#of sorts...

they're so

A few days later, Prompto arrives from Hammerhead, where he had chosen to stay at since he parted ways with Gladio and Ignis after the events of the Crystal, and finds him. Prompto notices some things, he sees what Ignis can’t see in himself in many ways; Ignis looked bad. He looks like he hasn’t eaten well, hasn’t slept well, hasn’t done anything well or healthy for who knows how long, and he’s very quiet and he’s...looking down, all the time. Like he’s constantly asking sorry or something, Ignis won’t keep the head up, and his steps are very insecure.

Still, Prompto doesn’t say anything. He greets Ignis, tries to make sure he’s alright, and takes him to Hammerhead with himself.

Gladio had already phoned Prompto before, asking for Ignis, but until then the blond hadn’t had an idea of their friend’s whereabouts. There were some hunters looking for him, but he was no special case; the hunters were constantly looking for missing people, so the odds of finding him were the same as anybody else.

Even though it’s some days of journey back to Hammerhead, Prompto doesn’t phone Gladio to tell him he found Ignis, because Ignis asked him to. This took Prompto off-guard and he tried to ask for more, but Ignis refused to explain or excuse himself about it. And he looked so terribly...sad, so sad in a way Prompto had never seen Ignis ever since Noct disappeared, that even though he knows Gladio would never forgive him for it, he doesn’t tell him.

Ignis stays terribly quiet in the way to Hammerhead, and Prompto respects that, which turns into silence ninety nine percent of the time. They arrive to Hammerhead, and Prompto takes him to the apartment he lives in, small and a bit tight like every place to stay at since it became World of Ruin, but entirely his own, so at least they can have that privacy.

While Prompto is telling him about how he can stay however long he wishes, how he will let Ignis have the bed, and other little things, Ignis stands there in absolute silence. Prompto notices this silence is kind of different from Ignis’ usual silence; it’s tense, like there’s something going on that he can’t see. So, little by little, Prompto starts quieting, noticing something is wrong. Ignis is only standing there, cane in a hand, head down, nearby the door.

“...are you okay, Iggy?”

And that seems to be all that it takes; Ignis starts crying.

Prompto, at first, just stares in silence because this takes him off-guard. He had noticed something was awfully wrong, but this still feels...surprising. Prompto’s sure that the time Noct was swallowed into the Crystal was the first time he ever saw Ignis crying, and last, until now.

Ignis still stands there in the same spot, and doesn’t move from there. It’s like the apartment was equivalent to privacy, and as soon as he stepped in, all of Ignis’ walls shattered down, like his brain forcing him in some sort of “you used the excuse that you were in public to not cry? Well now you’re in a private space so you have no excuse”, and he just starts letting out what he had been keeping in for so many days, along the other things that he had been carrying for weeks and months.

It’s not the quiet sort of crying; Ignis’ expression transforms into absolute pain, a trembling hand takes his glasses off, and he looks like he could collapse in any second. It’s not one or two tears, he’s sobbing, quietly but sobbing nonetheless.

Prompto doesn’t ask him, he just goes over to him and hugs him, because that’s Prompto. He gently takes Ignis’ cane and glasses from him and puts them aside, and then as softly wraps the arms around his friend. Surprisingly, Ignis hugs him back tightly, tightly, like the world is all breaking and Prompto is the only spot that will remain, and if Ignis doesn’t hold to him he’ll end up falling into the void too. He holds him close, presses him to himself, basically takes his shirt in fists, and really breaks then.

Ignis starts crying like Prompto is sure he’s never heard from him. He’s trembling very badly, and the sobbing became much louder. There’s sniffling, and Ignis nuzzling his face against Prompto’s head while he cries. The sounds and the way he holds to Prompto, like he just came back from hell itself and only now is realizing the size of what he saw and lived there, are agonizingly heartbreaking. For someone like Ignis to cry, let alone like this, it’s kind of like watching a fatherly figure break down; it makes Prompto feel a little vulnerable, a little scared, and makes him think that whatever happened must be terribly, terribly bad to cause this.

“What’s wrong, Iggy?” Prompto asks him in a soft and gentle whisper, without breaking apart.

“...I don’t know” Ignis manages to choke out while crying, and Prompto only starts caressing his back with a palm, which only sends him back into the tears.

