#Mt. Silver’s bitter cold has no effect on me now

[possiblyfunny]

Have you ever seen the sun come out when someone smiles?

I have.

Hey, y’all!

Just wanted to say, my bad for spamming the comments on that Fire post. I got excited 😅

(By the way HES SMILING :D I will fight GOD to protect that smile of his-)

[don't sweat it!! i speak for myself but i know the others get excited too- i get all GIDDY seeing you guys get excited about the stuff we work so hard on!!! i had a feeling the fire enjoyers would like this one :]

see him fabulous]

[secret-engima]

Drabble for Time Travel Twins verse

(because I have no impulse control and SOMEONE *eyes @rayearthdudette* reminded me about Titus and then my muses ran away with me. Enjoy!)

...

-They are 12 when Titus first comes to the Citadel. Romulus is more than ready to stab him, because he remembers Libertus telling him what happened, that the man became a traitor, and any threats to Regis are threats that need to be removed, but Remus is … conflicted. One on hand, yes, Titus is a danger. But when? Surely the man hadn’t always been a traitor. Captain had taught him … so much. Taken care of them before going cold and hard in those final days. Remus is … biased he supposes. Reluctant to arrange an “accident” for the man who meant so much to him at one point, especially when he shows no signs of treason right now.

-So they watch, aloof and quiet (which is not unexpected for them considering their … backstory, so no one really notices), trying to find evidence of treason or loyalty and are both disturbed when they realize that Titus Drautos is … he is loyal. He is angry and hurting, having just lost his home of Cavaugh outside Insomnia and it’s Wall, but he is not angry at Lucis. He is not bitter toward the king, but instead seems to respect Regis in a polite, impersonal sort of way. He treats both twins with respect and manners, not questioning their paranoid looks, the way Romulus keeps picking a fight, or how Remus has nicknamed him Captain with a feral sort of smile even though the man is a Crownsguard rookie with no real rank.

-Sometimes he even steps into situations unprompted on their behalf, and while Romulus is convinced it’s a ploy to gain trust, Remus sees the crease in the man’s forehead when he interjects himself in a situation (a dispute with the other guards, a reckless prank he can see about to go dangerously south rather than just hilariously sideways) and his gut whispers that Titus is sincere. But then, he trusted Captain before and look where that got him.

-They are 16 when Titus Drautos disappears on a mission outside Insomnia. If they hadn’t been keeping a constant eye on him (hadn’t been making up excuses to be around him so as to search for treasonous behavior, hadn’t been getting attached despite the memories screaming that it was a bad idea) then they would never have noticed. Titus was one man amid the entire Crownsguard, and as good at his job as he was, as personal his reason for joining the Guard (saved by Regis when their “father” personally led rescue efforts to Cavaugh in the wake of the destruction), one man is so very easy to miss. Titus was new, he didn’t have that many friends in the guard, and most of them were on other missions and duties themselves. So when Titus was assigned to a milk run outside the Wall with three others and two of them came back with a report of a daemonic ambush, everyone else just shrugged with regret and moved on. Hardly the first time they’d lost a rookie to the Night.

-Except.

-Except Romulus and Remus know that Titus couldn’t be dead. They had not altered the timeline in a way that would have made the man die, surely. If anything, Romulus’s constant sparring challenges would have made the man more capable and besides all that, somewhere deep inside Remus still clings to the image of his Captain before the betrayal. The strong, steady, unbreakable presence that kept so many of them from throwing themselves into fights they couldn’t win because they didn’t want to come back to empty houses and shattered Clans.

-Except Romulus and Remus know that at some point Titus Drautos becomes Glauca, the wielder of an experimental regenerating armor, and Romulus has personal experience with Niflheim and their predilection towards immoral science.

-They are smart enough to leave a note at least. One telling Regis that they’re going looking for Drautos and will be back in a few weeks. Hopefully. Then they run, putting as much distance as they can between themselves and Insomnia before Cor can catch up to them and drag them home.

