and Gladio lifts himself with no small amount of regret to take in the sight of his unrecognisable bedroom. The light is on and the curtains are drawn - a small mercy - but nothing else is in its usual place. The wardrobe has fallen over, and Gladio stares at the scattering of his clothes and hangers and wonders if Niflheim bombed his bedroom.
There is a knock at the door.
“Gladdy,” Iris calls, and Gladio swears high and mighty as he scrambles out of the den - he’s naked, what the hell - and skids on a random bottle of water to slam against the door before she can even consider opening it up. Vaguely, he remembers throwing something at her in a haze of misery and embarrassment, and these feelings have only increased tenfold now as he notices that his fingernails are hardened with blood.
Ifrit’s ballsack, he fucked himself into the floor and he couldn’t even do it properly?
“Iris. You okay kiddo?” Gladio says - wheezes, chokes. As far as he remembers, it’s the first thing he’s said for days, but it definitely doesn’t feel like it. His sister can’t see him like this; Gladio doesn’t want to see himself like this.
From the other side of the door, there is a sigh of relief. It sounds as though Iris has slid down the door to her knees, and Gladio crouches down with a wince to hear her next whisper, “Are you okay? Do you need anything? I don’t have to come in if you don’t want me to, but it is over, isn’t it?”
Fuck, Gladio thinks. “Yeah - yeah, it’s over I think. What’s, err, what day is it?”
“You’ve been in there two days,” Iris replies. “I told everyone that you were contagious. Prince Noctis tried to come and see you but I - um - I managed to keep him away. Dad isn’t back from his trip yet, so it’s just us and Jared around.”
“Iris, you’re a star.”
“Not really,” she mumbles, raising red flags in Gladio’s mind. “There is - there is one problem.”
“What is it? Are you okay? If it’s the Crownsguard kicking up a fuss -”
“It’s Ignis,” Iris cuts in, sighing his name the way she usually reserves for her brother. “I couldn’t keep him away. He kept trying to call you and I didn’t realise he was so stubborn.”
Gladio laughs despite himself, but this doesn’t change the icy dread replacing the lingering fires of his heat in his gut. Ignis is far too Ignis to be fooled by Iris’ lie. “Is he in the house now?”
“Yeah. He’s cooking. He’s been cooking all morning.”
“Okay,” Gladio says, summoning up his Amicitia calm. Panicking won’t change anything, and the last two days have been stressful enough. “Okay. Don’t worry about him, kiddo, I’ll talk to him once I’ve - sorted myself out. Tell ‘im since he’s cooking in my house, he better be making my favourite.”
“He’s kind of scary at the moment,” Iris admits, but at Gladio’s reassurance, she’s goes to face the Alpha that has invaded their kitchen.
FILL: Gladio/Prompto, Gladio/Any: Gladio as hidden Omega (7/?)
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By the time Ignis materialises in the Amicitia household to whisk Noctis and Prompto back to their apartments, Gladio is exhausted. Knocking the Prince around the training field had only temporarily relieved his unexplainable light-headed spell, but Gladio is the Sworn Shield for a reason, and he powered through the evening despite how his stomach writhed and churned. He isn’t sure how he looks, but if Noct’s side-eyed glances and Prompto’s tight-lipped silence weren’t enough, Ignis descends upon him as the two friends throw together their belongings and shuffle into their shoes.
“Are you unwell?” Ignis asks, swooping down like a goddamn eagle and laying a palm against Gladio’s forehead before he can get a word in otherwise. Big enough to take care of himself, Gladio is scarcely on the receiving end of Ignis’ fussing - a privilege reserved for the Prince. Ignis’ sharp eye and librarian-scary, glasses-on-his-nose kind of look are disconcerting to say the least, and Gladio understands in a horrifying moment of clarity why Noctis both secretly-appreciates and fears Ignis’ concern.
Gladio doubts that Noctis is aware of just how good Ignis smells though - just as Gladio, himself, had never paid much attention to his scent before, just as he had never felt dizzy looking at an Alpha’s goofy smiles, or unsettled and yet oddly warm at the centre of their attention before.