Prompto doesn’t question him. He spends minutes and minutes just like that, hugged to Ignis and letting Ignis hug him back and cry into his hair, and lets him go on and be as noisy as he wishes, reassures him it’s fine whenever Ignis apologizes for the noises he makes at times, and tries to serve as best of an anchor as he can for Ignis to tightly hold on to until he empties himself to the last teardrop.

Prommy takes him to his room and attends to him and all that he needs, getting tissues for him, helping him undress, getting him some clothes to sleep in, and sits there until Ignis manages to fall asleep (which, after such a draining crying session, doesn’t take long). Prompto still waits there, but leaves to get clothes for Ignis.

Prompto’s not sure if anything particular happened, and at first he guesses that it must be all of what Ignis had been keeping inside. Ignis doesn’t often let himself feel sadness (he was raised into the implicit idea that “feelings are obstacles”), so it takes a lot for him to demonstrate or admit it, let alone to cry. It happened to him when they were coming back from Niflheim, when they stopped at Altissia, and the weight of the Fall of Insomnia, his uncle’s and the king’s death, his own tragedy, realizing sight was not coming back, the beginning of the years of darkness, and Noctis’ disappearance, it all finally was more than the walls he could build up, and he ended up crying as badly as he was doing now in Prom’s apartment of Hammerhead.

Prompto assumes it’s the weight of everything falling against him again, not to say that Prompto is aware that Ignis is one-sided, has been for years. However, Prompto is aware of Gladio’s girlfriend’s behavior towards Ignis; he never saw something else than glares and some cold responses, and Ignis has never told him in detail, but he had talked with him about it and has told him that it’s very bad (if Ignis ever talked with him or phoned him about it, it was Ignis asking advice on whether he should tell Gladio or not). So while Prompto knew that it was bad, he’s starting to think and feel that it’s far, far much more awful than Iggy ever let him know.

Still, he doesn’t question him. He starts spending the days as Iggy’s new companion. At first it’s a bit strange, because Prommy was used to Ignis taking care of everyone, but now the roles inverse and he’s the one in charge of Ignis. He helps him on the daily life, helps him wander around and with whatever he needs, etc.

However, Ignis is...changed. He seems to have lost interest in trying to learn to live by himself without the need of others; he used to be stubborn about having others letting him do life as normally as he would could he see, just with help of a guide if required, but now he just...lets Prompto help him with everything, like the blind man that he is. He had been trying to relearn how to cook, but now he just lets other do it, and never comments about wanting to try.

He even starts delivering some comments about how “it’s useless to try” to adapt to a life like he can see because he clearly can’t. He’s often apologizing for “being in the way”, “causing troubles”, “not meaning to bother you”, “not meaning to be a burden”, or merely apologizing without any reason.

Ignis also keeps the head lowered all the time, and when people talk to him he either lowers it more or tries to subtly look away. As if to offer them sight of his right side instead of the front or the left. Iggy doesn’t seem to have much appetite and eats because he has to, and sometimes Prompto has to insist on him when he knows Ignis hasn’t eaten or when he can see the once-advisor is making up excuses or even lies about it. He doesn’t seem very motivated to do things, and sometimes he seems to have spontaneous breakdowns of sorts, that he hurries to hide.

Ignis has also grown much quieter, and not only in the sense of talking less (which is very obvious, the man rarely speaks at all), but also in the sense that he doesn’t sound as firm, he’s always sounding hesitant, insecure, and he talks more lowly to what he used to. No joking, no more puns, no sassy comebacks.

Prompto has also found out that any mention of Gladio, as small as it may be, or even about Iris, makes Ignis’ face react, and he seems to get either sad or nervous, or both, but like everything else he hurries to hide it, so Prompto stops talking about anything Amicitia related.

Ignis also often denies to meet with people that ask for him, always with some sort of excuse, and so many other things, both little and not so little, that Prompto notices while Ignis lives with him. Honestly, it only takes a few days for Prompto to notice that something very awful happened to Ignis, and that the man is depressed, as in literally, not just “very sad”. It’s bad; it’s a state that Prompto rarely saw in people, let alone in someone like Ignis. To him, Ignis was always this unmovable creature made of steel that nothing could pull down, not even the events of Altissia, so to see him like this, in pieces made of fragile glass, it’s heartbreaking and profoundly concerning.

