[It took far longer than Ignis had anticipated to get back to Hadriel. A week had turned into more than two, with the storm that had fallen on them while they tried to return and the subsequent repairs that were required in the aftermath. They had all but limped back to the islands, drawing up on shore in the early hours of the morning.
One of Ignis' first thoughts on setting foot on land had, of course, been for a certain young woman. It's only an hour or so (time enough for a shower and a change into clothes not stiff with saltwater, in the very least) after he arrives that he makes his way to her doorstep, checking on a message still showing unread on his phone before he pushes the door open and walks in. He doesn't expect that she'll mind that he didn't knock.]
Kate?
[He calls out into the soft silence of her home, closing the door quietly behind him and shrugging off his coat. Hopefully the next place they go will have a little less constant rainfall.
There's a certain anticipation in this. It's been... weeks since he last saw her, with only sporadic contact that he had blamed on the distance and the fact that half the time he and Noctis were simply trying to keep themselves alive. The thought of having her in front of him again, having her in his arms again curls a warm need in the centre of his chest and prompts a lightness to his steps as he moves further inside.]
( She's home. But unlike most mornings, where Kate might be flitting from one end of the studio house to another, getting ready for the day, she's currently sat on the couch, poring over papers while coffee steams out of a cup. The stuff's vile, but it has caffeine, and right now? That's way more important.
It's not been an easy few weeks, even without counting the absence of the person she's grown to care for the most in this city, and it shows in the slump of her shoulders, the drumming of her fingers against the coffee table as she sits cross-legged on a chair. And there's something different about this place - a small bag that wasn't there before Ignis left, sitting on the floor, filled with somethings that haven't been taken out yet.
At first, the voice doesn't quite register. She blinks, shakes her head, and pulls her gaze away from pages of notes and towards the door.
...Did she miss a message?
It doesn't matter now. The simple moment of recognition seems to wash away the stress that's been plaguing her since the month began, and Kate pushes herself out of the chair and crosses to the door with a few hurried steps. )
[Six, of course that's all she can say. He would have expected nothing else than those casual words but the sound of her steps before them gave away everything that Ignis needs to know.
He says nothing in reply, only exhales a quiet huff of breath through his nose as his expression softens into a small, relieved smile. He says nothing, but closes the distance between them and puts his arms around her, pulling her to him and holding her warmly against his heartbeat.
There's a lot he wants to say to her, but first and most importantly, there's this.]
( Well it has been, and she's not quite ready to ruin the relief of seeing him again with the events of the past couple of weeks. So, Kate does what she so often does, and goes for the most neutral option. The one that doesn't give too much away.
But the second his arms are around her, any pretence is dropped without so much as a thought, her body all but melting against his, a breath she didn't know she was holding collapsing out of her lungs as her arms wrap around his waist. )
[He'll get the truth of things out of her eventually, won't he? Six know he usually does, but he doesn't press her for it now. It's enough to feel the tension roll out of her, the way she leans into him and brings her arms up around his back, and he knows.]
So am I. [Ignis murmurs, shifting only to put himself in a position to press a warm, gentle kiss to the top of her head. Of all the comforts he might have missed while he was away, nothing could compare to how much he had felt the absence of this.
It only reinforces how important to him she's become.]
( Eventually. Just... not right now. Not when it finally feels like the world has been put back on its axis correctly and all the crap going on can be left outside her front door for a while longer.
He's had that effect on her for a long time, but she's never realised it quite so sharply before. The things that have been hurting for these last couple of weeks become more of a dull ache, something that can be pressed through instead of obsessed over. )
Storm, right?
( It would have been a minor miracle if anyone managed to land their ship ashore in that weather. She isn't mad about it. )
[There will be plenty of time to talk later, about losses and all those other little things that sting at them outside of this room. Kate's presence in his arms is a soothing thing, something so sorely missed that he didn't realise just how much until this moment.]
Mm. We were on our way back when it began. It threw us a ways off course. [Thank the Six they didn't lose the compass, or it may have taken far, far longer for them to get back at all.
He's reluctant to let her go, but he shifts back just enough to be able to see her face, to brush a curl of hair away from it and kiss her forehead gently.]
( That sounds like Hadriel. Even when so much changes, the city's almost laughably inconvenient timing never does. Humming her response, Kate disentangles her arms from around his waist and catches his hand as it leaves her hair, leaning in to brush a kiss to his lips. )
You too.
( And she's glad he's back. Late as he might have been, he's in one piece and here, and that means more than anything else. )
[He won't quite let her leave it there, not at that momentary touch, and he leaves her room to say the two words before he leans down to pull her in close. It isn't often he takes the initiative over her, but he's been away for far too long, and found that she crept into his thoughts more and more the longer he was away.
