Chapter Text
Though bordering on self-indulgent, the boy looked like a sunflower. Ardyn thought that from the first moment he saw Prompto Argentum. Perhaps a life as long as Ardyn’s created signs and symbols where none existed, but Prompto Argentum turned his eyes skyward and flourished in the light. Ardyn knew that from the first moment he saw the boy. The midday of summer in Insomnia was as brutal as it was quiet. Ardyn found time to rearrange the archives, and he ferried books from room to room for most of the day. The repetition had put even his considerable strength to straining, stacks grew smaller and smaller as the morning hours waned thin into the dry-high heat of the afternoon. Had he not stopped he would have missed them.
From the lofty entrance of the Citadel the unmistakable drag of Prince Noctis’ shoes had Ardyn’s eyes rolling. He sat a stack of books and documents on some ostentatious console table while he caught his breath, watching the prince make his way inside with the sort of hand-in-pockets aloofness that dogged the boy only when he was entirely focused on impressing someone. That someone came in behind him, looking guilty as a thief, with his hands bunched together around his abdomen, arms flat against his sides like he feared his mere presence would send millions of gil worth of artwork and antiques flying into crumbled heaps on the floor.
The idea that Noctis had a friend was novel and amusing enough that Ardyn rested an arm on his stack of books and pushed a sticky lock of hair out of his eyes, watching them go by from his alcove. Noctis kept a sort of disrespectful distance from his blond tagalong, too consumed with his desire to appear unaffected by his own finery to bother noticing how uncomfortable his company was. How like the little brat, Ardyn thought.
The blond made a token effort to not look like a tourist, but curiosity killed the cat, so they say. The boy looked up, around, searched the wide entry hall while worrying his lower lip until he spotted Ardyn. Suddenly he stopped and raised one hand in, what Ardyn assumed, was a stiff wave. Ardyn couldn’t bring himself to move. That face was a revelation, those colours so unusual in Lucis, those eyes so bright and nervous. His fingers curled back in on themselves. Ardyn took in every detail of the way this boy moved, how he looked so wounded at being ignored before realizing that he had nearly lost the prince. He dashed away down the hall, concern for his space dissipating in the fear of being left behind.
In the long years of Ardyn’s life, he learned that the gods had the most disgusting sense of humor. His relief had been the assurance that the world was merely a blanket of darkness where only despair and suffering could exist. His solace in the knowledge that no being on his gods forsaken planet deserved to be thought of as more than cannon fodder, mere means to an end. The gods had spat in his face time and time again, and then they gave Ardyn Prompto Argentum. There inside him budded the sick twist of hope that he had carefully buried under his frothing hatred.
He had to steady himself against his books, had to bring a hand up to his chest. That smile glowed like the sun, awkward as it was. The drab, black melancholy of the citadel did nothing to quiet that nervous energy, did nothing but heighten the pale majesty of a boy so out of place. Such honesty in every motion of his body. The scratch and shredding sound of paper brought Ardyn back to his senses as his nails bit through the hard cover of the top book, tearing into the pages underneath.
Just when he though the gods could not be any more cruel, they sent him an angel in the flesh.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Regis had never looked worse. Despite his once hale and hearty appearance, the lines around his eyes had grown deep and the shock white of his hair lost its luster to the ravages of age, stress, and the crystal sitting fat and content to feed on the life blood of those sworn to protect it. The irony was entirely too delicious.
Regis leaned heavily on one arm as he looked down at the table, tracing lines on paper with his free hand. His lips moved, but Ardyn did not care to try to make out Regis’ words. A heavy air of concern hung around the room, and both men waited for the other to speak first, but Ardyn possessed patience in droves. Regis sat, lowering himself delicately, but a wince stretched across his mouth, crinkled the lines around his eyes. Excitement sparked in Ardyn’s throat, but he kept his features schooled neutral. “Ardyn, I’m afraid for what time we have left.” Regis clasped his hands on the table. He looked every bit as much the grim reaper as the damned coat of arms. “Stability and negotiations are breaking down more and more by the day.”
