revivalproject | Captain On A Chill-Cation

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Captain On A Chill-Cation

WHO: Gladiolus, Open
WHERE: Space Dock
WHAT: Checking in, Spa Day
WHEN: During Event
WARNINGS: N/A

I. Captain On Deck

It was almost funny to think that there was some expectation that being a pilot on the ships meant Gladio should have some authority over his crew. There were more than a few of them who would never see him as such, which was fair. That wasn't how things worked back on Agra-10, and it sure wasn't how it was going to work for anyone but station administration now that they were here.

That didn't mean Gladio didn't have responsibilities here. Chances were they only mattered to him, but Gladio still wanted to live up to them. So he found himself strolling through the station, eyes always on the swivel, hoping to catch sight of any of his crew mates. And once he does, he moves immediately to get to them.

"Everything going alright over here?"

And he must be a bit of a sight as he does it too. There he is, in his full Glaive uniform, standing at parade rest, looking over someone he feels responsible for with the sort of commanding presence of a military leader. Which he was. But whatever, just humor him perhaps?

II. Nothing Like Relaxing

There's plenty of time throughout the month to do the work of acquiring parts, consulting with engineers for any modifications, and going through the (frankly recurring) process of collecting his crew from their various misdeeds. Taking time for himself hasn't been something Gladio's done often. But there is something he catches sight on in one of his strolls through the space dock that really gets Gladio off of his cycle.

The sign takes some translating, but when he's got it, he looks intrigued.

"A massage, huh?"

And then he's approaching the counter where a creature that looks much like a living granite statue, who frowns.

"I'm sorry, this is for couples. Without a companion you cannot enter."

Well, now that was frustrating.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Noctis was my prince, and is my King. I was sworn to be his shield when I was eight. His family has ruled our nation and served as guardians of a good portion of the world for over a hundred generations, and the Amicitias have always protected them. I can list off the ancestors of mine who have died to prevent such blows from befalling our royals. I can list off those who failed."

His father included. Which had been something quite painful for them both.

"And in his world, he is like you. Dead. This is the peace he gets, the peace I get with him. Reaching for that isn't a bad thing. It isn't evil. It is the one piece of piece we can win for ourselves, Billy. And what's more..."

He takes a deliberate sip of his water to give the moment pause and weight.

"If your father shows up and tries to put a hand on my student for nothing more than being who he is, I'll put him in traction."

Because yes, he will absolutely break both of the kid's father's arms and legs. Won't even hesitate. What Billy's suggesting is wrong. Just wrong.

"You could say that technically, by training under me, you've become a probationary member of the Lucian Royal Guard. And I don't let people lay a hand on my men or women because of that. Pretty sure my King would agree with the decision as well. Noctis isn't a fan of bullies of any variety."

A prince and a King in Gladio's world. It's strange to Billy to know that those kind of titles really do exist. He knows of the British royal family, but those were just figureheads in his opinion. Someone for the public to look at while the government made laws in secret.

There's no comfort in finding that Noctis is just as dead as he is in Gladio's world, until it's mentioned that both he and Gladio get the peace that they want to be who they want here.

He thinks things over as the Shield takes his drink and Billy contemplates his food again. Starts eating quietly again as the threat to Neil is made.

"He wouldn't do it in front of you. He's smarter than that. He'd wait for closed doors, for no one to be looking." The memory of the night he fought Steve comes up immediately. How only Susan was around to watch Neil bully his son, but she had said nothing. At least Billy's mom had come to bat for him every now and again.

"I'm not part of any royal guard. People with hotheaded attitudes like me don't go for shit like that. Go get Harrington for stuff like that." He turns his head away so Gladio can't see something he wipes off of his face quick before looking back out the window.

"Don't need to see it in front of me. The guard has faith in the word of our fellows. He shows up, I'll make sure he doesn't touch you," Gladio says with a shrug like it's not a big deal.

To him it isn't. No one threatens what is his. And Billy is one of his. Simple as that.

"I'm going to laugh if you claim hot heads aren't in our guard forces. One of the greatest heroes of our country in recent memory was my mentor Cor 'The Immortal' Leonis. The thing that made him most famous, beyond his fighting skill, was the most rash bullshit I've ever heard of. And I followed in his footsteps with it. Nearly got him killed. Me as well. The vast majority of the Kingsglaive service are rash and hotheaded too. Nyx sure was. Literally played with fire that guy."

And Gladiolus shook his head at that. They guy was... Gone now. He fought for so much and he was gone now.

"So I could be lying and you'd go after him without double-checking?" He slides a look that says 'seriously?' to the guy to see the shrug. "Then people like me who are prone to violence with bad attitudes and tempers aren't really guard material."

