Chapter Text
The fight was normal, at least insofar as a fight with a malboro can be normal. They'd gone through more than a few remedies, as the whole group was in the strike zone for a breath attack, but they'd come out on the other side none the worse for wear. Ignis' skin was still a little bit—a lot—itchy as he made his way back to camp, but other than that, all systems seemed to be go.
At least that was what he thought.
For all the times he'd told Noctis not to scratch when his skin itched like this, he couldn't seem to help rubbing at his arms with gloved hands. It was odd. His skin didn't appear any different than usual, nor did it look out of the ordinary in general, but he couldn't help but rub at it open-palmed to try and get rid of the irritation. As he strode up the hill to get to camp and begin preparing dinner, he couldn't help but notice that the itching changed to a bit of a crawling feeling. He kept things under wraps as best he could, but from the corner of his eye, he couldn't help but notice that Gladio seemed to be experiencing a similar discomfort.
In all the years that Ignis had known him, he had never been terribly adept at hiding when he was suffering physical discomfort. Pain, sure. All the bruises and aches that Ignis had tended to over the years, if enumerated, could easily run past normal human counting ability. But put the man in discomfort as simple as itching, and he turned into a veritable twelve-year-old. Admittedly, Ignis had always found it equal parts silly... and endearing.
But what was there to hide? The pair had been in a relationship for far, far longer than Ignis ever expected their relationship to last. It had initially started as something casual; a way to blow off steam when there was less time in the day than there was steam to blow off. They'd had private time in Gladio's bedroom, moments on the back balcony of Ignis' apartment, and more recently (and slightly more excitingly) trysts in the woods a ways from camp. Those were somewhat difficult to hide from Noctis and Prompto, but they'd managed so far.
And for some odd, inexplicable reason, thinking of those romantic trysts had Ignis' skin tingling instead of the crawling it had been doing.
He spared a glance Gladio's way, to see Gladio looking back at him, and cleared his throat. "I dare say you look rather discomposed, Gladio," he announced in a hushed whisper. Noctis and Prompto were far enough back not to hear, despite being oddly quiet for the pair of them, and had Ignis been in control of his senses, he probably would have wondered about that.
As it stood, he couldn't have cared less.
"Look who's talkin'," Gladio responded, his gruff voice holding a very familiar tone. "You're lookin' a little bit out of it yourself, Iggy."
A fair assessment. 'Out of it' was definitely fair. From itching to crawling, crawling to tingling, tingling to... very, very warm, Ignis' whole body was confusing him quite thoroughly. "Indeed," he responded. "At first I thought that perhaps it was a side effect from the malboro's breath." A side effect that, of course, he'd never encountered or read of before... but it was a simple enough explanation in the moment. "But now I'm not so sure."
Initially, Gladio only responded with a chuckle. "You often get hot and bothered from malboro attacks?" he asked, a tiny hint of amusement behind his hungry tone.
Ignis huffed. "I should say not," he responded, aiming for incredulity but falling short. "Though I don't think you should be talking, if that tone of voice is what I recognize it to be." A knowing smirk crossed his face. Behind his words was an accusation. If anyone's hot and bothered, his eyes said, it's very much you.
"What're you thinkin'?" Gladio asked—demanded, almost—casting his eyes behind him to catch a glimpse at Noctis and Prompto.
Ignis' eyes followed. Both the prince and his best friend looked uncomfortable in their own right, but for once, Ignis' own body wouldn't let his concern about Noctis take charge. "I think," he intimated, "that we need to go check that nearby funguar patch we found, for mushrooms. For dinner."
Gladio's singular nod was the only response he needed, and he turned to look at the others with an attempt at a calm expression. "Gladio and I are going to go to the brush over there," he announced, pointing toward the nearby bushes with another nod. "There were some mushrooms that I found in there earlier that I think would be perfect for dinner." He cast a glance between Noctis and Prompto, and was sorely tempted not to wait for an answer.
But Prompto gave one. "Do, um... do you need help?" he asked, his voice a little bit choked.