-It takes them longer than expected. Romulus remembered a lot of things and a lot of missions, but Niflheim holds a lot of territory and they can only hit so many bases before they risk capture and discovery from either side.

-But they do have some ways to narrow it down, and the twins lost their qualms against “aggressive negotiations” to gain information a very long time ago.

….

-Titus doesn’t know how long he’s been there. Only that it’s been too long. Far too long.

-Long enough to know that no one is coming. He is alone. Forgotten. Abandoned.

-Just like his home when Mors pulled back the Wall, not even sparing a thought for the region of small towns and simple villages right on his doorstep that were no match for Niflheim’s military.

-Long enough that he’s stopped trying to fight it when they come into his cell and unshackle him from the wall to drag him off to the lab for another session. Another agony filled day of them pumping black sludge and liquid metal into his veins and watching him writhe on the table as it forces itself into shape around his skin and then slides back underneath when the scientists press certain buttons.

-He hates them. He  h a t e s  them.

-He’s starting to hate the Lucis Caelums more. For leaving him. Just like they left his family to burn, just like they left all of Lucis to burn.

-(And in the back of his mind he knows that’s not fair, that he should hate the people doing this to him not those who live safe and far away, but he is helpless against these scientists who keep him drugged and shackled, and it is so much easier to hate the things that he doesn’t have to be terrified of, so much easier to keep himself alive when his hate has a target he can imagine lashing out at rather than the ones who have long since gotten wise to his escape attempts and tricks and pin him down body and soul).

-Titus has been here too long and as he is dragged to the table and strapped down for the (tenth-hundreth-thousandth) time he knows that no one is coming.

-He doesn’t realize that the shaking of the world is not just another side effect of his mind struggling to cope with whatever the sludge and metal does to him until the scientists stop in the middle of their work and start looking around.

-One of them looks toward the door and orders an MT to go check what was going on. The unit leaves and the pain resumes.

-Until the intermittent shivering of the world turns into one long, prolonged shake. Like reality is a wet dog and the entire lab is a stubborn drop of water that won’t quite leave the fur coat. Somewhere to his right, the head scientist, a weedy man with black hair and a propensity to laugh in childish delight when Titus gets violent, yells something that sounds like “earthquake? Here? Impossible!”

-Titus loses time easily on the table, and he isn’t terribly surprised when he blinks his eyes open without memory of closing them and instinctively looks around to try to reorient himself in regards to time (to whether the session is almost over or if he still has a long way of torment to go)

-Why is his face wet.

-Why does the wetness taste like copper.

-Is he bleeding again? Did the liquid metal come out of his skin too fast and open large gashes again?

-A blink of lost time, a sluggish glance to the right.

-Had … had the weedy scientist man been pinned to the wall by a sword through his chest for long?

-Why were all the scientists screaming? He was the only one who did screaming during the sessions.

-Another blink and the screaming was quiet but the alarms were like nails in his ears, so loud he almost couldn’t hear the words being said to him by the person yanking the restrains off his arms, “-kay, Captain, we’re gonna get you out of here. Just hang on. You hear me, Captain?”

-…Captain?

-Only one person called him Captain.

-He lifted a hand toward the … person? Hallucination? and brushed his knuckles against a slender cheek, metal skittering in and out of his hand, reaching for the person-vision-thing with something like curiosity, “Re … mus?”

-Blue eyes, darker than their usual ice, as dark as the ocean or the King’s magic, filmed with tears. The hand that took his was scarred in familiar patterns, burns that were done by fire but branched jaggedly like lightning, “I’m here, Captain. I’m getting you out.” A glance to Titus’s other side and a tightening of the jaw, “We’re getting you out. Just hang on, okay?”

-Titus had to be dreaming. Or dying. Finally. The royal princes were very openly not fond of him, for all they had chosen to make him their preferred pestering target and training chew toy for the last 4 years. They were only 16 and this was a Niflheim military laboratory. No one was coming for him, especially not the princes.

