Archive of Our Own

You've never really had friends before Noctis, and you're not entirely sure how it's supposed to... work.

You know this is something you're supposed to just get by this stage in your life. It's not supposed to be complicated. Friends spend time together. They're nice to each other. Sometimes they gossip about stuff?

You don't know how to be a good friend. You don't know how to be a passable friend. You have no idea why Noctis even puts up with you, much less actually wants to spend time with you.

And so even when you're at your most excited about finally, finally not being alone at lunch every day, at having somewhere to go other than home, there's this anxious knot in your chest, this gnawing feeling that you are going to fuck this up.

But it keeps being fine. First term goes off without a hitch. You talk about photography and show him some pictures. Noctis tells you about fishing, and shows you some less-artistic but certainly cute selfies with his biggest catches. You find out you both like video games, and talk about every piece of news about the new Nokemon game coming out in a few weeks. Noctis invites you over to his apartment, and you meet his, well, you forget the title and wouldn't know what it means anyway, but you meet Ignis, who is basically his Mom. You call him "Noct" and he smiles a way you've never seen before.

Then first term is over, and summer vacation starts, and things are different.

It's mid-August, and your fourth time over at Noct's apartment summer break.

"Hey, Ignis isn't here?" you ask, genuinely baffled. He's been there the entire time for every single one of your other visits.

Noct nods. "He's doing... some training thing for a few days," he explains. "They decided they've done enough background checking on you that they don't think they're going to kill me if we're alone!" he adds, looking excited.

"Dude, there's two Crownsguard right outside your door, you know," you inform him, settling down on his couch.

"Well, yeah, but they're not in here staring at you," Noct replies, thumping down next to you. "This is about as alone as I get without guards."

"I've never seen a guard on the door when Ignis was here," you say.

Noct gives you a weird look. "What do you think he does?" he asks.

You look around the room. There's a stack of four pizza boxes on the dining table surrounded by balled-up paper towels. A heap of socks sits against a wall. A huge pile of paperwork is scattered on the floor near the TV. "I thought he was, like, your butler or something," you say. "But I guess it shouldn't surprise me that he could kick my ass if he felt like it."

Noct frowns. "He's supposed to be my advisor, when I take the throne." He has kind of a weird look, but he shrugs it off. "You wanna play Chiru Racing?"

"Sure," you say, and for the moment, you shrug it off, too.

It's a weird day. You notice all kinds of things you didn't register before. Noct leaves stuff everywhere and without Ignis to pick it up, it just sits there. He does it all the time. And if Ignis isn't supposed to be his butler, if he's supposed to hold an important position, then what's he doing picking up Noct's clothes? And Noct picks at his teeth, with his bare hands, several times, and has he always done that and you just didn't notice, or is that just today? And he admits he hasn't even looked to see what his summer homework is, and yeah, okay, you're not the paragon of getting homework done on time, but shouldn't he at least care a little?

You fake a text from work and go home early. Noct's never grated on you like that before. Is that supposed to happen, with friends?

But you put all those little things out of your mind, and Ignis came through so Noct's house was clean again, and everything was almost like normal, and then Noct bought Kodapon Kingdom.

Kodapon Kingdom is something like a board game, but as a video game instead. You roll to move across the board and play minigames to conquer towns and collect coins, and the richest player at the end is the winner.

Noct's not playing well this afternoon. "What are you doing?" you ask. You know that Noct's a lot better at games than this, at least most of the time.

"Losing," Noct replies, disinterested. "So Dad says that if everything stays quiet, he's going to let me and Gladio go out of the city walls to go fishing in a week or so..."

Maybe it's some personal life thing making him play so bad. You don't know if you're supposed to ask, so you play it safe and keep your mouth shut.

It takes almost all day to get through the game. Noct is still losing and doesn't seem to care, which bugs you on and off, but you're having so much fun gossiping that you might as well not be playing a game anyway. Sure, Noct can't tell you about any of the Important Political Stuff, but Cor the Immortal's dating woes are not classified information, and way more interesting to listen to anyway. And despite you thinking it's boring, Noct lights up with genuine excitement when you mention the weird feeling of running into your homeroom teacher at the grocery store. And they've announced three new Nokemon from the next game with some interesting special abilities, which you discuss in detail. And it goes on and on, all afternoon. Almost like normal.

You're not far from winning when Noct takes the prompt that's been hovering over his head for hours now, warps, changes character classes to Imp Daemon, and grins.

You do not like that grin.

