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Ignis grabs his phone and is halfway through rapping out, "Ignis Scientia," before he wakes up properly.
There's no response and he says, "Noct?"
A breath that takes him back to their childhood, to Noct curled small and frightened in Ignis's bed. "Noct," he says. He's out of bed, grabbing for the clothes he took off last night, finding car keys, driven by brute instinct.
"There's people here," Noct says, quiet with dread. Ignis can hear rustling, pictures him huddled in the closet where Ignis hung his drycleaning only that evening. Noct at sixteen is still small for his age, slender: it's the obvious hiding place. Ignis knows it. Anyone coming for Noct will know it too.
"I need to contact the Crownsguard," Ignis says. Keeping his voice steady and reassuring is the hardest thing he's ever done. The elevator isn't going fast enough.
"Don't hang up on me," Noct says desperately.
"You're going to be fine," Ignis says.
A sound tears itself out of Noct and lodges itself in Ignis's nightmares.
"What do I do?" Noct says, ragged.
Ignis closes his eyes and rests his hand on the cold steel of the roof of the car. "Defend yourself, Noct. Defend yourself at all costs."
***
It's only a ten minute drive, five at the late hour and the way Ignis floors it, but nevertheless it's over by the time Ignis gets there. A cohort of Crownsguard are already there, alerted by the murder of the duty guard stationed around the clock in Noct's apartment complex: Ignis allows them to take a fingerprint to verify his identity even though every part of him is humming to get to Noct, squashing down the unfair thought that such caution is too little, too late. If nothing else, their watchful thoroughness says clearly that Noct is unharmed.
The guards on Noct's floor let him through much more easily and Ignis enters the apartment.
The first is just inside the door. Nobody outside the palace knows that the Crown Prince has started his training in Lucian magic, that he will never again be truly unarmed and helpless. Noct had dropped the phone by then, but he'd heard the electric snap of a warpstrike; the engine blade is gone, back into the arsenal until its prince next has need of it, leaving the stinking ruin of the man's guts.
Ignis has seen corpses before. He steps over this one, and the next one, and the last, sprawled over Noct's bedroom floor with blank eyes wide with surprise.
"It's me," he says and knocks on the closet door. Their old knock, rat-a-tat-tat-tat, which he hasn't used since he turned thirteen and Noct, eager to be as grown up as his friend, had announced they didn't need that stupid kid stuff any more.
The closet is very cramped for two. Noct pulls at him like he doesn't care though, burrows into Ignis's arms and nestles there shaking. His hands are wet with blood and his cheeks are stained with tears and Ignis holds him as close as he can in the dark and doesn't say a word.
"Prince Noctis?" one of the guards says, and the door is pulled open. Ignis glares at him and he makes an apologetic bow. "Your father the King is here."
Noct refuses to get out of the closet, refuses to stop clinging to Ignis, refuses to lift his face from where he's buried it in Ignis's chest.
"Noct," Ignis says. He needs to unwind Noct from around him, needs to let go of Noct, but he can't make himself. He throws the King a beseeching, mortified glance, and tries again to bring Noct out of the closet but it's too awkward a space when Noct is a deadweight against him.
"It's all right," the King says quietly. His gaze is fastened on Noct. The King is always composed - Ignis has always admired that about him - but there are tiny signs that he's distraught, and somehow that affects Ignis even more than the bodies or Noct's weeping, the distraught signal of Regis's clenched fist and heavier than usual lean on his walking stick, the rumpled ordinary t-shirt he's wearing under his cloak.
"An apartment has been readied downstairs," the King says. That would have been easy: the rest of Noct's floor and the one below were bought and cleared when he moved in. "If you please, Ignis."
He steps aside and Ignis struggles the two of them out of the closet. The body is still there, two gowned investigators crouched over it. One of them glances up at Ignis and he averts his eyes and coaxes Noct away, stumbling together out of the bedroom with his arms still around Noct and his palm protective over Noct's forehead and eyes.
They make their slow way out of the apartment. Noct does relax a little when they're out in the hall, the scent of citrus cleanser starting to dim the copper-sharpness of blood. He still won't go to his father though and Ignis is the one he presses close against as they go down and into the new apartment. It's sterile and clearly unused but fully furnished, dustcloths hastily dragged off the sofa and chairs, but when Ignis tries to guide Noct to sit he's nudged in the direction of the bathroom instead.
