I read Odds and Ends and absolutely loved how you write the boys! (Especially Ignis, but that’s not cause he’s my fav or anything, what are you talking about) if you’re still taking prompts, would you consider one where Iggys a Kitsune? I swear I saw something like that before and I’m hooked on his beautiful foxy face

asidian:

Author’s Notes: Thank you so much! I’m so glad you enjoy my writing. 🙂

Sorry for the delay on this prompt, but I hope it’s something close to what you were looking for. ❤

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Fox Fire

===

The first time Gladio sees the fox, he’s fourteen years old.

He’s in the woods at the time, just one member of a search party combing the area. The prince’s advisor-to-be has gone missing; no one’s seen him for two days.

It’s kind of a big deal. Gladio’s met Ignis, once or twice. He can’t picture the starched-shirt, straight-backed boy running off to let his hair down for the weekend – and neither, he guesses, can Noct. The prince is all of eleven years old, and trails the search party to the Citadel gates to see them off.

Gladio overhears his voice, usually a study in practiced nonchalance, kind of tremble when he asks the king how long it’ll be before Ignis comes home.

The kid’s a brat at the best of times, but he worries for his people, apparently – and as far as Gladio’s concerned, that’s a point in his favor.

So now here they are, tearing Insomnia apart to find a missing boy. There are glaives combing the downtown center, and Crownsguard going door to door in the residential areas. And here they are, in the little wooded plot of land nestled just to the west of the Citadel, a spacious park in the heart of a bustling city. Here they are, and all Gladio can think is: if they’re having us look here, we’re looking for a body.

He’s not crazy about Ignis, but he doesn’t want to find his corpse. Sure, the kid’s kind of a know-it-all; he’s stuffy, and way too proper, and kind of a mother hen, even though he’s a year younger than Gladio.

But Astrals, he hopes they don’t find a body. He doesn’t want to see that carefully-combed hair all mussed up and matted with blood.

Thank all the gods, a body’s not in the cards today. Instead, Gladio finds something else.

His first hint is the sound: a low, whining growl. When Gladio turns away, making to ignore it, it gets louder – turns into a yip, bright and urgent, tight with pain.

Still, there’s a search to conduct; he doesn’t have time to hang out with the local wildlife. But the yip comes again, and a whine so pathetic he can’t help but shove aside the leaves of the bush to his right, trying to get a look at where the sound’s coming from.

What he finds is a fox, the fur a sleek, pale brown, like coffee with cream – matted, and gnarled, like it’s been struggling for a while. It’s not fully grown, still gangling and awkward with the early stages of adolescence, and its eyes are an odd moss green, bright with intelligence and pain.

The left rear leg is caught in a hunter’s trap, one of those ugly steel monsters with unforgiving teeth. They’re supposed to be illegal within the wall, to say nothing of a city park. No telling whether some unlucky kid might stumble into one and lose a foot.

“Well, shit,” says Gladio.

The fox whines, as if to say it agrees.

He considers it for a long moment, nonplussed. At last he says, “You gonna bite me, if I try and get this off you? I kinda don’t want rabies.”

The fox whines again. It reaches with its front paw to touch the trap, gingerly, and stares up at him with those wide green eyes.

“Okay,” says Gladio, after a beat. “But I’m taking that as a promise.”

Astrals be damned, the thing actually doesn’t bite him. It keens like its dying when he pries the steel jaws open, but it doesn’t make a single threatening move.

If he had time, he’d take it to a vet and see what they could do for that leg. But he’s got a missing person to find, and people take priority, so he says to the fox, “You gotta be more careful, next time.” Then, not knowing why he feels the need to explain, he adds: “I gotta go.”

The fox is just kind of lying there, panting, beneath the low branches of the bush. It twists around to get a look at its leg – whines, and twists back, and sets its head down. It reminds him a little of the way someone squeamish might get, at the sight of too much blood.

“Got places to be,” says Gladio. “I can’t take you with me.”

The fox doesn’t move, and Gladio, frowning, leaves it there to press on with the search.

The night drags on, and on. No one finds a body.

Around noon the next day, Ignis limps his way into the front gates of the Citadel, looking like he’s gone a couple rounds with a Jabberwock. Gladio isn’t there, but he hears the story from the Crownsguard on duty.

