Ignis rubbed his eyes before he started the game again. His time with Noct was having some rather unforeseen bonding, but Ignis was glad. Clearly they'd both had things they needed to say but never intended to actually tell the other.

All these years, Ignis had felt frustrated and hurt at Noct's lack of effort and how he didn't seem to care about all the extra work Ignis had done for him. Ignis had never imagined Noct was the one who felt pushed away by him.

He would not let that happen again. He would rectify this. Noct may have been a Prince, but he was right – he needed time to be a person as well. Most teenaged boys grew up with a healthy number of friends. Noct only had four true ones, and one of them was in another country. Ignis would still make sure Noct was preparing to take the throne, but he would also ensure that Noct had time to be the seventeen-year-old boy that he was. Perhaps Ignis would even have a word with Gladio later, too.

His attention was brought back to the game as things started becoming… far less verbal and more physical between Mike and Jessica.

"Noct." Ignis sent his friend a look. "Exactly how mature does this game yet? I had assumed we wouldn't actually witness–"

"I really wouldn't worry about it, Specs."

A window shattered right then, making the characters break apart.

Noctis grinned. "Well? You're playing my Shield, aren't you? Go check it out!"

"As you wish, Highness. Although that Marlboro-like grin is not making me wish to pursue this investigation."

"Well, too bad. You have to. Gladio has to protect me."

"Yes, I suppose you aren't in the best condition to defend yourself considering you're in your flower-print underwear only."

"Oh, and whose fault is that?"

"I didn't make you so easy to seduce."

"…Screw you, Specs. Just check the damn window already."

"As the lady wishes."

Noctis pursed his lips and flipped Ignis off.

"I say…"

"I didn't say anything, so you can't tell me to watch my language–"

"Oh dear… What are you doing?" Ignis watched as Jessica stormed outside to yell at the other cast members, who she were assuming was playing a prank on her and Mike this whole time. "This can't end well…"

By the Six, the dialogue in this was… mature. Jessica certainly had a way with words as she shouted at full volume into the darkness. Ignis squinted as the killer's view on Jessica was shown. "Ahhh, so he sees movement…"

"What the– how?" Noct demanded. "How did you figure that out that quickly?"

Ignis tightened his grip on the controller, expecting a prompt at any moment. "Is it not obvious? The only parts of her illuminated in his vision are the parts of her that are moving."

Jessica stormed back inside, slamming the door behind her. It was less than two seconds later that she was dragged screaming in terror through the door's small window.

The screen went black.

"…I'm going to assume we'll go back to them soon so I can chase down your unrealistically strong abductor."

"Yeah. And I'm so holding you to the fact that you promised to keep me alive."

"I'll accept that responsibility. But it appears I have further investigation to preform with Prompto and Ashley first."

After a few minutes of searching around for clues, Noctis let out an overly dramatic groan that was more startling than any of the jump scares thus far. "Do you have to find every clue? This game is supposed to take, like, eight hours for a play through, not twelve."

"And here I thought you'd appreciate the poetical effect of us actually playing until dawn."

Noctis gave him a flat look. "Can you hurry up? I'm being dragged through the snow in my underwear, and I'd really like not to be."

"Well, that's rather selfish. I need to keep Prompto alive as well."

"Chris– Prompto isn't in danger right now!"

The second the words left Noctis' mouth, Josh's screaming could be heard from a nearby room.

Ignis narrowed his eyes. He refused to let Josh die thinking that his friends had just tried to play another horrible joke on him about his sisters' deaths. He'd put actual effort into driving up his relationships' stats, too. There was no point in that if Josh died now.

As Ashley tried to aid Josh, she was pulled into the other room as well. Ignis jerked the controller forwards, making Chris smash into the door to break through it.

"Getting kind of into this, aren't you?"

"Do be quiet, Noct, I'm trying to get Prompto to save my love interest."

"…What?"

"You said I was Sam, did you not? I thought we were trying to build their relationship–"

Well. A man in a clown mask had just punched Chris in the face and knocked him out.

"…Now that's unfortunate," Ignis muttered. "But I now know one of my theories must be correct.

"Oh, yeah? What you got?"

"Either the killer can teleport, or there's more than one of them."

"Why would you think that?"

"…Perhaps because you were only just dragged through the window? That cabin was a fair distance away."

"Could be a time skip between scenes."

"You're not going to sway me, Noct. I looked at the timestamps at the beginning of both scenes."

"Ooooof course you did. All right, Specs, let's see how that smart attitude holds up now that you're out of the safe chapters."

Of course, before he could get the satisfaction of hopefully watching Ignis fail at saving someone, there was the usual between-chapter therapy session with Doctor Hill.

"This office worsens every time we come back to it."

"Uh, yeah. Big time." Noctis sat forwards a bit in his chair. There were no jump scares here, and he was pretty curious about what Ignis would pick. This was the session where the game asked the player to pick which character out of each set of two that the player liked best, and then it weeded it down to making the player pick out their least favorite.

The first pair was Sam and Josh.

Ignis scowled. "I protest to this. I've grown to like both of them."

"Too bad. You gotta pick."

Ignis looked irritated, but he eventually settled on Sam.

Perfect. The opportunity Noctis had been waiting for. "Well, that's a little egotistical, don't you think?" he teased as Ignis didn't hesitate to pick Matt over Emily and Chris over Ashley. "Picking yourself over your love interest? For shame, Spec– hey! What the hell?"