-Titus did his best to hang on to Remus’s shoulder anyway as the much smaller teen have carried, half dragged him down torn up, smoking hallways. Ahead of him, silver gleamed, not like the liquid metal the scientists kept pumping in his veins (that he was probably dying of right now) but brighter. Purer.

-Romulus’s armiger had always been a thing of deadly beauty, especially when Titus wasn’t on the receiving end of it. It carved through the MT Units that tried to stop them with barely a thought, the dozens of swords the boy had obsessively collected swapping from the air to his hands and back in the space of blinks, defending or destroying by turns.

-Not a single Unit or bullet got anywhere near Titus and Remus.

-Something coiled around him, warm and painful, but a … good kind of painful. Not like the scientists and their tools. More like the burn of a hot shower against sore muscles.

-Not a bad thing to feel while he dreamed up a rescue scenario as he died.

-A blink that lasted too long, because when he opened his eyes again, he was lying on his back, being dragged through the grass on some kind of makeshift shield sled. The sky was above him, so open and vibrant he hadn’t realized he’d started to forget what colors other than black, silver, and white were until just then. He didn’t dare blink away the tears that started, because he didn’t want to miss this. This dream of rescue and freedom in his final moments.

-It was evening. If he craned his head, he could see smoke rising in the distance. The base that had held him nothing more than an empty shell.

-The vision of Remus was still talking from where he and Romulus were dragging Titus’s shield sled, “-a little longer. We’ll patch you up once we get to the Haven, okay? Just a little longer.”

-He blinked. Opened his eyes to pain.

-Pain-pain-pain-painpainPAINMAKEITSTOPPLEASE-

-“What’s wrong with him?”

-“I don’t know! He might- he might be going through withdrawals from whatever drugs the Nifs used?”

-“It’s been hours past that point and it started up just now, withdrawals have more warning than that-!” swearing, loud and by his ear as he writhed in burning white agony, “Is he seizing? Hold him down till I get an elixir!”

-“-not working I don’t know what’s wrong-”

-“-ven! It’s the Haven!”

-“What?”

-“Captain never went on Havens! No one knew why, and he always had a good excuse so no one really questioned it but-.”

-“Daemon blood, it’s got to be, they probably used it as a conduit for the armor. The Haven was trying to purify him-.”

-“He’s off the Haven now, why hasn’t it stopped?”

-“We interrupted the process, the suit isn’t complete and we probably just screwed up whatever counted for stable with it-.”

-PainpainpainpainpleasejustmakeitstopjustenditenditENDIT

-“-dare die, Captain! Don’t you dare die on me!”

-Please.

-Just.

-E n d   i t.

-Hand on his chest and on his neck it hurthurthurt-, “You don’t get to leave me behind!”

-Light.

-White hot light, brighter than the sun, brighter and more agonizing than anything in life before or after.

-Kids in front of him. Kids who thought they were adults, thought they were ready for war, thought they were ready for magic to reach inside and change them forever.

-His boys. His girls. His idiots.

-His Glaives.

-Blood and bandages, blades and crisp black uniforms edged in silver. “Appropriate,” laughed the shadow of the jungle and the storm on his heels and where did he know that voice from? Where did he know that shadow?

-Endless battlefields and unchanging training rooms, the flicker of braids in the corner of his eyes, meanings kept secret, meanings absorbed through exposure until the sight of pink made him cringe and the glimpse brown beads made his heart hurt in sympathy. A hundred faces come and gone, a dozen more that stayed-stayed-stayed. Brown eyes green eyes burning burning blue. Lips in a hundred different faces with a hundred different names, all of them looking at him and calling him the same thing in fondness-anger-respect-heartbreak-affection-trust.

-“Captain.”

-“Hey, Captain.”

-“Yo, Cap!”

