a broken kiss and an aching sigh

[blindsider]

[ They're together a year before anyone even mentions blood.

Nobody even says it; he's told to go meet Noctis a little earlier than usual, and when the door is pushed open for him Noctis is sitting in his nurse's lap, mouth fixed to her neck. Ignis freezes, not understanding but feeling that he's intruding on something, but the nurse smiles and tells him they'll be done in just a moment before Noctis pulls away and smiles brightly, his mouth stained red.

“Ignis!” he says, full of cheer, but Ignis is staring at the pinprick wounds on the nurse's neck, leaking blood.

“Have you had enough?” she asks, and when Noctis nods at her she ruffles his hair. “Can you fix it?”

He leans in again, little pink tongue painting a cat-lick over the wounds, and suddenly they're gone. Noctis hugs her tight, says thank you, and wriggles out of her lap to run to Ignis' side.

“I got a new ball,” he says, like nothing strange has happened at all, “let's play!”

Ignis doesn't know how to ask what he's seen, so he takes the hand expectantly extended to him and goes.


It's less than a month later that they're packing up a game because Noctis is supposed to leave for dinner and Ignis drops a glass. In his hurry to pick up the shards he cuts his hand, bright blood blooming along the angry line of it as he sucks air in pain.

“I can fix it,” Noctis says, with childish certainty, and Ignis remembers the way those tiny wounds had vanished and lets Noctis lift his hand to his mouth. His tongue pokes at the skin, which feels funny, but then Noctis' eyes get strange and unfocused and there's a sharper pain, a needle stab that makes Ignis cry out. Noctis only holds his hand tighter, sucking furiously until Ignis starts to feel dizzy.

He wakes up in bed, with a needle attached to a plasticky bag on a stand poking into his arm and a serious lady in all green clothes looking at him in a way that feels like it's poking into his face. He can tell he's in trouble even before Noctis' nurse – the one who'd held him in her lap and let him bite her – leads him away to show him a video.

On the screen, everything is jostly and shaky. He can see himself, though, gray-faced and floppy as he's scooped up and carried away. The picture is steady when it settles on Noctis' face, tears rolling down his cheeks and tracking into the blood that smears his chin. He's crying so loudly it's a scream, and Ignis ducks his head. The nurse puts gentle fingers under his chin and tips it back up.

“You have to watch,” she says. “You have to understand why you need to be more careful. He thought he'd killed you. If we hadn't got there in time, he might have. Can you imagine how he would have felt?”

“Yes,” says Ignis, only a whisper sneaking out past the sick feeling in his stomach, the tight squeeze in his chest.

“Then you understand why you need to take more care.”

“Yes.”

He's not allowed to see Noctis before meals after that, which is sad, but it's okay.


Eventually he enters the rotation, as he was always meant to. It doesn't hurt as much if he's expecting it, and by the time they start Noctis is older and has better control, and it's fine. At least, it's fine until Noctis hits puberty, and certain abilities start to kick in. Ignis is bigger, so they've always done it the way he saw with the nurse, Noctis clambering into his lap where it's easy for them both, Ignis settling his arms comfortably around him to support him. But Noctis is about fourteen when that changes, and the bite gives Ignis a feeling that starts out hazy and unfocused and sharpens quickly to something that makes him urgently want to get Noctis out of his lap. But it's too much, too fast, and before he can protest he's lost to need. Noctis... doesn't seem to mind, because he just nestles in and keeps drinking, heedless of the desperate little sounds Ignis makes. In fact, he doesn't stop until Ignis' head lolls back, eyes rolling, and he realizes he needs to get help.

Ignis is carried away from the Prince for the second time, given over to the tender mercies of a pair of attendants apparently kept around specifically for incidents like this. It takes three hours between them, trading off in shifts to speak to him in soothing voices and touching him everywhere except where he desperately wants to be touched, to calm him down. And then, for the first time in ten years, there are restrictions in place about when he's allowed to see Noctis and when he isn't.


It's better now. Noctis has learned to control the other aspects of his situation the same way he controls his thirst, eliminating the requirement for rules. And they're still close, though Noctis now sits next to Ignis when he feeds instead of across his lap, and it's been years since they shared a bed. He misses that, sometimes; the closeness, the ease they had with each other. He can't help wondering if it was that second incident that keeps this space between them, and he'd reassure Noctis that he has nothing to worry about, but... it's not entirely true. Noctis has grown handsome in a way that he'd probably hate to hear called pretty, blossomed in both his looks and a sly intelligence, little bursts of humor peeking through that make Ignis laugh in a way that he doesn't laugh with anyone else, and there have been times when the fact that Noctis keeps the aphrodisiac effect out of his bite doesn't do anything to keep Ignis from feeling his mouth go dry, crossing his legs defensively and mentally rehashing the dullest points of the very driest reports to keep his focus.