It also doesn’t take Prompto much to notice that Ignis’ confidence is in underground levels. The way Ignis acts doesn’t only speak about depression, there’s also a lot of confidence and self-esteem issues, a lot, big, and hard. Ignis never explicitly said anything about it, but Prompto never needed to; a man that has been ill somewhen in his life can easily recognize the symptoms in somebody else. It doesn’t take him much to see the signs and recognize this is happening to Ignis.

So Prompto starts trying to fix it. He starts complimenting him just as he knows Ignis needs it; not too often because he’ll notice Prompto is doing it on purpose, but sincere and with enough frequency. Prompto asks the people that they usually hang with to do the same, to tell him something nice every now and then, but being absolutely sincere. He warns people about not saying certain kind of comments that Prompto thinks may be triggering for Ignis, and he tells them about how they can treat him not like he doesn’t have that scar and not like he’s not blind, but the opposite, accepting he’s both scarred and blind, but it truly doesn’t matter and in a way that will help him realize that there’s nothing wrong with being as he is, without denying it either.

A few weeks after Ignis started staying with Prompto, though, Gladio arrives unexpectedly at Hammerhead. Of course, accompanied by his girlfriend.

Prompto knows about this before Ignis does, and he rushes to act before anyone does anything. Turns out, after two days since Ignis left, and not having found him himself, Gladio reported him as missing to the hunters, one of them recognized him, informed the HQs, who informed Gladio of his whereabouts. Gladio had felt so relieved yet so eager (in a nervous way) that he had not remembered Prompto was living there, all that was in his head was Ignis, the way he had raged at him, the things he said, and the desperate need to find his friend, so he just bolted his way from Lestallum. Having to bring her along, though, of course. Not because he wanted, she just insisted.

Prompto got a text from Cindy, telling him Gladio had arrived. Prommy turned to look at Ignis to see if he would ask him about what the message said but, like almost anything that had to do with reading or a visual matter, Ignis would just let it go. So Prompto made up an excuse, left, and hurried to find Big Guy, texting Cindy to ask her to not tell Gladio about where Ignis was or where Prom’s apartment was.

And that’s how Gladio and Prompto find each other a bit later, and Prompto, for once, faces him stubbornly.

It again feels like one of those moments when the roles inverse; Prompto was used to Gladio being super firm on him and/or Noctis and giving the mature, dad-like or older-brotherly wise speeches. But now it’s Prompto’s turn. And, to be honest, it doesn’t even take him effort; he finds out it’s just about being honest, because he doesn’t need to be wise for this, he just needs common sense and, for once, Gladio’s lacking of it.

Thank the Astrals, Gladio’s girlfriend went somewhere else so it was only Prompto and Gladio.

When Gladio, after greeting him and everything, asked him if he knew where Ignis was, Prompto said yes.

When Gladio asked him to take him there, Prompto said no.

Needless to say, this takes Gladio very off-guard. He sees no reason of why he should be denied from this; the three of them are friends, so for Prompto to stand there and refuse to let him see Ignis, it’s way too strange and far too unexpected. At first Gladio thinks Prom is joking, but Prompto is standing there, looking at him with absolute seriousness, and even with a slight frown.

Also needless to say, Gladio starts questioning him, and Prompto simply refuses. Gladio has been on the edge of his nerves since Ignis went missing, so it takes some minutes before he’s arguing with Prompto and demanding an explanation. Prompto is not moving from his spot; it’s like his feet found the exact place and became one with the ground, so he can’t and won’t move a single inch in any direction, and he’s looking at Gladio entirely fearlessly and incredibly firm like Gladio has never seen him before.

“I won’t let you get anywhere near Ignis, not now, Gladio” Prompto argues.

“But why not!?” Gladio, losing his patience. “Look, I get it. He told you. He told you about the...fight we had and what I said to him. So you’re just trying to protect him. Fine, I get that. But all I’m trying to do is to see if he’s okay, and to properly apologize for what I said. I mean no harm, and you can’t hide him from me forever. It’s not only stupid, it’s wrong; I have to apologize.”

“Then come some other day, later” Prompto insists. “I’m not trying to stop you from apologizing. I’m trying to stop you from getting close, whatever your intentions, whether you mean good or bad, simply because that’s what Ignis needs.”

“How can you know what he needs? That only he knows, let’s go ask him!”

