#years***

@aegisregalis​  //  stop tryna hurt my heart !

Nyx waits at the bar, turning the scratched lowball glass within his fingers, marking the scrape of glass against the uneven grain of the wood. He can barely hear it over the din of soldiers, glaives and guards alike, hooting and hollering over emptied crates and overturned glasses of whatever moonshine passes for liquor these days.

Gladio slips into the seat beside him, signals the bartender for a drink. Nyx manages a sidelong glance in his direction before one of the more inebriated patrons is barreling into Gladio, shunting him hard into Nyx’s side.

His hand brushes Nyx’s scarred fingers before he can stop the momentum, and he hastily jerks it away, curled defensively into a fist held close to his heart now. Gladio’s already holding his hands up in apology, shifting away to give him some space, but there’s a dejection, a despondency in the stretch of the beautiful, empty smile, and Nyx can’t help but feel guilty over it.

“Sorry,” Gladio says aloud, situating himself properly upon the stool, as though the silent apology wasn’t enough.

Nyx shakes his head, frowning. This doesn’t feel right to him. “It’s alright,” he assures him, staring hard at his too-pale whiskey before downing it in one. It’s the perfect amount of courage to find, in order to ask the question that had been lingering on his mind for a month now. “We know each other don’t we?”

He knows the answer implicitly. There had been no mistaking the certainty in his eyes that day that Nyx raised the barricade to allow Gladio in. Or that half-choked sob at the sight of him. Or the way he rushed to Nyx’s side, catching him up in a furious embrace that nearly strangled the life from his lungs.

In his rosy retrospection, Nyx had reveled in it, had returned the ardor with arms that curled around his sinewy shoulders. But he hadn’t known why he did. And yet doesn’t.

Gladio can’t lie. And doesn’t want to. But the truth is almost equally difficult to achieve. So he stares a little too intently at his watered-down drink and laughs quietly to himself. “Once upon a time, yeah.” He almost regrets his choice of words. Sounds like a fairytale. So he shifts and takes a sip of his liquor and waits for better inspiration to hit him. “Let’s just say the fact that we found each other is a miracle.”