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[That gets a soft, fond smile out of him.]

Understood. I'll follow your wishes.

[A beat.]

The spirit of your wishes, even, as opposed to strictly the word. I won't take advantage of the multiple loopholes your request could've left open for me, either.

The loopholes fall under not being mean to her!

[He lets go and claps Ignis's arm instead, then closes his laptop with a click and rises from his seat. A glimmering of Noct's magic later, he pulls his beanie on past his ears and the gloves that actually cover his fingers.

He frowns, then goes to the bed, strips the heaviest blanket off, and flaps it fully out so he can start folding it.]

Sorry, I'll bring this back once I find her. She doesn't even have her own full-length pants. And, Iggy?

[Prompto looks up from the blanket.]

I love you, too.

...I'm certain I've seen her wearing pants before. Black ones, with pockets?

[That's a smooth way of covering up his mild embarrassment and richer pleasure at the fact that Prompto's moment of sentiment correctly included the word too.]

Here. Let me help with the other side of that — it'll fold more easily.

Mmmm. [Black pants with pockets, huh? No comment.] Yeah. Thank you.

[He hands two corners over to Ignis and backs up to spread the blanket evenly out.]

If you get cold before I get back, cuddle up with Noct, okay? Don't want you getting sick again.

Of course, I'll tuck myself into bed and bellow down the hallway for Noctis to come warm me up. Certainly that won't be misconstrued in any way whatsoever by anyone else who may be in earshot.

[Like a well-oiled machine, he mirrors Prompto's movements to a tee, increasing the efficiency of this process tenfold.

Fold. Get it?]

She's a red, isn't she? Pity you'll not get any town-bestowed reward for sharing this blanket with her, if that's your intention. It takes a blue, I think. Noct earned himself a delightfully hideous blanket.

What? I wanna see it!

[SHOW HIM THE BLANKIE FORBIDDEN]

Let's wrap this up first, and then I'll get it out.

[Ignis that sounds like bribery oh wait IT IS]

[Nyoooom, Prompto hurries to match each of his corners to the corresponding in Ignis's hands, then ducks to grab the new corners at the bottom.]

Is it bad like holiday sweater bad or like neon coeurl print bad?

More the first than the second, I think. There's nothing particularly garish about it, but the pattern is somewhat unusual.

[He grasps both sets of corners when Prompto hands them to him, giving the blanket a little shake to get any wrinkles out before the next fold comes.]

Is it rainbow?

[Nothing garish about rainbows.]

There are tonberries and chocobos on it.

[You do the math.]

[Gasp!]

No fair! Noct gets one and I don't? Ignis!

[Tug tug.]

What if I have to make camp out there in the cold? You mean I'm gonna have to do it without a chocoblanket?

...Well.

[LOOK AT THE WHEELS STARTING TO TURN.]

I suppose we could see about getting you your own. As we do presently have here you, a blue, and a blanket.

[As soon as he suggests it, Prompto's flinging the blanket back open and draping himself in it, lifting his arms like a kid playing ghost with a bedsheet.]

Snug me, Iggy!

It's good to see you so lively again, Prompto.

[And it's almost startling how utterly laden with open affection that statement comes — affection and relief — as he steps in and half-drags Prompto against him and wraps the blanket around them both until they're snug.]

You can't even begin to imagine what a relief it is.

[Prompto's eager to take advantage of the unexpected show of fondness and grab on, rubbing his nose deep into Ignis's shirt, filling his lungs big and then breathing out again.]

I've got an idea, maybe.

[Because it's got to be kin to the relief, to the pride Prompto felt when Ignis, smelling of swamp and sweat and flame, finally stood up to Gladio. When the three of them came to save him, just like he knew they would. When they were all right again. A unit.

He might be overplaying--he still feels half-sick with worry and guilt--but the strength with which Prompto clings to Ignis is as real as anything in the world.]

But you're right. Probably I can't even dream of it. You guys always blow away my wildest expectations, even after all these years.

[It's somewhere in the little things about the way they cling together — the way Prompto leans in to inhale him the way a starving man leans into a bowl of hot stew, and the brush of the tip of his nose against his shirt, and the way he just sort of fits up against him — that something sturdy in Ignis seems to shake loose, a fastening or two rattling free and coming undone, rendering his control imperfect and his collectedness fractured. It's not gone completely; no, the pieces are still there, still forming a reasonably admirable guard, but there are holes in it now, little breaches with jagged edges, and before he quite realizes it he's ducking his chin to press his face against the top of Prompto's head, burying a single, shaky breath in his hair.]

I was so worried about you.

[Prompto thinks he's different. Prompto doesn't think he's as important. Prompto thinks he's expendable, the extra piece, the odd man out.

Ignis doesn't live for Prompto's smile the way that he does for Noct's. He's just acutely, painfully aware of how much darker the world is without it.]

A brief moment of sentimentality. You won't tell, will you...?

Iggy...

[Oh no. His eyes sting suddenly with emotion he can't put a name to, something that goes straight from his ears to his center without registering at the desk. I was so worried, and it's not even that Ignis is saying it to him. It's that Ignis is saying it at all. It's that Ignis, unbowable Ignis, sounds a little shaken up there above his head. Prompto pictures a tree straightening itself out after an unexpected, cold-season storm and finding a couple leaves gone--nothing serious, but it could've been. It's like he needs this hug, too.

Prompto gulps the lump in his throat halfway down and manages--and he hopes Ignis reads the little shiver in his voice as laughter, aren't they all such disasters when it comes to this stuff?--to croak out:]

Yeah. You know it. Your secret's safe with me. ...I'll be back home before you know it.

I know. You've your own business to attend to.

[And, no different than when it was Noctis, he's got to let him go and see to it. It's a bit funny, really; just because he unfailingly objects to the "Mama Ignis" jokes doesn't mean they aren't well-founded in actual reality.]

Try to be home before dark, will you?

[...Case in point.]

'Course.

[Even here, where there are no daemons to go bump in the night, somehow, they still do.

Prompto doesn't really want to let go himself.]

Don't start dinner without me. I'll help out, okay?

I'll hold you to that.

[And hold him, perhaps, a little longer still, before eventually loosening his grip just enough that it's a suggestion of freeing Prompto to go if he likes, an invitation he's welcome to take but not pressed to.]

I was thinking we'd have a favorite of Noct's.

Not of mine?

[But he leans back with a big grin to show he's joking.]

Nah, that sounds good. I've got a lot to make up to him. What're we making?

You always protest when I make a favorite of yours. But I think we can all agree on oyakodon, so that's what I was planning.

[He reaches up, lightly ruffling Prompto's hair in the back.]

I'll make a little extra, while I'm at it. Enough for a guest or two, if an extra mouth to feed should happen to turn up at the table.

Heh. That's our Ignis, always thinking ahead.

[Or maybe thinking in his head, since Prompto's relieved, grateful smile says that's exactly what he was hoping for.

Not just his smile, either. Bending beneath Ignis's hand, he burrows into him once more, hugs him tight.]

Thank you, Iggy.

[Thank you for being here.]

Always, Prompto.

[And whether he means that as a response to the bit about thinking ahead, or the unspoken reason for Prompto's gratitude, is anyone's guess. Perhaps it's both.

Either way, he hugs back just as tight, before releasing him and giving him a little push toward the door.]

Now go on, then. You've errands to run before dinner.

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photoshooter - 2018-11-25 03:13 (UTC) - Expand