Ardyn sat in one of the highbacked, gloss-black chairs just as Regis slid a leaf of paper towards him, the edges crinkled and worried. “My, my, your majesty. It seems that our friends in the Empire are ‘not fooling around’.” If Ardyn’s callous disregard for the possible murder of a diplomat concerned Regis, the king did not let on. “You intend to retaliate in kind, I suppose?”
“Hardly, though I find your cavalier attitude worrisome. Killing diplomats has not, historically, gone over well.”
Ardyn raised his hands in surrender and flashed the king a relaxed smile. “I’d be a poor advisor indeed if I jumped immediately to all out war, your majesty. I suppose my jest was in bad taste. As for the letter, there is very little to suggest that our man was outright assassinated. If that is the case, the most likely culprits are the citizenry.”
“Still, Ardyn, a diplomat under my care has turned up dead on what is essentially a good will mission to a country with increasing hostility towards us. Would not acting be viewed as weakness? This is not the time to turn the other cheek but increasing hostilities would only result in more bloodshed.” The stress on Regis’ face was only heightened by the streaming light coming in through the tall windows. Ardyn thought that the room was entirely too hot, considered shirking his jacked for a moment, but if Regis was stubbornly inclined to stay fully decked out in sweltering, black parade gear then Ardyn was not about to admit defeat.
“Your majesty, perhaps we could revisit my previous suggestion.”
Regis’ mouth formed the start of a ‘no’ but it quickly faded into a grim line across his face. “It was always my wish that Noctis choose a proper wife, live a life uncomplicated by the threads of political matrimony.” The thought had taken root. Ardyn could clearly see the guilty agony that twisted inside Regis’ skull. The palpable unhappiness practically danced across Ardyn’s tongue, flashes of satisfaction nearly set his chest to clenching. Little Prince Noctis a political pawn for his father in a war that would ultimately destroy the family and Insomnia? Fewer and fewer obstacles stood between Ardyn and his rightful claim, stood between him and his angel made flesh. Was this what impatience felt like? To be so close. So close to the weight of that crown. So close to that warm little body against his chest.
“Options run thin, your majesty.” Ardyn held out a hand to him, palm up, looking reasonable. “I have witnessed the prince’s life. I take no pleasure in seeing it forced in one particular direction, but a marriage is hardly the most unpleasant outcome. The prince and the oracle have a long and positive history, one that will no doubt make them amenable to the possibility of marriage.”
“Ardyn, do you think Noctis loves her?”
A light of interest sparked behind Ardyn’s eyes, his smile grew wider and more meaningful. “He will learn to, your majesty.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Bonus XP days kept Prompto going like nothing else! He’d been so eager to get his hands back on his phone that his jittery behavior earned him an extra two mile run during training to ‘temper all that energy.’ Little did the other trainees know, but Prompto was AMAZING at running. Like, easily in the top ten percent of runners except maybe for the ones that did that kind of thing for money or who had, like, extra long legs or extra big lungs. He got in a good victory whoop at the end of the run despite how his chest had that nice after-run burn that made him feel kind of choked up.
He still had enough energy to run up to Noct’s suite after all of it, flipping Noct off the couch in a show of all that strength he’d been working on. Noct looked like a disgruntled animal, awoken from its pillow-fort couch-top slumber, so Prompto snapped a picture on his phone for posterity and maybe to laugh at with Gladio later. Noct growled something about not showing it to Gladio, which was kinda not fun, but nonetheless not so disappointing that Prompto didn’t dive onto the couch shouting “DOUBLE XP DAY!”
He brandished his phone like a weapon, complete with ‘whoosh’ sound effect, and patted the empty space on the couch. “Dude, you’re not even out of your pajamas. No way Iggy just let you lay around like that all day.”
“Specs had other stuff to do. And don’t judge me. It’s called a self-care day.”
Prompto looked his best friend over, taking in the ruffled hair, haunted eyes, and paying particular attention to just how pale Noct was getting. “A self-care day where you didn’t care enough to brush your hair? C’mon, you gotta look more presentable than that. You got guests today!”
“Not guests. Guest. And that’s you. And I don’t care.” He flopped more than sat on the couch, arms crossed over his chest. He watched Prompto with his spooky-eye look like he was daring him to talk anymore about how screwy Noct was looking. Prompto tried to ignore how much the ‘don’t care’ stung his edges by nudging Noct’s shoulder and urging him to pull out his phone.