You really don't like it when he starts trashing all the towns you've picked up, when he manages to destroy your weapon in a combat encounter, and, after more than ten hours of sitting in last place, wipes the floor with you in the final two turns.

"That's bullshit," you say.

"That's a basic game mechanic," Noct says. "It's not like it's not in the manual."

You frown. "You just unsealed the package this morning. Neither of us read the manual."

"So I looked things up beforehand."

"That's not fair. You didn't tell me you looked things up before we started playing. You didn't even tell me you were going to buy the game until today." Something is starting to burn in your chest.

Noct shoots you a lazy grin. "Having more information than the enemy is basic strategy, Prom. Don't be a sore loser."

You try to swallow down anger, but it just spills out of your mouth. "You cheated and you're telling me not to be a sore loser?"

"Please, it's a part of the game," Noct says.

But he knows. Noct obviously knows. You see the tiniest spark of guilt.

It only spurs you on.

"So you're willing to buy a game, research it without telling me, let me think we're both going in blind, lose on purpose and make me worried something's wrong for ten hours and then curbstomp me at the end with something you specifically planned that I wouldn't know about. But you won't pick up your own trash?" It feels so good to say it. You know in the back of your mind that you've gone too far, but there's this strange high swelling under the anger, pushing you forward.

Noct flushes. "Are you really going there just because you lost?"

This is your chance to back down. The rational part of your brain is screaming at you to back down, apologize, rein this in.

You don't.

"I'm going there because you put more effort into fucking me over in a video game than you put into doing your laundry. Do you even know how to wash your own clothes?"

Noct goes even redder. He obviously doesn't. "Since when is it a prince's job to do housekeeping?"

"Since when does a prince put ten hours of effort into cheating at a video game?"

"It's not cheating, it's in the game manual," Noct says, pulling the booklet out of the game case and slamming it on the table.

"You gave yourself an unfair advantage, that's the definition of cheating, and it's bullshit that you're trying to weasel your way out of it." The anger makes you feel good, powerful, strong. You know exactly what you need to say to hurt him and it spills out of your mouth. "You put more effort into cheating today than you put into being a prince. Into being a decent human being. Ignis is always on your ass about reading reports, you're barely passing math, you don't know how to do your own laundry or feed yourself. What do you even care about?"

"You know, you're right," Noct says. "Why should I put so much effort into you? Some peasant who walks up to me out of nowhere and just declares himself my friend? Are you here to leech off my money?"

You open your mouth to shout at him, but then it occurs to you that there are Crownsguard out in the hallway who would probably come in and do something to you if screaming started.

The imbalance of all of it weighs down on your chest like it never has before. If Noct doesn't care about playing fair, he can win any argument in seconds.

"I'm leaving," you say. You pick up your bag and go.

You don't hear anything from Noct that night, but you can still work up enough anger that you're completely okay with that.

You don't hear anything from Noct the next day, and anxiety starts to pool in your stomach, but you still have that spark of frustration to keep you company.

It drags on. The third day, you take out your phone and type out an extensive apologetic text, delete it, type out a string of emoji that pretends nothing happened, and delete that too. You don't want to apologize. You don't want to pretend nothing happened. You don't know what to do.

You wish Noct would text you first, or even call you. He's probably had diplomatic training or something. Maybe he knows how to talk about this stuff.

But you don't hear anything from him.

You wonder if he hates you now. You're afraid to find out.

You don't text him, and you don't call.

It hurts, but it's not hard to slip into a life without Noct. Being alone like this is what you're used to. You know how to spend a summer this way. You go jogging. You pick up a few extra hours at your part-time job. You take pictures. You read a bunch of articles online about photography and take better pictures. You video chat with your parents on the weekend like usual, and Mom teases you about how this is the first time in months you've been on time, and you laugh right along with her. You tear up a couple times about how all your work was pointless, but you don't actually cry about it, and mostly you keep yourself busy enough not to dwell on it.

A week and a half passes, and Noct doesn't get in touch with you, and you don't get in touch with him, and maybe that's just how this is going to be now, and maybe you're going to have to be okay with that.

Someone rings your doorbell.

Something between hope and dread pools in your stomach. You remind yourself that it could just be a care package from your parents--they send them from time to time, and sometimes they're big enough that you have to sign for them. Or it could be the obnoxious lady from down the street complaining about how it's been too long since you've mowed your lawn, again. That's happened more than once this summer.