The argument goes on and on, until Gladio just sighs with exasperation and takes some steps away, trying to not lose it. After a silence, Prompto takes the word again.

“I don’t know what you did to him, Gladio” Prompto says. “But the man that’s been living with me is not the same than the one I left in your hands when we parted ways.”

Gladio doesn’t even reply to that. He has the same look than that of someone who knows they deserve the reprimand they’re getting but cannot accept it aloud.

“I’d like to say he’s better, but it’s the opposite. He’s worse, Gladio, far, way much more worse than I last saw him. I left with him under your charge one way, and I come to find him lost and alone in pieces.”

Prompto has the arms crossed, and has yet not moved a single inch from his spot.

“I don’t know what you did to him or if it was you or something or someone else, but it happened to him while he was under your charge. So you’ll understand I won’t let you take him back.”

“Come on, Prompto, you’re exaggerating-”

“Maybe you’re too busy being in love and living a good life to notice the state he’s in” Prompto suddenly snaps at him, loud enough to almost pass as a yell. “Gladio, he’s depressed!”

“Oh, come on” Gladio says like Prompto just said the most stupid thing ever, not taking it as funny, rather completely exasperated. “You’re exaggerating! He’s not depressed, he’s just...we had an argument, that’s all!” Gladio sighs and he looks like he knows this is true, like he’s fully, completely agreeing with Prompto, but still too proud to admit it. “..h-he’s...he used to exaggerate too, sometimes. A bit. I guess. I once...said...something about his scar and...I admit it was wrong on my side, but his reaction was...his reaction was too much for something as small. My comment was small, and even after it I apologized over and over, he...overreacted. He acted way too hurt by what I said, took it way too personal, and then he started bawling on me when I hugged him. He...he just...overreacted, Prompto! You’d understand if you had seen him, the way he cried like that for such a small comment-!”

“Well, have you stopped to consider that maybe he wasn’t crying for just one comment?” Prompto yells back at him. “Have you stopped to think that maybe the comment only finished breaking other things that he had been repressing!? Maybe he wasn’t crying because of one comment, maybe he was crying because of too much on himself from which your ‘one comment’ was only the crown.”

“What could he be repressing?” Gladio asks back both to argue and as a serious question. “He cried most of what he had out when we were coming back from Gralea, after that he’s been travelling with me and nothing has happened.”

“Are you sure?” Prompto asks more lowly, eyes squinting, like Gladio’s touching the most fragile threads. “Are you sure nothing has happened?”

“He would have told me.”

“What if he did tell you” Prompto’s almost whispering, “but you just didn’t believe him?”

Gladio stays quiet after that. The idea hadn’t cross his head, but it sounds very obvious. And it only takes a few seconds before he kind of realizes what Prompto’s talking about. Because Gladio did shrug many of the things Ignis told him off. But...it can’t be. Right?

“What’re you talking about?”

“A venomous snake can behave calmly in front of its master” Prompto tells him, again in a murmur and slow, “but nothing will stop it from biting others. And, sooner or later, it will end up biting the master as well.”

Gladio doesn’t reply because he has no idea what to say; he wants to threaten Prompto on being careful on the way he speaks about her, but saying that is admitting that Gladio knows what Prompto’s talking about, or accepting that he’s aware of that.

“They can look pretty as pets, Gladio” Prompto tells him. “But there’s a reason they’re not.”

Gladio stares at him in silence. Prompto looks firm, so firm it even reminds Gladio of Cor himself. He has no reply. He sighs and tries to find another way, and softens the voice.

“Look, let me just apologize to him.”

“I’ll let you apologize to him” Prompto says, “only when you’ve understood that you’re not going to apologize for just ‘one comment’ or ‘one argument’.”

Gladio sighs again and looks away, clearly exhausted of this, crossing, uncrossing arms, caressing his face and temples, hands on waist. Prompto, however, stays the same; in the same spot, arms crossed, chin up.

“Ignis...cares for you” Prompto tells him more softly. “He...loves you more than you imagine or have noticed.”

Gladio just stays quiet.

“He loves you like he loves Noctis, just in a different way. Has always done, all his life. He’s almost devoted to you, in ways you don’t understand.”

Prompto raises the chin again.