-“For Hearth and Home, right Captain? As long as there is breath in my body, I follow that order.”

-A name on the tip of his tongue, a knowing that was fond and angry and regretful all at once. The glimpse of beads.

-Lightning branching scars made of purple fire.

-The pain stopped.

-Titus opened his eyes.

-And looked into burning burning blue, set in a face that was partially cracked open in branching lightning scars that bled purple fire, “Hey … Captain.”

-There was a name on Titus’s lips, and it wasn’t “Remus”, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what that name was. At least not before the world went dark and he passed out from the relief of no longer being in pain.

-He woke up to the crackling of a campfire and a sprawling night sky over his head. For a moment he lay there in utter disbelief, not daring to move just in case he woke up back in the lab. Something shifted off to his right and a moment later a small, calloused hand rests on his forehead, “Awake for real this time, Drautos?”

-Titus stares, “…Prince Romulus?” The words cracked in his throat and when his coughing fit died down, the prince who shouldn’t be there handed him a canteen of water. Titus inhaled carefully several times after drinking, then looked up again. The prince was still there, “…How?”

-Prince Romulus sat back on his heels with a carefully blank expression, “You’re a hard man to find, Drautos. And a hard one to keep alive.”

-“I … what?”

-The Prince looked over his shoulder and Titus jerked internally when he spotted Prince Remus curled up asleep on a bedroll, exhaustion in every line of his teenage body, his branching scars far more vivid than usual.

-Purple fire spilling free of skin and blue, blue eyes and memories he can’t see-hear-touch-.

-“You … you came for me.” Titus whispered, unable to believe it, but also unable to disbelieve it. Why?

-Romulus grunted and evaded the implicit question in Titus’s words, “It took us longer than we thought to find you. Didn’t realize the Nifs had so many labs, let alone in Lucis. Then we got you out to a Haven and whatever they pumped in you decided to send you into some kind of violent fit.”

-Titus could remember that, dimly, and it made him feel sick just thinking of the black sludge and the liquid metal squirming under his skin-.

-Except he couldn’t feel it anymore.

-He pressed his hands over his arms, trying to find the feeling of foreign, painful metal inside him and instead felt … something else. Light. Twin suns of light hiding in his core, one that nipped and grumbled at his senses like a winter-chilled river that looked calm on the surface but raged quick and fast underneath, and another that crackled and sparked eagerly down his bones like lightning and the pounding of rain. Magic. Twin cores of magic, humming under his skin in place of the horrible, burning liquid metal the Nifs had constantly forced into his veins.

-…The princes’ magic?

-Romulus saw his look and turned his face away, “Remus burned the Starscourge and that … metal … out of your body with his magic but something needed to replace it. It had … carved you up inside and leaving those channels empty … would have been fatal.” Romulus glared at the night beyond the Haven, “I’m not explaining that well. But that’s what happened. Then he passed out.”

-Titus couldn’t untangle his emotions properly, they were too jumbled and strong do to more than rasp, “And … you?” Because there were two distinct magics inside him now, he could feel them.

-Romulus shook his head, stood up and prowled a few steps away to the campfire before sitting down again and admitting gruffly, “Remus wasn’t enough. After you were purified, you went into shock. I’d brought along ten phoenix downs just in case something happened…” The prince inhaled slowly, whispered more to the flames than Titus, “I ran out. You were still fading. So I dragged you back.”

-“Why?” Titus’s hands were shaking and he couldn’t get them to stop, couldn’t think about what the prince’s words made him feel because if he did he would break before he could get an answer and he needed to know. Needed to know why the two princes that had never acted particularly fond of him would race into the wilds, would risk their lives to free him, and then would … give him their magic.

-It wasn’t Romulus who answered, but a sluggish Remus, who slurred from his bedroll, “Cause you’re our Captain.” Remus blinked sleepily, yawned and finished, “Hearth and Home. ’S what matters most. Hearth is where you stay, Home’s the people in it. That’s you.” Blue eyes fluttered shut again before Titus could think of a response, but when he looked over at Romulus, the eldest prince was watching him solemnly.