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever, any excuse not to brush your teeth. If you aren’t gonna look pretty for me, can you at least help me with this level I’m stuck on?”
Noct wordlessly pulled out his phone and moved a little closer to Pompto’s side to better see both screens. Noct’s was a whirlwind of powerups that had Prompto furrowing his brow. “Dude, how much prime regalite did you buy?” It always seemed so cheaty to just buy that stuff, but Prompto imagined that was just because he was poor and had to justify his flagging gaming… game by insisting that a disposable income positively corelated with King’s Knight progress. Nothing was better than raw skill, though! On an even playing field Prompto could probably kick Noct’s ass. Not Gladio’s, though. Dude was an absolute sleeper champion of just about everything. Iggy would probably be good at it too… but he was also the kind of person that did number crunching and spent fifty hours a day mapping out microscopic numbers in Mooglemon to make his Meekachu one iota faster than normal.
Why did Iggy have to turn everything into a job?
“Prompto!”
He looked up at Noct, who looked down at him with a fine lined frown on his face. “I said do you want any?”
Prompto blinked and stared at Noct’s phone. The screen was opened on Noct’s character page. Confused, Prompto quirked a brow. Noct heaved a sigh so heavy that it caused a pressure shift severe enough to collapse an unsuspecting farmer’s roof a hundred miles away. “Regalite. Do you want any? I can just buy some for you. It’s not like it’s that big of a deal.”
“Dude, you do know it kind of defeats the purpose if you just pay the game to play itself, right?”
Noct snorted, but it sounded light and easy enough that Prompto knew he’d managed to make his best friend smile a little. He leaned back into the super expensive couch that made a lot of effort to not look expensive and fooled around on his phone for a bit while Noct did whatever it was that Noct did when he wasn’t feeling up to King’s Knight. Do princes look at porn? Or window shop? No, Prompto knew that Noct window shopped on his phone all the time. One time he’d been watching an auction for a statue of Ray Jack so closely that Prompto was pretty sure Noct’s eyes had started bleeding. In the end he lost the auction to some guy named ‘BlingAndJournalism,’ who Noct swore he would hunt down and cast into the sea with ‘enough fury to destroy Eos about fifty times.’
Prompto was trying to do the math in his head when he felt Noct sling an arm around his shoulders and lean over, flashing his screen in Prompto’s face. “I saw this thing that’s going on at one of the museums. It’s something, something, important photographers of Insomnia something. I was looking at some of their stuff and you’re at least as good as these guys. Wanna go see it and laugh at their inferiority?”
“Don’t say it like they aren’t good.” Honestly, Prompto was starting to feel a little flustered and awkward hearing even the slightest hint that Noctis believed in his talent. It wasn’t the first time either. There was that one time that Iggy told Prompto that a shot of the city from atop the wall had ‘exquisite composition’ and ‘a great deal of patience and artistry to achieve such effective lighting.’ Prompto just laughed so hard that he almost dropped his camera on the crisscross black and white tile with the fancy p name that he never remembered. “But I’d like to go see it. Noct how would someone destroy Eos fifty times?”
“What? I don’t know. The logistics of that sort of thing are kind of ridiculous, aren’t they? Like, how does the world come back fifty times? And does someone have to wait a full blow… what, evolutionary cycle?” Prompto shrugged, so Noct just went on. “You know until there are people and stuff all over the place before they can do it again?”
“Maybe you’d just hit Eos with fifty world destroying meteors all at once?”
Noct raised a perfectly coiffed eyebrow from behind his meticulously uncoiffed hair. Too cool to be super groomed, but gotta have the brows on point. It’d just look silly and lazy if one had bedhead AND bed eyebrows. “How would you get fifty world destroying meteors?”
“Big rope?”
“Really big rope.”
“I’m not asking because I wanna do it or something. Unless I could go and ranch chocobos on the sun.” Prompto flashed his eyes back to his screen, watching his little wizard dude die horribly. Again. It had happened so many times on the one level that he couldn’t even bring himself to care very much. The gray dungeon was his life now. The stones were his friends. They all had names and personalities and favorite colours. To move on would be like leaving behind a beloved puppy. “I’d take all the chocobos to space with me and we’d just live a… uh… cholic existence?”