Even more so than the first time.]
I'll try not to go away again too soon. [Ignis tells her, as glad to be back in one piece as she is.] And I think I've had enough of the ocean for a long while.
( He wraps around her like an invitation, an offer to do away with more words and speak a language in which she's fluent. Hands spread across his shoulders, fingers clutching at fabric as though she can tether him to this place if she just fights hard enough. Lips find his again and again to whisper stories about an empty city, to speak of how much brighter the morning sun is as the sky outside lightens and the warmth that transforms a small, nondescript room into a comfortable and familiar place once again.
She's had more than enough of oceans, of thinking about magical artifacts or the ticking of a timer rapidly approaching zero. Had more than enough of an empty bed and an emptier city, of the way everything looked so much duller in the last few weeks. Everything but the softness of his lips, the familiar path her fingers trip as they begin to undo shirt buttons, seems so utterly insignificant right now. )
[It doesn't take much for him to be gently walking her back, taking her into the room and sitting down on the couch. He draws her down into his lap, already partly disheveled with his shirt half undone and smiles crookedly up at her as she settles.
Coming back to her feels as much like coming home as it ever did. The familiar, comfortable sensation of being around her is one he barely notices the absence of until he returns to it, when he realises just how much he was missing.]
( She's quite willing to let him bring them somewhere more comfortable, to keep kissing him as they walk back and run her hands across his chest when she's pulled into his lap.
He speaks in the moment after she's pressed her lips to his brow, hands clutching either side of his face, and Kate stills, frowning just a little. It always manages to catch her slightly off guard, when her mind is more preoccupied with other things. With trying to remember how real he is, how present. Trying to forget Henry's disappearance and Carlisle's ailing health. )
[He knows what she does sometimes - making it seem she didn't hear when the truth is that what he said just took a moment longer than she'd like to process. His hands cover hers and draw them down, clasping them both between his own.]
( Compliments are a strange beast at the best of times, and Kate's never quite sure what to do with them. Praise for good work can easily be dismissed as doing what she has to; ones about being attractive are easily digested with an I know, but ones about her...
She's never quite known how to respond. She was a wonderful athlete. She is wonderful at her job now. But these are things she tried at, worked on. She never really worked at being a good person, and it so often shows.
Slowly, Kate shifts herself until she's got both legs thrown over his lap, until her head rests comfortably against his shoulder, and says nothing for a long moment, merely breathing in the familiar scent of him, tinged with saltwater and clean clothes. )
D'you want to go home?
( It's no surprise that the question has been playing on her mind, is it? )
[It takes him a moment to realise she probably doesn't mean the apartment he occupies while he's here. Ignis frowns slightly, shifting to hold her against him and work a hand gently into her hair.
At one time, this would have been a simple answer. Now, it's entirely too complicated.]
I don't have a great deal to look forward to when I do. [He murmurs, leaning his head lightly against hers.] And I have more that I'm reluctant to leave behind here than I ever thought possible.
[Ignis falls silent for a moment, then sighs.]
Eos is still my home, and my duty there isn't yet done. I have to go back... but I'm content for it not to be just yet.
( There are people who would call their places in Hadriel home, surely. People who want to stay in Hadriel, who have nowhere better to go back to. Kate doesn't generally fall into that camp. There's a life back home, a job, friends. Things she doesn't want to lose. Things that keep her from thinking of Hadriel as home.
But it isn't that simple, is it? When you've been here one, two, however the fuck many years, however many times - it can't be that simple. Not when she's sitting here with her fingers twined in his, so utterly comfortable and terrified all at once. So close to someone she just cannot keep. There's no amount of fighting the world that would let her keep him and, despite everything screaming in her bones, she wouldn't want to.
Because he's right. He has to go home. He has things to do. And she does, too. )
Seemed like an easy question when I first got here. ...Don't have an answer for it now.
[For now, she can keep him. For now, and when 'for now' is all there is, even someone as rational as Ignis will hold onto it with both hands and as tightly as possible. He will hold on to her and what life he has made with her here because 'for now' is better than not at all.]
Hadriel makes a habit of posing difficult questions to us. [He replies, his voice a soft hum. There's no small part of him that tells him he could simply drop the responsibilities he had before to stay with her, but he knows he could never do that. Not to Eos, not to Noctis, and he knows too that she wouldn't ask it of him.]
But I would not trade what we have now for anything. Not a moment of it.
( For now... It's never a term Kate's liked, either too long or too short, never just enough. A frown flickers over her face - difficult questions indeed. She came here so sure about things - that she'd find a way out, that the gods were simply assholes - and over the months, the years in this city, all of those opinions crumbled into nothing.
