Eventually, the rumours die away and Gladio accustoms himself to living like a Beta. He takes a tablet everyday and tries not to think about his heats, and somewhere between training Noctis, studying with Ignis, and learning swordsmanship under his father, he realises that life in the citadel turns on.
Ignis Presents as an Alpha.
“I suppose we cannot always get what we want,” is all he has to say about it.
Ignis’ Role changes little about their friendship. If his heightened senses give him any indication that Gladio is taking suppressants, then he says nothing about it. The fact that he says nothing suggests to Gladio that he isn’t aware; for all that Ignis is a quiet, warm-hearted teenager who prefers the company of books to people, he is an Alpha, and Gladio doesn’t think Ignis would have any reservations about backing him into a corner and inflicting the interrogation of a lifetime were he to learn that Gladio has been avoiding his heats.
Suppressants are perfectly legal, but they’re usually used in moderation - for a week or two, or maybe a month at most. There are many reasons why an Omega may wish to suppress a heat at any given time - maybe they’re going on holiday, maybe they’re due to give a speech, maybe they’re a student sitting their final exams - but suppressing one’s nature as an Omega altogether is uncommon. Gladio is sure he isn’t the first; the nurse hadn’t so much as batted an eyelash at his father’s request, so there must be other Omegas of nobility that take advantage of their wealth. Of course, the very motivation behind suppressing his Role means he has no idea who these other Omegas may be; he doesn’t particularly want to know, but at the same time, he has questions that he could only bear to ask an Omega to answer.
Being surrounded by Alphas all day is taxing. Gladio never realised just how many there are in the Crownsguard, the Kingsglaive, and even the Council. His initial panic over the suppressants spontaneously failing him wore off after a few weeks, but that isn’t to say their effectiveness fluctuates over time. Three or four hours after a dose tends to be when the tablets are at their most effective, masking his scent to the point where some Alphas (and Omegas) cannot smell him at all. Gladio rearranges his schedule to take advantage of this period, hitting the gym or dominating the training hall without fear of overwhelming the medication’s efforts by sweating a puddle into the floor. The effects wane towards the end of the day, so Gladio trains the Prince after lunch and then studies into the evening, reluctant to push his body beyond what the suppressants can cope with.
As a Sworn Shield, this isn’t always easy. His duties increase as he hits sixteen, passes seventeen, and sweats and learns and fights his way to eighteen. He spends less time training with his father and more time with the Crownsguard, running laps, getting beaten into the ground and beating others in return, and surviving many tedious hours patrolling the walls, surveying the streets, and guarding the gates into the citadel. Night patrols are the worst. A morning person by nature, happy to wake with the dawn when the world is quiet and the day is new, Gladio grumbles at every evening assignment. It doesn’t help that he never patrols alone - Crownsguard units are a minimum of three people, and Gladio has yet to encounter a unit without at least one Alpha. He has nothing against the pair that he is often assigned with - a man and a woman, a Beta and Alpha respectively - but he wouldn’t go as far as to call them friends. Naturally social, Gladio does enjoy meeting people. He enjoys working with people, looking out for them, learning about them; people are fascinating, and Gladio can count on one hand the number of people who he wouldn’t take out for a drink just to listen to them talk.
He trusts his Crownsguard unit to have his back on a patrol, and yet, once the uniforms are off, they go their separate ways. Gladio doesn’t mind. He understands the need to separate work and home lives, and he’s sure that his duty to the Prince casts him in an intimidating, untouchable light. He doesn’t have the luxury of ‘switching off’ outside of the nine-to-five working day. Sure, he has time to himself, time which he spends with his family, wandering the city, or buried in a book, but as the Prince’s Sworn Shield, he is always on call.
He loves it. He’s proud to serve the Crown.
But that doesn’t make the newly Presented, fifteen-year-old Alpha Prince and heir to the Lucis Caelum line any less of a goddamn little shit to deal with.
