#for the love of gd pls reblog and comment too

[zoenightstars]

Post-It Notes, ch9

on Ao3

ch1 | ch2 | ch3 | ch4 | ch5 | ch6 | ch7 | ch8 | ch9 

IT’S BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! honestly posting this is making me super nervous because it’s been such a long wait? which im very sorry about? so i owe yall a really good chapter in return for u guys being so lovely and patient <333 

thank you to @sadrien and @reyxa for being the best cheerleaders ever, love you guys <3 also HUGE shoutout to sadrien for beta-ing (ish??) for me. god bless i lov u 

as always, comments and reblogs are very much appreciated!!! (please reblog omg i want 2 know what u guys think!!!) 

enjoy!!!

Adrien is drowning. The harsh blue of the memory of her eyes pull him in deeper and deeper, and Adrien doesn’t know if he wants to stay above water anymore. He now knows for sure that the post-it notes had been Marinette, but he still almost can’t believe it. It feels like a dream that is too good to be true, but Adrien hasn’t woken up yet.

Adrien is so in love. And he is so fucked.

Adrien sinks into his chair as he spins in it absentmindedly. The words “I love you” scrawl their way across his vision again and again and again. He hugs the note to his chest.

“I love you,” he murmurs, swooning a little as he says it.

“Aw, Adri-chou! I didn’t know you felt that way about me!” Plagg coos as he zips into view.

Adrien rolls his eyes. “Plagg, you know I hate it when Chloé calls me that.”

“Adri-fromage, is that fucking better?”

“I hate you.”

Plagg’s tail droops in mock disappointment. “You said you loved me! I thought we had something special, Adri-gruyére!”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Whatever you say, Adri-parmesan.”

“That cheese isn’t even French, Plagg.”

“Hey! We don’t discriminate here.”

“Whatever. The point is, Marinette said she loves me!”

“Disgusting,” Plagg replies.

“I'm not sure you're understanding the gravity of this situation. She said that she loves me.”

“Mhm. Can I have cheese?”

“You're heartless. I'm calling Nino. Get your ass in my bookbag.”

“There'd better be cheese in there,” he grumbles and then disappears into its contents.

As the video call ringtone plays, Adrien stares into space, thinking of his near future with Marinette with equal parts hope, optimism, and abject horror. What the fuck do I do now?

“Hello? Hello? Dude. Bro. Lover boy? ADRIEN,” Nino screeches through the speakers, sending Adrien sprawling onto the floor due to an acute case of being startled shitless with the most notable symptom being falling out of chairs.

“Holy shit! You scared the hell out of me!” Adrien yells as he hauls himself back into a normal sitting position.

“Dude, you were staring off into space with the same facial expression as a lovesick puppy for an entire sixty seconds,” Nino scolds.

Adrien blushes, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. “Was I?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m pathetic,” he groans.

“I’m not gonna argue. Anyway, you called because…?”

“Marinette.”

“I repeat, you called because…?”

Adrien taps on the screen with a confused expression on his face. “Is something wrong with my audio? I heard you the first time…”

“God you’re dense,” Nino mutters. “Adrien. Buddy. Pal. I heard you loud and clear. But what about Marinette could you possibly have to talk about with me?”

Adrien scowls. “I don’t know, maybe she said she loves me and I don’t know what the hell I should do now?”

“Ask her out? I thought that was a no-brainer?”

“No. No. I can’t do that.”

Nino throws his hands up in frustration. “Why the fuck not?”

“Because… I… can’t?”

“You’re an idiot.”

“But think about it! What if she says no?”

“She won’t.”

“Nino, if she says no I will literally die of embarrassment.”

“Good thing she won’t say no, then!”

“Okay. Let’s just say she says yes—”

“—She will—”

Adrien glowers at him. “If she says yes, what will the kids at school think?”

“I promise you, other than me and Alya, nobody is going to give a shit.”

“Chloé?”