What does she even know about this place, what can even be trusted any more?
She misses the days when she was certain, because there's so little to be certain about here, other than the comfort she feels with him. )
I—
( Her gaze fixes on their fingers, threaded together, and it almost feels as though she's looking at it all through a window, like this can't really be where her life and her choices have led her. Words form a lump in her throat, heavy and strange and aching to get out as they have with so many people before him, always swallowed back out of fear and poorly constructed pretences. )
— I love you.
( And true, they've stumbled out before when Sorrow's return weighed on every heart in the city until it was almost unbearable, but here and now the gods don't drive anything and it's just... because. Because this is the only thing she's certain of in this chaotic city, because she doesn't want to wake up alone one day and wish she hadn't been so wound up about it all. )
[Ignis wouldn't have been able to anticipate this either, had he been asked where he might be in six, or twelve months from his entry into Hadriel. That he might be sitting on a couch with a woman he loved so intensely he couldn't put it into words would have been the farthest thing from his mind.
He has never pressed her to tell him how she really feels - she shows it, and he is not so blind to the actions of others that he can't read what she's been saying without any need for words. She's said it before, with the influence of one of the gods pressing down on her, but this time it's willing and natural and he doesn't try to fight off his smile.]
I know you do, Kate. [While he couldn't pinpoint when he noticed it, just like before, she's never had to say it for him to know.
( It's been so, so long since she truly let those words out, rather than just had them stumble out of her mouth thanks to the influence of the gods, that - for just a moment - Kate feels the spark of what she remembers from childhood. A swell of joy, something pure and untainted by the weight of anything else.
This is a for now, true, but for now is better lived without regrets, isn't it? Without the lingering tension in the base of her spine, the unsaid words, the future If only I'd...s. Those things already hang over too many lost relationships, lost friends and family and more.
This one? This one she doesn't want to ache over when she looks back. )
... Right. ( Now that that has been said, she shifts enough that she can brush a kiss to the tip of his nose, pressing her forehead against his with the smallest of smiles curving her mouth. That secret little one she's flashed him so many times before, when he's managed to make her forget everything that's been hanging over her head. ) That's sorted.
[Ignis chuckles gently, returning her smile with a gentle, warm one of his own and tucking her up against his side, close enough to bump their noses together and enough to shift to brush a quick kiss to her lips.
It isn't something he expects he will hear too often, but to hear it now, without the influence of any gods or any threat hanging over them to force the words out will be something he keeps hold of. He brushes her hair back with two fingers, giving her another gentle kiss before he speaks again.]
I suppose this may be a good time to tell you that Noct and I were almost killed by a sea monster.
( For his troubles, Ignis gets a quiet, unguarded noise that's nearly like laughter as she's pulled in against him, and the kisses are the calm before the storm.
Perhaps that cliché is a little too on the nose, considering recent events, but the second those words come out, all the warmth disappears from around her and Kate pulls back from the embrace sharp and fast and frowning. )
[All here in one piece and with no visible injuries, after all. He gives the gentlest tug to pull her against him again, catching hold of one of her hands and squeezing his fingers around hers.]
Something very large decided we might make an easy meal. We demonstrated otherwise. [Better to tell her about it now than have it come up later, some other way.] They warned us it would be dangerous.
( That is beside the point. It's not like you didn't have a phone, Ignis. (Is she aware of the hypocrisy of her own irritation? Probably not.) True that they might both be alright, but it's no easier to swallow the concept when so much of her mind has been taken up by Carlisle's ailing health. Her shoulders tense even as he pulls her back in, expression barely shifting. The expeditions may have brought them the parts of the Door they wanted, but at what cost?
Was any of it worth the consequences of Fear's event, the disappearances, the attacks? (She saw those boats, could they even survive an attack by something very large?) )
[Worrying her while he wasn't there would have done neither of them any good at all, and from the looks of things... she's had enough to worry about without adding that on top of it.
The way her body tenses doesn't appear to put him off. He squeezes a hand very gently around her shoulder, looking at her face and knowing full well that if she were angry, he would know about it. It's not the time for that, and he won't let her sink into it if he can help it.
All in all, the storm had been more dangerous than the kraken.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
action; forward-dated after the storms
One of Ignis' first thoughts on setting foot on land had, of course, been for a certain young woman. It's only an hour or so (time enough for a shower and a change into clothes not stiff with saltwater, in the very least) after he arrives that he makes his way to her doorstep, checking on a message still showing unread on his phone before he pushes the door open and walks in. He doesn't expect that she'll mind that he didn't knock.]