“I believe the word you are looking for is ‘bucolic,’ and I suspect you would find that difficult on the sun.”
Prompto bounced off the couch to meet Ignis at the door. Noct’s nanny looked more haggard than usual, but he had this weird thing where his clothes and hair and everything were always perfect even if there was something behind his sparkly-clean glasses that was begging for the sweet embrace of death. Iggy looked like that when he had to chaperone at the arcade.
“I could be bucolic on the sun. It’s all a state of mind!”
“By definition, no. Now, Prompto, would you mind motivating Noctis enough to put on a pair of actual pants. I’m afraid I was short on time this afternoon and neglected to purchase groceries.”
“Kay. Hey, Noct!”
A grunt in response.
“Get dressed! We’re getting snacks!”
Prompto felt more than saw Ignis roll his eyes as he sat his purse down on the counter and started to empty sheaves of paper out of it. Prompto plodded along behind him, watching him produce enough paperwork to swell a bag of holding beyond capacity. If Prompto had been counting, it was probably about four novels of considerable length worth of papers. Maybe nine novels of trivial length worth.
“Yeesh, Iggy. Big day?”
Iggy pushed his glasses up and pinched the bridge of his nose. Usually when Promto saw that action, he was the cause, but he was fairly certain he hadn’t done anything yet to earn it. “Sorry, dude. Must have been.”
“I don’t want to bore you with the details, Prompto. Suffice it to say that it was a big day, and there will be many more to come. I appreciate your concern.” The smile that Iggy flashed wasn’t a solid one, but he rarely spared smiles for Promto at all. It earned a warm spready feeling in Prompto’s chest that was probably the onset of a heart attack. Prompto looked back at the stack of papers. Even though he scanned them quickly, he saw the Empire mentioned several times and sighed.
“Hey, Iggy? Now that I’m Crownsgaurd and all, can you tell me stuff about this? Is the stuff with the Empire really getting that bad?”
Though he looked pained to admit it, Iggy nodded. In the background the sound of the bathroom door clicking shut. Noct was kind of a princess about showers and stuff, they’d have time.
“You are not quite Crownsguard yet, Prompto. But I believe your closeness to the crown allows for a measure of, shall we say, access. The situation with the Empire is a dangerous and delicate one.” Iggy looked Prompto over with that kind of big brother affection that made Prompto want to stand up on his toes or something. He leaned over to look at the first page, but there were a ton of words he didn’t recognize, so he quickly lost interest.
“Sooo… What can I do?”
Prompto didn’t think he was personally up to taking on the whole Empire, but it wasn’t as though he couldn’t at least try! Iggy was stifling laughter. That… hurt, but Prompto guessed he understood. It was a dumb question.
“Keeping your prince entertained and in good mental health is an important enough job, Prompto. You know, he is never quite so happy as when he’s with you.” That probably wasn’t true, but Prompto allowed the sentiment to make his stomach all warm and weird anyway. It… it felt really good to be of use to someone. Even if he really was just kind of Noct’s puppy or something. “You cannot take the world on your shoulders when you already carry the weight of the crown and those that wear it.”
Iggy always said such pretty words. Prompto wished he could talk like that, just say genuine things as though they were things that people actually said for no reason other than it was true. Like, how he wished he could tell Iggy that he admired how clean he kept his glasses! Even though that wasn’t exactly at the heart of what he meant. It was close enough.
“Your glasses are super clean, Iggy.” Nailed. It.
His lips felt like they were on fire and also glued together as he watched Iggy try to piece together what he meant, so he just kept talking. “Like, you don’t have to do that! Just keep them all clean. If I wore them they’d be covered in food dust and dirt all the time. Or I’d accidentally wear them swimming, or leave them on my face when I’m sleeping, or feed them to a dog, or have them stolen off my face by a chocobo.” Prompto was infinitely thankful for how neutral and patient Iggy kept his face.
“That is to say that you admire my fastidiousness?”
