Noct wanders the train, trying to outwalk his thoughts, the horrible clench of his chest, the echo of Gladio's words, Ignis' determined, miserable silence. Walking it off doesn't really work, because there's not enough space. There's not enough space for it anywhere, neither in fields of Leide nor in marches of Cleigne; maybe a good fight could have helped, a dangerous one that left no space for anything but the hum of magic and violence, but those are in scant supply right now either.
Finally he gives up and goes back to the sleeping compartments. Curling up and pulling the covers over his head never really helps, but he knows it sometimes mutes the misery into something more tangible, bearable, still gigantic but not infinite. There's some time before they hit Cartanica; maybe he'll tame it a bit, before that.
The door to their compartment is half open, and it's dark inside. His hand is already on the handle when hears Ignis' voice inside, and jerks back.
"...if you can't see by yourself that it's not helping I'm not going to argue with you, but I would ask you to leave me out of it."
He should leave. He should leave. He takes a careful, soundless step back, and then gives up on good intentions, angles himself so he is fully hidden by the door, strains his ears.
"That's all well and nice, but it's not like you are going to speak up for yourself," Gladio growls. "Has he even talked to you since we left Altissia?"
"He's grieving.'
"I know he's grieving. Everybody knows he's grieving. Hell, everybody is grieving with him, it was a horrible fucking tragedy, and if we were back home, I'd leave him to it and let you sort him out. But we're not, are we?"
Something in the compartment rattles sharply.
"Pray tell me, what is he supposed to do," Ignis says crisply, "hug me? Cry over me? Sing me a lullaby? You don't cry over your broken weapons, you mend them or you throw them away, and so help me Astrals, if you guilt him into throwing me away, I will end you, Gladio, blind or not. Stay out of it."
"Shit, Iggy. You can't really - you can't really think that's how he sees you. That's not - "
"Gladio," Ignis says, "Noctis had a normal relationship with me approximately never. What in the Astrals' name makes you think now is a good time for him to start?"
It hurts. Ignis doesn't even sound bitter over it, he's matter of fact, even a bit indignant. It hurts that it's true.
"I think that however fucked up in the head you are about him," Gladio says, "it's beyond time he stopped playing along with it. As your friend, or as your king, as a human being, you take your pick. He can't just pretend everything is OK with you right now and coast on it."
"I know I'm useless right now, thank you, and either I'll fix it or it'll be made irrelevant, but it's not his problem right now. Or his responsibility."
"Oh, yeah? Was it your responsibility to wear the Ring, then?"
The words fall like a blow; Noctis recoils from the door violently, and inside the compartment's Ignis' cane clatters to the floor.
"Yeah, don't give me that face," Gladio says, picking up steam. "You lie pretty well but I'm not an idiot, okay. I found you, remember? With your face burned half off, and the Ring between the two of you, and you were fucking dying and still kept apologizing to him? You haven't taken your gloves off for a minute since you came to, I think you sleep in them. What, am I wrong?"
"You know nothing," Ignis hisses, and it's his bad voice, the dangerous one, the one Noctis only heard once before in his life, during that mess with kidnapping when he was thirteen; he still sometimes has nightmares about it. The air sings with restrained, quiet violence.
Gladio laughs, a low, mirthless sound. "Too bad you've used up your 'I will end you" line already, huh? Relax, Ignis, I won't tell him. This is between you and him alright. But Lunafreya died for it, you burned yourself out with it, and here he sits keeping it in his pocket? Doesn't it make you mad?"
There's a long, long silence, an exhale of tension. When Ignis speaks next, Noctis has to strain to catch his words.
"I didn't do it for his praise or his pity or his shame. I've done it because he's been mine since His Majesty gave him to me, and I would put the Ring back on right now so it could finish the job if it could spare him. It's his legacy, it will find him regardless of what you or me or anybody else tries, and when it does, believe me, it won't bring you any joy."
"I'm not his enemy," Gladio says, like he's pleading, and it's worse than his growling or disdain or anger. "I'm not yours. You know that. I don't want to hurt him, and I don't want to hurt you, but this is - this isn't working either, you can't just keep covering for him, he can't just keep ignoring it, we can't - I can't just sit through it and do nothing - "
"Gladio," Ignis says, "the world is ending, and you can't help. Get used to it. Just give him what time you can."
