Ignis wasn’t certain what reaction he was expecting, but you dummy was not something he would have come up with. He glanced up at that, stunned, blinking through his tears as a weak laugh escaped him. It echoed Prompto’s, and that almost made him laugh more, if the other man continuing hadn’t cracked something open inside him. He hadn’t known what he needed to hear because he’d never considered it. He’d told himself similar things before, that he wouldn’t have been allowed to live if he’d been deemed unworthy. It had to have been the opposite, in fact. He didn’t know if Regis had intervened, or the fact that he was willing to do anything to protect Noctis — the true King — had gotten him some sort of pass.
He’d never know, unless he put the Ring on again, and that was entirely out of the question. He’d gotten off lightly once, for all that finding himself blind hadn’t seemed light at the time. He’d been too in shock, too busy forcing himself forward for Noct’s sake, too busy trying to find some way to keep Noct alive that he’d never let himself fully process the loss. The kitchen table at three in the morning was a hell of a place to have that start happening, but as Prom’s fingers gently traced the scarring on his hand, he found himself stifling a sob.
“I — I could hardly have left all of you to starve to death without me,” he got out, shakily. He’d never had a moment to himself to let it all out in the immediate aftermath, and then he’d never allowed himself. There had been so many troubles, so many others that needed healing or comfort, and he’d been determined to keep the nightmarish weeks leading up to Altissia and after buried so deep down the memories wouldn’t be able to overwhelm him like this.
He wasn’t used to feeling his age anymore. In fact, Ignis wasn’t certain he’d ever felt his age, not since those few precious years of his childhood before Noct had been injured and sent to Tenebrae. Even then he’d been overly serious most of the time, a mini-adult, the sort of child the nannies and assorted staff and court members used words like precocious or phrases like an old soul to describe. And maybe some less flattering ones like know-it-all as well — that was one he’d heard into adulthood, and he couldn’t say it wasn’t true.
But to feel young and overwhelmed, lost and miserable in a rush of memories shook him almost as much as the relief of knowing that someone else knew now. It wasn’t some horrible secret or burden anymore. That Prompto was holding onto him and clearly had no intentions of going anywhere —
Later, Ignis would recall every word Prompto said over and over to himself — he’d saved Noct, that must have been why he had been allowed to live, that he was needed. The latter hit him the hardest, almost. After Altissia, before he’d saved them all from the malboro in Cartanica, he’d felt so useless. He couldn’t cook. He couldn’t contribute. He could hardly walk more than a few feet without running into something or tripping over another thing, or so it had felt. He hadn’t even been able to bring comfort to any of his friends, not Noctis in his silent, shocked misery, or Gladio in his anger and his own grief, or Prompto, who had been so frantic to keep them all together that Ignis had felt the anxiety like it was a physical thing in the air.
To be told they all needed him, that he was where he was meant to be was finally, actually too much, and something he had dearly needed to hear. Ignis gripped Prompto’s hand back, shoulders shaking and breath hitching. He didn’t want to cry, really, but it seemed he couldn’t stop.