“Probably! That sounds like something I’d admire.” Prompto felt a smile growing despite how he wished his mouth would stop. Iggy got it! Iggy always got it! Prompto wished that he could get things like that, fill in all the stupid gaps that people made sometimes. He reminded himself to look up what the fuck fastidiousness was later.
“Thank you, Prompto.”
The silence around them became the kind that someone could cut with a knife, but only a really, really sharp one. Prompto drummed his fingers on the table and counted the little swirly bits in the dark wood. He only got to nine before Iggy spoke. “Did Noctis tell you about the photography exhibit?”
“Yup. Sure did. He asked me to go. It’s nice since it really isn’t his thing.” Did sleeping and fishing count as things? As far as Prompto was concerned fishing may as well be sleeping. “I’m surprised that he invited me to step foot away from his couch, to be honest. That’s not usually how the Noct man operates.”
A door flew open behind them and Prince Noct in all of his sleepy-eyed glory graced the table with his presence. “Okay, ready. Real pants and everything. Can we just get this over with?” He leaned over the table and buried all his attention back in his phone. “Gotta help Prompto with a level he can’t beat in King’s Knight.”
“I could totally beat it!”
“Okay, then I won’t help you.”
Prompto knew his face was turning into a pout, but the full blow grin that Noctis shot his way was well worth the little threat. He really couldn’t help but smile back. Somehow, Noct looked a lot less pale when he smiled, and that beat double XP days by miles.
People out in the world liked Noct because of his title, because he was handsome. Relationships with Noct could be a gamble. Sometimes he trusted outright (mostly girls), sometimes he just blatantly ignored people that tried to talk to him. Prompto not only managed to get close to him, but sometimes even got to be the reason the prince smiled. He loved that. Loved that Noct’s face looked lighter, that his whole body stopped turning in like some kind of emotionally stunted turtle creature. Sometimes Iggy and Gladio smiled too, and that was a serious bonus.
Were court jesters still a thing? Maybe he should consider a change in career.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Shopping with Iggy was the biggest fucking pain, Noct swore. It was always about ‘nutritional value’ this and ‘caloric intake’ that, as though any of that meant anything. To Noct it mostly just sounded like an excuse to keep people from enjoying food. Both Prompto and Gladio assured him that nutrition was actually a thing, and he had read about it a few times. Maybe there was something to it. But fuck broccoli.
Noct liked the parts of the stores that had the little metallic plastic bags with mascots and shit on the front, but the place that Iggy dragged them to was like something out of a book. It was all black tents and it was like they didn’t sell anything but vegetables and fish. Prompto had wandered off to take pictures of rows of apples or something, and Noctis found himself watching his back with the same sort of fascination that he always felt. Even on days like this when Noct didn’t want anyone around him, Prompto never failed to get him out; he eased the nothing for at least a little while.
A man in a biker jacket slammed into his arm and hissed out something rude. Noct felt himself growling in his throat and almost lashed out at the man when he felt a familiar gloved hand on his shoulder. Iggy stood behind him, one arm propping up a bag of colourful plants that were probably going to be dinner.
“No need to make a scene, Noct,” Iggy said in his ear before steering him out of the walkway Noct had every right to consider a standway. “I was advised by certain parties that letting you pick something out might raise your spirits a bit.”
“It looks like I have a choice of carrots, carrots, some seedy looking tomatoes, and sad apples,” Noct replied dismally, landing his withering gaze on a wooden crate full of dirty looking… potatoes? Is this what organic was? The chemical stuff always looked bigger, cleaner, and had more neon colours. They even had some kind of frilly mystery mushroom that Prompto probably already took pictures of. It looked more like an alien than food. And there were people fucking buying them! Not just gawking in abject horror.
“Woah.” Prompto leaned down toward the mushroom and picked up a row of it. “Yo, Noct, you know what this is?” He looked back down at the mushroom with that exceptionally endearing look on his face. It took a moment for Noct to realize that he was actually supposed to answer.
“Uh… No. I do not know what that is.”
“Me either. I mean… the technical stuff. It’s called chicken of the woods! It’s not too common around here. Like, at all.” He flipped it over and then looked up at Iggy making a ridiculous face complete with pouting lower lip. “Can we try it?”