Kate?
[He calls out into the soft silence of her home, closing the door quietly behind him and shrugging off his coat. Hopefully the next place they go will have a little less constant rainfall.
There's a certain anticipation in this. It's been... weeks since he last saw her, with only sporadic contact that he had blamed on the distance and the fact that half the time he and Noctis were simply trying to keep themselves alive. The thought of having her in front of him again, having her in his arms again curls a warm need in the centre of his chest and prompts a lightness to his steps as he moves further inside.]
Are you home?
weeps
It's not been an easy few weeks, even without counting the absence of the person she's grown to care for the most in this city, and it shows in the slump of her shoulders, the drumming of her fingers against the coffee table as she sits cross-legged on a chair. And there's something different about this place - a small bag that wasn't there before Ignis left, sitting on the floor, filled with somethings that haven't been taken out yet.
At first, the voice doesn't quite register. She blinks, shakes her head, and pulls her gaze away from pages of notes and towards the door.
...Did she miss a message?
It doesn't matter now. The simple moment of recognition seems to wash away the stress that's been plaguing her since the month began, and Kate pushes herself out of the chair and crosses to the door with a few hurried steps. )
Been a while.
( Yep. Totally casual that. )
no subject
He says nothing in reply, only exhales a quiet huff of breath through his nose as his expression softens into a small, relieved smile. He says nothing, but closes the distance between them and puts his arms around her, pulling her to him and holding her warmly against his heartbeat.
There's a lot he wants to say to her, but first and most importantly, there's this.]
no subject
But the second his arms are around her, any pretence is dropped without so much as a thought, her body all but melting against his, a breath she didn't know she was holding collapsing out of her lungs as her arms wrap around his waist. )
...Glad you're back.
( So. So glad. )
no subject
So am I. [Ignis murmurs, shifting only to put himself in a position to press a warm, gentle kiss to the top of her head. Of all the comforts he might have missed while he was away, nothing could compare to how much he had felt the absence of this.
It only reinforces how important to him she's become.]
I meant to be back sooner.
["I'm sorry."]
no subject
He's had that effect on her for a long time, but she's never realised it quite so sharply before. The things that have been hurting for these last couple of weeks become more of a dull ache, something that can be pressed through instead of obsessed over. )
Storm, right?
( It would have been a minor miracle if anyone managed to land their ship ashore in that weather. She isn't mad about it. )
no subject
Mm. We were on our way back when it began. It threw us a ways off course. [Thank the Six they didn't lose the compass, or it may have taken far, far longer for them to get back at all.
He's reluctant to let her go, but he shifts back just enough to be able to see her face, to brush a curl of hair away from it and kiss her forehead gently.]
I did miss you.
no subject
You too.
( And she's glad he's back. Late as he might have been, he's in one piece and here, and that means more than anything else. )
no subject
Even more so than the first time.]
I'll try not to go away again too soon. [Ignis tells her, as glad to be back in one piece as she is.] And I think I've had enough of the ocean for a long while.
no subject
She's had more than enough of oceans, of thinking about magical artifacts or the ticking of a timer rapidly approaching zero. Had more than enough of an empty bed and an emptier city, of the way everything looked so much duller in the last few weeks. Everything but the softness of his lips, the familiar path her fingers trip as they begin to undo shirt buttons, seems so utterly insignificant right now. )
no subject
Coming back to her feels as much like coming home as it ever did. The familiar, comfortable sensation of being around her is one he barely notices the absence of until he returns to it, when he realises just how much he was missing.]
You're wonderful, do you know that?
no subject
( She's quite willing to let him bring them somewhere more comfortable, to keep kissing him as they walk back and run her hands across his chest when she's pulled into his lap.
He speaks in the moment after she's pressed her lips to his brow, hands clutching either side of his face, and Kate stills, frowning just a little. It always manages to catch her slightly off guard, when her mind is more preoccupied with other things. With trying to remember how real he is, how present. Trying to forget Henry's disappearance and Carlisle's ailing health. )
no subject
[He knows what she does sometimes - making it seem she didn't hear when the truth is that what he said just took a moment longer than she'd like to process. His hands cover hers and draw them down, clasping them both between his own.]
You manage to remind me of it so often.
no subject
She's never quite known how to respond. She was a wonderful athlete. She is wonderful at her job now. But these are things she tried at, worked on. She never really worked at being a good person, and it so often shows.
Slowly, Kate shifts herself until she's got both legs thrown over his lap, until her head rests comfortably against his shoulder, and says nothing for a long moment, merely breathing in the familiar scent of him, tinged with saltwater and clean clothes. )
D'you want to go home?