He's re-read one in preparation for tonight's visit. He lets himself in, sees Noctis sprawled on the couch, one arm folded behind his head and a slice of pale stomach and hip showing between the borders of his t-shirt and his pants, and a hundred mind-numbing facts about the difficulty of raising crops in the salty air of Altissia and their dependence on agricultural trade are all there, ready to assist him in his time of need. ]

Good evening, Highness.

Comments

[blindsider]

[ Oh, but it's wonderful. Too good for him to be embarrassed at the sound he makes at the sink of teeth, the feeling of that bliss kindling again until the only thing he can do is wrap his arms around Noctis and pull him closer. The thought of resistance is long fled; now it feels like there's nothing to him but need, like his body is an overtuned string between the warm, sticky smear of Noctis' mouth against his throat and the undeniable pressure where the prince sits astride his lap, wound far beyond his natural key. ]

Highness, [ and his voice is all but a gasp, breathy sibilance before it turns rough around the harsh consonants of his name and Ignis, shamefully but well past shame, grinds his hips upward for the promise of pressure. ] Noct, please -

[linkstrike]

[ it feels like every inch of ignis invites him claim, and that primal hunger thrumming at the forefront of noctis' mind revels in it. it's so easy to push down all those nagging thoughts about what he should and shouldn't do, to lick at the smeared blood along the other man's throat and listen to the breathless noises ignis makes for him in turn.

but. ] Tell me.

[ and noctis grinds his hips back down against him with one smooth roll, eyes blazing crimson as he pulls away to admire his handwork. there's still blood on his lips, blood spilling down from one corner of his mouth, but he only licks at it absently. ignis is a far better treat. ] Tell me who you belong to.

[blindsider]

[ He can't honestly expect an immediate answer, not when he's moving like that. So the first response Ignis makes is a moan, helpless and unguarded, though he practically falls over himself to answer once he can. ]

You. You. I'm yours, Noct.

[ Red at his mouth, red in his eyes, and Ignis has never seen anything so beautiful. Noctis is sleek and fierce over him, a hunter, and the usual delicacy of Ignis' hands is all but gone from him as he paws desperately over cloth and skin before his hand settles over Noctis' cock and squeezes. The pressure of Noctis in his lap isn't enough, not nearly, but he still feels as if he's right at the edge. It's the sort of feeling that ought to be confusing; craving more when he already feels pushed well beyond his normal limit and at the same time hopelessly aware of just how little he's been actually, physically touched.

But then he looks at Noctis, and it's not confusing at all. He shifts his hand almost pleadingly; Noctis. What he needs is Noctis.]

[linkstrike]

[ if he was, then that moan that ignis offers him instead more than makes up for any disappointment. especially because ignis is quick to reply with the answer that noctis wants, breathless with the force of his devotion. and noctis thrills at the sound of it, already ducking down to catch his mouth in a proper kiss even as ignis reaches to cup his fingers around noctis' cock.

he moans a low sound into his mouth, fingers tightening in his hair as his hips thrust forward into the other man's hand. and there's nothing sweet about the kiss -- it's meant to claim just as much as his words, licking into ignis' mouth with a muffled growl that rumbles up from his chest. ignis is his. his, and he won't let him go, won't let anyone else have him. it's a greedy, jealously possessive thought, but it spurs him on, rocking forward into the tight grip of ignis' fingers and then rolling his hips back against the bulge he can feel straining against him. ]

[blindsider]

[ Ignis has tasted his own blood often enough. Bitten cheeks, or split lips in training, or a slip with a needle while sewing an errant button back in place when the fastest way to keep a pricked finger from bleeding over Noctis' clothes was to put it in his mouth. It's always been... unremarkable. Faintly metallic, but inoffensive.

When Noctis crushes their mouths together, kissing him with an intensity that feels almost like fury, the taste of his own blood lingering on Noctis' tongue is both overwhelming and exhilarating and he has no way of telling whether it's due to the sizzle of magic between them. Noctis' grip in his hair is certainly tight enough that in any other situation he'd consider it painful, but the possessiveness makes him thrill.

His whole life since childhood has been built up around Noctis. All his studies, his learning, the training he took upon himself, everything he is -- it's for Noctis. He's warmed through with the feeling of having that accepted, claimed it in a way he'd not dared to imagine might ever become a reality, but -- he wants more. He fumbles briefly as he tries to get Noctis' pants open, fingers jittery and nervous before he can reach on and grasp his dick unimpeded as he spills little sounds of need into the press of Noctis' mouth. ]