"Go," the King says heavily. He limps to the chair and sits, raking his fingers through his hair.
Ignis looks around for towels but the apartment isn't stocked up so much.
"S'okay," Noct says, his first words since the phone, hoarse and bruised-sounding, and sits on the side of the bath.
His t-shirt is scattered with blood. "Arms up," Ignis says briskly and Noct lets him strip it off, docile, starting to shiver almost immediately. Ignis soaks the shirt, warm water, and Noct blinks up at him as he cleans off Noct's hands and then dabs carefully at his face.
"I've never..." Noct says, and shrugs, helplessly.
"I know," Ignis says, takes off the exercise hoody he's wearing over a t-shirt of his own and helps Noct into it, smoothing it over his shoulders as Noct huddles gratefully into it, pulling the drawstring tight so it covers his chin and mouth and hooking his thumbs through the holes in the sleeves. Ignis has never ordered men killed, either.
There's a glass next to the sink, still in its plastic wrapping. Ignis fills it and hands it to Noct, watching the way his throat moves as he gulps it down. His eyelashes are still spiky-dark with tears.
He hands the glass back to Ignis when he's done. Ignis moves to put it back by the sink and is stopped by Noct clutching at his t-shirt again, making the cotton pull rough against the back of his neck. Ignis steps in and lets Noct rest his forehead on Ignis's stomach, feeling Noct's fingers creep cold under his t-shirt and onto his waist.
Ignis takes a deep breath. Then another, feeling it rattle in his chest, and links his hands gently at the nape of Noct's neck, his fingers just sliding into the soft mess of Noct's hair.
"Your father is waiting," he says.
"I don't know what to say to him," Noct confesses. His fingers curl against Ignis's skin like he thinks he's in trouble.
"You don't have to say anything," Ignis says. "Come on."
Noct follows him out of the bathroom with one finger still caught in Ignis's beltloop. Regis looks up at him - looks up at them both - and then he stands up and opens his arms and Noct falls into them.
The art of the chamberlain is in understanding when one is useful and when one is surplus to requirements. Ignis steps discreetly aside and goes into the master bedroom. It takes searching through several cupboards, but luckily there are linens, clean and folded rather than new, so likely the Crownsguard have been making some use of the free apartments, and he retreats into the simplicity of making the bed, tucking in the corners just so and shaking the duvet out over the bed so it lies smooth and flat.
Noct had been so pleased to get out of the citadel. It hasn't always been easy - Ignis still vividly remembers the smell of rotting spicy takeaway the first weekend he hadn't been able to make it over there shortly after Noct had moved in - but it had worked, giving Noct a taste of the normality he craved.
He steps back out into the lounge quietly, prepared to fade back into the bedroom if father and son are still occupied, but Noct notices him and smiles, very faintly.
"Ignis," the King says and Ignis turns to him with an automatic small bow. "Thank you, for everything you've done this evening. We'll see you in the morning."
"No!"
Ignis is appalled at himself for speaking so out of turn, before he collects himself and realises it was Noct who spoke, voicing the immediacy of Ignis's own feelings.
"You're coming back to the palace," Regis says. "Be reasonable, Noctis! You were attacked in your home this night."
"I just want to sleep," Noct says, getting off the couch, and he comes to Ignis, leaning hard into him until Ignis has little choice but to put his arm around his waist and settle Noct more comfortably into the curve of his body. "Dad... I'll come in the morning. There's fifty Crownsguard all over the building. I want to stay here, with Ignis."
Ignis tries to assume a neutral expression, gazing somewhere over the King's left shoulder, but he can't help holding Noct tightly to him, arm safely around his waist. Attacked in his home. Noct could have been hurt, seriously; kidnapped; killed: with Ignis on the other end of the phone, unable to do anything useful at all.
As it is, Noct is unharmed, and newly a killer of men.
"Very well," the King says, visibly reluctant, but there's a rare softness in his voice that says clearly that he can't refuse his son anything tonight. "There will be a full guard right outside the door. And you'll come to me early. For breakfast."
