Chapter Text
Ignis has a problem.
That problem is blond, about 5’8”, and has an unfairly perfect ass. As someone with taste where it counts, Ignis is sure that this is an indisputable fact.
However, as tasteful as this man’s ass may be, Ignis knows he needs to keep his distance. Duty and responsibility are honorable. Staring at an employee’s posterior, on the other hand, is perhaps not the wisest use of his time.
It simply isn’t productive to dream of sexy strangers, after all.
Besides, Ignis has enough on his plate as is. Noctis is not the easiest to wrangle on the best of days. He needs to feed him, watch him, appease him, plan for him, chart course for his future—don’t get the wrong idea. There is nothing Ignis would rather be doing with his time.
It’s just how his life is, after all. Watching over the Prince takes priority above all else, and besides, important people like Ignis have no room in their lives for—
“Oh for the love of…”
As his shopping cart crashes into a rack, Ignis is jolted out of his fantasizing by a shatter. See, this is what he’s talking about. Distractions are not becoming of a man of his stature. He thinks about a man’s ass for a few seconds and suddenly: anarchy!
Drat. He’s caused a mess, and a completely avoidable one at that.
Gladio and Noctis, who were previously wandering around and no doubt planning mischief, come back the moment they hear the noise.
“Ooooh, Ignis had an accident,” Noctis says the moment he sees the broken pickle jars in the aisle.
“Come now, let’s call someone over to clean it up.” Ignis takes a deep breath and sighs when he notices that some of the items in his cart are soaked with juice. He supposes he’s just going to have to deal with sticky groceries this week, as unfortunate as it may be. He feels far more guilty about the fact that he just recklessly broke glass. And that someone else will no doubt have to clean it up.
“Good job,” Gladio comments, elbowing Ignis in the side good-naturedly.
For a moment, Ignis thinks he’ll be able to shrug it off. It’s fine, these things happen, even if they’re completely inconveniencing. But the moment a blond head pops into the isle, bounding over in a familiar dark green-and-tan uniform, Ignis feels his exasperation grow.
Exasperation with himself, that is. Because of course the handsome man he’s been eyeing for weeks would be the one to see him like this, making a stupid mistake, shoes sticky, covered in pickle juice.
Beyond simply being too busy for a relationship, there’s no way this man would find him anything other than—than abhorrent at worst, inconveniencing at best! Ignis stifles a groan as his Problem, a certain Prompto Argentum, comes up to them.
“Is everyone alright? No one stepped on any glass or anything?” Prompto hovers his hands out, a bundle of nervous energy and worry. It’s pretty cute, how he hops from one foot to the other like a little bird. Ignis’s mouth suddenly feels too dry to form coherent words.
But he should, shouldn’t he? Noctis and Gladio are both looking at him expectantly, as they tend to do. It’s a cue for him to take charge.
“We’re quite alright, thank you ah…” Ignis glances at Prompto’ nametag as if he doesn’t already know it. “Mr. Argentum. I apologize for the damage; I’ll cover the cost. It was my bad, I’m afraid my glasses… Fogged.”
Gladio snorts a laugh and covers it, very conspicuously, by coughing into his hand. Oh, bugger off.
Prompto takes the lousy excuse easily, smiling way too hard for someone who has to clean up a bunch of glass because of a stupid, stupid mistake. “Just Prompto is fine! But don’t worry about it, you didn’t break too many of ‘em, and things like this happen. Usually my manager just lets these things go anyway.”2
“I insist, compensating would be no trouble.”
“No, no worries! Just be careful stepping away from the aisle, I’m going to clean it up for you in a minute. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
Ignis feels like a total idiot, wasting this man’s time over his own ineptitude. He assures Prompto that he’s completely fine, thank you very much, and apologizes once more before backing his cart away from the glass.
The moment they’re out of Prompto’s earshot, Noctis cajoles him. Ah. Of course. He should have seen this coming.
“You liiiike him.”
“Of course, I do,” Ignis responds, trying to keep an air of dignity to himself. “He’s a competent employee.”
