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Ignis Scientia, in his humble opinion, is not a peculiar person. Which is why he finds himself rather perplexed when he feels very, very peculiar.
It’s not so much that he’s feeling ill, or even remotely sick. Ignis has known signs of coming down with sickness since he knew how to read and has known how to avoid them even longer. There’s no cough, no ache in his head or bones, but physically there is something wrong . Or, at the very least, off , not sick , but discombobulating all the same.
His day started simply enough in the sense of it was his usual routine. He woke up at the same time he always awoke, he got himself in the shower, and he got himself clean because that’s what one does when they put themselves in the shower. Only when he got out and got himself dressed, that’s when it started. His clothes felt like it hugged at all the wrong parts, bungie, but not in a size way. It made his eyes linger on the mirror as he got himself ready.
It’s the kind of feeling one would get when they first start a puzzle, pieces dumped out everywhere in a disorganized mess, only uphill to go from there, except for one thing; there’s no picture to go off of. Hardly even a vague idea, just pieces in disarray and the calling to sort them and put them in their place, wherever that may be. That being said he isn’t completely unfamiliar with this feeling. He’s had it before, mostly when he was growing up, mostly when he was fitting into suits or couldn’t find the right thing to do with his hair (that’s something that, for certain, hasn’t changed), but he never found the picture he was going for.
This feeling made Ignis, who prides himself on being very good at organizing and solving problems very, and with absolutely no pun intended, puzzled.
Peculiar , he thinks that morning, Very peculiar indeed.
Now, Ignis was and will most certainly never be the type of person to leave a problem unresolved. But sometimes, especially with the nature of his job, especially with his own problems, he has to… put a pin in things. Hang it up on the fridge, remind himself to deal with it later, but focus on what’s in front of him right now. That’s where this feeling ended up. It wasn’t as if it was hindering him from completing tasks, so he never got around to uprooting where it came from. And he wasn’t going to today because he still had things in front of him, but it’s hard not to acknowledge. Ignis never found a way to soothe the itch in the back of his mind, but he found ways to walk around it, and that’s what he’ll have to do for now. He had much more important things to do, and thus, he will get them done.
It’s mid-autumn, which means classes for Noctis had just recently picked back up. The start of his second year of high school, and if Ignis had been attending the same way as him, he would be attending his last. But Ignis, just a handful of months shy of turning nineteen, a job and an even longer one ahead of him, did class-like things later in the night and duties in place of the Prince during the day.
Ever since this arrangement of Noctis going to school and Ignis going to meetings had begun, a few times Ignis has been given the question; “Do you envy him? Don’t you want to go to high school, be a teenager, too?” But after hearing just a handful of stories from Noctis after just one year of high school and seeing just a bit whenever he picked him up from school, Ignis made the as-always precise resolution that, no, there was absolutely nothing to envy there.
Even later that day, when he stops by Noctis’s apartment as he usually does, and sees the state of chaotic teenage boy disaster his flat is in, it reaffirms that, no, there is nothing to be jealous of where Noctis is concerned.
Noctis is at the table on his laptop. He doesn’t look up when Ignis comes in, as he does, but that isn’t something Ignis comments on anymore. Besides, he looks very focused on whatever he’s doing. Ignis prays to Six that it’s homework, but by now he knows better. Either way, he makes the executive decision to deal with that second and gets started on picking up.
There’s something to cleaning that soothes Ignis. Maybe it’s the pattern of it, how at this point cleaning up Noctis’s apartment has fit itself into his routine down to the hour of the day and how he knows exactly where everything should go and how it should go there and why it is. Maybe it’s because, as previously stated, Ignis is just good at sorting his way through messes, and Ignis is particularly fond of doing things he’s good at. But it’s anyone's guess.
Dirty laundry piled up over the next handful of minutes. Ignis sorted his clothes that could be tossed into the wash from his binders that needed a bit more of a delicate course of action, something that Noct (surprisingly) liked doing on his own, got them sorted before he returned to the table with Noctis.