“Okay, I’ll give you that one. But why do you give a shit about what she thinks? She sucks.”

“Fine. What about Rose?”

“Gay. Next?”

“I don’t fucking know, Juleka?”

“Gay. With Rose. Next?”

“Wait, what?”

“Oh my god. You haven’t noticed?”

“No?”

“They’ve been dating for months. No wonder you didn’t notice Marinette was into you.”

Adrien ignores the jab. “Huh. Okay, but what about Nathanael?” Adrien crosses his arms with a sort of gotcha expression on his face.

“Who cares? Marinette isn’t into him, she’s into you!” Nino, clearly, is not got.

Adrien, the smooth lady killer that he is, hangs up on Nino at the suggestion that Marinette is in love with him. Good going.

Adrien’s phone buzzes, and he pushes off from the desk and rolls the chair over to his bed to pick it up.

From: alya’s bf To: lover boi 😍 bro did u just hang up on me

From: lover boi 😍 To: alya’s bf …

From: alya’s bf To: lover boi 😍 anyway do urself a favor just ask the girl out

From: lover boi 😍 To: alya’s bf i dont deserve her :/

From: alya’s bf To: lover boi 😍 maris a smart girl with standards if u didnt deserve her she wouldnt be in2 u love urself and date her pls

From: lover boi 😍 To: alya’s bf r u sure….

From: alya’s bf To: lover boi 😍 u have my blessing, marshmallow ~alya

From: lover boi 😍 To: alya’s bf hold on ur w alya rn? oh ym gd o has alya been listenign htis whole time hello??? ¿¿¿¿????? dude answe r me dud e

From: alya’s bf To: lover boi 😍 read 5:27 pm ✔

From: lover boi 😍 To: alya’s bf ARE U SHITTIGN ME THIS IS BETRAYAL nino blocked

Adrien chucks his phone back on the bed. I really need new friends, he thinks, feeling the heat rise in his face. But no sooner does he do this than his phone buzzes again.

From: unknown number To: marshmallow adrien?

From: marshmallow To: unknown number um...sry who is this ?

From: unknown number To: marshmallow ya girl alya B)

From: marshmallow To: queen alya oh

From: queen alya To: marshmallow r u mad @ me? :((

From: marshmallow To: queen alya a little :/ not if u dont tell mari what i said tho

From: queen alya To: marshmallow thank god ok and i wont dw u have my word marshmallow

From: marshmallow To: queen alya thx

From: queen alya To: marshmallow adrien?

From: marshmallow To: queen alya yeah ?

From: queen alya To: marshmallow u rlly like mari, right?

From: marshmallow To: queen alya um yes am i that obvious

From: queen alya To: marshmallow yeah u are but thats beside the point i really think u should ask her out i mean both so i can write that im 2 for 2 as a wingman on my resume but also because ur both my friends and i want 2 c both of u happy

From: marshmallow To: queen alya okay…? wait 2 for 2?

From: queen alya To: marshmallow i wingmanned myself and the boy thank u very much

From: marshmallow To: queen alya im not sure that counts?

From: queen alya To: marshmallow shut up let me finish >:( if u rly like mari which u clearly do dating her would make u happy, right?

From: marshmallow To: queen alya god yes

From: queen alya To: marshmallow ur a nerd anyway i know that if you ask her out, marinette will literally be the happiest girl in the world also i dont know how much longer she can take this post it thing shes like this 👌 close to imploding i worry for that girl anyway long soliloquy short date the heck out of my best friend pls and thank

Adrien puts down his phone and slowly exhales. Well, he thinks. I may not deserve Marinette Dupain-Cheng, but she deserves to be happy.

Adrien hopes he can at least give her that.