Noctis pretends he can’t hear Ignis’s excuses and starts to stage-whisper to Gladio, who’s just as smug about it all. “So that’s why Ignis kept making us drive 20 minutes to get groceries. He wanted to see—”
“Noct, you know perfectly well that it was for the savings. Mum-and-Pop shops are simply unrivaled in quality, and their coupons—”
Gladio pitches his voice up into his best mockery of Ignis’s accent. “Their coupons. Come on, man, it’s obvious.”
“Yeah, it’s obvious,” Noctis chimes in. “You were giving him total goo goo ga ga eyes. Like, it was sickening.”
“Yeah, sickening.” Gladio laughs, leaning forward to pinch Ignis’s cheek. His hand is slapped away promptly. “Aw, come on Iggy, this is exciting. Our stuffy advisor is growing up, baby’s first crush.”
“Oh, you two are the absolute worst.”
Ignis does the only thing he can do when dealing with literal children: he ignores them.
Anything he says in his defense will probably be used against him, and he’s more than aware that his face is getting warm, which isn’t doing his case any favors.
This is not his first crush or anything ridiculously juvenile like that. This is not… Whatever Noctis and Gladio insist it is. It’s only what Ignis wants it to be, or knows it needs to be. And he needs it to be nothing, so it is nothing. Well, that was easy.
Thank goodness.
Hardening his resolve, Ignis loads the grocery bags into his trunk, dismayed despite himself when his thinks about how sticky everything will be when he gets back to Noct’s apartment.
Just his luck. And after he makes dinner, he has a whole batch of paperwork to read through.
This is why he doesn’t have the time to date. Everything else comes second to the Prince, even his own health. That’s simply how things are meant to be.
There’s no use getting his hopes up, he’s perfectly content where he is. Noctis may tease him and joke that he needs to get a life, but Ignis already has one.
And it’s solely dedicated to Noctis. It isn’t sad, or pathetic, or whatever else people may think of it. It’s a life, and it’s his. He cherishes it more than anything.
Ignis glances in the rearview mirror at Gladio and Noctis, who insist on roughhousing with each other, even in a moving vehicle.
But Noctis is smiling, so uncaring now that no one in the public eye can see him, and Ignis doesn’t have the heart to tell them to quit it.
Yet.
If he has any suspicions that they’re scuffing up the leather seating, it’s over for them, point-blank.
Yes. Ignis is aware that other people would consider his life to be… Constrictive. But when he looks back at Noctis, he sees his world, his responsibility, his duty, and he cannot imagine life being any other way for him.
Cute, blond employees are fun to think about in passing. There’s no harm in a little fantasy. But beyond that, Ignis is content with dropping any serious infatuation he may hold towards him.
He has something more important he has to focus on. And that’s simply the way things must be.
X
Too bad Noctis is incapable of doing the same.
During their next grocery run later in the week, Noctis doesn’t even try to hide his mischievousness. Ignis, quite frankly, fears for Prompto’s life. Because if the glint in Noct’s eyes is anything to go by, he has something planned. Gladio, though not as obvious, seems to be up to something too.
A couple of schemers, they are.
Blast it all. Is it possible to get grey hair at age 22? Is Ignis’s hairline receding or is it just mature?
Maybe if he ignores them, they’ll get tired of this game and leave him be. It’s unlikely, but Ignis can hope against hope for even a moment of peace.
The first sign of Noctis and Gladio’s “scheme” shows itself when Ignis is putting Chocobeans into the cart.
“What’re you doing?” Noctis says, sounding far more affronted than he has any right to be.
“You know well enough that I was planning on making bean bowls tonight, Noct.”
“No, no, no!” Noctis pries the can from Ignis’s hand. “You can’t just buy beans, what if that guy sees?”
“Excuse me?”
“What if that guy sees you buying beans, Ignis?”
Ignis blinks, at a loss for words.
“I’m sorry, I still don’t follow.”
Noctis leans in closer to whisper directly into his face. “If that guy sees you buying beans, he’s gonna think you have plans to go home and take a dump or something. Are you kidding me?”
“I…”
“We’re only buying sexy groceries from now on. No beans. We can’t have this dude thinking you shit.”