Peering over his shoulder, Ignis shook his head. Disappointed, but not surprised.
“That doesn’t look like homework,” Ignis sighed more so at the screen of an online shop than Noct himself.
“In a second,” Noctis said, shockingly on-time from how far-away and focused he sounded. It triggered yet another tired sigh from deep within Ignis’s soul, so he entered the kitchen. No use in talking yet if he’s going to be ignored.
But, of course, Ignis going into a kitchen always raises some interest, so Noctis’s eyes peer over his laptop the moment he hears pots and pans being moved around. Ignis almost smiles.
“I’m shopping for Prompto’s birthday,” Noctis says, almost out of the blue if Ignis hadn’t been wondering what he was doing on online stores. “It’s next month.”
Noct's new—well, not new anymore, he supposes—friend from school is still somewhat of a spectacle to Ignis. He’s met him, multiple times. He comes over to Noctis’s apartment after school so much that, even after just a year of them knowing each other, it feels odd to come inside and not see the blond lounging on the sofa with a game in his hand. It isn’t that Ignis… didn’t like Prompto, not exactly , he’s just very different than Noctis, or anyone he’s ever met for that matter. Extremely different from himself. Which isn’t a bad thing, he reminds himself whenever Prompto is over and is bumbling about loudly and awakening whatever dormant headache Ignis thought he had tamed earlier in the day. Just different . At the very least, he was glad Noct made a friend from school. That was a good enough baseline.
Prompto was just very peculiar, and Ignis wasn’t, so he wasn’t sure if he would ever really warm up to Prompto. But he wasn’t required to, as far as he knew, so it was fine. It wasn’t like they were ever going to work together. Ignis could tolerate him just fine.
“Has he talked about anything he wants?” Ignis asks as he rinses out a pan. His back is to Noctis, though he can still hear his fingers tap against the table next to his computer.
“No,” Noct answers. “Well, yes, sort of, but not really. He’s talked about stuff he needs, but not much of what he wants. Not even when I ask him.”
Ignis knows when his help is going to be needed. So he asks, “What are you looking at, then?”
“Binders,” he answers simply but distantly like he’s reading something and only responding on instinct. It takes him a moment for him to finish his thought with, “He has two already, but one of them is on its last leg, and he’s been talking about getting more for a while now, but never getting around to it.”
“Well, when you say that, he almost sounds like you,” Ignis quipped, “Remember when you put off getting new ones, to the point one snapped in the middle-”
“ Yes , Ignis, I remember,” Noct groans, and- yes, Ignis can hear him putting his head down in his arms. The rest comes out muffled. “That’s going to be hard to forget. You practically threw yourself out of your chair to deflect everyone else.”
Ignis chuckled, just a little, which showed the memory was far less embarrassing for him than it was for Noctis.
“So, have you picked out the ones you want to get him? Do you have his measurements?”
“Yeah, for the most part, it just doesn’t feel like enough for them, I guess.” Them , Ignis’s brain picks out. He doesn’t comment, since he doesn’t have to, but he acknowledges it. Noct carries on, “Usually whenever we go to his house, or they come here, they just take it off, so I don’t know how many I should get him. And even then, it isn’t enough , but I don’t know what else to get him.”
“What about that game that came out last month?” Ignis asks as he chopped vegetables. “He was going on and on about it the last time I saw him.”
“Yeah, he already got it for themself. Probably beat it by now, too.”
Four times. Well, Ignis supposes it’s better to ask. He runs a cucumber under the sink as he asks, “Is Prompto going by “they” now?”
He sees Noct tilt his head at him from behind a screen. He must’ve been reading something else as Ignis asked because it took a second for his eyebrows to raise and for it to click in his head. Once he registered the question, his head went back down, and he was back online even as he answered.