“Perhaps you should rest early tonight,” Ignis is saying, not that Gladio is really aware of anything except the lingering touch of the Alpha’s hand against his forehead. “Do you require me to visit the pharmacy for anything?”
“Err,” Gladio replies, trying to focus on the question and not the tingling of his skin or the restlessness of his stomach - and definitely not Noctis and Prompto bickering in the entrance hallway or the few strands of Ignis’ hair that are sticking up by his ears. “Nah, I’ll just hit the hay, I think. Get some shut eye.”
“If you’re sure,” Ignis replies, conceding with his I think you’re an idiot tone.
Right now, the only thing Gladio is sure of is that he needs to not be in the presence of three incredibly irresistible - come on, he’s not blind - Alphas, one of which being the Crown Prince of Lucis.
Thankfully - blissfully - Ignis ushers the twerps out without any fanfare, allowing Gladio to tidy up the last of the mess, shoot Iris a text, and then faceplant onto his bed with a groan. He hopes that he’ll feel better come tomorrow, when he can take another suppressant. Unless the problem is with the suppressants themselves, but they’ve never made him feel queasy before, and he’s used the same brand since he Presented at fifteen. He vaguely remembers the list of side effects that the nurse recited to him those few years ago, but Gladio can’t recall anything about his head feeling empty and his skin itching like a burn. The itching is reminiscent of that dreadful week before his Presentation, though, and given that he had totally wanted to follow Ignis out of the house just to keep on smelling him, Gladio has a rough idea what might be going on.
The nurse had advised him to experience a couple of heats a year - Gladio hasn’t had any. Guess his body’s decided that it’s had enough of that.
“Fuck,” he grumbles into the pillow, hoping against hope that his heat will go away and he’ll feel better in the morning.
He doesn’t. The itching is a scalding rash now, and the first thing Gladio does upon waking is stagger into the bathroom and throw up his dinner. Iris knocks on the door just as Gladio almost concusses himself on the sink, so he mumbles some excuse in the hope that she’ll leave. When she only pokes her tiny head around into the bathroom and asks if he needs any help, he lobs the tube of toothpaste at the door. He regrets it immediately, but it does the trick in dissuading her from entering to see him in his miserable state.
He hopes she won’t be back.
Splashing water on his face does fuck all, but he can’t bring himself to shower. He’s sweaty in places that he’s never sweated before, and that’s an achievement considering he hits the gym (and the Prince) on a daily basis. With another groan, he slobs back into the bedroom to locate his suppressants, but another awful twist of his gut has him hesitating before popping the morning’s pill.
Since he had started feeling sick while the suppressants should have been in effect, there’s no telling if they’ll work now. He could try, but Gladio has a hunch that it’ll be a futile effort. Then he’ll be wasting a tablet and he’ll have to put up with his friends’ fussing for the rest of the day, and Gladio decides that if he has to suffer, then he’d rather be in his bedroom, away from concerned eyes.
“Bahamut end me.”
He shoves the suppressants back into the drawer.
The next two days are some of the worst of Gladio’s life. For the first few hours, he tries to make himself comfortable and go back to sleep, but a primal restlessness eventually implores him to move. Thoughts and reason beset by burning instinct, Gladio apparently decides that his bed isn’t good enough and strips the mattress of the duvet and sheets, only to then heave the mattress away from the frame and drag it across his room. There isn’t anywhere in the room that seems an acceptable relocation for the mattress, but Gladio doesn’t let that stop him. The solution is simple: rearrange the furniture until he is satisfied with his new ‘bed’, which he builds in a newly-established corner of the room between the old bed-frame and the wardrobe. He dumps the duvet and the sheets in their new home, tosses over the pillows, and then this fails to quell his restive mind, he adds the towels from the bathroom, some his clothes, a half-empty bottle of water and a packet of crisps, and then, lastly, pulls his favourite shield out of Noctis’ arsenal.
