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It’s like pausing a video game in real life: the chaos of the battle falls silent in an instant. Every living being freezes in place. The darkness from the ends of the cavern creeps closer at Noctis’s boots, until the only light remaining is a blue glow over an achingly familiar figure.
“Ignis? What…”
In the hotel room, he kept expecting Prompto or Gladio to come in with news. The news was always, “They found him.” Sometimes, he’d expect Ignis himself to burst into the room, wounded but unable to let himself be treated until he knew Noctis saw him alive. The daydreams followed him into the streets of Altissia. They unturned every loose piece of rubble, crawled into every collapsed building, praying to every Astral that Ignis would be there. Every dead end left Noctis with a tangled sense of disappointment and relief. They didn’t know where Ignis was, but every time they didn’t find his corpse, there was hope he was alive.
Even on the train, Noctis kept his phone at full charge, waiting for the call. Hovering over the call button himself. Knowing that if Ignis hadn’t called himself, he was hurt or worse. Knowing so many others–Dad, Clarus, Jared–would never call again. Knowing Umbra would never bring a new message from Luna. Knowing he didn’t deserve to hear anything from them, anyway.
Still, his heart leapt at every sliding door on the train. His eyes flitted from end to end of the Cartanica station, as if Ignis had simply taken an earlier train and was waiting for them to catch up.
In all his daydreams, he never expected Ignis to show up when he put on the Ring. But he does, and his heart plummets to his feet.
“Noct, I’m afraid…” Ignis lowers his gaze to the floor. “I must ask your forgiveness.”
“No,” Noctis whispers, horrified.
His advisor continues on as if he’s reciting a council report instead of the circumstances of his own demise. “You were unconscious at the altar. The chancellor arrived, then we were outnumbered. I couldn’t let him hurt you.”
He’s barely comprehending the words. “No, no, no. You’re not dead. You’re–”
“I used the ring, but as I am not of royal blood–”
“No! You’re not dead.” As if to prove his point, Noctis marches up to shove his oldest friend in the chest. He passes straight through, then he’s shuddering on the ground.
“Noct,” Ignis says softly from behind him.
Noctis folds in on himself. He can’t stop shaking. Not him. It wasn’t supposed to be Ignis.
His friend’s voice draws closer. “A king pushes onward, accepting the consequences and never looking back.”
“Shut up!” Noctis refuses to accept this. This wasn’t reality. This was some weird test from the Lucii. They were testing his resolve like Gladio’s been all day.
His father told him that anyone who put on the Ring of the Lucii would be judged by the kings of old. But no king showed up. Not even his dad, which twisted something shameful in his gut. Only Ignis, his most loyal friend even in… even gone, and gods, no wonder none of the kings wanted to look at him. Ignis is dead. His dad is dead. Luna is dead. So many others, and it's all his fault.
“I’m no king.”
Perfectly-shined shoes and ironed pants step in front of him. Not a thread of Ignis is out of place, as if Altissia never happened. As if they never left Insomnia in the first place.
“Yes, you are.” Ignis sounds so certain.
Noctis shakes his head. “Gladio’s right. I’m just a coward. I can’t do anything. I can’t–I can’t do this without you.”
“You won’t.”
Ignis’s gloved hand on his shoulder lacks the definition it always does. He can’t fully feel the weight or pressure of his palm and fingers. But the warmth is the same–no, it’s deeper. It feels like a concentration of Ignis. Every late night, every extra page of reports, every hidden vegetable and fond eye roll.
It’s all there: on his shoulder, in Ignis’s eyes, bright green behind his glasses. That undying, unearned devotion that followed him his whole life and beyond.
It's too much. He forces himself to look down, taking a deep breath. “What do I do? How do I stop this thing?”
“Here’s a bright idea,” and it's muted, but Ignis retains that dry humor, despite everything. “Fire and gas are an explosive combination. Use your magic.”