"Yeah," Noct says. With the concession seems to have come exhaustion, his eyelids fluttering, and Ignis adjusts his grip to make sure he still has Noct securely when Noct shifts his weight and rests his head on Ignis's shoulder, openly affectionate as he hasn't been since they were quite small.
"Your father is only thinking about you," he says, when they're alone. "I could still have the Crownsguard escort you back to the palace."
Noct gives him a flat look and turns down the covers. "You made the bed," he says. "You don't want to be apart either."
The only responses Ignis has to Noct's unusual openness would be a lie; or an admission that he is far beyond a dispassionate professionalism when it comes to Noct. He chooses to say nothing, takes off his shoes and gets into bed himself, propping his pillow against the headboard so he can sit up for a while and scroll through his phone. There's no mention of any disruption at the Prince's apartment block, so that at least has been kept from the press. Most things are but Noct's address, while not publicised, is fairly widely known. Before tonight Ignis had thought that largely harmless.
He hasn't been copied on any of the emails he knows will be flying around, identifying the would-be assassins, starting to put together who they were and what they wanted, making new arrangements for Noct's apartment. New security, at least, if he's even allowed to stay in this or any block outside the citadel. Ignis will have to talk and negotiate and argue his way into those conversations tomorrow, but for tonight he only emails a brief description of the night's events to Gladio. It's a mere courtesy as he will likely have been fully briefed by his father, but just as Ignis is taking on more formal duties as Noct's political advisor now he's eighteen Gladio is slowly assuming full responsibility for Noct's physical safety, and it's important that they become accustomed to working seamlessly together to support the prince.
Noct is restless beside him and Ignis hesitates for a moment before reaching for him, petting his hair in slow strokes, the night feeling like an odd little space where all things might be permitted. "Can't sleep?"
He thinks for a moment that Noct won't answer, his slender body a stiff line in the bed, and then all at once Noct relaxes under his hand. He doesn't roll over though and Ignis has to listen hard as Noct says mostly into his pillow, "I saw them die. I did it. Every time I shut my eyes, I just..."
Ignis pulls at his hair gently and Noct does turn finally, in a confused rush, burying his face in Ignis's hip. Ignis tucks the covers round his shoulders and keeps running his fingers through Noct's hair as he cries, silent and shuddering.
Ignis isn't sure whether it will be helpful for him to speak or not, but he can't leave Noct alone with this. "You had to," he says steadily. "You had to protect yourself, I'm sorry. You had to."
Noct doesn't respond, but his arm creeps over Ignis's lap. Ignis covers Noct's hand with his own, twines their fingers and holds on hard, and keeps cupping Noct's head with the other.
When Noct has calmed somewhat, Ignis settles him back on his side and says, "I'll be back in a minute."
Noct props himself up on his elbows. "What? Where are you going?"
"Just upstairs, for a moment," Ignis says.
Noct flops back to the bed, frowning, and in all the oddness and terror of the night it doesn't feel too terribly out of place for Ignis to give in to what he wants to do, to lean forward and press a kiss to Noct's forehead, where his unhappiness has created little furrows between his eyes.
He really does mean to be only a moment, loathe to have Noct out of his sight at all, but the Crownsguard massed outside their current apartment and as well as Noct's when he gets upstairs makes his pause. Nobody stops him this time; Ignis has only recently acquired his Crownsguard rank and started properly training with them, but as a member of the prince's household he's senior to everyone here apart from Commander Roran. It's him Ignis finds, supervising the ongoing activity in Noct's bedroom, and passes on his and Noct's regrets and gratitude for the members of the company killed tonight. Roran nods and with a small nod allows Ignis to carry on with his errand.
Noct is sitting up waiting for him; he visibly relaxes when Ignis steps back into the bedroom, although when Ignis climbs back in himself and checks his phone he was only gone five minutes.
"Well?" Noct says ungraciously.
"Here," Ignis says, and he carefully puts the tiny Carbuncle figure that usually resides in Noct's dresser into Noct's cupped hands. "To guard your dreams."
"Oh," Noct says softly. He closes his hands around it gently and Ignis cradles them in his, feeling the living strength and warmth of his prince beneath his fingers.
He guides Noct to lie back down. Noct does, watching Ignis. He sighs and closes his eyes, wriggling himself into comfort, close enough to feel Ignis next to him, and Ignis lies back and prepares to join the idol in guarding Noct's sleep.