Iggy looked down at Prompto the same way Noctis looked at math problems. The two had some kind of secret mind battle before Iggy sighed deeply and took the weird mushroom from Prompto’s hand. “Alright. But only if his highness would consider it his pick.”
Noct gave a token look at the stalls another time without moving his feet, not that he could really see anything around all of the shopping people. He made a humming noise. The look Prompto shot him was utterly begging. That face was so cute Noct probably would have given in if he hadn’t decided to already. “Sure, whatever. As long as I don’t have to eat it.”
Prompto punched the air and a pleased flush lit up the freckles across his nose like a constellation. Noct felt his breath getting caught in his throat for a moment. When Prompto smiled like that little lines appeared around his eyes and his long eyelashes brushed against the ridges of his cheekbones. Who the hell got that excited about a fucking mushroom?
A shadow suddenly appeared, having much the same effect as a cloud passing over the sun, but it didn’t have the decency to move.
“Good afternoon, Advisor Izunia,” Iggy said with a rigid, shallow bow complete with hand across his abdomen. Great. The giant yak man and his jacket. Noct turned around, expecting to find the weirdo staring at him, but no. He was looking at Prompto who had reclaimed his fucking mushroom.
“Good afternoon, Ignis. And our new little trainee.” He swept by Noct with a small bow of the head to lurk over Prompto’s shoulder. “Excellent choice. Laetiporus sulphureus is an exquisite find with a great deal of applications both in cooking and in medicine. Let me guess, was it the colour that drew you to it?”
“Uhh… Well, not just that. I saw it in a book once. Thought it looked a bit like a chocobo from behind and it’s got the word ‘chicken’ in it, so it’s probably good.” Prompto looked so uncomfortable, his face was that peach colour of not quite blushing, and he was toying with the short hair on the back of his neck. Noct felt the overwhelming desire to step closer (protectively?) to Prompto and push the daemon away from him. Fuck! Ardyn was so fucking creepy! Talking to Prompto about fucking mushrooms.
“All good reasons, most certainly.” Ardyn put one of his crazy, big, monster hands on Prompto’s back, making him jump. “Apologies, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Ardyn chuckled and held up his hands, instead moving to speak to Ignis about business or something else super fucking boring.
Prompto came to Noct’s side, looking a little shaken, but not as disturbed as Noct felt about it. “Weird that someone like the advisor eats real food, you know? Like, you’d think he’s a book worm or something. He just eats book dust and collects dew from the courtyard in the morning.” Prompto waved at a woman casting them an annoyed look and she immediately chilled out. “C’mon, dude. Can’t just stand here in everyone’s way.” He took Noct’s arm in his long, warm hand and dragged him off into one of the many little alcoves. Usually they were full of people having conversations, but they managed to slip into a fairly shady, mostly unoccupied crook between a café and a cobbler.
“Augh! That guy is such a creep!” Noct finally said, and it felt so good to get it out.
Prompto laughed, but his brows were knit together. “For real? I think he’s kinda cool. It’s like he’s a dictionary or something.” He suddenly started flipping through his phone with the hand that wasn’t occupied with the mushroom. “Excessively particular. Critical, or demanding. Hard to please: a fastidious eater. Requiring or characterized by excessive care or delicacy; painstaking.”
“What?”
“Fastidiousness!”
“Okay, but why?”
Prompto beamed, and Noct felt his heart stutter in his chest. No human being had any right to look like that. Someone out there or up there had to have made a mistake in sending someone so pretty to Eos. Noct had known long before that he loved Prompto in a way that made Noct more than a little uncomfortable. “That’s something that I like about Iggy. His fastidiousness.”
Noct wasn’t sure why he bothered asking anymore. Prompto clearly had an allergy to straight answers, or else his mind was just a tangle. Either answer was fine. Noct liked it. Noct liked Prompto. The blond’s face glowed in the sunlight. He looked so fucking happy just standing there with his stupid mushroom.