-The prince tilted his chin in agreement with his twin, then added very softly, “We were afraid of you because you’re from Cavaugh. Our father already has to deal with enough bitterness and backlash over Mors’ reign, we didn’t know how you would react, being so close to the royal family that failed your town. But then you disappeared and … a prince takes care of his people. We can’t save everyone, we don’t have that kind of power. No one does. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.” Then he shook his head, shifting to sit with his back to the fire and his sword on his shoulder, a soldier keeping watch even though there was no need on a Haven, “Go to sleep. You’ve been through a lot. We’ll call for pickup to Insomnia in the morning.”

-Titus lay back down very slowly, head spinning and limbs shaking, his entire world upended and shaky. Except for one thing. One realization, one burning vow, curling tight in his chest.

-These princes were his. They had come for him. When he’d lost all hope that anyone could come, they had. They had come and carried him to freedom, burned out the poison in his veins and given him each a piece of themselves to keep him alive when they had no obligation to do any such thing. No matter what he thought of Mors, or their father, for that …

-For that he would stand beside the throne without hesitation or doubt.

-He woke up the next afternoon to find that Remus had somehow migrated from his bedroll to Titus’s and was sleeping curled up under one arm, his magic tangling around Titus’s soul and keeping the nightmares at bay while Romulus, who had drifted over sometime in the night, dozed fitfully within arm’s reach away. When Titus stirred, Remus clung tighter to the tattered Crownsguard coat they had dressed him in at some point. Remus called him “Captain” the same way King Regis beckoned his Shield, (the same way a child called out to a trusted adult, and what had he ever done to earn that trust from two boys who were known to have been abused so badly by adults before), and Titus relaxed obediently into the teen’s hold.

-And he knew.

-He was theirs. Whatever they needed of him, whatever they wanted him to be to them, that’s what he would be. For them he would burn down the world if they only asked, and in their defense he would give anything.

[jediryssabean]

si vis amari, ama

hey youse guys....... look at what i have here, some completely irrelevant piece of fiction that i needed.

please play final fantasy xv

special thanks as always to @baegerbombtastic, who dramatiqueally encourages my bullshit, suffers through ten drafts, and says “what the fuck” every time prompto says “ooh, love the lighting.” 

in addition to this, i’d also like to laugh at: @ereriere who falls where we do, and @burningfairytales for also diving in to ffxv headfirst. 

my weaknesses are as follows: prompto lifting noctis, because he can definitely bench the prince; deep and meaningful love confessions; kissing

-

Pairing: Prompto Argentum/Noctis Lucis Caelum Verse: Canon divergent (fuck you, square enix) Rating: T Summary: Noctis’ cheek is smooth against his knuckles, his hair soft against the pads of his fingers when Noctis tilts his head. “I know that it’s, like, a bad omen to say this, but—“

“You’re going to say it anyway,” is a murmur against his skin.

And he does. Say it anyway, that is. “But who’s around to tell us that we don’t have as much time as we want?” It doesn’t feel like a curse when it comes out of his mouth. There’s no slime left behind on his teeth, or dirt caught against his gums, or anything like that. So—so, maybe it’s not as bad an omen as it could be. Maybe this time, they really do have all the time in the world. 

Noctis laughs against his palm. Prompto feels it there like scattered sand. 

Or you can [Read on AO3]!

-

Playlists for running and playlists for roadtrips are two entirely different things, in Prompto’s experience.

Road trip playlists, obviously, have to be loud—really loud. He’s got to be borderline unable to hear the wind rushing past his ears, the only other thing in the periphery of his awareness being Noctis in the back seat, singing just as obnoxiously as he is. But they’ve also got to be fun. Like—you know, crafted for tapping out drumbeats on the dashboard, destined for more-or-less choreographed moments where eye contact has to be made. They’re the bane of everyone else’s existence, probably—but he doesn’t really make them for everyone else.

