Gladio shrugs. "You know what I was like before I was with you, and I wasn't exactly model boyfriend material then," he replies, shifting his hold on the packages slightly to get a better grip. "And at this stage in your life, you haven't been with me that long to know how solid our relationship is. Besides, we were half-joking at the time. I didn't take it as a fully serious accusation because it wasn't one, was it?"
He hesitates, glancing sidelong at Ignis. He doesn't want to damage Iggy's trust right after the man literally just praised Gladio for giving him no reason to doubt, but...at the same time, pretending there's been nothing going on while they're talking like this would feel a lot more like actively lying to Iggy than not clarifying what he'd said earlier that had...apparently managed to fly even under Ignis' hyper-sensitive radar. "I did say," he says, slowly, noting that Iggy's hands are currently full of groceries and deciding that may grant him some measure of safety, "that I've been sleeping alone pretty much the whole time. There's been one exception. But...I'd have never made any exceptions if you and I hadn't discussed it. Later on in our relationship than you are, though, I think, so...you might have to take my word for that one."
He takes a deep breath. "You mean everything to me, Iggy. I wouldn't risk messing up our relationship - or even want anything outside our relationship - for just anyone. But there's a couple people who mean a lot to both of us, people we've talked about our feelings for together, where...we kind of indicated to each other that if the circumstances were ever right, we'd go for it, and we'd be okay with that." Now comes the real hurdle, and no Amicitia has ever stared death in the eyes more directly. Not even his father, literally dying defending his own king. "Noct's one of them. And...the circumstances ended up right. He came to me, and that's the only way I think either of us would ever have considered it at all. You know I put my duty first as much as you do. But when it's something Noct wants...maybe some things are more important than our duty.
"I don't know if this is something that you're - at a point in your life where you can accept, when we never had the conversations I've had with older you, but that's where my head was at. For the record." And then Gladio lapses into an uneasy silence, waiting for whatever fallout might come.
Iggy probably won't just drop the bags to lunge at him. He'll bruise the fruit.
no subject
He hesitates, glancing sidelong at Ignis. He doesn't want to damage Iggy's trust right after the man literally just praised Gladio for giving him no reason to doubt, but...at the same time, pretending there's been nothing going on while they're talking like this would feel a lot more like actively lying to Iggy than not clarifying what he'd said earlier that had...apparently managed to fly even under Ignis' hyper-sensitive radar. "I did say," he says, slowly, noting that Iggy's hands are currently full of groceries and deciding that may grant him some measure of safety, "that I've been sleeping alone pretty much the whole time. There's been one exception. But...I'd have never made any exceptions if you and I hadn't discussed it. Later on in our relationship than you are, though, I think, so...you might have to take my word for that one."
He takes a deep breath. "You mean everything to me, Iggy. I wouldn't risk messing up our relationship - or even want anything outside our relationship - for just anyone. But there's a couple people who mean a lot to both of us, people we've talked about our feelings for together, where...we kind of indicated to each other that if the circumstances were ever right, we'd go for it, and we'd be okay with that." Now comes the real hurdle, and no Amicitia has ever stared death in the eyes more directly. Not even his father, literally dying defending his own king. "Noct's one of them. And...the circumstances ended up right. He came to me, and that's the only way I think either of us would ever have considered it at all. You know I put my duty first as much as you do. But when it's something Noct wants...maybe some things are more important than our duty.
"I don't know if this is something that you're - at a point in your life where you can accept, when we never had the conversations I've had with older you, but that's where my head was at. For the record." And then Gladio lapses into an uneasy silence, waiting for whatever fallout might come.
Iggy probably won't just drop the bags to lunge at him. He'll bruise the fruit.