“Sexy… Groceries.”
Noctis nods and shoves the Chocobeans back onto the shelf, the sneaky bastard. “Yeah, you know, like—”
“Melons.” Gladio supplies, face completely stoic.
“Yeah… Or like, cake,” Noctis adds, equally serious.
Ignis takes a moment to collect himself. Deep breaths. Don’t let them get to you, he reminds himself. He doesn’t dignify them with a response. Instead, he simply reaches back to the shelf and grabs the beans, putting them into his cart before Noctis can think of another way to sneak them back out.
“Nooo, Iggy—”
“—That is so unsexy of you, dude.”
Ignis feels his face burn when he spots a blond head pass between the isles. There’s no way he didn’t hear Noctis and Gladio whining at him, calling him… Well, unsexy.
As lame as that is, it embarrasses him all the same being in public and behaving like this. Like a teenager.
Or worse, a child.
Ignis hastens to grab what he needs as quickly as possible to avoid any further… Antics and goes to check out, eager to leave and put this embarrassment far, far behind him. As far as it will possibly go.
However, Noctis and Gladio seem to be on a mission, as it were, and continue making strange, irritating comments as they wait in line.
“Ignis, I can’t believe you put toilet paper in there, too,” Noctis whispers, far too dramatically for the situation at hand. “The beans were bad enough, now he’s really gonna think you’re going home to shit.”
Ignis ignores him and straightens his mouth out into a long, thin line. Hopefully, Noctis takes the hint that he’s becoming annoyed and leaves him alone.
He doesn’t. And neither does Gladio.
“What’ll blondie think of your bowel movements, man? I can’t believe—”
“Sod off, you two. I have no care for what he thinks of my bowel movements. Not everyone is as vulgar as…” Ignis trails off as he hears someone clear their throat behind him.
No. This can’t be happening.
Ignis turns on his heels as respectably as he can manage and, oh, of course, it’s Prompto. He doesn’t seem to be disgusted, at least; he’s still got that huge, polite smile on his face, after all. Ignis stares for a little too long at his lips before he even attempts to make sense of what is being said.
Fuck, he’s completely missed it. He couldn’t even register words, and now he’s being looked at all expectantly. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
Prompto shifts a bit on his feet and shoves something forward. Oh. Ignis looks down at it (to avoid being distracted again by… well, Prompto’s lips) and pushes down his shame at being so uncouth.
“Um, we’re giving out some free samples.”
Of course. Ignis grabs a piece of fruit from the bin Prompto’s holding and hands it over to Gladio. He’s sure he can use it tonight for dinner, even. He thanks Prompto and watches him approach the next set of customers.
“Aw, come on Igs. Don’t look so sad.”
Ignis starts putting the groceries on the conveyor belt and pointedly ignores Gladio.
He isn’t sad. It would be downright ridiculous to be sad about any of this. Besides, Ignis has much bigger things to worry about than the unsalvageable remains of his romantic fancies.
Prompto is just a cute man he gets to see every once in a while. That should be enough.
No matter how many times he’s told, and teased, otherwise.
X
At a certain point, however, Ignis realizes that he’s irrevocably, thoroughly fucked, and there’s nothing he can do to deny that fact. Denying it would be nothing more than an act of cruelty and perhaps, even make it harder for him to move past it.
That doesn’t mean Ignis has to be happy about it, though. And he isn’t. Or, at least, he refuses to admit that this silly crush is more than a waste of his time, emotions, and dignity.
Because Noctis and Gladio are still making things difficult for him, as they always do.
In fact, Ignis has made it a habit to check the cart for unwanted items nowadays. Though he is remiss to admit it, he’s been quite… Distracted lately.
One moment, he’s weighing two vegetables in his hands, determining which one is superior, and the next, he’s staring off into space.
Or more accurately, staring directly out in the direction of Prompto’s butt.
By the time he comes to his senses, the cart has things in it that he’s absolutely certain he didn’t put there. Candy. Magazines. Cup of Noodles.
Ignis snatches them out and curses his hormones for doing this to him. He’s an adult, not some desperate adolescent. He should be better than this by now.