He sounds exhausted all of the sudden, finished, done, and oh, Noctis should've left earlier, should not have heard it.
Whatever Gladio says in response is drowned in the sound of the train's whistle; they're drawing into Cartanica.
Noct moves away, as quietly as he can.
Hours later, his chest is still tingling unpleasantly from the ozone burn of the Royal Arm, when Ignis stops and says, "If I may have a moment?"
Noct turns to him, eager for and dreading whatever Ignis has to say in the equal measure; he still hadn't the time to think properly about the conversation he overheard, let alone feel it through.
Ignis opens his mouth, draws a deep breath, then cocks his head to the side, listening to something.
Then several things happen at once: Ignis launches himself into him, throwing him to the side; something big and scaled whistles through the air; there's a heavy sound of the impact that reverberates in Noct's ears. He goes under, gets a mouthful of murky water, and by the time he claws his way back up, coughing and spluttering, Gladio and Prompto are finishing up whatever it was, some kind of monster Noctis hasn't seen before, and Ignis is.
Ignis is thrown against one of the banks of the swamp. He's half-submerged in the water, leaning against the bank, and Noctis frowns because it's not like Ignis not to get up immediately, whichever shape he's in.
He warps over, Gladio and Prompto on his heels, and stops dead at the sight that greets them. Ignis is not getting up; Ignis is not getting up because there's a sharp tree root sticking through his torso, just below the ribs. The blood on the tip of the root gleams wetly in the light of Noctis' flashlight. Ignis is breathing in carefully measured inhales and exhales, face scrunched up in pain.
Noctis swallows, kneels in front of Ignis, stretches his arms out.
"Fuck," Gladio says behind him. "Fuck, don't touch him, we need to have the elixir ready before we get this out, he'll bleed out…"
Elixirs. Yes. Noctis swallows and reaches into the armiger - and comes up empty. The earlier fight used up them all, and Ignis is the one who keeps track of the numbers, anyway. Kept. Kept track of them, before.
He looks up, helplessly; Prompto swears. There's a weird, rusty sound behind him, and he whips around to see Ignis laughing quietly.
"Not… what I was going to say… but that's a workable solution, too."
"You shut the fuck up," Noctis snaps, vehemently. "Gladio, Prompto, go back to the station, get curatives. Buy them, steal them, beg for them, kill for them, I don't care. I'll stay with him."
Gladio turns on his heel without a single word, tugs Prompto along with him; in a second they're swallowed by the dark.
"Ignis," Noctis says, "hold on. It's a royal goddamn decree."
"I hear and obey, Your Majesty," Ignis rasps, the twist of his lips sarcastic but not quite, and Noctis shuffles over to kneel closer to him, summons his sword, and settles in to wait.
"Talk to me," he says some indefinite time later, possibly unwisely, but unable to stand Ignis' silence; panic is dancing around in his throat, convincing him that Ignis is going to slip away at any moment, staring sightlessly into the darkness.
"I do hope," Ignis says slowly, "the killing part was a joke. This train was mostly civilians."
"The King must be considerate of others, yadda, yadda, I know, Specs. I honestly don't care at the moment, as long as they get it for you."
Ignis licks his lips, shifts a tiniest bit and gasps in pain. "I always… liked it, that you never had to be considerate of me. Vanity, I suppose. I'm sorry that this seems to be in the past."
Noctis's eyes are burning; there's a sour taste in his throat, an ocean of acid in his chest. Mend them or throw them away, he thinks, that's how he sees himself, and then he says, "Ignis, don't move, okay? Stay quiet," and works the glove off Ignis' left hand.
Ignis is still, not so much obeying the order as startled still, terrified still; it feels so cruel, so pointlessly cruel, but Noctis thinks, if I leave it be, if I don't do it now, he'll get himself killed in the next fight, or a fight after that, or sometime later, and I can't…
He finds the scars by touch before he looks at them - a round brand around Ignis' ring finger, patches of dead skin crawling up his palm and wrist. He knew he would find them, and yet seeing them - touching them - Ignis is breathing over his head, too fast, too unsteady, and Noctis puts Ignis' hand gently into his lap, shifts over to take his glasses off, touch the scars on Ignis' face.
"I overheard you and Gladio, back on the train," he says and doesn't bother to apologize. "Were you ever going to tell me?"