"No!" Gladio responded, a little too quickly. A little too fervently. "No," he repeated, calmer this time. "Thanks. I think, uh... I think the two of us should be able to get it—them—the mushrooms—just fine."
Hardly the composed Gladio that he'd always known, but somehow that made Ignis all the more eager to get out of company and into privacy. Perhaps not the most subtle response, but Ignis took off in a half-run toward the treeline. From the corner of his eye, he saw Gladio moving rather swiftly as well. He was hardly the smallest person, but he could move as swiftly and agilely as Ignis himself if the situation presented itself. Ignis had seen this exact situation present itself more than a few times in the past.
They were barely to the trees when a hand reached out and grabbed Ignis by the shoulder. Ignis turned, only to be pulled flush against Gladio's familiar body, and have Gladio's familiar lips crushed against his in a bruising kiss—a kiss that knocked the breath clean out of his lungs—but he couldn't have cared less if he tried. His hands reached around, grabbing hold of Gladio's ass and pulling him closer. In the closeness, he could feel Gladio's interest pressing against him, and his own interest grew even more in response.
With a grunt of half-satisfaction, Gladio looked down at Ignis, eyes twinkling eagerly. "Not sure why, but I couldn't wait until tonight..." he intoned.
The only response verbal response he could give in the moment was an agreeing grunt, as he reached down for the buckle of Gladio's belt. Maybe he should have been embarrassed by the fact that a man as eloquent as he usually was couldn't come up with anything to say beyond a primal noise of approval. At the moment, though, he wasn't. His brain was fogged over and his body was overtaken by the discomfort that came along with this intense an arousal.
Fortunately, the belt was one that Ignis was familiar with the machinations to, so he made swift work of opening it, the metallic scraping noises catching his attention. He glanced down and watched his own hands work for a second, then moved to the button of Gladio's jeans. He could almost see the vague relief on his lover's face when the tightness of his pants was released a little bit. The interest, of course, hadn't waned, but at the very least it wasn't trapped in far-too-tight-to-be-fair jeans anymore. His boxer briefs clearly outlined exactly how eager he was, and Ignis' teeth raked over his lower lip.
Gladio, with jeans pooled around his ankles, backed Ignis into a nearby tree, before hitting his knees in the grass and making quick work of unbuttoning Ignis' pants. He smirked. "I like it when you go commando," he mused.
A breath of laughter was Ignis' initial response—and his only response, too, because in the same second, Gladio has reached into his pants. The warmth against his interest made his breath hitch, but he didn't suffer for long, because Gladio's mouth surrounded him shortly thereafter. One of Ignis' hands gripped the trunk of the tree as best he could, and the other came to rest in Gladio's hair. A quiet sigh escaped, as his head rolled back to hit the tree. The clouds rolled past his vision for a second before the heat, moisture and pressure of Gladio's mouth around him made him slide them closed.
"Incredible," he whispered into the sky. "Feels... incredible." Heat still crawled throughout his body like some kind of virus, but Gladio's attentions felt so amazing that it was easy to ignore. Easier, anyway.
A hum of a response around his length made him breathe a shuddering breath and chuckle a single note. "Not fair," he gasped. Gladio knew exactly how much he loved that, and was doing it just to torment him.
Ignis was usually a man of stamina. But between the initial, still unexplained, haze that he'd felt since returning to camp and the eagerness Gladio seemed to be displaying, too, his stamina was left wanting, and he found himself nearing the precipice far faster than usual. "Gladio, I'm... I'm afraid that I can't..." It was supposed to be a warning, that he was near the edge, but he wasn't sure if it came off that way at all.
That was, until Gladio made another soft humming noise—one of encouragement this time—not moving his mouth off of Ignis' flesh. That was enough to make Ignis' eyes flutter closed again, as waves of elation worked their way through his body. His knees buckled, and he felt the cool air of the outdoor breeze hitting his most sensitive area as it fell from Gladio's mouth. Gladio's hands on his hips, supporting him, were the only things keeping him from falling to the ground. Not only that, but the discomfort he'd been feeling was completely and totally replaced with the haze of post-coital high. Gladio, though, seemed to still be quite uncomfortable.