Noct wanted to see that every day of his life.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Gladio go roped into making dinner with Iggy. Prompto sat behind them on one of the stools, chin propped up on the heels of his hands watching their progress. Noct’s in-suite kitchen wasn’t particularly large, and Gladio’s behemoth body ate up a solid most of it. Prompto usually played sous chef, but he seemed content enough to just watch. Better that way anyway. He always spilled something, and Iggy insisted that Noct be ‘responsible’ and clean it, as though the mess wouldn’t still be there when they were done cooking. Noct gave up on trying to get Promto to play King’s Knight with him after he flapped his hand and said “shh, I’m learning what a flambé is.” That sounded stupid enough that Noct wanted no part in it, so he just waited until they were done and played with Prompto over dinner for about twenty seconds before Iggy threatened to confiscate their phones.
“I could just pull rank on you, you know.”
“Yes, your majesty, but we both know that you have no desire to learn how to do laundry.”
Iggy had a point. Was there any other person alive that could say something like ‘your majesty’ and make it sound like acid? The exchange had Prompto giggling so hard that he choked on his mushroom. Something in the way Iggy went quiet at the sound made Noct uncomfortable, so he reached over and pounded Prompto on the back a few times until there was less choking and more laughing.
“Dude! For real? You can’t do laundry?”
“Can you?”
“Yeah! Totally. Separate the whites and everything.”
Gladio snorted and stabbed a carrot. “Iggy teach you to do that, Blondie?” He bit into the carrot the same way a monster bites into innocent human flesh and Noct winced at the crunching sound. Gah, how did he eat that shit without doubling over in agony?
“Prompto expressed a desire to learn, and I take little pleasure in the idea of him being helpless in his personal life.” And Ignis just shrugged as though he wasn’t admitting that he and Prompto hung out on their own time. Something about that settled a little hard and green in Noct’s stomach and he stared at his lap, eyes straining until he realized that he was glaring at his pants. He guessed Ignis had a lot to teach Prompto. Too much.
“You gotta eat, man,” Prompto said. When Noct looked up he was met with those clear-blue eyes, blond brows knit in worry. “Look, I know you don’t like the stuff, but you can’t just keep pushing it around on the plate forever. You know Iggy will just make you eat it for breakfast.”
“Indeed.”
The only thing worse than vegetables was vegetables but later. The ‘now’ kind of vegetables at least weren’t soggy and cold. Heaving a deep sigh, Noct made a show of shoving a piece of Prompto’s dumb ass mushroom in his mouth. And it tasted the exact opposite of what he expected, but he was too deep in fuck vegetation mode to give any of the guys looking at him the satisfaction of knowing that he could die happy eating Prompto’s stupid mushroom for the rest of his life.
Noct shrugged, immediately regretting it when a defeated look passed across Prompto’s face for a few moments. It was gone in an instant, and he lit back up when he turned to look at Ignis. “Okay, well, no go on that one. That just means I can have his, right?”
“Absolutely not. Noctis, eat your dinner.”
Mom voice. Noct hated mom voice. But if Iggy thought that Noct was just going to eat his dinner without being utterly pouty about it, then he had another entirely unpleasant thing coming. Eventually Prompto got bored of watching Noct chewing every bite of his food forty times and wandered over to the couch, flopping onto it with his phone in his face.
“Gods, Iggy. Just let his highness put his food away, this is getting stupid.” Gladio gathered the empty plates on the table and set to washing them while Iggy remained staring at Noct with a determined and slightly annoyed look on his face.
“His highness forgets that I am getting paid to make sure he eats his vegetables.” Iggy crossed his arms and tapped his fingers against his forearms. Then he crossed his legs, gaze never leaving Noct. “So please, keep it up, your highness.”
Iggy may have had all night, but Prompto didn’t. The boy was up at five A.M like some kind of heathen, and Noct intended to take full advantage of Prompto’s precious few evening hours. With a great amount of will power and a mantra in his head insisting that Noct hadn’t admitted defeat, Noct managed to finish off an entire plate of vegetables. He crashed next to Prompto on the couch after all but chucking his dishes at Gladio.
The two played King’s Knight for a good hour before Iggy and Gladio left, but not before reminding him not to stay up too late, to stay hydrated, to take a shower, blah, blah. The door snapped shut and finally, finally, Noct had Prompto to himself. He wasn’t so completely impatient that he couldn’t wait to finish the level that Prompto had been stuck on for seventy-three years. But as soon as the victory screen played, Noct threw his phone aside and crawled into Prompto’s lap. He just laughed and readjusted himself to better accommodate the prince. He was so perfect, so easily slotted against Noct’s body, those sky-clear eyes and the brush of his soft, golden hair.
