#silvershots

The evening had already begun to wind down, all of them sated and full of foreign fare, settled with a nightcap of the finest brandy Ignis had ever tasted. There was a gracelessness, a silent strain that endured between them still, that hung between them like spiderwebs: impalpable, but inconvenient on the skin. Was it stubbornness that united them? An obstinate declension to give in to the sorrow of their newfound discomfort, where an easy amity had always existed between them? It was a question for another night.

It was about that time, if his inner clock were to be believed. Though, Ignis was in truth a little eager to be out of their company if only because he preferred the quiet of solitude without this awkward tension. He’d been retiring earlier these days, now that his evening ablutions and preparations took nearly twice a long now, with the impairment of his vision. “If you’ll excuse me,” Ignis said softly, as though he was loathe to disturb the tentative, trenchant peace between them. 

Gladio lay in the dark, staring up at the ceiling to lose himself in the flickers of light reflecting off the shifting surface of the canal just outside his window. There was a capriciousness to the way they danced, flitted and flew across the cerulean ceiling like a sky, and Gladio envied their carelessness. 

In his hand, lay the onerous weight of his father’s medal in the palm of his hand. His thumb passed over the cabochons of rubies and red diamonds, across the brilliantly-cut baguettes of stunning clarity, of volutes and scrolls wrought in dark, alloyed gold. 

The Order of the Lucentine was an award meted for exceptional valor, and was the only commendation his father earned out of direct service to the king. The riband had been lost, but Gladio remembered it from portraits of his younger father: a wide, crimson sash edged in gold, fastened regally across his chest. He was reminded, somewhere within his tormenting contemplations of the ceiling, that his father had been his age when he’d earned it. 

It was too much. The quiet, the solitude, the intrusive memories that flooded him, the phantom voice of his father humming thickly, indiscernibly in his ears, though his skin knew he weight and warmth of his muted wisdoms. In his recollections, Gladio could only remember his father speaking to him in aphorisms and witticisms, taking every opportunity to import his encyclopedic knowledge of a thousand eruditions. Like he was a robot more than he was  father. Gladio had always wondered if he was anything more than a Shield. Had even scorned him a little for being so single-minded. Now he wished he could remember every adage and axiom he’d ever said, and cherish them as he should have.

The train is irritatingly rickety. Or, perhaps it is simply so because there isn’t much else for Ignis to focus on – outside of all the other obvious things he ought to be focusing on. He can hear the clicking of the gears, the tremble of luggage balanced precariously above their heads – glasses at the bar clinking together. Everything to hear, and yet he feels quite as if he’s isolated in complete silence. 

Noctis has taken to pacing the length of the entire train in his bout of anger. Ignis does not blame him in the least for needing some space around Gladio – he has no idea how it must feel to be Noctis in this moment. The immense pressure and immediacy of all that has befallen them. They’ve lost everything, each one of them, and they’ve absolutely no one to fall back on. Astrals sake, they’re all merely children in this war, and now they make for Gralea – the heart of this war, with no clue whether they’ll be able to do a damned thing to help there.

His heart aches for Noctis – the pressure to succeed – to be the Bringer of Dawn as he has been named… None of them can imagine what might happen if he fails.

Gladio, Ignis knows, has stormed off to bed presumably. If his own growing fatigue is anything to go by it must be getting quite late in the evening. Last time he asked Prompto it had been 8PM. It feels far later now.

It’s as he feels movement beside him that his thoughts turn to Prompto, who has been unerringly at his side these past few weeks. Ignis has never felt terribly close to Prompto – not in any sort of meaningful way, after all, but paradoxically these past few weeks have seen them spending more time together than they ever have before. Likely because they have no one else as they’re forced to watch Gladio and Noctis tear themselves apart.

It wasn’t till they’d gotten to the RV that night that Gladio noticed something different. Stuffed to the gills with Ignis’s impossibly good Fried Frontier Skewers and nearly-cold beer, Gladio sank down gratefully into the folding chair, the metal frame digging cruelly into his shoulders, eliciting a groan of displeasure and a frown from his lips.

But even more miserable was the look on Prompto’s face. It wasn’t often that he pulled those serious-looking faces, so when he did, it was something of a marked importance to him. Coupled with that realization that he hadn’t heard him say very much at all the last few hours. Like going camping and realizing how much you missed the hum of electricity that always more a comfort than you realized. 

The flames of fire pit cast shadows that only exaggerated the knit of his brows, the jut of his lip, and Gladio reached absently for his smokes through a sigh.