Gladio and Noctis are nowhere to be found. They’re probably off somewhere, gallivanting and searching for more contraband they can slip in while Ignis is lost in his own admiration. For the past few weeks, they’ve been disappearing. Probably conspiring. This has to end. Now.
Maybe he’s just sex-deprived.
Ignis sighs to himself.
Maybe hooking up with someone will clear his head; it’s not his favorite thing to do, and he hasn’t in a long while, but it may get him to calm down, at least enough for him to focus on what really matters. I.e. his job. Not his silly emotions for a man he doesn’t even know.
Yes, Ignis thinks, this will absolutely solve everything. Or at least it will if he tries hard enough.
Once again, Ignis tries to ignore how indisputably fucked he. If he can’t deny it anymore, the least he can do is try to fix it. To drive home just how dedicated to the cause he is, Ignis doesn’t look at Prompto at all the next time he sees him pass through the store.
Ignis mentally gives himself a hearty pat on the back. He is the pinnacle of self-control. The absolute paradigm of it.
Now, all he has to do is continue avoiding Prompto for the rest of his life.
Easy.
Nothing could possibly go wrong now that he’s decided this. Nothing at all. He’s set. Problem solved.
X
Except Ignis is thwarted. Pretty swiftly at that, too.
The next day, he opens the door to Noctis’s apartment and stops right in the hallway, unable to bring himself to step forward once he sees who else is here.
Oh god. Is it getting hot in here?
Ignis gulps and straightens his tie in a futile attempt to distract himself and make himself semi-decent. Fuck. His heart is hammering, this won’t do. No, it won’t do at all.
Prompto is sitting with Noctis and Gladio on the couch. Talking. Like they’ve known each other for a million years. This is breaking so many rules that Ignis may just keel over from the stress of it all. Did Gladio bother to background check him, even?
Oh, Gods, this could be a disaster, this could be a huge disaster.
“Igs, stop freaking out over there. Yes, I background checked him. It’s fine, will you chill out and come in already? You look like a fucking ghost.”
Ah. Ignis steps forward as all eyes turn to him. Gladio has his eyebrow raised as if he can read his mind. After knowing him for so long, he might as well be able to. This is so awkward, why is this so awkward, what are they scheming here?
“This is Prompto, from the market, you know?” Noctis looks like the perfect image of innocence, but the gleam in his eyes tells Ignis all he needs to know. “Prompto, this is Ignis, he’s kinda a huge square but he’s pretty cool when you get to know him, I guess. Oh, also his food is incredible. Kinda makes up for how much of a dweeb he is otherwise.”
Prompto shoots up to his feet and is shaking hands with Ignis before he can even register that they’re touching.
Oh, gods, they’re touching.
“It’s nice to meet you! So, you’re the cool royal adviser dude? I know I’ve seen you guys a lot in passing but I didn’t even recognize that you were royalty! Man, that’s so fucking sweet!”
“It’s nothing special, really,” Ignis says, averting his gaze so he doesn’t suddenly combust. Prompto’s expression is a bit too earnest, and Ignis fears how obvious he’s being. Regardless, Ignis wants to make a good impression. He can’t go on forgetting his manners, after all. “But it’s a pleasure, Prompto. Are you staying for dinner tonight? I was about to fry some fish.”
Prompto rocks back on his heels, suddenly drawing into himself, if only slightly. “Ahh, no thanks! I was about to go, actually…” He trails off sheepishly, looking away to the side.
Perhaps he doesn’t want to impose, Ignis thinks, and he can respect that. Too flustered (and surprised) to fight about it, Ignis finds himself clearing his throat and heading to the kitchen, where he knows he can safely seclude himself and keep away from any semblance of socializing. “Well, maybe next time, then?”
“Um, yeah,” Prompto says. He’s putting on his shoes before Noctis can get a word in edge-wise, which he obviously seems to be trying to do as he follows Prompto to the door like a lost puppy. “See ya guys later! It was nice to meet you Ignis! Gottagobye—”
And the door shuts.