[ignis-scientia-estrogen-brigade]

~(Someone help me with a title pls)~ [Pre-Road Trip Fic; 3900 Words]

I just want to give a big thanks for everyone who has started following this blog—I didn’t expect it to gain nearly the traction it did, and nothing makes me happier than seeing all the Ignis trash out there coalesce into one giant pile of garbage and share in the love of everyone’s favorite strategist! I wanted to do something special like drawing a picture of Iggy in honor of surpassing a hundred followers, but everything I doodled sucked monkey balls, so I decided to bequeath you all instead with a longer, naughtier Specs fic (as in, you might need a cigarette after reading this).

This story is peak meta (Ignis-ception? Fanfic-ception?), because the female protagonist originated from a single line in one of my early headcanons, and was more fully-fleshed out in an Ask prompt I received later (the poor girl still doesn’t have a name haha). The idea for this particular fic actually came from the last headcanon I wrote; honestly, I could have expanded on any of those scenarios because gd I want to read more about Gladio having sex in the shower, but as this is an Ignis-oriented blog, I felt it was only natural to have the strategist be the focus of this story.

I have to tell you, one of my favorite things to do is read the hashtags of your reblogs; the funnier, the better. So keep it up if you want to hear about me snorting my morning coffee! Real life has been a bit of a grind lately, so I might be posting more sporadically over the next several weeks, but I still have a few Asks in my inbox I fully intend to answer, so keep your ideas coming!

Tagging @karouyamisaki for… reasons. (Do you still have those dentures I gave you?) Hiiiiiiighly NSFW

“Is it me, or is the table lower than it was yesterday?”

Two spectacled eyes peer out above a Crown City Chronicle at the redhead seated across the breakfast table. “Is it?”

“I think it is.” As a matter of fact, she knows it is; he wouldn’t be entertaining her company if she wasn’t perceptive about these things. It was exactly the type of acumen that had originally caught Ignis’ attention in the first place—that, and the clipped regional accent they both shared, although their mutual love of caffeinated beverages might’ve helped her cause more than a little.

He sips at his Ebony and resumes perusing the current events section of his newspaper. “How peculiar.”

“Indeed. Quite peculiar.” The miraculously diminishing table wasn’t the only thing of notable peculiarity that morning; the way his hand lingered on hers when he brought out her own mug of Ebony seemed rather unusual for the habitually aloof Crownsguard, since about the only time Ignis Scientia dared to ever lay an affectionate finger on her was when she had him cornered in the bedroom with his trousers already around his ankles.

She polishes off her breakfast before pushing her plate aside. “Was it to your liking?” he inquires from behind his paper. “I fear the Regaltrice eggs weren’t as fresh as the shopkeeper at the farmer’s market claimed they were.”

“It was delicious, thank you.” She then reaches for her cup of coffee and hesitates, swirling the last remnants of dark liquid around the bottom of it. “Remind me again, Darling—when did you say you set out for Altissia?”

His emerald eyes dart across the table for the briefest of moments before returning to his paper. “Three weeks.”

“And how long will you be away?”

“It depends. Could be months.”

“Ah. I see.”

“Is that a problem?”

She suppresses the urge to sigh, and instead drains the last of her Ebony to conceal the grimace on her face. “Of course not.”

Finally, he sets his newspaper down on the table and looks over at her in earnest. “Speak your mind. It’s best not to keep secrets.”

Her cheek twitches, and a tendril of bitterness licks the inside of her throat. “Isn’t that what we’re good at?”

His features remain impassive. “Are you unhappy with our arrangement?”

Of course, their arrangement. It was hardly fair of her to be resentful about it; she was the one, after all, who had originally laid down the parameters of their accordance when they began their tryst. No intimate contact outside of the previously agreed upon hours of midnight and four, no affectionate monikers or diminutive terms of endearment, and—perhaps most importantly—no falling in love. Feelings would only compromise the benefits of their affair, since the man might die at any given moment; they both could, for that matter, if the rumors of ulterior motives surrounding the Imperial peace talks were to be believed.

But somewhere along the way, something had changed. Somewhere between that first lustful night together and the present day, they had taken to calling each other Darling; even now, she was bending her own rules by remaining at his apartment this late into the morning, sampling his new omelet recipe and ruminating over the significance of his lingering touch.