"Of course not," Ignis says. There's no need for explanations: of course not. It's a horrible thing, the weight of Ignis' love, it had always been. The burns are rough and cold under Noctis' fingers.
"You know," he says, "when I grew older and began understanding things better, back then, I used to hate Dad a little, for doing this to you."
Ignis opens his mouth, to protest, maybe, and Noctis talks over him. "I mean, it's just, you can't just do that to people, right? Talk about consideration. Take a kid and make him, for me, make him into," and he swallows a breath, tips his forehead against Ignis', lowers his voice. "It was unfair, and I hated him for you, and I was still so grateful that he did that, that he fucked you over like that, because it meant I had you, I had always - "
"Noctis," Ignis whispers, and Noctis can smell the blood on his lips, copper and salt and death. "Noct. I am what I am. I've never wanted to be anybody else."
"I can't,' Noctis says, and he's choking on it like he's the one bleeding out, the one who was run through. "I can't imagine living without you, not now, not ever, never, you can't leave, Ignis. He gave you to me, I always, I always - you have to stop trying to leave, Ignis, please. Please."
Ignis moves in the darkness, groaning a little, raises his right hand, tangles his fingers in Noctis' hair - weakly, too damn weakly.
"As if I could ever… leave," he says, the voice sliding into a sigh on the last syllable, and Noctis laughs, quiet and terrified.
He says, "Gods, Gladio is right, we're so fucked up, me and you. Ignis, can I make you a promise? Ignis. Ignis. Ignis, listen to me." He presses his fingers into Ignis' neck, catches his pulse, fluttering too fast.
Ignis nods, slightly; his breathing is becoming shallow, strained.
"I am going to save the world," Noctis says, and Ignis stirs at that, makes a wounded, small sound in the back of his throat, "and we're going to live through it, and I'm going to give you the whole normal thing, the whole fucking courtship, can you hear me? Dates and flowers and candlelight dinners and - Ignis, stay awake - I swear, I will learn to cook, I will - "
"Perish the… thought," Ignis says, and begins to cough; there's blood on his lips, and he's shuddering, making small pained groans that have to be involuntary. "Noct," he gasps, "you have to know I am… content…"
He stops breathing.
"Don't you fucking dare," Noctis growls, jerking back. "Don't you," he slams his magic into Ignis, pure, useless, "you liar, Ignis, don't…"
There's heavy splashing behind him and he whirls around, summoning the Arms, left hand still on Ignis stilling throat; Gladio and Prompto are staring at them through the Arms' ghostly light.
"Tell me you got it," he snarls, and Gladio strides over, nods curtly; there's an elixir in his hands, and - and a Phoenix Down, and Noctis closes his eyes for a second. "Help me."
There's no time to be careful, to be gentle; they grasp Ignis' shoulders and pull, the root sliding out of the flesh with a wet, slippery sound, catching and tearing something inside, unbearable, doesn't matter; Noctis smashes the feather against Ignis' cold skin first, and then breaks the elixir into the dancing flames.
The next moment is too quiet; every sound is gone, from Prompto's terrified breathing to the splashing of the water; Ignis is still, still, still.
Then he surges up from the ground and bends over, throwing up blood all over Noctis, and this, right here, is the best moment of Noctis's life, bar none.
Gladio steadies Ignis, supporting him against his chest, grins at Noctis from over his shoulder, and for a moment it's okay again, like there was no anger between them, and Noctis grins back, so wide that his cheeks hurt.
Ignis opens his mouth, possibly even to apologize, and Noctis lunges forwards and kisses him, teeth and blood and bile and brackish water and it doesn't matter, doesn't matter, doesn't matter, doesn't matter at all.
Somewhere behind him there's a click of the camera shutter.
It takes a superhuman effort to let Ignis go, and he only does it because while Ignis is kissing back, his skin feels way too cold. Back to the train, then, stat: blankets, hot water, food. Life.
"So it's like that, huh?", Gladio says, and Noctis flips him off behind Ignis' back.
"Like that," he says firmly and helps Ignis to his feet. "Come on, people, we have the world to save."
"Fucking finally," Gladio laughs, takes Ignis' other hand. Prompto starts whistling the Chocobo Victory Song behind them, his relief palpable in the air.
Ignis tips his head against Noctis' shoulder, quiet, exhausted. He's silent all the way back to the train.