Gladio/Gil Bellum; Bodyguard AU/time travel
Gladio nearly tripped, panting and leaning against the wall. Staring at the younger man. It had been a very busy few minutes. He had been running like mad, trying to catch up to his younger sister, the Prince’s Shield, after the fall of Insomnia. He’d nearly found them in Altissia.
He’d seen this man talking to Noctis, seen them both bloody. Clasping each other’s hands. And Leviathan had screamed. Leviathan had sung. It had rung through Gladio like a bell, violent and unquenchable.
And then he had been falling through light and water, through the seas of time. Through everything and everywhen. Seeing only this young man, and feeling something snap into place between them. It was everything and nothing like being a Shield was supposed to be. It was all teeth and drowning wrapped up in the crystal.
He acknowledged only distantly, when he and his Caelum-not-Caelum landed in Solheim. And it was obviously Solheim, he’d seen paintings and read enough books of it. He could feel a new tattoo emblazoned into his flesh. He could feel his eyes strange, he imagined they were serpentine instead of human now. And he could feel the impossible pull wrapped around the man.
Not just his own direction. But a whole medium. The world divided between the land the sea the sky and this man.
“So. We should probably exchange names. Because I have a feeling we’ll be together for the rest of our lives. And it seems the Hydraean has a mission for you,” Gladio said, and his voice was his own, but there was also something feral about it and musical. He was no longer quite entirely a creature of the land. No longer Amacitia.
His own branch of the family, now back in time before the family had ever been born.