Gladio understands that the Crown of Lucis and the Ring of Lucii are heavy burdens that the Prince will have to bear one day. The Crystal is a merciless guardian of this kingdom, offering the unyielding protection of the Wall in return for the lifeforce of the Royal family. With the Amicitia family living so intimately with the King and Prince, their family home tucked into the heart of the citadel, Clarus and Gladio never more than a phone call away, Gladio has seen the toll that the Crystal has on the King. Over these last few years, the King has seemed to age a decade, wrinkles replacing his lines of laughter, silver hair creeping into his midnight black. Gone is the King of Gladio’s childhood who lounged over sofas and chased the Prince down the halls. His cane has become a necessity to his Royal attire, and some days Gladio sees the King struggling with walking still, lingering after a council on legs that labour to hold him.
Gladio hates to think that the King’s time has come, but the Line of Lucis Caelum is one of mortality and grief. Prince Noctis may have to ascend the throne at the dawn of his adulthood - and if he does, then Gladio will make sure he’s ready.
Even if it means beating responsibility into the kid.
“Get up. Come at me again,” Gladio orders, hefting the greatsword over his shoulder. It’s not his beloved custom-made, gold-embellished blade by any means, but it does the trick for training. Granted, he could probably parry the Prince’s blows with a twig, but he doesn’t want to dishearten the kid - more than he has already, at any least.
Noctis huffs, heaving himself up from the floor. Frustration tightens his grip on his sword and pride keeps his head high despite this seemingly-futile endeavour, but his stance is solid at any rate, his footwork swift and unmatched.
Were he not sparring the man who taught him.
“This is stupid,” the Prince grumbles, rolling the sword in his hand. “It’s never going to work. We’ve been at this for hours.”
Here we go, Gladio despairs. “It’s going to work because it has to,” he counters, refusing to budge an inch at the snarl. Noctis has a mean temper when he’s frustrated, but luckily for Gladio, so does he. “What sort of King will you be if you can’t warp?”
“I’m not a King.”
“You’re gonna be sooner or -”
A sword flashes past Gladio’s shoulder, a bolt of lightning striking blue. Noctis disappears with a yell, crackling like white embers in the path of his blade, and Gladio is impressed for the second it takes the Prince to tumble out of the warp, reappearing in an explosion of light and profanities as he crashes into the flat edge of Gladio’s blade.
Gladio raises a single eyebrow.
“Oh shut up,” Noctis hisses before anything can be said. His wayward sword vanishes with a flick of his wrist, and with another, he yanks it out of his arsenal again. He’s got that much down at least - if only he could move himself so effortlessly when warping between his weapons.
Gladio gives Noctis a minute to swear at the ceiling before nudging him to his feet. “Again. Try not to knock yourself out this time.”
“Piss off.”
“Show me a warp an’ maybe I will.”
Noctis scoffs, bearing his teeth. A growl rumbles deep in his throat, the sound like a wolf stalking forth. Despite his suppressants, despite his training and his titanium spine, Gladio jerks at the thunderous sound, every single muscle in his body tensing. His stomach churning and teeth grinding teeth, he is paralysed by the look in the Prince’s eyes for a second - just a second and no more, but a second too long - before he throws caution to the wind and swings his greatsword around, slamming it against Noctis’ sword.
The Prince barely manages to parry the blow. The two blades crash together, metal grinding metal, and Noctis yelps as Gladio shoves him across the hall; he stumbles, throwing an arm out to catch himself, and something cracks in the half-second before his sword flickers into a warp, Noctis’ body shattering into light behind it. He warps a few feet away, heaving and hunched over his sword, but then lets out a laugh when he realises what he just achieved.
Gladio marches over and hauls him up by the scruff of his collar. “I heard something snap,” he asserts over the Prince’s protesting, scanning the squirming teenager with a critical eye. “You broke anything?”
“No, no - get off me. It was just my sword. I’m fine.”