He makes them for Noctis.

Playlists built for running, however, are an entirely different artform. These are made for landscapes bigger than the human brain can wrap itself around, designed to reflect the awe of being alive—or, well. They’re built for a specific kind of awe—being alive right now, being right here, with the asphalt rising beneath his sneakers as he’s pulling in breaths with the swelling of some soft, bullshit pop filling his ears.

These he makes for himself.

It’s why it’s always been a mistake to look at Noctis with his earbuds still in his ears after a run. Ah—not really a mistake, but... well. It’s always been overwhelming to look at Noctis with a run still pushing its way through his system.

Usually it’s not a problem. Noctis rarely ever gets up early, and even when he does there’s that sleepiness that permeates every move he makes. The wind-down, the stretching, the hydrating—all of it’s always done before Noctis is conscious enough to be... himself.

But sometimes it’s unavoidable. Sometimes the world works in mysterious ways. Sometimes Noctis is awake to greet the sunrise.

It’s been more common, lately—ever since he’d been to the future and back again.

Still, though, it manages to be unexpected to the point where it gives Prompto pause as he slows down at the edge of Lestallum’s city limit. Almost no one is up at this time, barring the engineers at the power plant and the cafés that cater to their schedules, so Noctis stands out as the only human-shaped shadow in the parking lot overlooking a postcard-worthy view of Duscae, stretching out to the southeast.

The music swells in Prompto’s ears as a breeze rises up from the valley, stirring Noctis’ hair, pulling at his clothes, ghosting over the curves of his cheeks. The sun is working its way over the horizon, crawling from over the treetops to turn the sky purple-blue-gold, and the song in his earbuds shifts again, rising into something that gives Prompto goosebumps as Noctis blinks, holds his eyes closed, takes a deep breath—

(Prompto had been pretty sure that it wasn’t normal to take, like, six-or-so years to talk to another person. Psyching oneself up really shouldn’t take that long, as far as he knew, and yet there he’d been, six years and some change later, looking at Noctis’ back as he’d walked down a corridor in early fall, heading toward the courtyard.

He’d been alone, because Noctis had always been alone.

There’d been music in Prompto’s ears, his earbuds lodged firmly in place, and his heart had been doing some sort of wild gymnastics in his chest. The soft shadows had swayed to an unseen rhythm, the footsteps of other students had been completely swallowed by some slow-dance, doo-wop garbage, because stuff like that had always made running easier.

Talking to Noctis had been a lot like running, in retrospect. Somehow.

Prompto’s palms had started sweating, and it had gotten worse with every step he took. The barely-noticeable sun had made his cheeks feel layered over with summertime concrete, and it had been impossible to swallow.

He’d reached out and it’d felt like a romantic drama, because there’d been singing in his head.

“hey, prince noctis!”)

A tug and his earbuds come free, Lestallum whispering to itself as it tries to make itself presentable for the morning. Prompto’s sneakers are the loudest thing within at least a kilometer as he takes the stairs to the parking lot, his earbuds hanging loose against his collarbones.

“Hey there,” he says. The stone of the wall beneath his forearms is rough, digging asymmetrical patterns into his skin as he leans against it. “Come out here to snooze the view away?”

Noctis scoffs, opening one eye to regard him, and the sunlight waters itself down as it bleeds through the valley-fog, dappling his face with—freckles. It’s a little bit funny, really. They match.

“Sleepwalking,” Noctis tells him, and the feather-kissed sun-marks shift along the bridge of his nose. “Apparently I wanted to see the sunrise. Who knew?”

“You’re kidding.” The fog is thicker in the shade of the trees below Lestallum’s cliff-face. It looks like a living thing from up here. “You’re not serious.”