It is not a care package and it is not the obnoxious lady. It isn't Noct, either. It is Ignis godsdamned Scientia, and you have no idea what he's doing here. The way-too-nice car he drives is parked in your driveway, and you're pretty sure no one else is sitting in it. He came here alone.

What the fuck?

You open the door and stare.

"May I come in?" Ignis asks.

"Sure," you say, and move out of his way. "I guess Noct sent you?"

Ignis shakes his head. "I am here on my own initiative. Noctis has no idea."

You look down at your hands. You don't know what that means and you have no idea how you're supposed to host a guest. You've never had anyone over before. "Uhh. Would you like something to drink? Um. There's only tap water." You make yourself look back up at him to see if you're getting this completely wrong.

Ignis seems to consider the question. "Please. Water will be fine."

"Umm. Sit down, make yourself comfortable," you say, dimly remembering what your parents did when they had guests, back when they spent actual time at home. You gesture vaguely toward the kitchen table and turn away, trembling a little, to fill a glass of water. Then you decide to fill one for yourself, too, because then at least you'll have another few moments to avoid dealing with whatever the fuck is going on right now.

When you finally force yourself to turn around, Ignis is sitting at the table, glancing around your kitchen with a thoughtful expression. You put the glass down in front of him, then take a seat yourself. You sip at your water, stalling again, not sure what you're supposed to do.

Ignis decides he's going to show mercy to a poor dumb commoner, at least. "I imagine you're wondering what brought me here, alone," he says. He takes a sip of water himself. "I know it's strange."

"Uhh, yeah," you reply, staring into the depths of your water glass.

Ignis sighs. "The most simple way to put it would be that I hope to persuade you to forgive Noctis."

You take that thought and turn it over in your mind. "But he doesn't know you're here."

"He does not," Ignis confirms. "He would never have allowed this if he had known. I imagine he will be extremely displeased with me when he learns of it."

You take a deep breath. "Then why did you decide to do this?"

"I met Noctis when I was six years old and he was three," Ignis tells you. "We have grown up together. It is not a simple matter of duty, when it comes to him."

"So you're here as his big brother," you guess.

Ignis smiles just a fraction. "You could say that, yes."

You always kinda wanted an older brother or sister. Here's another thing Noct has that you- You nip the growing jealousy right in the bud, because now is really, really not the time. "Would Noct even... want to hear from me, right now?" you ask. "It's not like I've been rejecting phone calls or ignoring texts."

It's quiet for a few moments. "I suspect that you have a few misconceptions about Noctis that are... exacerbating the problem." Ignis takes a deep breath. "Prompto, what do you suppose Noctis has been doing for the past week or so?"

You look down at your hands. "I don't know. He could be doing anything. He's... important. A lot of people would want to... you know, hang out, do stuff, with him."

"Ah." Ignis says. "That's quite understandable." He takes a sip of water, and you start to think he might be almost as nervous as you are right now. "Noctis attracts as many hangers-on as you imagine, yes, but he prefers not to involve himself with them," he says. "Most people do not want to sit on his couch and play video games. They want to interrogate him about politics, try to gain his favor. They aren't interested in him as a person. So, as you might imagine, he does his utmost to avoid them."

You nod. "So what has he been doing?" you ask, because you're clearly supposed to.

Ignis sighs. "Honestly, Noctis has done almost nothing for the past few days. He's sat on the couch with the television on, but I don't think he's actually watching most of it." He swallows. "You're good for him, you know. He's much more... involved with the world around him when he's with you."

That vicious feeling coils in your chest all of a sudden, and you don't quite tamp it down in time. "Are you trying to make me feel guilty? He had me worried something was wrong, and then he just..."

Somehow Ignis makes his face go completely blank while he thinks about what he's going to say. "There's always something wrong," he finally says.

"I don't understand," you murmur.

You see Ignis shift, his expression relaxing into the one he uses to explain a complicated algebra problem. "Noctis is the heir to the throne. Whenever some issue of politics or governance reaches the public eye, he is expected to be fully informed on the issue and is pressured to take a position, whether it is reasonable for a high school student to understand the topic or not. He will not wed someone he has chosen; his bride will be chosen for him for political reasons. He has inherited the gift of magic, but that means he will be the one to maintain the Wall. The Crystal siphons energy from the Kings of Lucis for that purpose, which is why King Regis is aging so rapidly." He takes a few sips of water. "However, all of these are constant pressures. I suspect the issue that had him behaving badly was the flare in his chronic pain he was having that day."

You blink. "He hasn't said anything about that."