Anybody else would weep at the mess, but Gladio isn’t picky.
The rest of his heat isn’t nearly so dependent on Gladio’s artistic prowess, but it is, arguably, just as physically taxing. Questionably snug but undeniably safe within the hazardous blanket-fort-den-bed he has created, Gladio won’t remember much of the second day of his heat. He’ll recall craving neither food nor water, but wish that either could satisfy the almost sickening need that afflicts him. His mobile will sound countless times but his bedroom door will never once open, and he’ll be relieved for that mercy as he sweats to death in the tangles of the duvet, mumbling nonsense-words of pain amidst even less sensible pleas to be touched and cared for, kissed and rolled over and bedded, held down and fucked like there’s no tomorrow, as though he’s an animal with no sense of time or duty or want for anything but to spread his legs and feel good as he’s loved and filled up and bred.
“What the fuck,” is Gladio’s first reasonable after it’s over, his mouth a desert and saliva sticking his cheek to the pillow, recollecting in fragments how he fingered himself with a frenzy beyond all rational pleasure, and yet reaching his peak four, five, or astrals, how many times still hadn’t been enough. There are no words for the shame that he feels - and words he cannot bear to say for the bone-tired ache that his body has been reduced to. Everything is sore, even his fingers are sore, and Gladio lifts himself with no small amount of regret to take in the sight of his unrecognisable bedroom. The light is on and the curtains are drawn - a small mercy - but nothing else is in its usual place. The wardrobe has fallen over, and Gladio stares at the scattering of his clothes and hangers and wonders if Niflheim bombed his bedroom.
There is a knock at the door.
“Gladdy,” Iris calls, and Gladio swears high and mighty as he scrambles out of the den - he’s naked, what the hell - and skids on a random bottle of water to slam against the door before she can even consider opening it up. Vaguely, he remembers throwing something at her in a haze of misery and embarrassment, and these feelings have only increased tenfold now as he notices that his fingernails are hardened with blood.
Ifrit’s ballsack, he fucked himself into the floor and he couldn’t even do it properly?
“Iris. You okay kiddo?” Gladio says - wheezes, chokes. As far as he remembers, it’s the first thing he’s said for days, but it definitely doesn’t feel like it. His sister can’t see him like this; Gladio doesn’t want to see himself like this.
From the other side of the door, there is a sigh of relief. It sounds as though Iris has slid down the door to her knees, and Gladio crouches down with a wince to hear her next whisper, “Are you okay? Do you need anything? I don’t have to come in if you don’t want me to, but it is over, isn’t it?”
Fuck, Gladio thinks. “Yeah - yeah, it’s over I think. What’s, err, what day is it?”
“You’ve been in there two days,” Iris replies. “I told everyone that you were contagious. Prince Noctis tried to come and see you but I - um - I managed to keep him away. Dad isn’t back from his trip yet, so it’s just us and Jared around.”
“Iris, you’re a star.”
“Not really,” she mumbles, raising red flags in Gladio’s mind. “There is - there is one problem.”
“What is it? Are you okay? If it’s the Crownsguard kicking up a fuss -”
“It’s Ignis,” Iris cuts in, sighing his name the way she usually reserves for her brother. “I couldn’t keep him away. He kept trying to call you and I didn’t realise he was so stubborn.”
Gladio laughs despite himself, but this doesn’t change the icy dread replacing the lingering fires of his heat in his gut. Ignis is far too Ignis to be fooled by Iris’ lie. “Is he in the house now?”
“Yeah. He’s cooking. He’s been cooking all morning.”
“Okay,” Gladio says, summoning up his Amicitia calm. Panicking won’t change anything, and the last two days have been stressful enough. “Okay. Don’t worry about him, kiddo, I’ll talk to him once I’ve - sorted myself out. Tell ‘im since he’s cooking in my house, he better be making my favourite.”
“He’s kind of scary at the moment,” Iris admits, but at Gladio’s reassurance, she’s goes to face the Alpha that has invaded their kitchen.