Prompto met Noct’s lips first, with all the ease of practice and familiarity they had gained from months of experimenting with each other. Noct’s hands wormed under Prompto’s shirt, splaying across the smooth expanse of his stomach, feeling the shifting muscle, and Noct marveled at how soft his skin was, how warm against his cold hands.
Those artist fingers tangled in Noct’s hair, urged him close to the heat of Prompto’s mouth. Twisting in his stomach and groin. Noct could feel his thighs tightening. He nudged Prompto’s legs apart and dragged their clothed erections against each other. They’d never gone so far as penetrating, but Astrals, Noct wanted to. Wanted to sink into that warm little body, tear screams and moans out of his best friend. Though blasé about it at the time, he’d felt the same longing the first time he’d ever seen Prompto, that chubby boy with his camera. That perfect face.
He pulled up Prompto’s shirt, knowing full well that he only had seconds to take in the faded, silvery streaks across his waist before Prompto would force his clothes back down. He did, but Noct saw them. Saw his cause for shame and he wanted to kiss each faded line, but it was fine. In time. He returned his attention to Prompto’s mouth, and for the other boy’s part, his attention had not flagged despite his self-consciousness.
Noct was happy like that. Squeezed between Prompto’s delicious thighs, their mouths connecting and full of heat, the feeling of Prompto’s fingers digging into his hair. There were words on Noct’s lips, but he kept them quiet behind the press of his tongue into Prompto’s mouth.
In time.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The boy’s movements were clumsy and unsure, but the inelegance of youth came hand-in-hand with its fascinating beauty.
Ardyn sat outside the window, balanced on the extended sill, hair whipped by the wind. The image would have been positively romantic had anyone the mind to look up. But no, the ground below was full of activity, enough to keep eyes down. The sky above went dark some time ago, and the canvas of stars winked malevolently down at Eos. Or perhaps Eos down upon them.
Beyond the window Ardyn’s ray of hope in a waking nightmare gave himself over to filthy hands. Considering the stars proved much less painful than considering the activities happening just out of reach. Oh, the things Ardyn would teach that boy. The secrets he would tell him. Those mystified eyes, wide and bright, the secrets of the universe at his fingertips bestowed upon him by a god.
Ardyn leaned his head against the unfeeling stone of the Citadel and thought about more pleasant things. The world soon to be his, those smiles and the soft skin that his fingers would dance across. As beautiful as Prompto’s inexperience looked, Ardyn could coax him to blooming, train those twists and turns into prayers. The void in which Ardyn dwelled lighting up with such reverence and beauty.
A hand slipped under his jacket and teased his forming erection. That long, supple body writhing between Ardyn’s legs. He could nearly taste it. The rough edges of his long fingers made contact with his over-heated cock. He’d fuck that boy under the stars. Prompto would see infinity while he took his god into him. Mouth open as though awaiting communion. Ardyn would rewrite all the memories of Prince Nocts’ filthy hands on Prompto’s exquisite skin. In return Prompto would deliver Ardyn from the anguish of his endless, lonely existence.
Perhaps the Astrals had the most disgusting sense of humor, but Ardyn touched the boy. He’d felt his warmth through Prompto’s clothes just that afternoon. Bravery and encouragement surged through Ardyn and he laughed into the warm wind, feeling alive for the first time since the Astrals turned their backs on him. The roiling hatred hissed inside him to rip the Prince’s hands off his angel. The dark voices told him to kill, to take, to own as he deserved to own.
Ardyn had forever, though. And he sat so close to Prompto Argentum, so close that he could almost taste the salt of his skin, feel his silky body tightening around him. Ardyn came in his hand with a low sigh and untangled himself from his clothes to examine his spend by the star light. Communion, he supposed, imagining pushing his fingers into Prompto’s mouth, sliding messy and smooth past those pink lips. Would they stretch into a smile, Ardyn wondered.
Time would tell.