Gladio snorts from where he’s still sitting on the couch. “Nice one, Iggy.”
“What did I do? If anything, I should be asking you what you two were thinking, pulling that stunt. You know very well that I—”
“Have a big, huge, obvious crush? Yeah, we know.”
“—Oh Gladio, shut up for a moment, will you? You know very well that I’m too busy to date at the moment.”
Noctis leans over the kitchen divider and makes himself comfortable in his island chair. When he leans over on his folded arms, he at least has the tact to look slightly remorseful for his actions. “Well maybe you shouldn’t be. Shouldn’t you have a life or something?”
Ignis bites back the comment he can feel building up in him. A scathing YOU ARE MY LIFE, YOU IDIOT that he figures is better left unsaid.
He takes a deep breath. It really is unbecoming of him to let these two get under his skin like this.
After re-centering himself, Ignis opens the fridge and grabs what he needs to make dinner. Perhaps a distraction is in order. At least now, he can vent out his frustration. With a knife. Fileting an unsuspecting, dead fish, that is.
Yes, that sounds wonderful right about now.
Should he have a life outside of Noct? He isn’t sure. He tells Noctis such. “Maybe down the road, when you’re more comfortable in your position. Until then, I’m afraid not, Your Highness. I’d much rather focus on my duty than lose myself in some—in some silly, trivial romance, of all things.”
“You’re just sayin’ that cuz you’re afraid of what’ll happen if you let yourself have something for once,” Gladio points out conversationally, as if he’s just telling the time and not pointing out Ignis’s frankly abundant attachment issues. “Listen, I of all people know how important duty is. But you can have more than this, you know. It’s not going to all come crashing down if you date one guy. That’s just fucking dumb.”
Ignis’s voice comes out tighter than he’d like it to be when he gathers enough courage to speak. “How’d you even get him here, anyway? Seems a tad manipulative to work the poor boy like that.”
“We’re friends now,” Noctis says into his arms, making his voice muffled. “Where’d you think me ‘n Gladio were disappearing off to for the last few weeks? Plus, he’s cool, so it’s not like we’re manipulating him or anything. Jeez, you make it sound like we have these like, sinister intentions, Ignis.”
“I hardly call what you’re doing innocent.” Ignis cuts the Trevally’s head off and begins the process of filleting it.
It serves as a good distraction, for the most part. Keeps him nice and calm, his voice nice and indifferent.
He tells himself to keep separating himself from the situation. “Oh well, I suppose there’s nothing I can do about it now, seeing as you’re friends. Gladio, you did fill out all the necessary paperwork, right? Not just the background checks?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve got it all under control. Don’t even worry about it,” Gladio groans and leans back into the couch, throwing his head back. “Fuck, you’re impossible sometimes, do you know that?”
“I haven’t the faintest clue as to what you mean.” Except Ignis knows perfectly well what Gladio is getting at. He just doesn’t want to think about it, so he doesn’t.
Noctis huffs into the crook of his elbow and closes his eyes.
Maybe now they’ll get off his case. Maybe. Probably not.
Gods, he looks like a total mess, he can’t believe Noctis didn’t even give warning, and Prompto looked so cute in his day-clothes. Skinny jeans. Tight muscle tank. And don’t even get him started on the—
Alright, that’s enough of that. With a particularly hard smack of the knife to the cutting board, Ignis tries banishing all thoughts of cute blonds from his mind.
Apparently, avoiding Prompto won’t be as easy as he thought it’d be. Not anymore, at least.
He’s going to have to buck up and deal with this some other way, because despite his friends telling him that they want him to go for it, they simply don’t understand the pressure he’s under and the standard he must keep himself at. He wouldn’t expect them to understand, either.
It’s on him, and that’s the way it will stay.
Ignis’ll deal with it somehow. He has to, so he will. His ironclad stubbornness has yet to truly fail him, so he prays that it’ll keep him strong, especially since he’s sure that this will prove to be difficult.
And he’s right. It may just be the hardest thing he’s ever had to endure.
Turns out, pining all on your lonesome—dare he say it—is quite a lonesome, miserable endeavor indeed.