He wants to get up and pace, but instead his foot bounces gently. "It's off-topic anyways. I was only asking because there's..."

He swallows his words before he tries them again. "There's someone I like. I think."

"You flinch, whenever it looks like I might touch you," Gladio says honestly. "Learned signs of things like this when I was young. Important when you're rubbing elbows with lesser nobility. An observation from an Amicitia carries a lot of weight back home."

So yes he knows what he's doing. What he's saying.

"And you're a good kid in a bad place in his life. Trust me when I say that doesn't make you ill suited for the guard. Told you before, I'm experienced in this."

But the kid says it's off topic and Gladio accepts it with a kid and is willing to let it go. Especially when there's something else Billy cares about.

"Good way to test that is to have you talk about him. Don't have to give me his name or details, but sorta... describe him. Not like I'm going to tell. Trusted you with the secret of my fiancé, so that's important."

He's glad he's changed the subject back to crushes since Gladio saw the signs of abuse. It's a heavy thing to tell people, but he knows he can trust the guy. Apparently that trust goes both ways if the Shield told him about how Otis is.

He picks up his fork to slowly start eating again. He is hungry after all. There's silence as he mulls over how to describe the guy in question.

"He gave me a chance. Where others from my world didn't seem to want to give it so willingly. I've done shitty things back home. Real shitty. Learned behavior and all that. Whatever. We hang out sometimes. Helped him after the volcano. I don't know what kind of details you want about him."

"I want to hear about this guy in your own words. Sometimes the way we describe people can be useful in showing how we feel about them, even if we don't realize it," Gladio says. "It says something about what you notice in him, what you value."

And in turn, what he might feel. Still, what he's hearing so far mostly just sounds like a friend. Someone who gives you a chance. So he needs more.

"He went out of his way to throw me this little birthday thing. He took two weeks to plan it by himself. Took me to a place I could surf, and bought me new clothes, and took me to dinner. Sometimes... when I looked at him, my heart like..." Billy frowns, trying to find the way to describe it. "Like, it stuttered. But I got really warm looking at him, too."

He finally finishes his steak and near throws the plate aside to deal with later. "I shoved him and raced him to the water and he came after me. We wrestled in the water and I ended up on top of him... and it felt like everything shifted." That's an easy memory to recall. The way the water and sand clung to Tommy, the brightness of his eyes, and tanned glow of his skin. That damn smile on his face that warmed Billy more than the sun over them. "I can't stop thinking about it. Sure, he gave me a chance and all this other shit, but we can relate on so much. Shitty home lives, being better than a reputation. Just... when he smiles at me, it feels like it's for me."

Gladio takes this all in silently, considering. Then, at long last, he nods.

"Speaking from the position of a guy that spend a long time in love with one of the people he would consider one of his best friends? Seems like you've got yourself a bit of a crush. Maybe your first one in a long while."

Should he say the other thing? What if he's wrong? Giving the kid false hope would be cruel. And yet...

"And you might not be putting yourself that far out there if you were too share that information with him. Could be a pretty weak line here, but sounds like he's probably a bit hooked too. Might not know how to show it beyond giving you what he thinks you deserve. Plenty of people spoil their partners."

He looks at Gladio, the light he had talking about Tommy dimming. "What if it's not a crush though? What if this is one of those things where I'm thinking it is because this is the first time someone's been nice to me in a long time?"

Talk to Tommy about it? And ruin what they had? He couldn't. Billy wouldn't. He had more going for him here in Temba, but there still wasn't a lot. And if he made it awkward and they were on a mission that required close quarters or being on the ship again... "Maybe that was just his way of being a friend or something."

Shit. Now he was worried.

"I can't make you believe what your own heart is telling you. That's on you, Billy. I've had a hard enough time following my own in the course of my life. But I know enough to say that when you feel like someone's smile is just for you, when it warms you like that, when your heart skips that beat, it is a way of caring about them. Whether it comes from him being good to you or not, it's still a form of care."

It's still love. Whether that grows into something more serious or not has a lot to do with how the two of them feed it. Or starve it.

"As for him, we've got enough guys here that I can't begin to guess which one it is, so I can't say anything for sure about him. But going that far out of the way to spoil a guy for his birthday? That feels a bit more than platonic to me."

Maybe it's less what his heart is telling him and more what his worry was saying. But Gladio is right, all of what the speedster did was a form of care. A form he just wasn't really accustomed to after all of his years living in Neil's house. No one's cared for him like his mom did.