Ultimately, somewhere along the way she had grown rather fond of the strategist. “My apologies,” she says sullenly. “I didn’t mean to complicate the matter. I’m sure you have much and more on your mind right now.”

He stares at her blankly for a long moment, and then suddenly glances out the kitchen window. “It’s rather quiet this morning, wouldn’t you say?”

It’s a diversion tactic, and she knows it; it wouldn’t be the first time he’s used it against her to his advantage, although generally it comes in the form of a cheeky I could go for an Ebony about now comment when he’s parrying her lance in the Citadel’s fitness center. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“I wonder if the city is diverting traffic in anticipation of the Imperial detail.” He pushes back from the table and rises from his seat. “Another cuppa?”

“Please.” She sets her empty mug aside and swallows the last of her antipathy; three weeks is not a long time, and choosing to stay irritable at him will only make it pass by more quickly.

He nods once and disappears into the kitchen; her attention drifts out the window and she narrows her eyes. “Now that you mention it, it is rather quiet. Almost too quiet.”

“Most intriguing,” his voice calls out from the other room.

“It’s awfully early to be rerouting the highways. The chancellor isn’t even expected to arrive until the day of the talks—what was his name again?”

His isn’t gone but a heartbeat; then he is back by her side and refilling her cup with freshly brewed Ebony. “I don’t recall.”

But she isn’t looking at him, and instead her eyes remain fixed outside the window. It’s only after she gives up trying to resolve the paradox of the ominously silent roads that she finally peers up at him; when she does, it takes her mind half a second to register that he is standing before her wearing absolutely nothing at all.

It’s a good thing she hadn’t taken a sip of her coffee before processing that fact, lest she spurt hot brown liquid all over the breakfast table. “Goodness,” she breathes.

There are some within the palace walls who whisper that Ignis Scientia was born without a fundamental understanding of humor; the redhead would argue that most people simply haven’t spent enough time around him to witness his masterful skills in the art of deadpan.  “Something troubling you, Darling?” he asks, the faintest of grins touching his lips.

As hard as she tries, she is unable to contain her smile. “And what, might I inquire, is the meaning of this little exhibition?”

He sets the coffee pot down on the the kitchen counter and leans over for a chaste kiss. “You seem preoccupied with the details of my excursion. Thought maybe I could offer to help take your mind off things.”

She can’t quite stop herself from ogling at the eyeful of naked flesh hovering inches from her face. “How in the world did you get out of your clothes so quickly? I didn’t even hear your keys jingle in your pocket.”

“It’s a mystery, isn’t it?” He then reaches over and moves to unfasten the buttons of her blouse. “Speaking of, I daresay you appear to be wearing far too many articles yourself.”

His fingers move swiftly, and soon he is liberating her of her garment and discarding it on the window sill. “Don’t be absurd,” she says, but the sensation of his lips brushing against the crook of her neck leaves her hoarse. “If you aren’t planning on kicking me out of your apartment anytime soon, let’s at least move into the bedroom.”

“What for?” He stops his light caresses briefly to pluck her mug of Ebony from her hand before drawing her upright out of her chair and guiding her body against the breakfast table. “There’s a perfectly flat surface here we can use.”

“Be serious,” she admonishes, as he pushes his bare chest to hers. “This table won’t hold my weight, let alone both of ours.”

“Of course it will. I reinforced the brackets last night when I lowered the legs.”

“Lowered the…?” Confusion clouds her mind, but the gentle way he rakes his teeth along her sternum causes her to lose her train of thought entirely. One strong hand encircles her back and tackles the clasp of her undergarment with the precision of an expert locksmith, and suddenly both of their torsos are free from obstruction and his lips are pressed against hers.

“Is this all right?” he whispers, his fingers gliding lightly over her left breast. “You know how I hate to be a bother.”