Ignis sighs. "I imagine he wouldn't want to. He was injured in an incident when he was young, and discussing the chronic pain would prompt questions on the incident, which, given preference, he would rather forget."

You nod, and stare down at the table. "Why are you here telling me all this personal stuff instead of getting Noct to call me or something?"

"That was the first strategy I attempted. However, I have been unsuccessful in those efforts."

You sigh. "If he hates me, then it's pointless for me to call."

Ignis actually chuckles at that. You tense up as you look at him. "I apologize," he says, immediately schooling his face back into its usual calm. "The two of you just make quite the pair."

"What?" You can't imagine what he's talking about.

Ignis smiles. "Noctis does not hate you," he says. "But if you don't mind, I will be taking my leave," he continues, and rises to his feet.

"Okay." You're completely lost, now. "Uhh. Nice to see you?"

"It was good to see you as well," Ignis replies. "Thank you for your hospitality." And with that he sweeps out of your home just as suddenly as he showed up.

You think this is probably the most baffling thing that has happened to you in your entire life.

So:

Ignis has never lied to you or misled you. There are plenty of things that he's refused to talk about, sure, but he's not the kind of person who'll jerk someone around. If he says that Noct doesn't hate you, then that means that Noct doesn't hate you.

Or at least that Ignis really believes Noct doesn't hate you.

You go back and forth on the topic for hours. Ignis is probably good at this kind of thing, and he's seen Noct a lot more recently than you. But Noct might still be mad. But you're not really mad anymore, even if you're not really happy about it either. But you went for the throat before he did. But...

You're too scared to call, but you send a text, finally. "You wanna talk?"

Then you panic and ditch your phone in favor of going on a run until you can't think of anything except how badly your feet wish you could afford a decent pair of running shoes.

When you get back three hours later, knowing that you're really going to regret not paying attention to your form in the morning, you make yourself check your phone before you even get a drink of water.

"Tomorrow at coffee shop at 10?" The timestamp on the message is over an hour after when you sent it. You're really glad you didn't bring your phone on your run.

It's in neutral territory, or at least, it's not at Noct's place. (It's not like he'd want to be in your dinky little house, anyway.)

"Okay." You press the button to let the text go through and try to convince yourself not to go for another multi-hour panic-fueled run, because you are already really going to regret this in the morning.

You showered last night, but you take a shower right away when your alarm clock goes off at six-thirty. Usually you'd go on a run first, but your left knee is really hurting after yesterday. You might have to actually get that looked at, after you go see Noct.

With no run and no school, you're up way too early, but you're far too nervous to go back to sleep. You pull out your camera, limp outside, and try to take a few pictures, but your heart's not in it, and eventually you give up on it. You wander back inside and make breakfast--really make it, even, pouring rice into the rice cooker, heating up some instant miso, frying up an egg, and putting those last few cherry tomatoes on your plate to make a nice pretty meal. You make yourself take a few shots of your breakfast just on principle, and you almost pull out your cell phone to send an image to Noct before you catch yourself.

The food doesn't taste quite as good as you'd hoped.

You clean up the kitchen after your meal, sigh, and look at the clock. It's only eight.

You're really not good with sitting around doing nothing, even at the best of times, and this is not the best of times. It's far too early, but you gather up your things and head for the coffee shop.

Some part of you hopes that Noct will be there when you get there, even though it's far earlier than the time you settled on. He would never voluntarily wake up before nine if he had his way, you remind yourself. You still find that you're the tiniest bit disappointed when you reach the coffee shop, scan the room, and don't see him.

You order a huge iced mocha despite knowing that much caffeine is only going to make things worse, grab one of the heavily-abused magazines that have probably been floating around the shop since it opened, and wedge yourself into a booth. You flip through what appears to be a tabloid, speculating on the sexual orientation and relationship status of a popular ice skater, and try to make yourself care about the "debate" instead of checking your phone every thirty seconds or looking up every time the bells on the door jingle. This does not work as well as you'd like.

A little after nine-thirty, you hear the bell and glance up again, and oh. That's Noct. Early. You're pretty sure that Noct has never been early to anything in his entire life.

The iced mocha swirls in your stomach, and suddenly all that time hoping Noct would be early and you could get this over with seems ridiculous. Why did you think that? Were you high?

Noct spots you and his mouth twitches. He gets in line for a drink. You fiddle with your phone, trying not to openly stare. He doesn't look obviously angry, but he's in public. He wouldn't.