Ignis was definitely smirking as he selected Mike over Jessica. "My mistake, Noct. My hand must have slipped."

"…Yeah. Sure. You accidentally rolled your wrist a hundred and eighty degrees to the left and accidentally pressed X at the same time. I can't believe you just picked Gladio over me– oh come on! Seriously? She's not even someone we know!"

Ignis was smirking proudly now as he selected Josh over Emily and then Ashley over Jessica. He quirked an eyebrow at Noctis as the game told him to choose his least favorite: Jessica or Emily.

Noctis glared at him. "Don't you dare."

Ignis lazily rolled his wrist left and right without hitting X. "Are you going to keep complaining?"

"Ignis." Noctis kept glaring. "I swear, if you chose that bi– brat over me, I will kick your arm on the most important Don't Move prompt."

"Oh, so you're threatening me now?"

"Hell yes, I am. It's a great strategy."

"…Noct, I'm beginning to think I might need to work with you further on matters of diplomacy."

"Make the choice, Specs. Just make it carefully."

Ignis chuckled. "To be honest, Noct, there's nothing you have ever done or ever could do to make yourself more irritating than the atrocity that is this character, so your threats are not needed." He finally selected Emily, and the session came to an end.

"…I still can't believe you picked Gladio over me," Noctis said as the game loaded the next section. "And Ashley!"

"Oh, do relax. Here, I'll hopefully make it up to you by having Gladio rescue you."

The scene had dropped Ignis back as Mike, who was tearing out of the cabin with a rifle after Jessica and her abductor. Ignis went suspiciously silent, staring at the screen like… well, like an actual gamer during a tense part of a game.

"You all right there, Iggy?"

"I'm well, but you might not be if you distract me, and I have every intention of getting you through this night…"

Like before, Ignis was able to ace all of the quick time events, and he also chose the fastest paths. Cool. Jessica would live, then. Although… it would have been fun to harass Ignis about getting him killed for the rest of the game. Jessica wouldn't be totally out of the woods after this either.

"…Did I succeed or fail?" Ignis asked distractedly as he took aim at the abductor, who was in the shadows above the elevator shaft Jessica had just fallen into.

"Oh, you'll know when someone dies in this game. They make it pretty obvious."

"Ah. Like that deer, I imagine."

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Well then, I'd say Gladio's main duty is a success for the time being. All that's left is pursuing your attacker while you… ah. She's unconscious for a while, isn't she? That's what you meant earlier?"

"Yeah… I'm… kind of out of the picture for a while."

"Out of the picture means safe. I find that agreeable. Now, I do believe I need to lead Prompto and the other two out of their danger."

Yes… yes he did. Or he could try. Poor Josh. Noct had a pretty good idea how this was going to go. Poor Ignis, really. He'd been getting attached to his love interest.

Noctis tried to resist bobbing his leg up and down as Ignis took his sweet time looking for clues. The game was really kicking into gear now.

Finally, Chris entered the shack and the door locked behind him, leaving him stuck in a room with a lever while he could see into another room where Josh and Ashley were tied up. In front of a saw.

Ignis' jaw set slightly to the side as he studied the scene intently. "Choose between them? I'd thought I was supposed to be able to save them all?"

"You can. If you make the right choices."

Ignis pursed his lips. "So, I made a wrong choice at some point in the past and now I'm left with this choice?"

Noctis grinned at his irritation. "What's it gonna be, Iggy? Your love interest or Prompto's?"

Ignis sighed. "With regret, Prompto will have to live on without his crush."

Noctis tsk'ed. "That's cold, Iggy. Real cold."

Ignis didn't seem terribly regretful. "Josh's family owns this mountain. Romantic interests aside, he's a far more valuable asset."

Noctis was trying really hard not to laugh as Ignis selected his choice. He held his breath and stared at Ignis, not wanting to miss his reaction as the saw headed for Josh anyway.

"What? No! That's not what I wanted at all!"

Noctis burst out laughing, unable to keep it in anymore as Chris also protested, saying that wasn't what he meant either. "Really? You trusted the psycho to actually play fair?"

"I expected the game that keeps hammering me on the head about my decisions to allow me my decisions!"

Oh, man. Ignis looked so miffed. Like he was absolutely going to pulverize the psycho when he finally found the guy. His expression seemed to grow more and more irritated as Josh got sawed in half and Chris and Ashley fled the shed, terrified and sobbing.

"That… man is going to rue the day he decided to target the Washington family," Ignis borderline spat.

Noctis was attempting to muffle his laughter so Ignis could hear the dialogue when Chris and Ashley ran into Emily and Matt, but he wasn't having much luck. This was just too good.

"…I am going to have to commend this game on the character reactions in this particular section, though. Chris and Ashley are acting realistically traumatized, although I would have preferred to see how Josh's reactions would have played out since he's already had to deal with the death of his sisters– oh, bloody hell, do I have to play as these two after the next therapy session? I don't care about either of them…"

Noctis snorted. "Admit it – you just hate Emily."

"Well, basically, yes. And I would much rather be hunting the other killer down as Gladio at the moment."

"Careful what you wish for. This next section is eternal."

"Oh, so I do get to play as Gladio next?"

"Yeah. Talk to your doctor first, though."

Ignis eyebrows shot up as Doctor Hill asked if the night was going the way he hoped. "It most certainly is not…"

lol Poor Ignis. He tried so hard.