The one thing they hadn’t tried aside from the ring. It should have been obvious, in hindsight.
But he can’t kill the marlboro. He can’t leave. If he leaves, and Ignis isn’t there anymore…
“You’ve got my back?”
It isn’t Stay. Don’t leave. Don’t disappear when time starts again. Or even, I love you.
But Ignis knows, as he always does. His gloved hand hovers at Noctis’s cheek–unable to touch, but unable to let go.
“Always,” Ignis promises.
He’s gone when the world around Noctis roars back to life.
Noctis is only half-aware of himself tossing the fire flask into the marlboro’s mouth. It burns and combusts, and the daydreams of Ignis turning up alive burn along with it. They rise out of his chest, sucking the air out, until he’s suddenly elbow-deep in the swamp water and dry heaving.
“Noct!” Prompto is on his knees next to him.
“Get up,” Gladio commands gruffly. Even now, he’s still pushing him to keep going, but he hasn’t ripped him off the floor yet.
“He’s dead,” Noctis gasps out whenever his body finally lets him breathe.
“What?”
“Ignis is dead! He’s in the Ring and–” Noctis’s fingers dig into the mud, clinging on for dear life in hopes the world stops spinning around him. “It’s my fault! He put on the Ring to save me and I can’t–”
Prompto’s hand freezes on its way to comfort him, mouth hanging open. Noctis shakes his head. “It’s my fault! He’s dead, Luna’s dead, everyone’s dead, and I can’t…”
“Stop it.” Gladio’s voice is trembling.
“I can’t keep going. Not if it means I lose you guys, too.”
Prompto’s cheeks are drenched in tears. Gladio’s face isn’t dry either when it lowers into view, but what’s surprising is the lack of a scowl on it. Instead, he looks stricken, fearful. Noctis thinks he prefers the scowl. He knows how to handle that.
“It’s my job to protect you. It was Ignis’s, too. He died so you could keep going. Not so you could give up.”
Does he think he doesn’t know that? He’s sick of this. He’s sick of being pushed. “I’m sick of people dying for me.”
“Then let us help you!” Gladio grabs him by the jacket.
“Help me?” Despite everything, he laughs. “You hate me.”
Prompto chokes on a sob.
Slowly, the fingers uncurl from his jacket. “I failed you.”
Noctis looks up at his Shield. Neither of them are angry anymore. He sees his own bone-deep exhaustion reflected in front of him.
“I couldn’t protect you. I went through the Trial of GIlgamesh, and you still had to face Leviathan alone. And then Ignis…” Gladio’s face crumples into raw agony. “Ignis had to pick up my slack, and he died. And for what? A shit shield and his shit king? I can’t let it end like that. I won’t let myself. I won’t let you.”
It’s the most they’ve ever actually said to each other, and Noctis can’t try to turn it into dismissive banter, like they’re too cool to be heartfelt. Neither of them are cool. They’re covered in marlboro guts and swamp water and snot and tears and shame. They let the moment of honesty pass with the respect it deserves.
“Ignis…” Prompto sniffles, wiping his nose. “Ignis didn’t die because you were a shit shield. He didn’t die because Noct’s the king. Ignis died because he was a good friend.”
Cid’s voice chastises him somewhere in the distance. Remember–those ain’t your bodyguards, they’re your brothers.
“And I’m sick of us being shit friends,” Prompto finishes. “So can we just–”
Suddenly, Prompto’s bringing them in close, his arms around their shoulders. Gladio’s arm wraps around his back. Noctis lets his forehead fall against Prompto’s chest. There’s no room to breathe, but there’s an empty space where Ignis should be that they’ll never be able to fill.
They sit there and sob until there are no tears left among them.
Later, when Gladio and Prompto are asleep in their bunks and his head is still reeling with the day’s hurricane of events, Noctis fiddles with the ring on his finger.
“Ignis?” he whispers.
For a long moment, nothing happens. Then, the warmth of a hand falls on his shoulder.