Her eyelids flutter shut when he replaces his fingers with his tongue. “Does it look like I’m bothered?”

“In a sense.”

“Do you always talk this much in the mornings?”

He snorts softly against her nipple before kneeling, and resumes his slow journey down toward her hips. “Point taken.”

He then traces the waistband of her pants with inquisitive curiosity, coaxing the button loose and tugging gently on her slacks until she is free from the constraining accoutrement and is sitting on the breakfast table with her toes dangling off the floor. There is still the matter of her underwear in need of tending to, but the strategist is nothing if not strategic in his approach; with a finesse only an authority in the field of daggers could master, Ignis manages to strip her of her smallclothes while simultaneously throwing her legs over each of his shoulders.

Her hands immediately move to clutch at his tawny hair, and she lets out a gasp as he nuzzles the tip of his nose against the most private and intimate part of herself. But he doesn’t linger in one spot for long, and instead teases the insides of her thighs with light kisses interspersed with gentle nips of his teeth. When her trembling fingers reach for his face and knock his spectacles askew, he pauses a moment to readjust them.

“Leave them off,” she says. “I like you better without them.”

“I can hardly see a thing even with them on,” he replies, and continues his exploration.

She grips the edge of the table hard and silently curses the Six when his tongue strokes grow positively agonizing. “There’s nothing down there worth looking at. I can’t believe you’re willing to subject yourself to the view in such… anatomical detail.”

“On the contrary,” he murmurs. “It’d be a shame to lose what’s left of my sight when the scenery is as breathtaking as this.”

She laughs aloud at his attempts at flattery, but in truth, the sentiment warms her heart; he never once showed the slightest ounce of timidness around her body, and was clearly more than a little experienced at pleasuring a woman, if the magical fingers he was now pressing inside of her were any indication. She may not have even been his only paramour at the moment—exclusivity was never explicitly touched upon in their agreement—but it doesn’t matter, because her breath is growing ragged with each achingly slow lap of his tongue.

“Darling,” she pants, her eyes pressed closed, her fingernails digging into the taut muscles of his shoulders. “I don’t think I can take much more of this.”

He ignores her appeals for leniency and maintains a steady and rhythmic cadence; his fingers are moving faster now, his thumb rigid against her nub, shifting away for the briefest of instants only to be replaced by his strong tongue. She can no longer suppress the moans clawing their way up her throat as the pressure in her abdomen builds, and she bites down on the inside of her cheek so hard she can taste blood.

“Please,” she begs, her legs tightening around his neck. “You have to stop—“

But he doesn’t stop, and instead doggedly presses onward; he has his free hand gripped around her thigh, feeling her tendons clenching, sensing her heartbeat quickening, because she knows that as a strategist he is intimately aware of even the slightest changes in her body chemistry, and won’t yield to her request until he has pushed her to the other side of ecstasy.

She doesn’t have to wait long for him to conclude the torture. The first crest of her orgasm is already firing through every nerve ending of her body, and a cry escapes her lips with each subsequent wave. For a long moment, the only thing she can hear is the sound of her pulse screaming in her own ears; as the pounding in her heart subsides, and the blood returns to the knuckles she has flexed tightly around his arms, she opens her eyes to the image of Ignis drawing himself up to his full height.

Another, more arrogant lover might pat himself on the back and make some wry quip about successfully bringing her to climax; Ignis, on the other hand, is evidently content to leave his ego in check, because his only reaction to her trembling is to cover her slightly parted lips with his own. The flavor of her herself on his tongue sends her mind reeling and drives her to deepen their kiss, her hands gripping urgently at his spine and her legs wrapped tighter than Malboro tentacles around his slender hips.

But he appears to be in no hurry to indulge in his own pleasure, and instead tilts her back gently against the table’s surface before moving down to drag his mouth over the curves of her abdomen. Her hand reaches for his face only to get tangled up in his lenses again; this time, he finally discards his spectacles once and for all, tossing them over his shoulder without nary a second glance.