“Good,” Gladio says, before sweeping his greatsword under Noctis’ feet and sending the boy crashing back onto the floor. Noctis grunts, a genuine sound of pain this time, but Gladio doesn’t give a damn with the sound of an Alpha still ringing in his ears. “Try to Influence me again and I’ll try to break something.”
“What - but -” Noctis sucks in a sharp breath, his eyes goggling. “I swear I didn’t mean -”
He stops, clamping teeth down onto his lip. Deciding not to grace that with an answer, Gladio says nothing either, leaving the Prince and Shield staring at one another for a long, agonising moment.
“I’m -” Noctis tries. “Err -”
Something in Gladio’s chest twists at the kid’s mortification. He sighs, almost wishing that he hadn’t reacted now, but he also can’t deny the satisfaction he feels at the Prince learning his lesson. “All right, that’s enough for today. Cool down time - get walking.”
Noctis scrambles to his feet, but then hesitates in the shadow of Gladio’s towering figure. His mouth is twisted downwards, eyebrows knitted together. “Ignis is teaching me to… be an Alpha,” he mumbles, unable to meet Gladio’s hawkish gaze.
Gladio was already aware of that aspect to Ignis’ duties, but he plays along. “Yeah? Guess he needs to do a better job.”
“It’s not his fault!” Noctis snaps, and Gladio would smirk at how quickly he rises to Ignis’ defence were he not trying to prove a point. “I’m - new to this.”
Well that’s not up for debate. “That ain’t an excuse. What if I’d been an Omega? No - come on, the King can Influence other Alphas, so you probably can too. You need to control your instincts or someone’s gonna get hurt. Iggy and I ain’t teaching you self-discipline for fun you know.”
He throws the Prince a bottle of water, speaking harsh and true. The fact that he is an Omega isn’t important right now; an Alpha’s Influence is one that few Betas can deny, let alone Omegas, and if Noctis is to be a King for his people then he cannot exert his power over every single person that challenges him.
Astrals above, enough blood has been shed from Alphas and Omegas butting heads throughout history.
“I know,” Noctis says, glaring at the bottle instead of Gladio, as he usually would.
Gladio figures that’s as close to an apology as he’s going to get.
Re: FILL: Gladio/Prompto, Gladio/Any: Gladio as hidden Omega (5/?)
Ignis Presents as an Alpha.
“I suppose we cannot always get what we want,” is all he has to say about it.
Ignis’ Role changes little about their friendship. If his heightened senses give him any indication that Gladio is taking suppressants, then he says nothing about it. The fact that he says nothing suggests to Gladio that he isn’t aware; for all that Ignis is a quiet, warm-hearted teenager who prefers the company of books to people, he is an Alpha, and Gladio doesn’t think Ignis would have any reservations about backing him into a corner and inflicting the interrogation of a lifetime were he to learn that Gladio has been avoiding his heats.
Suppressants are perfectly legal, but they’re usually used in moderation - for a week or two, or maybe a month at most. There are many reasons why an Omega may wish to suppress a heat at any given time - maybe they’re going on holiday, maybe they’re due to give a speech, maybe they’re a student sitting their final exams - but suppressing one’s nature as an Omega altogether is uncommon. Gladio is sure he isn’t the first; the nurse hadn’t so much as batted an eyelash at his father’s request, so there must be other Omegas of nobility that take advantage of their wealth. Of course, the very motivation behind suppressing his Role means he has no idea who these other Omegas may be; he doesn’t particularly want to know, but at the same time, he has questions that he could only bear to ask an Omega to answer.
Being surrounded by Alphas all day is taxing. Gladio never realised just how many there are in the Crownsguard, the Kingsglaive, and even the Council. His initial panic over the suppressants spontaneously failing him wore off after a few weeks, but that isn’t to say their effectiveness fluctuates over time. Three or four hours after a dose tends to be when the tablets are at their most effective, masking his scent to the point where some Alphas (and Omegas) cannot smell him at all. Gladio rearranges his schedule to take advantage of this period, hitting the gym or dominating the training hall without fear of overwhelming the medication’s efforts by sweating a puddle into the floor. The effects wane towards the end of the day, so Gladio trains the Prince after lunch and then studies into the evening, reluctant to push his body beyond what the suppressants can cope with.