"Good, I was being a bit vague so you wouldn't figure it out. Not that you'd tell him anything because I don't think someone with your morals and shit would do that. Part of me thinks he was only spoiling me like that because who knows how many birthdays I get before I'm sent back? Nineteen wasn't supposed to happen for me back home."

"And Noctis only gets the ones I give him," Gladio says with a shrug. "Doesn't mean I don't spoil him because I love him."

Why would that not be an option? Surely the kid should open his mind to that some.

He looks away to think again for a moment, then back to the bigger guy. "So... you think he likes me then? And that's just... okay." Yes, he was still trying to wrap his head around it because it wasn't the norm where he was from.

"And if anyone gives me shit about it, you'll beat the shit out of them?"

But it's fine. Just like that? No way. It can't be fine just like that.

"Don't know. I can't say for sure. I'm just saying maybe there is something going on there," he says with a shrug. "And what you do with that is really up to you. No one can force you to want someone romantically, or to not want them. Your heart wants what it wants."

And sometimes people just stand in their own way with that. But the question earns a hearty chuckle.

"Yeah. If someone gives you a shit about liking guys, then they'd be giving me shit about it too, and I don't really take well to that."

Something maybe going on. Definitely something to think about. Billy's glad they're eating in the cockpit away from everyone. Away from where Tommy might be able to hear. The guy doesn't seem like the type to eavesdrop.

"If I told you who it was, would you keep it to yourself?" The conversation has definitely given him a lot to think about later. The look he's giving Gladio is a worried one, as though this was information he wasn't sure he could trust the man with. "I... I don't want it getting around that I've got a crush or whatever. Reputation and all that."

"What would I gain from sharing it?" Gladio asks with a shrug. Well, he might be a bit distressed if it was Steve, because the kid was clearly smitten with someone else and not pleased with Billy, so that would be bad and Gladio would warn him away from that.

"I promise, on my honor as an Amicitia and upon the oaths I swore to my prince and King, I will keep it to myself, provided the secret causes no deep harm in being kept."

"Blackmail, really." That was a thing that played in Billy's world because of course it did. You come from a mentally unhealthy home and you have habits that were just as unhealthy. He studies Gladio with that answer and shrug.

Blue eyes focus once again out of the viewport, to the space stretched out before the two pilots.

"It's Tommy. Tommy Shepherd."

At least one person should know. Max was going to beat him up for not telling her first, too.

"Oh, the guy that calls Noctis 'Noctipus' and tries to race him when he's warping. From what I've heard, he sounds like a nice kid."

Though there's a lot he hasn't heard. Noctis keeps the boy's secrets pretty well, but Gladio figures there's some trauma there for how Noctis worries.

"Yeah we had a real rough start when we met, but obviously doing better." Billy thinks about the time they pushed a mattress out of a window and just… gets this dopey grin on his face for a moment.

"He really is one of the first people to believe I could be better. Actually gave me a shot and helped out when I fucked things up sometimes." And helped out during the times it mattered most. The shower during the volcano situation. The fireworks ordeal. Times when Billy needed someone without asking for it.

Billy rests his head against the chair to lol at Gladio. "Does me crush meet my superior‘s approval then?"

That sort of smile Billy was wearing wasn't the sort that went with 'I had fun doing stupid shit with a friend'. And it makes Gladio chuckle just a little. Kid's smitten. Who knew he had it in him.

"Hey, not my job to weigh in on matters of romance. That's all HR and we seem distinctly out of agents at the moment. Guess it's really your freedom to decide your own love life, kid."

Billy hadn’t been kidding when he described the situations with Tommy earlier. He hears the chuckle and grins at his mentor.

Maybe it really was that easy. Maybe Billy could let himself go from what was waiting for him at home. It would take some time thought.

Hopefully he had enough time for that.

"Now I just gotta figure out how to tell him. Or at least figure out if he likes me."

This was where Gladio wished he could use Noct as a go between. But that would indeed be telling. And he gave his word, which was important. So he considers the advice he could give.

"He's got a brother, right?"

Siblings were often a good way in. Gladio knew about Iris's crush on Noctis (though she hadn't know the other way around). No doubt Ignis had known of Noctis's in return.

"Yeah, Kaplan. The other Billy. One of the two people that healed me up when I arrived." Right. Gladio had been there for that, had seen the state of Hargrove. "Tea did stitches but he magicked a lot of it afterwards. Used it to take some of the pain out."

At some point in this conversation, Bullys leg had stopped bouncing. "Why?"

Good to see the anxiety about this conversation fading some. Not much, but some. Wasn't that half the battle?

"Siblings tend to know. And if he cares about his brother he might try and encourage you. And him honestly."

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