“All I want you to understand” Prompto, softly, but firm, “is that Ignis cares about you more than he cares about himself, and he would stand a hell of a life just to make sure you’re fine. But the fact that he would live in hell for you doesn’t mean you should put him through it, or let someone else do it. He cares and all that he does and has always done and ever did was always with the intention to keep you safe, healthy, and happy. He would never do anything that doesn’t mean improving your life.”

Again, Gladio says nothing. It takes another pause before Prompto uncrosses the arms.

“You always listened to him, no matter how unimportant it would be, always believed it, and always did something about it” Prompto says. “What changed?”

Gladio says nothing. He has said nothing for so long that it’s clear he’s long lost this argument.

“You know what, don’t even try to answer me” Prompto still says. “I just want you to think about it, and see if whoever you changed him for does better to you than he ever did; see if whoever you changed the one person that had lived his life until now dedicating it fully to you without you noticing for has so much more wisdom that their word is much more valuable than Ignis’. And I want you to think if it’s okay to be so captivated by the sight and sound of someone or something else that you alone make yourself blind and deaf to a bleeding and screaming Ignis.”

Again, Gladio says nothing and there’s a long pause.

“I won’t ask you to feel towards him like he feels towards you, whatever that feeling is. I just want to ask you that if you’re not going to care about him the way he cares about you” Prompto says, “then don’t destroy him any further. He’s taken enough blows for you without you even taking a moment to turn and notice it. He has enough being left in agony without you noticing so that you also step on him, or let someone else do it.”

And, of course, Gladio has no reply to this either. He’s been quiet, looking other ways. Part of him is impressed by Prompto’s determination and firmness, but a huge part of him is conscious of what’s going on and he’s somewhere between not wanting to admit it and not believing it yet.

“You can go now, I won’t move from this spot in a few hours” Prompto tells him, as some sort of ‘if what you wanted was to follow me, good luck’. Gladio catches how stubborn Prompto is about this, so he doesn’t argue back. He just sighs and waits some moments, and when he talks again, it’s very soft and much more calm, but he also sounds as defeated as he really is.

“Will you at least tell him I was here?” Gladio asks.

“Only if he asks me.”

Gladio chuckles both a bit bitterly and a bit proud; part of him wants to congratulate Prompto for the firm and wise man he has become, but he’s also profoundly hurt about his situation with Ignis. He could easily shove Prompto to a side; he’s tiny in comparison, much more skinny, but Gladio doesn’t. He would never harm any of his friends (not on purpose), but he’s also growing respect for Prompto,as much as he hates the situation in which he sees Prompto’s firmness bloom.

“Fine” Gladio sighs. “Then I’ll leave, I guess.”

Prompto doesn’t answer. He just stares down and nods. To be honest, he hates to be doing this, hates it, despises it; losing Noctis was harmful enough for their bond, and now this. His relationship with Ignis and Gladio, and the bonds they share together, they are, or were, his greater reminder of Noctis and the good days. And now he has to stand there and cut them himself for the health of his two companions, not only one. He hates that such a beautiful thing that seemed would last forever is breaking down this awfully, that it’s having this terrible outcome, but if he doesn’t destroy the bond, it’ll only grow more and more poisoned. So, in some way, it’s best to destroy something while it’s beautiful than wait for it to slowly wither and end up destroyed anyway.

So he just stands there, resisting the urge to tell Gladio where Ignis is. He knows it’d be selfish, wanting to see the three of them in the same place, just so he can feel like it’s the old days.

But the old days are gone, and everyone’s been changing. What he hates is that they’ve been changing for worse, just like the world itself.

So if he fights against daemons to make of the world less ugly, he can also fight this metaphorical fight, try to stand strong, and be wise, because if Ignis ever taught him something through actions that’s that being wise doesn’t always mean choosing the prettiest choices, rather the necessary ones.

And that’s what he does. He says bye to Gladio, and doesn’t move from that spot in a few hours, until he’s sure nobody’s following him, and goes back home.

“Did anything happen?” Ignis asks him when he arrives. And that’s sort of an option as well, where Prompto can choose what to do, if pick the pretty choice or the wise one.

And he goes with the last.

“Nothing” he lies. “Sorry I took so long. Wanna have dinner? I brought food.”

“Yes. Of course.”

And Prompto sits at the table with him, unwrapping the food, and keeps that days’ events to himself.