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Some days are great. Some days are better than others. Some days… are not good at all.
Ignis can’t forget in its entirety– there was no way he ever could– but there are some days where it just… slips his mind. There are some days, he thinks, where it slips even Noctis’s mind.
Things could be well and great until one day even sending Prompto to awaken their sleeping prince doesn’t cut it, and Ignis remembers that something is wrong. On those days, he usually finds a way to excuse himself, although they all know he’s going to check on him, and goes back to the hotel room to do just that.
Like today.
“I’m coming in,” he warns outside the door, and gives Noctis a few moments to collect himself if need be. Then he twists the doorknob and lets himself in, eyes falling on the prince tangled up in the blankets, back to him.
He doesn’t think he’s asleep; he could be, but Ignis banks on the fact that he isn’t. “Everything alright, Noct?” He knows that it isn’t, but he doesn’t need to say so in so many words. He just wants to clarify the situation in case, and offer what he can do to help.
Noctis is quiet for a moment, and then sighs, low and long. “… yeah. Sorry.” He knows that it isn’t, too, and it is evident by how he doesn’t try to hide the emotion in his voice. “Just… can’t get moving,” he mumbles, and then rolls over to face him. He looks impossibly small, bundled up in the blankets, and profoundly… unhappy isn’t the word. Not exactly.
Ignis checks his temperature mostly out of habit.
“‘m not sick,” Noctis mutters. “Just tired…”
“Just checking.”
Noctis has never once owned his depression in so many words, but throughout the years he’s let his guard down around Ignis. As far as he knows, it’s only around him that Noctis allows himself to drop the facade, if only a little. But it’s enough for Ignis to see, and know, and he has known for some time.
Once, he would have been upset to come to Noctis’s apartment and see dirty dishes lining the cabinets. But dirty dishes meant that, at the very least, Noct had tried to eat. Some days? That was worth more than any clean-up Ignis could imagine.
“Do you want me to bring up something for you to eat? We’re having a simple frittata for breakfast. I can order you one without vegetables.”
A brief shake of his head, and a halfhearted “not really hungry, Specs”.
“That’s fine.” He can’t be too disappointed. He had figured that would be the response. “Later, then, perhaps?”
“Maybe.”
The maybe is probably a no, but Ignis lets himself remain hopeful. If not, it isn’t going to hurt for one day. Perhaps he can coax him with a pastry later, as if the sugar is what he needs with his diet but Ignis will fight that battle when Noctis isn’t struggling under the weight of his own.
Instead, he steps forward to untangle the blankets from where they’re twisted around Noctis. “Do you want company?” He asks gently, unassuming, and Noctis still hesitates beneath his hands.
The reactions always vary. They had started out as no! jeez, I’m fine. Now, they have morphed into tentative, as if Noctis doesn’t really know the answer himself. Ignis still isn’t sure if that’s the case, or if perhaps he doesn’t want to hurt his feelings.
“The truth, Noct. You won’t offend me.”
“… Maybe not just now?” Noctis mumbles, like he hates to say it. His arms, wrapped around the pillow, tighten around it. “I just… kinda wanna… go back to sleep or something.”
“Of course.” He doesn’t mind. He doesn’t know if he should sit with Noct anyway, on these kind of days, but he figures doing so when he doesn’t want the company will do more harm than good. Sometimes you just needed time to yourself. He would be there if the prince wanted him, or needed him, and Noct knew that, but he would leave him to his own devices if he asked. “I’ll keep the others busy for awhile.”
“Thanks…”
He finishes smoothing out the blankets. “Any time.”
He will acquiesce to Noctis spending the day in bed, he will acquiesce to no food and no companionship, but there are a few things that he doesn’t plan to budge on. Fallbacks, if you will.
He dutifully pulls a clean change of clothes out of the prince’s bag and folds it at the end of the bed. He doesn’t bother to match, just picks the well-loved shirt and trousers he knows are his favorites and sets them aside. He doesn’t expect Noctis will be out of bed, let alone out of the room, but he does it just in case.
Then he untangles the charger from Noctis’s headphones, the splitter, and a chocobo keychain from Prompto, finds the prince’s phone wedged beneath the opposite pillow, and plugs it in on the nightstand. “Text me when you wake up,” he says. It’s a gauge of how Noctis is coping, of sorts. Sometimes he texts him. Sometimes he neglects to. Either way, it’s there if Noct needs him and Ignis will be by later to check in, anyway. On pretense of anything else, of course.
Noctis mumbles a reply, face turned into his pillow and ducked slightly beneath the blankets. Good enough.
Finally, Ignis steps into the tiny bathroom and fills a cup with cold water. That is placed on the nightstand as well, a safe distance from the phone. That likely isn’t all that he could do, but all that he will, for now. “Try to drink that before it gets warm,” he says softly, and presses his fingers briefly to Noctis’s bare shoulder. “But rest for now. We’ll be downstairs.”
Noctis’s eyes crack open. They don’t look at him, but he cracks a tiny smile anyway. “Thanks, Specs… really.”
“That’s what I’m here for.” Perhaps in not such specific terms, keeping a closer eye on their prince when he can’t get out of bed, but it’s part of the job. Barring that, it’s part of being his friend.
For now, Ignis will leave him to his solitude. This battle isn’t a sprint, and Ignis has nowhere else he plans to be, anyway.