"Bullshit," Gladio says flatly. "But listen, Iggy." He reaches out and grips his shoulder. "I know it's big news, all right? And I know you're probably feeling all kinds of ways about it. Ways you haven't even figured out yet." Gladio could probably name a few, if he felt like being kneecapped for being presumptuous and condescending. Ignis needs to work this shit out himself, not be told by someone else how he's feeling. "And you want time to process it, right? Well, you've got time before the kids show up, prepping dinner. I'll be gone. And you tend to think better when you're doing something with your hands anyway, not just sitting somewhere staring at a wall. It's not perfect, maybe - yeah, it'd be great if you could just go to a quiet room for a few hours - but I think you can pull yourself together enough for Noct tonight. And whatever you don't have figured out by dinner...well, it's not like it's going anywhere. I just don't think you need to run away to deal with this. And maybe being around Noct and Prom will help you...I don't know. See that not that much has changed. That might help all by itself."
He lets his hand fall. "The reason I'm leaving is because you're not going to be able to put this shit aside or work through it while I'm here, and we both know it. Maybe dinner won't be perfect, but you and the kids deserve to have it at least be nice. So I'm gonna do what it takes to give that the best odds of happening. I need you to do the same. And I think you can settle yourself enough to stick the night out for the kids before they get here. I've seen you pull off way crazier miracles than that. Because the alternative to that is them getting upset and worried and asking questions and trying to fix things, and I think that'd probably be way more stressful than putting off working through this for a few hours."
A beat. "Especially since I haven't really mentioned our relationship to Noct yet. With you not here, it just kind of...never came up." The truth is, missing Ignis had been so painful for all of them that they'd all just kind of...avoided the subject of him, most of the time. For Gladio, the wound simply never healed over; he assumes Noct and Prompto likely felt the same. "So there'd be sorting through that whole mess on top of everything else you're trying to deal with. I know it all feels like too much, but there's still a best of the bad options here to choose."
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He lets his hand fall. "The reason I'm leaving is because you're not going to be able to put this shit aside or work through it while I'm here, and we both know it. Maybe dinner won't be perfect, but you and the kids deserve to have it at least be nice. So I'm gonna do what it takes to give that the best odds of happening. I need you to do the same. And I think you can settle yourself enough to stick the night out for the kids before they get here. I've seen you pull off way crazier miracles than that. Because the alternative to that is them getting upset and worried and asking questions and trying to fix things, and I think that'd probably be way more stressful than putting off working through this for a few hours."
A beat. "Especially since I haven't really mentioned our relationship to Noct yet. With you not here, it just kind of...never came up." The truth is, missing Ignis had been so painful for all of them that they'd all just kind of...avoided the subject of him, most of the time. For Gladio, the wound simply never healed over; he assumes Noct and Prompto likely felt the same. "So there'd be sorting through that whole mess on top of everything else you're trying to deal with. I know it all feels like too much, but there's still a best of the bad options here to choose."