Finally, but in what seems like no time at all, Noct slides into the booth across from you. "I was hoping I'd get here first," he mutters.

You stare down at the table. "I- I'm sorry. I was..."

"Hey," Noct says. "I'm sorry, too. It was a dick move."

You can't look at him. "I kinda went for the throat, dude." You expected him to be sulky, or even obviously angry. You didn't expect him to be sorry.

"Yeah, but you weren't the only one." You can hear Noct's feet shuffling against the floor. "I don't really know how to do this."

"To do... what?" you ask, cursing internally at how nervous you sound.

"Can we just be friends again and pretend it didn't happen?" Noct asks.

You look at him. There's that indifferent tilt of the head, like always, but his eyes are too big. He really wants this. "Yeah," you say, relieved. "Yeah. And let's not do that again."

"Yeah," Noct replies, and lets out a relieved laugh before schooling it back down to his usual amused chuckle. "Let's really not."

It's really that easy? Just like that?

"So um. How's your summer homework going?" you ask.

Noct groans in a completely familiar, absolutely reassuring way, and kicks you under the table. "Are you trying to tell me you've started on yours?"

Noct's not perfect. You knew that even before you made friends with him. He was aloof and sulky. He was late to school all the time. Things like that.

But you'd found all of those things a little endearing, if you were honest with yourself. He had that "lone wolf" personality type, right? And the way he sulked was kind of cute. And when he was late to school, it just made you feel good somewhere in the back of your mind, because in at least one way you're better than the actual prince.

The thing is that Noct really, really isn't perfect. He's lazy enough that it really gets at you. He can get bratty and even petty if he's in the wrong mood, and it's not cute at all. You still think he treats Ignis like garbage, too, but you try to let that go because that's between the two of them.

You think, though, that it's probably okay that a few things about Noct grate on you. You don't have to like everything about him. You're sure some things about you piss him off, too.

The honeymoon's over, but it's going to be okay.

It turns out that you actually did screw up your knee on that run. The doctor bans you from walking long distances and going running for weeks. Noctis, who is definitely more worried about you than you are, decides you shouldn't be making the hike over to his apartment and gets you to invite him to your house in a series of maneuvers that probably would have made Ignis proud if it had anything to do with actual politics.

So you're home, now. Noct is perched on the counter, watching you make grilled cheese sandwiches with the same deep concentration a cat gives a mouse right before pouncing. You're trying to ignore his huge bodyguard. He's not in the house, but you can see him through the kitchen window, reading a book in the driver's seat of a royalty-nice car.

"I didn't know you could cook," Noct remarks. "One time I tried making rice on the stove and I burned it so bad that Specs couldn't get the pot clean."

You laugh. "I'm no gourmet chef like Ignis," you say. "So don't tell him. He might try to get me to do some of it."

"I dunno. You might not try to put vegetables in everything."

"If you rat me out and Ignis makes me cook, I will make nothing but vegetables, Noct." You slip the spatula under the sandwich and slide it onto a plate.

Noct shudders melodramatically. "You're a daemon!" he says, and you both start laughing.

"You take that back or I'm eating the first one," you reply.

Noct looks down at the pan and back at you. "If you got a bigger frying pan, you could do two at once," he says.

"It's pretty much always just me here," you tell him.

That shuts him up for a minute. He doesn't even grab at the sandwich you could tell he wanted to devour just a moment ago. Then he smiles. "Guess I'll have to come over more often, then," he says.

"You'll wreck my house," you tease, except you're not quite teasing and you think maybe that comes out in your voice. "Uh. Sorry," you add, and anxiously glance up at Noct.

Noct takes a breath. "I would help clean up," he says, with just the slightest flush of red on his cheeks.

You smile at him. "If you mean that, then we'll try it tonight. You've got a lot to learn, buddy."

And Noct groans, but it's the kind of groan that he gives Ignis while he's slamming his homework on the table, and you could almost hug him. "I guess I walked into that," he says. "Gimme that sandwich. I'm hungry."

You slide the plate across the counter toward him. "Look at the bright side. Cleaning is a lot easier than trigonometry, right?"

"I tried to make rice and I ruined the pot," Noct reminds you. "I am not the poster child for domestic skills." You realize he's nervous.

"I would not let you destroy my house trying to clean. Now eat," you say. "We've got a lot of Nokemon to play."

"Yeah, you're right," Noct says, and stuffs half the sandwich into his mouth at once.

Gross. And you're sure he's doing it on purpose.

But he's your best friend anyway.