“Yeah, they’re trying it out along with “he” for right now.” Some clicking and scrolling. Ignis turns off the sink. “He talked about sort of feeling like a guy, but a bit to the left, so he’s trying to figure that out.”
Ignis stops for a second. His eyebrows furrow, his knife slows, and he’s squinting. A guy, but a bit to the left. It sounds like a joke and, knowing the two of them, with the way of wording it probably is, but the statement is still there and Ignis isn’t sure if he’s heard it before. Well, heard it phrased in a way that’s so simple. It’s strange, the way it connects in Ignis’s mind; because it does just that, it connects . Some pieces of a puzzle Ignis forgot about this morning just clicked together, and it instills emotion in him that he can’t place. A man, but a bit to the left.
Ignis said, “Oh.” and nothing more. He doesn’t find himself saying “oh” and nothing more often, which strikes him as peculiar.
But then Ignis’s knife is finishing its way through the cucumber, because he did only stop just for a second, and Noctis is asking about what he’s making for dinner and why he sees so much green, and the conversation changes. But the pieces stay connected.
By the end of the night, Ignis has forgotten about it.
“Forgotten” is a strong word- put it aside. He processed it and he moved on because there are still things to get done, like throwing around wooden weapons and making sure his footing is perfect. The conversation, the feeling from earlier in the day, it had all seemed to melt away in a combination of sweat and quick movements, as things usually did when Ignis did his practice in the evenings. After this, he would go home, take a shower, heat himself up what he had left from dinner last night, do his classwork and get to bed. Yes, routine never fails, and he’s reminding himself of that as he walks into the changing area with a towel around his neck.
Gladiolus Amicitia is there, sitting upon a bench, hunched over his phone. His shirt is off and next to him, which implies he’s somewhat in the middle of changing and is about to take Ignis’s place in training. He looks up when the door opens, and he raises a hand as a greeting.
“Hey,” He says.
“Hello,” Ignis responds, and he thinks absolutely nothing of it as he walks to where he had put his clothes.
Gladio asks about Noctis, as he does, and Ignis answers, asks questions of his own, and Ignis is once again thinking about how routine does never seem to fail. They discuss Noctis and how he’s doing in training and academics and everything outside and in between as Ignis gets dressed. Gladio is a good man, and Ignis finds himself enjoying his company more often than not. They work together, and they will be for a very long time, so he supposes that it's only natural. Gladio can be a bit… rowdy , a bit steely in a way, but that’s only a part of his job, and Ignis likes to think he knows him as a little more than that. Gladio is a very good person. He has a nice laugh, and Ignis is hearing it as he closes the locker, fully dressed to head home.
Gladio’s attention was back on his phone. Ignis wasn’t even sure if it was ever really taken off of it during their whole conversation, but Gladio isn’t like Noct. He can successfully do two things at once. Ignis can tell that his attention is equally divided, though, when he turns and Gladio immediately looks up at him, as if he was waiting. He stands too.
“So, hey, uh,” Gladio asks, stammering, turning his head to clear his throat for a minute before continuing. His hands are in his shorts pockets. “What’re you doing tomorrow?”
“The same things I do every day, you know that,” Ignis responds, unphased, squinting a bit. “Why do you ask?”
“Well,” He starts, and then sighs, and Ignis sees him rubbing at the back of his neck and is a bit stunned at the physical suggestion of Gladio floundering. “I guess I did sort of know that- I was just wondering if you, like, by chance, maybe, tomorrow, wanted to- you know, do something?”
“Gladio, I do something every day. You do too. You’re going to have to be specific. Is this a sparring thing? Because if it is, as I’ve said before, I have no problem with-”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He cuts Ignis off, and Ignis looks up at him, really looks, and routine fails, because Gladio’s face is red. He’s looking to the side, and he’s biting at his lip a bit in a way that Ignis knows means he’s thinking. Ignis feels a bit concerned and before he can even think about it his hand is on his shoulder and his eyebrows are furrowed. But then he realizes the tone of which he spoke and, internally, he poses the question, Is he embarrassed?
Gladio takes a deep breath and riding on his exhale is an, “I meant with me. Not as a training thing, but as an… us thing?”
“An us thing,” Ignis echos.
“Yeah, like a- well it doesn’t have to be like a da- I mean, unless you want it to be, I mean-”
Ignis asks, “Gladio?” Because he doesn’t understand what is going on whatsoever, but he realizes this was not the right thing to say when he sees Gladio stiffen. Ignis recognizes the raw, jock panic in Gladio’s eyes, and is about to apologize before Gladio just blurts out, “You’re really pretty.”
And Ignis, oh-so eloquently, just stares at him.
There’s a beat of silence, but Ignis hardly registers it. All that he registers in the next few seconds, really, is that Ignis, someone who is rarely stumped often, finds himself just saying “Oh.” and nothing more for the second time in one evening. And it’s strange because he hardly ever does that.
Gladio starts blabbering after that, saying how he should go, how he has to be back home to help Iris with something, how Ignis knows how it is, and that he’ll see Ignis tomorrow. And he will because tomorrow is Friday and he does his training earlier in the day. Ignis only comes back to reality when he hears the heavy door shut, and finds that Gladio is gone. There’s a lot for him to go through here; Gladio presumably trying to ask him on a date and then calling him pretty, and the worst, most confusing part of all, another set of pieces connecting in the puzzle.
Ignis shakes his head, looks down at the dirty towel in his arms, and finally decides to do something with it. He puts it in his place and makes his way to his car.
The stunned silence Gladio had pushed him into carried over into his drive home. Even when he pulled into the apartment complex, he parked his car and didn’t move. No, Ignis sat there, squinting at the building, mulling over an interaction he had in a locker room. He finds himself mouthing the words, testing them out in his mouth; You’re really pretty.
He looks up at the mirror above him. You’re really pretty.
His face gets red. Another piece connects and, somehow, in some way, even just a bit, Ignis is getting the vague idea of a picture in front of him. It’s a strange feeling, an unfamiliar one, just like sitting in his car for twenty minutes staring at nothing and himself. Despite this, Ignis, who never smiles in the face of unfamiliarity, smiles , because he sees it. He supposes he is a little pretty.
Ignis opens the door of the car, locks it, and closes it. He begins to make his way to his flat, with his mind circling on the words, pretty, and, to the left.
When he gets inside, his night continues as normal. It continues exactly as it would’ve if Gladio didn’t throw him an absolute curveball, or if Noctis didn’t talk about Prompto the way he had. He takes a nice shower, he heats himself dinner, and he does some classwork in a comfortable robe at his table. Ignis isn’t like Noctis either, in the sense that he can also do two things at once. He can do multiple things at once, but right now he’s only doing two; classwork and ruminating.
Gears turned comfortably in the back of his mind, just as they always had. Ignis thought, Oh, there we go. Some problems seem to solve themselves, don’t they?
By the end of the night, Ignis was still confused. He was brushing his teeth, and his eyes met with themselves in the mirror, and the words appeared again. You’re really pretty . The corners of his mouth went up. A guy, just a bit to the left . He was still a bit lost on why these words grabbed him as much as they did, but something was there, and something would come out of it. Maybe he just needed to sleep on it.
He got himself in bed, but his eyes didn’t seem to close. No, he stared at the ceiling. He lost track of minutes and seconds, thinking again, getting stuck but not at the same time. Pretty, to the left, pretty, to the left…
Maybe that’s just who he is.
Ignis blinked and, to himself, he said, “Oh.” And then he smiled, grinned at the ceiling. Carefully he closed his eyes and rolled onto his side because he can see it now. The picture. It’s clear enough for Ignis to let it go for now and to, instead, think of what to tell Gladio tomorrow.
Maybe he was just a pretty guy, a bit to the left. There doesn’t seem to be anything peculiar about that.