“Don’t be so flippant,” she scolds, although with the way his caresses are causing her back to arch upward, her reprimanding doesn’t quite meet her voice. “I should hate to be the reason you broke your glasses.”

“I’ve got another pair,” he says, his hot breath utterly electrifying against her skin.

It’s only when he leans into the table that she realizes why exactly he lowered it in the first place; her body immediately begins to ache when she feels his erection pressed against just the right spot between her thighs, and were she in a more coherent state of mind, she might’ve complimented him on his impressive ingenuity. But her brain is mired in the nebula of her own desire, and the singular reoccurring thought currently consuming her attention is the longing to feel his warmth inside of her.

If she hoped her sensual agony would end with her own climax, however, she is sorely mistaken; the strategist simply bides his time, nipping tenderly at her belly, tracing the outline of her breasts leisurely with his tongue, grasping the back of her knees firmly as her body begins to writhe beneath him. When she is forced to press her hand to her mouth to stifle her moans, he pries her fingers gently away from her face and laces them in his own.

“You best let go,” she says in a low voice, “unless you enjoy hearing me shout loud enough to alert the neighbors.”

“Music to my ears,” he purrs.

So she concedes to his restraints, because if Ignis Scientia wants to listen to the sounds of her euphoria, then she is more than happy to oblige. His lips are at her neck now, the stippled texture of his freshly-shaven jaw brushing up against her collarbone and eliciting a sharp hiss from her lungs. Her legs clench around his waist, but he resists being drawn in any closer, for this is a test of wills: her urgency to be fulfilled against the stalwart discipline that has come to define him.

She breaks first. “Ignis,” she whispers, “don’t make me beg for this.”

It is, perhaps, rather unfair of her to resort to such unsophisticated tactics; there are far more clever ways of getting him to do her bidding, but the man has so few weaknesses, and she knows that the mere hint of his name on her lips will impair the rational side of his brain long enough for primal instinct to take over. And besides—if he teases this out any longer, he’ll have a permanent stain of her fluids on the surface of his breakfast table to deal with afterward.

Her imploring has its desired effect; his previously tranquil expression flickers for a moment, and his hands tighten around her fingers. She watches as the wheels turn in his mind, turning, turning, always turning, always in control, until his features abruptly darken and she can see in his eyes that the urge to give has now been replaced by the impulse to take.

He doesn’t speak a word; he simply presses his mouth hard against hers, and moves to pin her wrists above her head with one hand. His other is already between both their legs, testing her readiness, testing his readiness, before suddenly and without warning he is plunging his searing heat into the folds of her warm flesh.

She says his name again, but it’s not a whisper like before; this time, it’s a cry of elation, loud enough for the neighbors to hear, loud enough for King Regis seated on his throne behind the palace walls two miles away to hear, loud enough for the Astrals themselves to look down from their omniscient plane of existence and take note. For there is no feeling in all of Eos quite like two bodies joining to become one, and no rapture greater—in this world or the next—than that offered by one Ignis Scientia.

His response is more reserved than hers, for she knows Ignis is a quiet lover; the flexing of his hand against her wrists and the lowering of his forehead to her chest is the only indication that there is a battle raging on inside his mind. Lose himself in her warmth, and this brief moment of exaltation will pass; wait too long, and he’ll begin to overthink things. The line they dance along is razor-thin, but they’ve done it together a hundred times or more, and she tilts her hips up against his to signal the beginning of their lascivious waltz.

He finally releases her wrists and drops his hands to her waist, burying himself ever deeper into her walls. She follows his lead and braces herself against his movements, stretching back and relishing in her newfound freedom by raking a loving hand through his feathery hair. His eyes are closed in concentration and his lips never leaves hers, except to suppress a carnal growl every now and again. Their bodies find a mutual harmony—just as they always do—and the only rational thought she is able to formulate in her mind in between bouts of pleasure is just how much time he must have spent last night reinforcing the table brackets to have them hold up as well as they are.