( It's no surprise that the question has been playing on her mind, is it? )
no subject
At one time, this would have been a simple answer. Now, it's entirely too complicated.]
I don't have a great deal to look forward to when I do. [He murmurs, leaning his head lightly against hers.] And I have more that I'm reluctant to leave behind here than I ever thought possible.
[Ignis falls silent for a moment, then sighs.]
Eos is still my home, and my duty there isn't yet done. I have to go back... but I'm content for it not to be just yet.
no subject
But it isn't that simple, is it? When you've been here one, two, however the fuck many years, however many times - it can't be that simple. Not when she's sitting here with her fingers twined in his, so utterly comfortable and terrified all at once. So close to someone she just cannot keep. There's no amount of fighting the world that would let her keep him and, despite everything screaming in her bones, she wouldn't want to.
Because he's right. He has to go home. He has things to do. And she does, too. )
Seemed like an easy question when I first got here. ...Don't have an answer for it now.
no subject
Hadriel makes a habit of posing difficult questions to us. [He replies, his voice a soft hum. There's no small part of him that tells him he could simply drop the responsibilities he had before to stay with her, but he knows he could never do that. Not to Eos, not to Noctis, and he knows too that she wouldn't ask it of him.]
But I would not trade what we have now for anything. Not a moment of it.
no subject
What does she even know about this place, what can even be trusted any more?
She misses the days when she was certain, because there's so little to be certain about here, other than the comfort she feels with him. )
I—
( Her gaze fixes on their fingers, threaded together, and it almost feels as though she's looking at it all through a window, like this can't really be where her life and her choices have led her. Words form a lump in her throat, heavy and strange and aching to get out as they have with so many people before him, always swallowed back out of fear and poorly constructed pretences. )
— I love you.
( And true, they've stumbled out before when Sorrow's return weighed on every heart in the city until it was almost unbearable, but here and now the gods don't drive anything and it's just... because. Because this is the only thing she's certain of in this chaotic city, because she doesn't want to wake up alone one day and wish she hadn't been so wound up about it all. )
Just... thought I should say that.
no subject
He has never pressed her to tell him how she really feels - she shows it, and he is not so blind to the actions of others that he can't read what she's been saying without any need for words. She's said it before, with the influence of one of the gods pressing down on her, but this time it's willing and natural and he doesn't try to fight off his smile.]
I know you do, Kate. [While he couldn't pinpoint when he noticed it, just like before, she's never had to say it for him to know.
That doesn't mean it isn't good to hear it.]
I love you, too.
no subject
This is a for now, true, but for now is better lived without regrets, isn't it? Without the lingering tension in the base of her spine, the unsaid words, the future If only I'd...s. Those things already hang over too many lost relationships, lost friends and family and more.
This one? This one she doesn't want to ache over when she looks back. )
... Right. ( Now that that has been said, she shifts enough that she can brush a kiss to the tip of his nose, pressing her forehead against his with the smallest of smiles curving her mouth. That secret little one she's flashed him so many times before, when he's managed to make her forget everything that's been hanging over her head. ) That's sorted.
( K a t e... )
no subject
[Ignis chuckles gently, returning her smile with a gentle, warm one of his own and tucking her up against his side, close enough to bump their noses together and enough to shift to brush a quick kiss to her lips.
It isn't something he expects he will hear too often, but to hear it now, without the influence of any gods or any threat hanging over them to force the words out will be something he keeps hold of. He brushes her hair back with two fingers, giving her another gentle kiss before he speaks again.]
I suppose this may be a good time to tell you that Noct and I were almost killed by a sea monster.
no subject
Perhaps that cliché is a little too on the nose, considering recent events, but the second those words come out, all the warmth disappears from around her and Kate pulls back from the embrace sharp and fast and frowning. )
What.
no subject
[All here in one piece and with no visible injuries, after all. He gives the gentlest tug to pull her against him again, catching hold of one of her hands and squeezing his fingers around hers.]
Something very large decided we might make an easy meal. We demonstrated otherwise. [Better to tell her about it now than have it come up later, some other way.] They warned us it would be dangerous.
no subject
Was any of it worth the consequences of Fear's event, the disappearances, the attacks? (She saw those boats, could they even survive an attack by something very large?) )
... S'pose they did, aye.
( It doesn't mean she has to like it. )
no subject
The way her body tenses doesn't appear to put him off. He squeezes a hand very gently around her shoulder, looking at her face and knowing full well that if she were angry, he would know about it. It's not the time for that, and he won't let her sink into it if he can help it.
All in all, the storm had been more dangerous than the kraken.]
Tell me what's on your mind.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From: