Work Text:
For as long as he can remember – for as long as he wants to remember – Ignis has been in service to the prince. He’s driven the prince to appointments, to school, to the arcade. Cooked him meals that were barely eaten. He’s been everything from a tutor to a housekeeper to a keeper of childhood secrets.
And sometimes he’s been a friend. A late night slumber party friend who’d huddle under blanket forts and throw popcorn and wake up tangled together with the prince. Who’d be there in the middle of the night when Noctis’ nightmares caused him to wake up screaming and sweating and shivering and only Ignis talking his voice raw telling stories would help the prince get back to sleep.
But that was a while ago. Before Ignis’ complicated feelings towards Noctis had ruined their years of easy-going symbiosis. When Ignis had thought he’d go mad just being Noctis’ friend when he wanted so much more. Something that he thought the prince had wanted too.
The drawback of usually being right about everything means that when Ignis is wrong, he is catastrophically wrong.
And it’s nights like this that he can’t help but feel miserable about it. Sure, Noctis is mature enough to keep their relationship professional. To keep Ignis at a stilted arm’s length that hurts far more than Ignis’ unrequited feelings had. But the apartment is quiet and cold and Noctis’ dinner isn’t the only one that goes mostly untouched.
The sound of pitter-pattering rain makes Ignis long for the unreachable blanket-fort days. Memories that seem tinged with the eternal golden afternoon sunlight that presumably represents happiness. Or nostalgia. Instead he has black skies and looming thunder on the horizon. And Noctis’ unreadable, expressionless face across the table from him, saying nothing when he used to say so much.
Ignis cleans up their dinner and Noctis stares out the windows. Ignis isn’t sure the prince can see much more than his own reflection, but then again, he’s never had the best eyesight.
“I wanted to go out tonight.” Noctis murmurs as though Ignis isn’t there.
And because Ignis knows the prince isn’t talking to him, he pretends he isn’t.
The prince has been going out often at night lately. Two years ago, a year ago, Noctis would have taken Ignis with him. They would have gone out as friends to roam the city as Noctis searched for whatever it was he was missing.
Underage drinking is technically something Ignis ought to report back to the King, but he’s not sure Noctis would stand to look at him if Ignis betrayed him again. So he keeps silent about the late nights and the bottles under the sink and the way Noctis seems like he’s slipping into someone different.
He doesn’t think the prince has an alcohol problem. He thinks the prince has a loneliness problem.
The bottles have been piling up under Ignis’ sink at a much quicker pace, after all. It isn’t his place to judge.
He leaves without saying goodbye. He’s not sure Noctis even notices.
It hurts to think that Noctis doesn’t notice.
Ignis drives aimlessly through the dark, rain-slicked city. His thoughts are spiralling aimlessly around his head with things he should have done instead of awkwardly confessing his feelings to a prince whom Ignis should have known wasn’t interested.
He had been blinded by his own feelings, and he really should have known better.
Ignis hates that he hadn’t known better. If he hadn’t ruined everything then at least he could have kept Noctis’ friendship. His feelings would have eventually faded. It would have all worked out for the best.
But he’d been stupid and in love and reckless and thrown the only good thing in his life into a self-destructive fire.
Ignis pulls over on the side of an empty highway and presses his forehead against the steering wheel.
Part of him wants to bang his head against it until his mind stops spiralling with too many what ifs.
If it would get rid of his thoughts, he’d do it without hesitation.
He just wants to go back to that unobtainable before.
He wants the gnawing hole in his chest to freeze over like a lake in winter. A smooth, cold, impenetrable barrier.
He starts driving again, even though he has nowhere to go.
He doesn’t want to think about what Noctis is doing.
Who he’s doing it with.
How it’s not with him.
Noctis hates that Ignis doesn’t say goodbye anymore. He hates the way Ignis slides out of the apartment like a ghost in the night. He hates that there’s a bridge between them when before Noctis couldn’t tell where he ended and Ignis began.
He hates that all of this is his fault and he hates that he doesn’t know how to fix it.
Noctis hates a lot of things lately.
Especially himself.
It’s a rainy, miserable night. Noctis can feel the misery sinking into his skin like the cold rain. He isn’t even sure why he went outside. Where he’s going.
He’d tossed back four tequila shots after Ignis had left, though, and it had seemed like a great idea when he was in the elevator. He didn’t want to be in that apartment anymore. Not alone. Not on a night like this.
Noctis has six different umbrellas in the stand by the door and he’d walked by all of them. Intentionally. But now he feels like a morose idiot. The idea of punishing himself by walking around in the rain had seemed like a much better idea when he was dry.
But his legs keep walking further away from his apartment and into the black night.
What does it matter if he gets sick, anyway?
It’s not like it would be like before. With Ignis looking after him and making everything better even when Noctis was miserable. Like just his presence was the medicine Noctis needed to recover.
Without realising it, Noctis has walked further into the city. Between the soft hissing of lonely cars passing by on the wet road, he can hear the distant quiet thumping of a nightclub.
It would be so easy to slide inside, even without his wallet. To find someone willing to buy him a drink or three. To end up in a dark corner. In a bed. He’s done it so many times already.
With someone that isn’t Ignis.
With someone that he wishes was Ignis.
Noctis walks past the nightclub. The music fades out behind him until all he can hear is the rain.
All he’d had to do was say yes. Say anything. But he’d frozen in place because he hadn’t thought the day would ever come. That he and Ignis would always just be the way they were. And he knew that princes didn’t get to control their own lives. He hadn’t been in control of anything since he’d been born.
His future wasn’t his own, so how could he promise it to Ignis?
He stops on the side of the road. Looks up at the sky and blinks as the rain hits his eyes. He’s cold and miserable and wet and he wants to go home. Not back to his apartment like it was when he left it. Like it was when Ignis was there bringing warmth and joy to his life.
How is he supposed to make anyone happy when he sucks the joy out of everything?
A car whizzes by and splashes up enough of a puddle that Noctis’ legs get utterly drenched.
Well, they were already drenched.
Maybe he should just sit here by the side of the road. Maybe the rain will wash him away, down some gutter, and spit him out in a different place where he can be a different person. Or maybe he won’t be anything at all. Just some dark puddle that evaporates in the sunlight.
He chokes down the urge to laugh because he knows it will end up coming out as a sob.
Noctis can materialise weapons out of nothing and warp fifty feet into the sky, but he can’t reverse time and find the right words. He can’t fix this like it’s a training accident gone awry and in need of a potion.
At least, he hasn’t found any potion that can cure a broken heart. Just skin and bones.
The alcohol doesn’t count. It’s just the only way he can sleep without nightmares.
Well, the nightmares he’s used to.
Lately his nightmares taunt him with all the things he can’t have. Like lazy mornings spent in bed with Ignis, wrapped up in sun-warmed sheets and each other.
He really prefers the nightmares about daemons.
At least he knows how to defeat those.
He turns around and starts to walk back to his apartment.
There’s nothing out here he wants.
Not that there’s anything waiting for him at home that he wants, either.
Ignis blinks and rubs at his eyes. He could have sworn he’d just driven past Noctis. But why would the prince be out in the rain looking as though he’s been out in it for hours, all waterlogged and miserable?
He pulls over because he needs to know that it’s not Noctis. He’ll risk a little rain for that.
Except the face that looks up at him plastered with rain-soaked hair is Noctis.
Ignis doesn’t want to look away. His glasses are getting speckled with rain and he honestly can’t see anything, but he doesn’t want to look away.
“What are you doing out here?” He asks in a rusty voice.
“What are you doing out here?" Noctis shoots back. Like he wants to fight.
Ignis tries not to let his shoulders drop in defeat. “I didn’t want to go back home.”
“Oh.”
The fifteen feet between them feel like miles. Uncrossable miles.
Ignis wants to rush forward and shepherd Noctis into the back of the car. Find a towel. Speed him home and dry him off.
“Do you want me to take you home?” He asks, because now he has to ask.
“Alright.” Noctis shrugs.
They don’t speak once they’re in the car. Ignis blasts the heaters and tries not to think about how all the water dripping off Noctis is going to affect the leather seats.
The water is dripping off him too, Ignis realises. The drive back to his own apartment is going to be soggy and miserable.
He probably deserves soggy and miserable.
Noctis is sitting in the front seat, slumped up against the window. Looking out at the incessant rain. Like he’d rather be anywhere but here.
Not that Ignis can blame him. Lately he doesn’t want to be in his own company either.
The drive back to Noctis’ apartment is somehow too long and too short at the same time. Awkwardly silent and tense and yet gone too quickly to find something to break the silence.
Ignis keeps the engine on when he pulls up at the carpark elevator. There’s no reason for him to cut the engine when he’s about to leave.
Noctis pauses with a hand on the door. “Ignis?”
“Yes, Noctis?” Ignis looks straight ahead at the grey concrete.
“Did you want to come upstairs and dry off a bit?”
It’s the most Noctis has said to him for weeks. Maybe months. Ignis heart shudders.
“I don’t want to impose, Noctis.” His hands clench around the steering wheel.
“Just come upstairs.” Noctis slides out of the car and shuts the door.
Or did he slam it? It sounded so loud in Ignis’ ringing ears.
He parks the car properly and glances towards the elevator. Noctis is watching him. Dripping on the concrete.
Ignis gets out of the car because he doesn’t have anything left to lose.
They wait for the elevator in silence. Drips of cold water keep snaking down Ignis’ back from his hair. He wonders if he looks as miserable as Noctis does.
The ding of the elevator seems to echo around the empty parking lot. Noctis flinches at the noise.
Ignis’ hand twitches with the restrained urge to reach out and touch Noctis’ arm. To reassure him.
He should have just stayed in the car. But he’s in the elevator and the doors are closing and for a split second he catches Noctis’ gaze in the polished metal.
The prince’s eyes are puffy and red. Like he’s been crying.
Either that or he’s taking some kind of drugs.
Ignis almost hopes it's drugs instead. The thought of Noctis being half as miserable as Ignis has been makes him deeply uncomfortable. Noctis doesn’t have anything to be miserable about.
He’s the one that created the distance between them, after all.
Wasn’t he?
Ignis mulls it over as he follows behind Noctis to the apartment.
“Shit.” Noctis slams a hand against the door. “I forgot my key.”
“Here.” Ignis slides past him without thinking.
Noctis’ hand is icy cold as it brushes against Ignis’.
Ignis fumbles with the key as Noctis flinches away from him.
He can pretend he didn’t notice.
But he did.
The door opens and Ignis steps awkwardly inside first. Flips on the light and then dims it when it hurts his eyes.
Noctis brushes past him and kicks his boots off. Heads towards his bedroom with wet socks that leave footprints on the floor.
Right. Ignis closes the door and sighs softly.
Noctis doesn’t know what to do with Ignis now that he’s here. He never thinks these things through. Isn’t that how they’d ended up in this mess in the first place?
He angrily towels his hair dry. His wet clothes are a dripping pile beside him on the floor. He ought to pick them up and hang them out. He ought to do so many things.
Noctis kicks his clothes with a bare foot and gets nothing but a cold, unsatisfying squelch as a reward.
He should go back out to the living room. Before Ignis leaves without warning.
Noctis reaches into the back of the drawer and pulls out some clothes that fit Ignis’ taller frame.
Clothes kept there for when Ignis stayed the night.
Clothes that have been bunched up and shoved to the back of the drawer so Noctis doesn’t have to keep seeing them and feeling like shit about everything.
He can do that without the visual reminders.
Ignis is drying his hair on the couch. His glasses are on the coffee table. Noctis makes sure to yawn loudly as he approaches.
“Here, Iggy.” The name slips out. An old habit from doing an old habit.
Ignis looks up at him. Squints a bit. Takes the clothes from Noctis.
Their hands brush together and Noctis hates that he notices.
“Thank you.” Ignis sets the clothes down beside him.
Ignis looks tired. And somehow, without the glasses, he looks more miserable than usual.
That’s Noctis’ fault too. Like everything else.
“You should stay over.” Noctis says before he can stop himself.
Ignis flinches as though Noctis had slapped him. “No. Thank you. No. I’ll just dry off and go home.”
Frustration snakes through Noctis. He wants to hit something. He wants to yell. He wants to shake Ignis by the collar. He wants to do something.
He doesn’t want it to be like this.
Maybe it’s the frustration, or the last drops of tequila working out of his system.
Noctis knocks Ignis’ arms aside and straddles his lap.
“Noct-”
“Shut up.” Noctis blinks away angry tears of frustration. “Just stay the night, Iggy.”
He reaches for Ignis’ face and Ignis doesn’t writhe out of his grasp.
He lowers his face to Ignis’ and still Ignis doesn’t push him away.
“Noct-” Ignis’ voice is a whisper. His lips are an inch away.
“I don’t know how to be enough for you.” Noctis’ voice cracks. He closes his eyes and rests his forehead against Ignis’. “I don’t know how to give you what you want.”
Ignis’ arms slide around Noctis’ waist. His fingers tremble against Noctis’ back.
“You are enough. I only ever wanted you, Noct. And it’s not like I don’t know what I’m getting myself into.”
Noctis knows what Ignis’ face looks like. He doesn’t even have to open his eyes to find Ignis’ mouth and to kiss him.
Like he’s wanted to kiss him for years but couldn’t figure out how to.
Ignis’ cool hands slide up underneath Noctis’ shirt and everywhere they touch makes Noctis’ skin feel like it’s on fire.
It wasn’t like this with anyone else.
Ignis kisses him like Noctis is the air he needs to breathe.
Noctis kisses him back the same way.
It’s not like he needs real oxygen anyway. This is better. This is so much better. Even if his thighs are getting damp from Ignis’ wet clothes underneath him.
Ignis pulls away with a gasp and leans his forehead against Noctis’.
“Noct, can you at least let me get out of these wet clothes?”
“I’m not stopping you.”
“Noct-”
“I’ll even help.” Noctis toys with the hem of Ignis’ shirt. “If you want.”
Ignis closes his eyes and lets out a shaky breath. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Me either. But you’ll stay the night?”
“Yes, Noct.” Ignis smiles at him. The kind of smile Noctis had almost forgotten Ignis was capable of making. “I’ll stay the night.”
Something inside of Noctis that he hadn’t even realised was broken feels like it’s been glued back together. Like his world is capable of making sense again.
Like everything can be even better than it was before.
“Iggy?” Noctis leans forward and presses his face against Ignis’ neck and tries to calm his racing heart.
“Yes?”
“I… I’m really glad you’re here.” It isn’t what he wants to say.
“I am too,” Ignis says, like he knew what Noctis meant.
He probably does.