He hears all about the way Ignis blushes to his ears when he says he stepped on a manhole cover that wasn’t on properly, went down hard, and messed up his leg too bad to walk home. Word is, he apologizes to the king personally, for all the trouble.

It’s kind of a big deal; the leg’s broken, and he needs stitches. The king passes some new legislation about safety regulations for city property.

They heal Ignis up with magic, so he only spends a week or so on crutches.

And that, Gladio thinks, is that.

===

The second time Gladio sees the fox, he’s nineteen years old.

He’s had a little too much to drink. Or okay, maybe lot too much to drink. He’s kind of thinking someone at the gala for the new Crownsguard recruits spiked the punch, cause he’s a big guy, and he’s damn near falling down with it after just four cups.

He figures it’s okay, though. Noct’s safe in his room at the Citadel, with other guards to take care of him, and Gladio – well, it’s Gladio’s night off.

If he wants to get smashed now and then so he doesn’t have to think about the way Ignis looks in formalwear, all starched collar and narrow tie and perfectly manicured hands, well. That’s his business.

Booze is supposed to be good for that: keeping him from thinking about the way Ignis would look rumpled and undone for once, and how those trim fingers would linger on the buttons of Gladio’s shirt.

It’s not helping all that much, though. Before long, Gladio’s stepping outside into the cool night air and the lush growing scents of the manor’s garden, to calm his head and remind his body that yes, he is past puberty, and yes, he should probably stop perving on someone he’s supposed to have a professional relationship with.

He kind of misses being a kid – those long-ago days back when he thought of Ignis as some kind of stick-in-the-mud mamma’s boy. It was easier then.

It’s not so easy now. Not when the liquid courage running through his brain is telling him to march the hell back in and ask. It wouldn’t hurt to ask, right? Best case scenario, he wakes up tomorrow with his arms full of Iggy and all his questions about the kind of noises he’d make between the sheets answered. Worst case scenario, Ignis pins him with those deadly-serious eyes and flays him with just a stare, and he runs away with his tail between his legs and drinks some more, until he forgets he made an idiot of himself.

Well. Maybe better not to ask, after all.

Gladio’s not sure how long he’s out in the garden.

Five minutes, maybe, or ten. Long enough that he’s starting to think he ought to go back.

He’s about to – draws himself up to push away from the wall he’s leaning against – when he becomes aware, almost gradually, of another presence.

It feels the same way it does when someone’s standing too close: that fission of awareness down the spine. Gladio turns, not knowing who to expect.

What he finds isn’t a someone at all.

It’s a slender brown fox, fully grown now, fur the color of creamed coffee. Its eyes are the same piercing moss green, and even in the poor lighting, Gladio thinks he can see the spot on its rear leg where the bone didn’t quite set straight.

“Huh,” says Gladio. “You again.”

The fox just looks at him.

“Thought I’d get some air,’” says Gladio, not sure what else to say to a fox. “Try and keep myself mostly sane.”

The fox tips its head to one side, a curious gesture.

“You wouldn’t understand,” says Gladio, accusingly. “You’re a fox.”

The fox inclines its snout a little, in a gesture that almost seems to say: try me. It occurs to Gladio that he’s much drunker than he initially supposed.

“Fine,” says Gladio. “I’m into him, okay? Shiva’s tits. Why’s it have to be the prince’s damn advisor?”

The fox makes a – a squeak, almost. When Gladio looks back down at it, those moss green eyes are comically wide.

“Huh,” says Gladio. “Didn’t know foxes squeaked.”

The fox stares at him for another endless moment. Then it turns around and disappears into the shadows of the garden, with nothing more than a rustle of leaves and a flicker of tail before it’s gone.

===

Ignis shows up at the door of Gladio’s chambers a week later, heralded by a polite, proper rap of knuckles on wood.

Gladio answers, half dressed and still damp with his shower, dragging a towel through his hair. “Yeah?” he says.

Ignis looks all business. His vest is crisp and black and ironed. The buttons on his high collar come all the way up to the middle of his neck. His hair is sleek and carefully brushed, and his hands are closed around a clipboard as though it’s the most important thing in the world.

“A moment,” says Ignis. “If you would.”

“Yeah,” says Gladio. “Sure. What’s up, Iggy?”

