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By the third month, the paparazzi were gone.
The truly depressing thing was that Noct sometimes missed them, if nothing else because they were never boring, flinging ridiculous questions and off-the-wall assertions at him, just to try and catch a soundbite to get him in hot water with the Citadel. Unfortunately, he wasn’t particularly interesting, all things considered, and this felt like a lesson the entire country had to relearn every time he did basically anything. When he’d chosen to go to school, rather than be tutored privately, it sparked a national debate around security, education standards and public spending. Any new social media account discovered was stalked for weeks until they realized he was really going to post exclusively about fish, fishing, fishing gear, fish conservation efforts and fish puns. No one liked his fish puns, they were a national embarrassment. Admittedly, the idea of the Crown Prince moving out of the Citadel had shaken the public sphere, but under Ignis’ guidance, Noct had actually cushioned the blow with two more in quick succession: his decision to skip a year (or two) before enrolling into the Royal University for the Law Degree his dad insisted would one day save his life, and him taking a modest job in a three star sushi restaurant as a humble line cook. If he’d chosen to move abroad for his gap year(s), it would be acceptable; they would bill it as him gaining worldly experience. If the restaurant was a five star luxury spot under the care of a renowned, famous celebrity chef, it would have been understandable; they would frame it as him putting all that fish passion into a sensible networking opportunity.
Instead, Noct was… well. Noct. Never quite right, but also never quite wrong, just frustrating in general. Boring, really. He told himself he liked boring, even though it wasn’t quite true. Mostly he just wanted to be left alone, right up until he wasn’t, like right there and then: standing in the small alley behind the restaurant, waiting out his last break of the night and feeling profoundly insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
And then someone reached out and shoved his shoulder gently, almost amicably. He blinked himself awake as Ann, one of the waitresses that had joined around the same time he had, offered a thumbs up as she shuffled her bag for a pack of smokes.
“Man, what a crowd, huh?” She asked, shuffling a cigarette into her mouth and offering one, even though he always declined – he had a feeling she did it out of habit, rather than any real desire to share, considering how much she bickered with some of the other staff who did take her up on it. “Hard to think it’s just Thursday!”
Noct shrugged eloquently, risking a look through the ajar door back into the noise and bustle of the kitchen and the dinning room just past it: it wasn’t a famous restaurant, and the wave of interest due to his presence in it had long passed, but it was a busy restaurant, nonetheless. The sushi was fresh, the beer was cheap, and a good chunk of the office buildings nearby detoured for dinner frequently enough they rarely needed a menu to order from.
“Use your words, Noct,” Ann said after a moment, puffing smoke above their heads. “I’m immune to your soulful, princely stare.”
“Man, shut up,” Noct replied, chuckling awkwardly. “They only ordered nigiri, so we didn’t really feel it in the back.”
“You’re getting the hang of it, huh?” She grinned at him, and it make her eyes crinkle when she did. He wondered what it felt like, to smile like that so often that your cheeks changed shape to accommodate it. “Good, good, we’ll make a decent chef out of you yet!”
“Master does all the cutting, I just put them together,” Noct replied, shrugging off the teasing. “It’s not really a big deal.”
Ann rolled her eyes.
“Thank you, Ann,” Ann said, enunciating clearly. “I’m working hard, Ann. Let’s do our best together, Ann.” She snorted when he merely stared blankly at her. “Just take the compliment, man. I swear!”
Noct, because he was Noct, shrugged again. It made her laugh, but he reckoned that said more about her and who she was a person, than him. He was just… him. He didn’t really do effusive. He didn’t do a lot of things, which a lot of people thought he should, on account of who he was. It ended up making him come across as awkward, instead. Awkward always ended up in lectures and polite but firm reminders and in the end it was just better if he… didn’t. He worked a job that let him wake up at noon because the shift didn’t start til five, and by the time he was done, it was two or three in the morning, and nothing could really be done, except go home. It was fine.
He was fine.
Perhaps not at the level of all the expectations he was supposed to meet, but still steadily above what anyone could term failure. He was fine. He had Ignis and Gladio to serve as guardrails, keep him focused and on track so he didn’t lose the plot and ended up a disappointment. And he had Prompto, who was bright and warm and always game to unspool his moods into a good laugh. When he’d told his dad he was thinking of taking a break, he hadn’t expected him to agree and insist it was a good thing for him to learn how to live without milestones looming over his head.
Like the paparazzi, Noct found he was very excited about their absence, but now that the novelty had worn off, he felt aimless in a way he didn’t know how to explain without coming across as whiny.
This was exactly what he’d asked for, after all: a quiet life without stress, just a chance to breathe and be himself.
And he was… fine. Boring and a little awkward and not very exciting, but that was fine, wasn’t it?
He was fine.
“Oh, by the way,” Ann said, stopping just as she was about to go back inside. “The boss said you shouldn’t leave scraps out anymore, when you clean up. Apparently the colony got trapped this morning so all you’re gonna feed are rats. His words, not mine!”
He supposed he shouldn’t be shocked about it. The colony of feral cats that he insisted on feeding every night after the end of his shift had gotten larger as of late, possibly as a direct result of him providing stable food and pets for any who were brave enough to want them. Intellectually, he knew it was probably for the best: the cats would be looked after and eventually rehomed somewhere they didn’t need to live off scraps.
Noct felt deeply selfish, as he slugged through the last half of his shift, because feeding the cats was the highlight of his day.
He still sat on the steps anyway, watching the sky in the space between the two buildings that formed the small alleyway, even though he didn’t smoke and he didn’t have to wait for the cats to finish eating anymore, before he called it a day. He huddled inside his jacket, more out of habit than anything else, and wondered if this was what life was going to be like, always. It felt pointless and dull, and he’d never complain about it, to anyone, ever, because he was the literal Crown Prince, Heir to the Throne, and his problems were not, at all, comparable, to anyone’s actual, real problems.
But there, in the quiet of night melting into obscenely early morning, alone with his thoughts and the muted glimmer of stars beyond the Wall, Noct reckoned he was allowed to wallow a little.
And then he heard the meowing.
The Heir to the Throne, His Highness Crown Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum did not have panic attacks.
Panic attacks were things that happened to people who could afford to be people. Noct had titles to honor and expectations to meet and an image to maintain. Noct did not have panic attacks. Noct had controlled spirals of frantic anxiety, and an excellent track record in bottling them down so well that no one could see them.
Still, freaking out had not been his first choice. He’d started sensibly, because he wasn’t an idiot. He’d called his boss first, tiny ball of orange fur caught in his arms, meowing piteously as it tried to burrow under his shirt. It was not a random call, either. Noct figured the little guy had, somehow, been left behind when the colony got caught and the boss would know who had done the trapping. Then all he had to do was reach out and call them and that’d reunite him with his family.
Easy.
Except it was almost one in the morning, his boss did not answer the phone, and the meowing was getting fainter and fainter.
Still, Noct held himself together. He bundled the little creature into his jacket and started the walk back home. It’d be a few hours, before anyone picked up the phone, so he could take the kitten home, keep it warm, and then dutifully hand it off when the time came. Nothing more complicated than that. It didn’t have to be an incident or a production. It was just a tiny cat.
He could manage a cat for a few hours.
Well, it was a weird cat, to be fair. It looked like a small kitten, but it wasn’t quite small. Maybe that was why it’d been left behind, Noct thought, slowly making his way up the stairs to his apartment, scant minutes later. Maybe they hadn’t realized it was a baby.
…could he handle a baby, albeit of the cat variety, for a few hours?
He was about to find out, he supposed.
The apartment was dark when he got there, but it was still warmer than the street. Noct navigated the slight – not so slight – mess that was the main room with a little wince. It would be a couple days before Ignis manifested like the wrath of an unmerciful god, so it wasn’t, necessarily, the cleanest, but because Ignis did manifest like the wrath of an unmerciful god following a consistent, unforgiving schedule, it never got too bad. Too bad was relative, but so was everything else in life.
Noct peered down at the tiny, meowing ball of fur inside his jacket and told himself it would be alright.
Somehow.
He still took a minute to take stock before he stomped over to his bedroom, pulled out his laptop and started a frantic search for someone, anyone, to tell him what to do. The problem, of course, was that, much like with every other aspect of his life, it turned out there were far too many people willing to tell him what to do. And all of them contradicted each other.
The kitten meowed pitifully at him.
One of the rescue organization websites had a link to a chatroom but the problem was, he wasn’t allowed to join public sites without supervision. And he knew that – he’d been living under constant supervision his entire life, after all – and more than that, he understood why. He wasn’t stupid. Direct access to the Crown Prince could cause many, many problems, even unintended ones, through nothing else but the stupid weight of his name and his reputation. There was protocol to join any kind of online forum and a turnaround of about three weeks to get him Crownsguard-vetted credentials. He knew the routine. He’d gone through it for the stupid shooter game Prompto loved and that Noct was gloriously awful at. And for the parade of cellphone games, too. He’d even done it for the farm and magic game Iris had once asked him to play with her, since Gladio refused to even entertain the idea.
As it often happened, Noct knew what was the right thing to do, but found himself at odds with it.
In the cacophony of advice he’d just devoured, two main things had been impressed upon him: kittens were fragile things, vulnerable to cold and a million other things, and they needed to eat, near constantly. The kitten did not have fourteen to twenty business days to wait for Noct’s stupid security detail to vet and review the chatroom. So Noct, in his authority as Crown Prince, made an executive decision. He didn’t have a great track record of those, if he was being very honest about it, but he knew for a fact letting such a small, defenseless creature die because of protocol was not the right thing to do.
The cellphone, which he was not supposed to have, because it was not riddled with invasive security software and two dozen trackers, popped out of the armiger with little fanfare. It felt weird in his hand because he was so used to his own, but he managed.
Hello, Noct typed, as he entered the chatroom. I found a kitten and I don’t know what to do, help.
Immediately, despite the fact that it was almost two in the morning, several usernames blinked alive.
At around seven in the morning, having slept… well, not at all, Noct found himself cleaning the kitchen.
He didn’t use it very much, preferring the convenience of takeout, if Ignis’ collection of painstakingly labeled meals were not available. He wasn’t a bad cook – his entire job hinged on his ability to be decent at it, in fact – but it just wasn’t… something he did, unless he was being paid for it. Too much hassle. Ingredients needed to be prepared and portioned and set out in order, and then the actual cooking had to take place and then when it was all said and done, he’d have a mess of things to clean up. After being given a bullet point list of short but clear instructions by the chatroom – apparently, he was neither the first nor the last person who reached out with this precise predicament – it had taken him a quick trip down to the convenience store two blocks away from his apartment building to gather the supplies for a makeshift emergency foster kitten care station.
It was not… very complicated, it turned out. The worst part was the timing for the feeding. Consensus after pictures said the mystery ball of orange fluff was somewhere between one and two weeks, so that meant every two hours, he needed to coax the little thing to slurp on the syringe he was using in lieu of an actual bottle. Though the debate was still raging because by size, it looked fairly big. However, the age markers were for something much younger, considering it needed Noct’s help to… ah, finish its business after every feeding session. Noct had made a joke about it being a coeurl kitten and accidentally started off a cascade of memes and ranting full of inside jokes he didn’t get. He’d sent that phone back to the armiger and pursued the video guides they’d pointed him to in his main phone.
Now he was cleaning the kitchen, because he’d tripped on a trash bag in the scramble to not miss the six am feeding. He rarely stumbled, inside his own apartment. But then, he rarely did anything in a hurry, in his own apartment. On the counter, he’d settled the kitten in a makeshift bed made of the largest pot he owned – technically, it was Ignis’, since he was the only one who used it – filled with a wool scarf and the shirt he’d been wearing, when he’d picked it up. The sides of the pot were tall enough the kitten couldn’t get out, and it spent its time between feedings either meowing at him or sleeping. Mostly sleeping.
Ignis was really talented, Noct thought somewhat sourly, trying to bag everything and then realizing he needed to sort it and pack it down better because otherwise he was going to need sixty million trips down the elevator to throw it all out. He also needed to call in and take time off. At least the next few days, while he figured out what to do. Considering how frequently the kitten needed to be fed, and knowing now how much it impacted its chances of survivability and well-being, he felt weird putting undue strain on it. And it wasn’t hard, or anything, looking after it.
But maybe he should wait until he got a chance to visit the vet and get some actual supplies instead of the makeshift ones he’d put together.
There was a chance the vet would decide Noct just wasn’t suitable to care for the kitten, that he was doing something wrong or that there were many other people better qualified to do it. And… well, if there was a chance it’d be looked after better, it didn’t make sense to force it to put up with subpar care. Thoughts buzzed around his head, counterweighting the tired sleepiness, but he had an alarm in place.
And he managed not to miss a feeding.
The vet agreed to see him three days later, but only if he promised to not surrender the kitten to their care. Noct called a rain check at work and survived on hour-long naps, takeout and videos on how to foster effectively. The videos got him cleaning the entire apartment, in between naps and feedings, because it turned out cats could just straight up die if they ate something they shouldn’t. And he didn’t remember half the things littered all over his floor, either. So, it had to go. It was exhausting and tiresome and still, he couldn’t really pass out the way he wanted to, because the alarm kept ringing. Every two hours, on the dot. He’d been told to weigh the kitten, and then it had taken him four feedings to realize he probably should be recording the weight. He used the cooking scale – Ignis’, obviously – and the dry eraser little board on the fridge where Ignis had, upon Noct first moving into the apartment, written him a list of chores to do. That was ages ago and the board had been sitting empty on the side of the fridge for about as long.
He sat on the couch, pot full of cat in his lap, and browsed his phone as he waited for the next alarm to go off, somewhere in a dream.
Insomnia was drowning in cats, it turned out.
Stray ones, anyway. The colony Noct had fed was only one of thousands around the city. People wanted kittens, but then the kittens grew up and suddenly they weren’t as cute. Or they cost too much. Or they wouldn’t stay put in a small apartment, alone for eight to ten hours, while their human was out and about. It was a lot. A lot of angry people, writing angry lines, making angry threats. Everyone thought something should be done but no one could agree on what.
It reminded Noct of the dossiers Ignis gave him to read, the summaries of Court and Council sessions and the never ending spiral of arguments demanding his father did… something or other. All everyone seemed to know was that everyone else was wrong.
Just reading about it made him tired, but he couldn’t sleep, not for long. The alarm rang and the kitten grumbled as he picked it up – it was bigger, after only a few days, physically bigger, he could tell, it was more magical than any holy magic in his blood – and Ignis walked in on him like that: in boxers and an old shirt, barefoot and cooing at the not so tiny ball of bright orange fur that was trying its honest best to empty the syringe in his hand.
“Noct,” Ignis said, in a tone that was hard to decipher.
“Gimme a minute, Specs,” Noct replied, not looking away, waiting for the little gesture that gave away the kitten was sated. He dropped the syringe into the sink and went on to dab the kitten’s face clean with a paper towel and then paused, looking up at Ignis. “I. Uh. Don’t make it weird, okay?”
Ignis blinked slowly at him, the picture of bewilderment, and then, after a moment, realized what Noct was doing and very carefully not looking at him as he did it. Noct bunched up the dirty paper towel and threw it into the plastic bag he’d set up for that specific kind of waste, and then returned the kitten back into its bed inside the pot. Ignis approached to get a better look at the meowing menace while Noct scrubbed his hands clean.
“You called in at work,” Ignis said, brows drawn into a confused V under his glasses. “I thought you’d be sick.”
“I kinda am,” Noct admitted, “I haven’t slept much in a couple days.” He paused and laughed at the incredulous look Ignis gave him. “Yeah, I know. But I don’t trust myself with a knife. The Boss man said it was okay, though.”
“And you trust yourself with this?” Ignis asked, one eyebrow arched questioningly.
Noct shrugged.
“I don’t really have a choice,” he said, pulling the pot into his arms and sauntering over to the small nest he’d built for himself on the couch. “In a couple more days, the feeding schedule will slow down enough and in a few more weeks, I’ll be done.”
“Define done,” Ignis requested, green eyes sharp.
“It’ll be old enough to be adopted,” Noct explained. “I don’t know how old it is,” he said, catching himself before he betrayed the existence of the chatroom, remembering at the last minute that he wasn’t allowed to be there at all. “But I guess about two weeks? By the time its eight, it can get spayed or neutered and then adopted out. The ideal would be twelve, but I’m just fostering because I found it and there wasn’t anywhere else to take it in.” He offered a sensible – he hoped – smile and a small shrug. “I know I’m not allowed pets.”
Ignis did the thing he always did, pursing his lips, like he was tired but willing to go another sprint, if Noct needed it, and it sat hollow and cold in the bottom of Noct’s lungs.
“I can take care of it for you,” he said, even though the only animals he liked were dead, filleted and about to become a dish. “If you want.”
It made sense, of course. Ignis took care of things. All the things, but especially those that Noct was shit at, or that he didn’t like. It was his job, but also the thing he was good at and he enjoyed doing except those moments when it didn’t seem like it, and instead Noct felt like the little whiteboard by the fridge, a list of chores no one remembered because no one really wanted to do.
Noct wanted to sleep. Almost mocking, the kitten yawned so wide it toppled over into the makeshift bed and fell asleep.
“I’ve been doing okay so far,” Noct said, instead, shrugging as he looked away so he didn’t have to see the expression on Ignis’ face. “Skipping a little sleep for a good cause is not the end of the world,” he added, almost playful. “We can say it’s a character building exercise.”
“Noct—”
“I’m okay,” Noct insisted, and hated the waver in his tone.
“Of course,” Ignis said. “Would you like dinner?” He pushed his glasses up his nose. “Barring stew or soups, of course, given present circumstances.”
“That’d be great, Specs,” Noct replied, almost a sigh of relief.
“Man, you couldn’t pay me to do this,” Prompto exclaimed, a few days later, staring at the pot kitten with equal parts awe and horror.
“It’s a cat, Prompto,” Noct said, somewhat sarcastically, possibly because it turned out three hour naps were better than one hour naps, but still not good enough to not tank his sociability scores into the red. “Not a nuke.”
“It’s a baby, Noct,” Prompto corrected him, looking horrified. “A baby cat. That will literally die if you don’t feed it.” He paused dramatically. “It needs you to poop, man. How is that not terrifying?”
Noct looked down at the fearsome creature that his best friend was so worried about. The kitten wiggled inside its pot, which it filled up a lot more than on that first day, but which it refused to leave now, even though Noct had tried to coax it into a larger plastic tub that Ignis had brought him to try and rescue his, apparently very expensive, pot. No dice. Noct had offered to buy him a new one to replace it and Ignis had given him a look like he’d offended his mother.
“It’s a kitten,” Noct said, “it eats and it sleeps and sometimes it meows. It’s not that big of a deal.”
Prompto stared at him, blue eyes shrewd and then pointedly looked around the apartment, which was surprisingly spotless, on account of the fact Noct couldn’t just leave things to pile up, when the kitten was big enough to potentially escape its pot and wreak havoc. It hadn’t, so far, but just because he hadn’t, it didn’t mean it couldn’t. It was better to be safe than sorry.
Besides, he needed to wash his hands a lot, so he could wash a plate or two while he was at it. And Ignis had brought him one of those bins with multiple bags so he could sort things out.
“But you’re responsible for it,” Prompto insisted, like it mattered.
Noct tried to figure out how to explain that not letting a kitten die was a feather in the scales where Noct was being groomed to be responsible to not let an entire country die. An entire country full of people who yelled and complained and kept insisting they knew better and by better they meant everyone else was an idiot. Which wasn’t unproven, but not very productive.
“Look, if I do a good enough job, I will give myself a grade and submit it in a scorecard to my dad.”
Prompto burst out laughing, bright and warm like the sun, and Noct basked in it, rather than the gnawing restlessness inside his bones.
Noct submitted a request for the chatroom to be vetted.
Cor stared down his nose at him and very pointedly did not say anything about the photographic evidence that Noct had broken one of those sacrosanct rules that he’d promised not to break, if he was allowed to live outside the Citadel.
“Does it have a name?” He asked, instead, peering down the kitten sprawled backwards and up the side of the pot, tiny tail almost flopping out of it.
“Oh,” Noct said, and then shrugged. “No. I’m… it’s not… I’m just fostering.” Cor turned to look at him, icy blue eyes sharp as ever. “If I give it a name, I’ll get attached. The point of fostering is getting him—it to a point where it’s ready to be adopted. Then it can go to its forever family.”
“Right,” Cor said, nodding slowly. “Standard social media rules apply,” he added, finally giving Noct his new phone.
Noct got the newest phone of his chosen brand a week after release, because he was the Prince and they needed to add all the beeps and boops that let them know where he was and what he said and all the other things that were there to keep him safe from being himself.
“Yes, sir,” Noct responded with just the barest hint of sarcasm, offering a sloppy salute because he knew it’d make Cor snort.
“Keep out of trouble,” Cor said, like he always did, and then left without looking back.
There was, however, a tiny catnip mouse in the pot with the kitten, when Noct looked again. It was purple and ugly and the kitten chewed on it sloppily and with great joy.
It made him smile.
His meetings with his father were always a production.
He wasn’t bitter about it. He wasn’t a child. His father was the King, master and servant of the entire nation. Their bloodline had a sacred duty, and with it came equal amounts of privilege and responsibilities. His father fought tooth and nail for every scrap of free time he could get, to spend with him, and Noct knew it and valued it. Even if it was always chaotic and last minute, with the edge of a cancelled meeting that suddenly gave him space to breathe. And he wasn’t ungrateful, he knew his father had many other people vying for his attention. It meant something, that he chose to spend those moments with him. He understood that. But he had a tight schedule these days, and it was the first time in weeks that he left the apartment, only to be driven by Ignis to the Citadel, to have tea with his father for exactly forty three minutes and not a second more.
Noct hated that he didn’t know what to say. He never knew what to say. He sat there, watching his father serve the tea – they were alone, the only time no one was watching, and so the King could break protocol as much as he wanted – and feeling his tongue dry up into a heavy stone inside his mouth.
“Do…” His father began, carefully not looking at him. “Do you want to tell me about your cat?”
Noct blinked.
“I don’t have a cat,” he said, because it was true, even though it caused his father’s face to fall somewhat. Noct winced. “I’m… I’m fostering one. But it’s not… I’m not allowed to keep it.”
“Why not?” Noct stared at his father somewhat blankly, knew he shouldn’t, because it always made his father sad that he did, but couldn’t help it. “It’s just… Ignis tells me you’re so happy these days. I don’t see why you shouldn’t keep it.”
Because… well. Because it was him, wasn’t that enough? He was lazy and slovenly and terrible at keeping up routines. He knew he wouldn’t survive a day without Ignis saving his ass time and time again. He’d taken a break from work to do this, but it couldn’t be a full time thing. He wasn’t the sort of responsible, sensible person that should be allowed to care for a living thing.
And yet he’d managed, somehow, so far. But it was one thing to commit short term, a couple weeks of exhaustion and poor sleep, and it was something else entirely, to do that for… years. Decades. Cats lived long if they were properly looked after. Could he be trusted to look after it? Noct felt an echo of anxiety – not panic, never panic, he was the Crown Prince, after all – as he allowed himself to contemplate the thought. He’d gone out of his way to not get attached, after all: he’d taken no pictures beyond what was strictly necessary, even though the kitten was very photogenic even when it was being silly. And he’d not given it a name, because he knew if he did, it’d be heartbreaking to give him up.
“I’ll think about it,” Noct said, and only realized he’d used the same tone to respond when his father suggested he enrolled in law school when he returned to the expected grind, because his father sighed the way he always did, when Noct accidentally made him worry. “Dad, I—”
“It’s alright,” his father said, smile kind, always kind, maddeningly so. “I trust your judgment.”
Noct did not scream into his tea and instead spent the rest of the meeting stuffing sugar cookies into his mouth.
“What is that stench?” Gladio demanded, stalling at the entrance with a grimace on his face.
Noct snorted mercilessly.
“That is a cat using a litter box,” he said, eyebrows arched tauntingly. “You have the shittiest timing. Literally.”
“I’m going to pretend that’s not a pun,” Gladio declared with a scoff, bending down to untie the boots before he stepped into the apartment. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
Noct stared up at his Shield and snorted again, louder.
“Correct.”
Gladio stared down at him, lips pursed into an annoyed line.
“Is there a reason why?”
Besides the obvious, usual litany of reasons why, anyway. Gladio and Noct got along swimmingly, right until they didn’t. And therefore it was best for all involved that they had protocol to mediate their interactions. They both knew this. Well, Noct knew it. He reckoned Gladio, who was infinitely smarter than him on a good day, probably knew it too. Protocol was a lovely footprint to keep Shields from murdering their would-be Kings, and vice versa. They understood each other, which was the important thing.
“I didn’t want a lecture on how dumb I’ve been, the past six weeks and a half,” Noct said sincerely, because when there was no protocol to buffer, honesty was the best policy. Honesty was always the best policy, as far as he was concerned, but the world ran on stupid, weird rules that did not match his common sense all the time. Hence the all-important distinction. “I was sleep-deprived and spiraling, a little. I’d have gotten mean.”
“So you got a cat,” Gladio said, eyebrows arched as he watched the tiny creature scurry across the floor, tracking grains of litter everywhere as it went, until it flopped at Noct’s feet with a loud, demanding meow. “Big deal.”
“I wanna change jobs,” Noct said, bending down to pick up the tantrum-throwing kitten so he could drop him into its pot. It began chewing on its mouse and knead on its blanket, purring so loud it made Gladio blink.
“It’s a free country,” Gladio replied, somewhat fascinated by the sheer amount of happiness bubbling out of the pot, like a witch’s cauldron.
“Right, but I’m not looking to be an employee,” Noct said, blue eyes sharp, gauging every minute reaction. “I think I want to be a foster dad. For cats,” he added, when Gladio inhaled spit and nearly choked in surprise. “A foster cat dad. There’s… there’s a ton of cats that need help, Gladio.”
“So fund a charity,” Gladio snapped, moving to grab a glass of water to try and get his coughing under control. “Throw money at it until the problem goes away.”
Noct pursed his lips.
“Right, I’m drafting a proposal for it,” he said, and took a moment to chew on his bottom lip. “But the thing is… I actually want to get involved. But I also don’t want to like… suck up all the air in the room.”
“You are the Crown Prince,” Gladio said, unmoved. “It kind of comes with the territory, Noct.”
“Right, but you’re the Prince’s Shield and you do the book fair thing,” Noct pointed out. “You make it work.”
Of course, as an Amicitia, Gladio had been doing charity work at his mother’s behest since he was sixteen. As the future Shield, it was expected of him, to be diplomatic and charismatic and sensible. To balance out everything his future King wasn’t. Gladio was a soldier, first and foremost; one of the Crownsguard’s finest, if Cor was to be believed. But he was more than that. He’d made himself more than that.
“Right,” Gladio said, head tilted sideways. “I work at it.”
He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to. Noct pursed his lips. The apartment was free of trash, but he hadn’t swept the floors in a few days, so there was dust gathering in places. And as the cat slowly began to transition into more solid food, the feeding schedule loosened enough to let him sleep. A lot, actually.
Noct took a deep breath.
“So is there like… a training manual? Or do you just make it up as you go along and then act all smug as a reward for it somehow working out anyway?”
Impossibly, Gladio laughed rather than splutter.
So there was hope.
The chatroom was a fountain of ideas for how to make things better: Noct liked that they didn’t expect him to fix the problem, so much as they just wanted him to lessen it, even a little. He wanted to fix it, but the lack of implied expectations felt… nice. Like they saw him as just a person, and not an institution. That he was fallible and trying his best. And he was, absolutely. It was novel. Maybe because they knew him first and foremost as the guy who freaked out every time his foster kitten did anything that wasn’t sleep or eat or meow. So when he came clean about who he was, half the chatroom thought it was a joke.
It was nice.
He was a person, not a title. But he was absolutely going to use that title for the great good.
He just needed to figure out how to write a dossier, instead of reading it. Then again, he’d been reading those for years now.
How hard could it be? Ignis did it all the time!
Ignis was a saint and Noct ordered him to take a month off.
To convince him, Noct bought himself one of those robot vacuum cleaners to handle the floor and a roll of wet towels with bleach to wipe off the counters. It was annoying, but the thought of eating food of a space where his notoriously inept cat had tracked litter onto was a great motivator to not slack off.
The apartment was a mess of cat toys, paperwork, books from the library and ever present cat fur. But it was a functional mess, in a way that felt tangible as opposed to a weak defense against yet another scolding for his lack of… something.
Anything.
Sometimes it was hard to get out of bed and the walls fell like molasses slowly rolling onto his shoulders, smothering him in place, but it was difficult to let himself stay there, the way he used to. After all, if he got really hungry, he could just pull some snacks from the cabinets or order out. But the cat couldn’t open the can of wet food or change its water or clean the litter box.
It was easy to be mean to himself, to just make do.
But the cat was not at fault.
And so even the bad days weren’t really that bad, and they were very much fewer and fewer.
“His name is Pot,” Noct said, holding the cat against his side, eyes bright as he stared up at Ignis, “and he’s an idiot.”
Ignis stared at the cat that had, somehow, managed to get itself stuck in a trashcan for the seventh time that week and sighed.
“Of course it is,” he said, in the pained tones of one who was resigned to never recover the pot from which Pot took his name, “and of course he is.”
“I just need him out of the house for a couple days, while the new babies settle in,” Noct said, scratching behind the ears of the single most vocal cat Ignis had ever had the misfortune of babysitting. “He can be a bit much.”
“I wonder where he learned that,” Ignis snorted dryly and then let out a soft oof when Noct placed the squirming demon child into his arms.
“Just a weekend, Specs, and I promise I’ll make it up to you,” Noct said, eyes bright. “Hell, I’ll make you sushi.”
Ignis stared at him, green eyes intense, not the least bit distracted by the tail trying to smack him across the face.
“I would like that,” Ignis said, lips pulled into a tiny smile. “Actually.”
Noct nodded and flashed him two thumbs up, before his watch beeped at him. He’d started wearing one after the second group of kittens he’d fostered – actually fostered, all the way into handing them to their forever homes – because it was harder to miss his alarms when they were on his wrist and that way it didn’t matter if he misplaced his phone.
“Gotta go!”
Ignis watched him go with nothing else but a small chuckle.
It took Noct almost a week to realize he’d not been nudged about anything he’d forgotten to do, either.
“Dude, that’s so gross,” Prompto whined, Pot flopped bonelessly in his arms as he watched Noct go through the routine for the five week litter he was working with.
“Honestly, it doesn’t register anymore,” Noct confessed, exchanging one distressed, hungry furball for another as he went through the motions to weigh, feed and clean them. “It’s like working at the sushi bar, really. Follow the steps in order and don’t worry about it.”
“And wash your hands,” Prompto pointed out, laughing when Noct snorted. “Don’t forget to always wash your hands.”
“Look, if you’re just here to sass me,” Noct began, and then laughed again when Prompto wiggled his eyebrows tauntingly. “Then I’m kicking you out and taking the pictures myself. I have two bajillion megapixels or something on this phone.”
Prompto gave him a look of horrified contempt.
“Noctis Lucis Caelum,” he said, pressing a hand to his chest dramatically. “Do not dare. These innocent kittens are not gambling away their chances to be adopted on your inability to take a decent shot.”
“Well, Prompto Argentum,” Noct snapped back, eyebrows arched. “I’ll have you know I’ve managed all my prior litters perfectly fine, thank you.”
“You had to post the pictures on your official verified account,” Prompto shot back, looking skeptical. “You know it wasn’t the photos that got them adopted.”
“They found their forever homes, and that’s all that matters,” Noct said, in the snotty PR approved tone.
Prompto cracked up like an egg slammed into a counter.
“Man, you’re so full of shit,” he wheezed helplessly, trying to smother his laughter into the fluffy belly of a certain orange disaster.
“No,” Noct replied, serious as death, “they are.” He pointed with his chin at the bucket of kittens on the counter. “But in this business, that’s a good thing, actually.”
Prompto laughed so much he cried.
Noct’s face hurt, long after Prompto left, from grinning so wide.
On screen, Crown Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum lost his temper before the Council and snapped, out of turn and at full volume: I’m sorry, are your objections based on how much you enjoy being a Saturday morning cartoon villain or do you just get off on the idea of animals suffering?
Noct winced and looked over at Gladio, sprawled comfortably on the couch, Pot the cat sprawled equally comfortably on the washboard he called belly.
“Alright,” Noct said, muting the TV so he wouldn’t have to hear the commentary from the evening news anchor. “Lay it on me, I can take it.”
“There’s not a lot to say, Noct,” Gladio replied, eyebrows arched as he reached down to the floor and grabbed his beer. “You could have waited to reply, but it was a sick burn, and it wouldn’t read as genuine if you hadn’t blurted it out. You won your bill with a quip, well done.”
Noct blinked and waited. Gladio continued to nurse his drink, pet his cat and not say much.
“…that’s it?” He frowned, suspicious. “Really?”
“Look, your Brat-jesty,” Gladio scoffed. “You did a good job, but I’m not here to kiss ass. You can call Ignis if you’re into that.”
Noct rolled his eyes.
“God, I hate you sometimes.”
Gladio grinned and stretched a leg so he was pressing his foot right against Noct’s arm.
“Right back at ya, partner.”
“You have a suitcase full of kittens,” his father said, utterly delighted.
Noct snorted.
“Technically, it’s a carrier,” he pointed out, and, at the look of interest in his father’s face, he pulled it up onto the fancy table, opening the top so he could see the squirming, crying chorus of chunky, thriving troublemakers that had absolutely obliterated his sleep schedule for the past week or so. “They’re on a three hour feeding schedule, so we eat on the go.”
His father reached out to wiggle a finger above them, and grinned as he was greeted with loud, demanding meowing. This was Noct’s most vocal litter yet.
“How’s the program going?” His father asked, eyes bright and smile easy on his face.
Noct frowned.
“Is that the King or my dad asking?” He asked, head tilted to the side.
His father blinked.
“Is there a difference?”
Noct shrugged eloquently.
“Well, to the King I’d apologize for not having up to date numbers, but yes, it’s going well.” Noct grinned a little, when his father made a small go on gesture with his hand. “As of last month, we’ve caught, spayed slash neutered and then released seven hundred plus strays and relocated two of the largest colonies that were hanging out in overpasses. And our adoption rate is still really good and the public is still very engaged so the marketing campaign so far is doing its job okay. There’s some concerns about surrender numbers still, and we’re working on supporting the shelter population but I still don’t have the final numbers for that, so I’ll get back to you when I do.”
“And to your dad?” His father asked, head tilted slightly to the side.
“I will do Law if you let me keep doing this,” Noct said, as resolute as he could, “I will hate every second it, and it will probably kill me a little before I get the hang of it. But I get why it’s important, long term.”
“You don’t have to do Law if you don’t want to,” his father pointed out, blinking slowly. “You could as well go into something related to animal care. Veterinary science or such.”
Noct shrugged.
“I’d probably enjoy that much more,” he admitted, staring straight at his father’s eyes as he said it. “But you and I both know I’m not going to be a vet. Not long term. And if it’ll help me do a good job, to do right by the people… I should at least try, right?”
“You should do whatever you think best,” his father said, kindly. “Both your father and the King will support you.”
Noct looked away, not sure how to respond beyond:
“Thanks, Dad.”
There were still twenty minutes left, which could have easily been spent admiring the litter of loud, chunky menaces under Noct’s care, but those were twenty minutes that his dad had fought tooth and nail to spend with him.
“Do you wanna hear about my cat?” Noct asked, eyes fixed on the teacup he wasn’t drinking. “He’s kind of dumb. His name’s Pot.”
Even without looking directly at it, he could tell his father’s smile was radiant.
“I’d love to, son.”
So that was nice.