A gentle laugh escaped, and he flicked his eyes down to his love's. "Now," he breathed, still trying to find air as he came down from climax. "I see that you're still in a great deal of discomfort. Why don't we-" He paused long enough to help Gladio to his feet from the ground, then flashed an all-too-familiar smirk- "attend to that?"
Gladio seemed to have been hoping for that answer, and he nodded eagerly in response. He pressed back against Ignis and pinned him to the tree, smirking before leaning down to press still-hungry lips to Ignis' chin, his jaw, just below his ear... even without whatever was making them go so crazy, those kisses were threatening to bring him right back to that crazed state.
Strong hands turned his body around, and one came to rest on his hip. For an all-too-long couple of seconds, Ignis wondered about the lack of contact from anything else but Gladio's hand, but when he reached into the small pack attached to the left thigh of his jeans (which had been cast to the ground somewhere amidst the desperate touches), Ignis knew why. The small, almost empty tube of lubricant told him exactly how many times they'd slipped away like this on this trip so far, but he honestly couldn't give less of a damn.
For a moment, he lamented the loss of the remaining contact when Gladio removed the remaining hand from his side. But a cursory glance found that Gladio was very, very quickly lubing himself up and unceremoniously casting the tube to the ground. His eagerness elicited another laugh from Ignis, but that quickly changed to a groan of approval when Gladio's body pinned him to the tree again and he felt the slick length of Gladio's interest pressed against him. With one hand still on Ignis' hip, Gladio reached the other down to properly line himself up. With a motion that was simultaneously gentle and not, Gladio arched his hips forward.
The familiar feeling of fullness definitely brought Ignis' own interest back, and in the limited space between him and the tree, he reached down to place a hand on his own length. Gladio's breaths matched his movement, Ignis' hand moved in the same time, and as Gladio's tip stroked against his sweet spot, it was all he could do to keep his voice down as so not to alert the whole woods around them of what was happening.
Gladio found his way to the edge first, with a groan that echoed just slightly into the empty space around them. His hips, too, rocked forward and back for as long as he could ride out his climax, and that provided Ignis with exactly as much time as he needed to reach a second one. With what was intended as a sigh of approval (which strangled short and came out as a a shuddering gasp) Ignis came once more, and relaxed where he was pinned against the tree. The breathed in opposite time; Ignis in, Gladio out, and vice-versa, enjoying the post-coital haze for a few moments longer.
It seemed as though Gladio was the one to collect himself first, so he rocked his hips slightly to pull himself from inside of Ignis, then turned Ignis in his arms to kiss him lazily. Ignis closed his eyes and smiled against Gladio's lips, his eyes fluttering open when they broke apart. "Well. I'm still not sure exactly what brought that on," he admitted, "but I honestly don't care."
Gladio gathered his pants from the ground, and Ignis leaned down to collect his own from around his ankles, pulling them back up. "Me either," Gladio agreed. "It'd been a little while, anyway." He smirked a lopsided smirk, one which always seemed to make Ignis' heart stutter a little bit.
He responded with a chuckle, though. "A few days," he retorted.
With a nod, Gladio said, "yeah. Too long."
Sharing a soft laugh, the pair of them headed back toward the camp site. Ignis' legs were a little wobbly still, yes, and Gladio used his clean hand to straighten his hair, but they needed to get back before Prompto and Noctis got suspicious. At least, Ignis had assumed that much, until they got within earshot of the camp.
Prompto's voice carried to the bottom of the hill. "Noct," he breathed, in what should have probably been an intone. "That... it feels nice."
Ignis and Gladio exchanged amused expression, and Gladio smiled a highly entertained smile before beckoning Ignis away from the tent. A few steps away, Ignis murmured, "we forgot the mushrooms, anyway."