Ignis takes a slow breath in. He lets it out. His face is smooth and serious, impossible to read.

He says, “Perhaps we could have dinner tonight.”

Gladio feels one eyebrow climbing. “I dunno about you, but I have dinner most nights.”

Ignis presses his lips together. He says, “Together,” like Gladio’s the world’s biggest idiot.

And okay, yeah, maybe he is, but they have dinner together anyway.

===

The third time Gladio sees the fox, he’s twenty-three years old.

He’s also strapped down to a metal table in the ass-end of some Niff base, waiting for a doctor in a white coat to come and cut him apart. To cut them apart.
Because there’s Ignis, halfway across the room, and he’s strapped down, too – looking frustrated, that he can’t squirm an arm out from under the shackles. 

Gladio knows the feeling. He can’t break them, either. He’s been trying for the past fifteen minutes, ever since the assholes with the guns hauled Noct and Prompto out of the room and left them here 

“Fuck,” he finally says, with feeling, and slumps back against the table.
It isn’t often that he can’t brute force his way out of a situation he doesn’t like.
It kind of sucks.

He closes his eyes for a second, and he says, “Hey, strategist. We could do with a brilliant strategy about now.”

“I’m aware,” says Ignis, somewhat pained.

Gladio flexes the muscles in his forearm again, just to be sure. All he gets for his trouble is the way the steel cuts into the skin, leaving behind the first prickles of blood.

“Fuck,” he says again, and kicks the table so hard the room rings with the sound.

When the sound subsides, Ignis says, “I may have something that will work.”

There’s something off about his tone. Gladio feels one of his eyebrows quirk as he turns sideways, to take in the expression. It’s grim and unreadable, remarkably pale. He looks like a man about to walk into a bonfire.

“But?” says Gladio.

“But,” says Ignis. “You’ll have to forgive me for not telling you sooner.”

Gladio opens his mouth to ask what the hell that means.

Nothing comes out. Because there on the table across from him, Ignis is changing.

There’s a certain kind of magic to it – a faint glimmer, the way weapons look when Noct pulls them out of that place granted to him by long-dead kings. It’s golden and pretty, faintly pulsating, and it kind of messes with Gladio’s eyes. It seems to get brighter, and brighter, until he has to squint to keep himself from tearing up at the intensity. 

When he sneaks a peek again, the light is gone.

So is Ignis.

In his place, there on the metal table, is a fox, the fur a sleek, pale brown, like coffee with cream. Its eyes are that same moss green – Ignis green, Gladio realizes, years too late. It’s sitting in the discarded pile of Ignis’ clothes.

“The hell?” says Gladio, as the fox hops nimbly down from the table, disappearing from view.

An instant later, the light returns, less intense this time around – more of an ambient glow. Then Ignis is standing beside him, calm and composed and entirely naked.

He reaches for the controls that hold Gladio’s cuffs, face intent and focused – unnervingly unreadable, the way he get with diplomats he’s trying to feel out a reaction for.

“Iggy,” says Gladio, flexing his fingers as his right hand comes free, and then his left. “Seriously. What the hell is this?”

“Our way out,” says Ignis, calmly, but there’s something evasive about the way his eyes won’t quite meet Gladio’s.

“Yeah,” says Gladio, already moving to sit up. “And I’m glad we’re not gonna die, but – a fox?”

Instead of answering, Ignis turns toward the pile of clothes on the table across from them. He shucks on his pants with more awkward haste than Gladio thinks he’s ever seen, except for maybe that one time they almost got caught feeling each other up in the stacks at the Council library.

“It’s a wonder that no one’s ever remarked as to the source of my magic before,” says Ignis at last. He pulls on the shirt and sets to the buttons with nimble fingers. “Even His Highness requires the aid of a flask to master fire.”

Gladio turns that over in his mind.

He turns it over again.

All at once, he thinks of things he hasn’t thought of in years – his father, much younger, with decidedly more hair, sitting on the edge of his bed when he was  very small child. Tales told in the dark of the night: about creatures of mischief, and magic, and power.

“Fox fire,” he says at last, slowly.

“Indeed,” says Ignis. He turns toward the door – pulls it open with a backward glance and a narrow smile. “Now, if you’re quite ready? I imagine Noct and Prompto would appreciate a hand.”