But even in her heightened state of arousal, she is perceptive to the nuanced changes in his behavior; he is working harder now, his brow furrowed, his thrusts more deliberate. She can sense his heart pounding in his ribcage, can feel the shortening of his breath against her throat, can even hear the silent gasps of ecstasy he tries so hard to conceal from her. She does what she can to temper his fervor and draw out this symphony of theirs, but the threads of her resolve have already frayed nearly beyond repair; her hands move without thinking, clutching at his lower back, urging his hips ever onward, scratching at the perfect porcelain skin that bears the scars of the royal onus bequeathed upon him.

Another change occurs; his quiet pants no longer leave his mouth, and instead he is is exhaling forcefully through his nose, like a beast of burden struggling under the weight of a heavy load. His movements grow more erratic as well, and his fingers have returned to her hands—not to pin them down against her will, but to clutch at her palms in desperation. He is close—she can feel it—and his mouth parts slightly as a single word escapes his lips. “I—”

She knows he will slow down if she lets him, so she doesn’t let him, because she wants his heat inside of her, wants his body to fill every inch of her own; the thought of losing everything they have built together in this moment is a betrayal the likes of which even the Infernian would not lower himself to. So she silences his reticence with a kiss, his waist captured between her legs in a vice grip, and lets her own cries of exhilaration work their wicked magic in his ears.

She can’t read his thoughts, but she can decipher the clues he leaves behind on the planes of his chiseled face; his jaw is clenched, his brow glistening with the efforts of his exertion, his eyes moving rapidly beneath his closed eyelids. And she can feel his warmth spreading inside of her just below her abdomen with each final drive of his hips, until the twitching in his muscles eventually subsides altogether and his he leans to rest his cheek upon her breasts. She holds his head in her arms and gazes down at his peaceful form; even in his state of utter exhaustion, she notices him shift his weight to his forearms so as not to crush her under the mass of his own body.

Silence falls over the apartment once more; a moment passes before he pushes himself upright from the table and offers her a hand. She sits up slowly and waits for the dizziness in her head to pass, then slides off the table and into the nearest chair before her knees have the chance to give out from under her.

She doesn’t even have to look up at him to know he has reverted back to his usual, aloof self; she simply takes the blouse he is holding out to her, reaches for her pants that have long since been discarded on the floor, and dresses herself quietly. This is how it always is; brief instances of passion smothered between long bouts of cordial formality. His remoteness could be downright suffocating at times, but it’s the bargain she’s made with him, the price she must pay for a small sliver of happiness.

The strategist retrieves his Crown City Chronicle from the table and resumes his seat across from her, Ebony in hand. She half-expects to glance over and see him already dressed—perhaps the ability the Lucian prince has bestowed upon him to summon weapons out of thin air extends to his wardrobe—but with the exception of his glasses that have once again taken up occupancy on his face, he is, notably, still sans clothing.

“What ever did happen to your clothes?” she asks, frowning as she buttons her tunic.

He crosses one knee over the other and sips nonchalantly at his Ebony, as if reading the morning paper and drinking coffee in the nude is as unremarkable as breathing. “I told you, it’s a mystery. Even to me.”

She can’t resist indulging in a smile; parting ways with him is always bittersweet, but she welcomes his effort at making light of things. “Well, you better find them before your trip. I’m sure Gladio won’t appreciate your naked physique quite the same way I do.”

“Indeed,” he says, his attention buried in his newspaper.

As she pulls on her trousers, she pauses. “Ignis?”

“Yes?”

“I know we have an agreement in place, but…”

“Go on. Spit it out.”

“I think I might miss you, is all.”

He raises an eyebrow behind his spectacles and holds her gaze for a long moment; then he shrugs and lifts his newspaper again to his nose. “Never fear, Darling. I’m sure everything will go quite smoothly in Altissia. I’ll be back in Insomnia before you know it.”