As a Sworn Shield, this isn’t always easy. His duties increase as he hits sixteen, passes seventeen, and sweats and learns and fights his way to eighteen. He spends less time training with his father and more time with the Crownsguard, running laps, getting beaten into the ground and beating others in return, and surviving many tedious hours patrolling the walls, surveying the streets, and guarding the gates into the citadel. Night patrols are the worst. A morning person by nature, happy to wake with the dawn when the world is quiet and the day is new, Gladio grumbles at every evening assignment. It doesn’t help that he never patrols alone - Crownsguard units are a minimum of three people, and Gladio has yet to encounter a unit without at least one Alpha. He has nothing against the pair that he is often assigned with - a man and a woman, a Beta and Alpha respectively - but he wouldn’t go as far as to call them friends. Naturally social, Gladio does enjoy meeting people. He enjoys working with people, looking out for them, learning about them; people are fascinating, and Gladio can count on one hand the number of people who he wouldn’t take out for a drink just to listen to them talk.
He trusts his Crownsguard unit to have his back on a patrol, and yet, once the uniforms are off, they go their separate ways. Gladio doesn’t mind. He understands the need to separate work and home lives, and he’s sure that his duty to the Prince casts him in an intimidating, untouchable light. He doesn’t have the luxury of ‘switching off’ outside of the nine-to-five working day. Sure, he has time to himself, time which he spends with his family, wandering the city, or buried in a book, but as the Prince’s Sworn Shield, he is always on call.
He loves it. He’s proud to serve the Crown.
But that doesn’t make the newly Presented, fifteen-year-old Alpha Prince and heir to the Lucis Caelum line any less of a goddamn little shit to deal with.
Gladio understands that the Crown of Lucis and the Ring of Lucii are heavy burdens that the Prince will have to bear one day. The Crystal is a merciless guardian of this kingdom, offering the unyielding protection of the Wall in return for the lifeforce of the Royal family. With the Amicitia family living so intimately with the King and Prince, their family home tucked into the heart of the citadel, Clarus and Gladio never more than a phone call away, Gladio has seen the toll that the Crystal has on the King. Over these last few years, the King has seemed to age a decade, wrinkles replacing his lines of laughter, silver hair creeping into his midnight black. Gone is the King of Gladio’s childhood who lounged over sofas and chased the Prince down the halls. His cane has become a necessity to his Royal attire, and some days Gladio sees the King struggling with walking still, lingering after a council on legs that labour to hold him.
Gladio hates to think that the King’s time has come, but the Line of Lucis Caelum is one of mortality and grief. Prince Noctis may have to ascend the throne at the dawn of his adulthood - and if he does, then Gladio will make sure he’s ready.
Even if it means beating responsibility into the kid.
“Get up. Come at me again,” Gladio orders, hefting the greatsword over his shoulder. It’s not his beloved custom-made, gold-embellished blade by any means, but it does the trick for training. Granted, he could probably parry the Prince’s blows with a twig, but he doesn’t want to dishearten the kid - more than he has already, at any least.
Noctis huffs, heaving himself up from the floor. Frustration tightens his grip on his sword and pride keeps his head high despite this seemingly-futile endeavour, but his stance is solid at any rate, his footwork swift and unmatched.
Were he not sparring the man who taught him.
“This is stupid,” the Prince grumbles, rolling the sword in his hand. “It’s never going to work. We’ve been at this for hours.”
Here we go, Gladio despairs. “It’s going to work because it has to,” he counters, refusing to budge an inch at the snarl. Noctis has a mean temper when he’s frustrated, but luckily for Gladio, so does he. “What sort of King will you be if you can’t warp?”
“I’m not a King.”
“You’re gonna be sooner or -”
A sword flashes past Gladio’s shoulder, a bolt of lightning striking blue. Noctis disappears with a yell, crackling like white embers in the path of his blade, and Gladio is impressed for the second it takes the Prince to tumble out of the warp, reappearing in an explosion of light and profanities as he crashes into the flat edge of Gladio’s blade.
Gladio raises a single eyebrow.
“Oh shut up,” Noctis hisses before anything can be said. His wayward sword vanishes with a flick of his wrist, and with another, he yanks it out of his arsenal again. He’s got that much down at least - if only he could move himself so effortlessly when warping between his weapons.
Gladio gives Noctis a minute to swear at the ceiling before nudging him to his feet. “Again. Try not to knock yourself out this time.”
“Piss off.”
“Show me a warp an’ maybe I will.”
Noctis scoffs, bearing his teeth. A growl rumbles deep in his throat, the sound like a wolf stalking forth. Despite his suppressants, despite his training and his titanium spine, Gladio jerks at the thunderous sound, every single muscle in his body tensing. His stomach churning and teeth grinding teeth, he is paralysed by the look in the Prince’s eyes for a second - just a second and no more, but a second too long - before he throws caution to the wind and swings his greatsword around, slamming it against Noctis’ sword.
The Prince barely manages to parry the blow. The two blades crash together, metal grinding metal, and Noctis yelps as Gladio shoves him across the hall; he stumbles, throwing an arm out to catch himself, and something cracks in the half-second before his sword flickers into a warp, Noctis’ body shattering into light behind it. He warps a few feet away, heaving and hunched over his sword, but then lets out a laugh when he realises what he just achieved.
Gladio marches over and hauls him up by the scruff of his collar. “I heard something snap,” he asserts over the Prince’s protesting, scanning the squirming teenager with a critical eye. “You broke anything?”
“No, no - get off me. It was just my sword. I’m fine.”
“Good,” Gladio says, before sweeping his greatsword under Noctis’ feet and sending the boy crashing back onto the floor. Noctis grunts, a genuine sound of pain this time, but Gladio doesn’t give a damn with the sound of an Alpha still ringing in his ears. “Try to Influence me again and I’ll try to break something.”
“What - but -” Noctis sucks in a sharp breath, his eyes goggling. “I swear I didn’t mean -”
He stops, clamping teeth down onto his lip. Deciding not to grace that with an answer, Gladio says nothing either, leaving the Prince and Shield staring at one another for a long, agonising moment.
“I’m -” Noctis tries. “Err -”
Something in Gladio’s chest twists at the kid’s mortification. He sighs, almost wishing that he hadn’t reacted now, but he also can’t deny the satisfaction he feels at the Prince learning his lesson. “All right, that’s enough for today. Cool down time - get walking.”
Noctis scrambles to his feet, but then hesitates in the shadow of Gladio’s towering figure. His mouth is twisted downwards, eyebrows knitted together. “Ignis is teaching me to… be an Alpha,” he mumbles, unable to meet Gladio’s hawkish gaze.
Gladio was already aware of that aspect to Ignis’ duties, but he plays along. “Yeah? Guess he needs to do a better job.”
“It’s not his fault!” Noctis snaps, and Gladio would smirk at how quickly he rises to Ignis’ defence were he not trying to prove a point. “I’m - new to this.”
Well that’s not up for debate. “That ain’t an excuse. What if I’d been an Omega? No - come on, the King can Influence other Alphas, so you probably can too. You need to control your instincts or someone’s gonna get hurt. Iggy and I ain’t teaching you self-discipline for fun you know.”
He throws the Prince a bottle of water, speaking harsh and true. The fact that he is an Omega isn’t important right now; an Alpha’s Influence is one that few Betas can deny, let alone Omegas, and if Noctis is to be a King for his people then he cannot exert his power over every single person that challenges him.
Astrals above, enough blood has been shed from Alphas and Omegas butting heads throughout history.
“I know,” Noctis says, glaring at the bottle instead of Gladio, as he usually would.
Gladio figures that’s as close to an apology as he’s going to get.
-xv-