A smile, brief and looking like it tastes of early morning. There’s mischief there, dulled in some ways—or maybe it’s just in an unfamiliar shape. “I’m not serious. That’d be some bullshit side-effect though, huh? Some magic-based, biological windfall, or whatever. ‘No more warping for you, but compensatory sleepwalking.’” Noctis’ nose wrinkles half-a-heartbeat before one of his hands run down his face, and he snorts into his palm. “That’d be something else.”

He sounds bitter, and it’s sharp enough that Prompto can feel it on his own tongue, stinging against the roof of his mouth. “It’d also require sleeping, though, right?” It’s not an accusation, not really—but it’s something that Prompto has to set down on the wall, in the fraction’s worth of space between their elbows, while Noctis huffs out a breath that sounds almost like a laugh, but not quite.

“Yeah,” Noctis says, and both his eyes are open as the sun crests the treeline of the valley, turning everything leeward of the sun gold. “I guess.”

Lestallum is coming alive behind them in stops and starts. Noise has begun to echo out from storefronts and restaurants—people shouting greetings to one another as the shifts at the power plant change over, stonemasons groaning about fixing potholes in the cobblestone walkways downtown, shopkeepers speculating aloud how to arrange sale displays and window advertisements.

Noctis is untouched by all of it, watching the horizon as his eyes turn silver-gold-silver whenever he blinks.

Prompto almost says something—and it’d probably would’ve been inane, just something to say that would keep them talking. Maybe it might’ve been some stupid compliment, about sunrises and princes-turned-kings, and how Noctis has been the axis on which the universe rotates from the Crown City, to the future, and back. It’s hard to tell what would’ve come out of his mouth, since Noctis speaks first, shifting his attention from the breeze, and the sun, and the fog to put the weight of it on Prompto’s shoulders.

He knows how to wear weight like that by now.

“How was your run?” Noctis asks, turning his body so that his hip is resting against the inside of the wall, one palm pressed to the uneven surface of the stone above.

“It was pretty good, all things considered. No daemons, or MTs, or, like... anything. It was almost like running in Insomnia, except with less buildings. And people. Still kinda hot, though.” Prompto can smell coffee from here, carried on a breeze that also smells like breakfast, and his stomach rolls with a craving. But it can wait. “Why? Did you miss me?”

(Rust and metal, heavy in Prompto’s lungs when he’d breathed. His muscles had ached, because his arms had been spread perpendicular to his body. He’d been unsure if all the blood had settled in his shoulders, or the soles of his feet, or if it kept rushing to his head to make him dizzy.

The floor had been cold beneath his knees, but when Noctis looked at him, he felt nothing but warmth, moving from his chest to his fingertips to his toes.

He’d laughed, and it’d hurt to do so. “were you worried about me?”

Noctis had grimaced, had wrinkled his nose, had shifted forward almost imperceptibly. His fingers had twitched, the Ring of the Lucii glowing even in lighting that fucking garish, and Noctis’ voice had scattered like dust the moment it moved past his lips.

“of course i was.” Grimace, lips rolled over the teeth, eyes dropped to the side. “what kind of question is that?”

A ringing had started in Prompto’s ears.)

Noctis breathes out a laugh, laying it out over the wall like silk out to dry.

“Probably,” he says, even though his voice echoes with a parallel memory, with ‘what kind of question is that?’, with the feeling of breaking. “What good is waking up if you’re not breathing in my hair?”

“You make it sound way weirder than it is,” Prompto tells him, even as he thinks of the way Noctis’ hair feels against his nose when his own alarm goes off. Vanilla-and-lavender, gathering in his sinuses. Noctis’ heartbeat, muffled against his chest. “It’s not that weird. You could just say, ‘wow, Prompto, I really missed you, like, so much. Unbelievably a lot. It’s impossible to sleep without you there.’”

“And that’s not weird?” Noctis arches one eyebrow, letting it get lost in the mess of his bangs.

The rhythm is easy to fall into. It’s always been. “No. It’s not weird at all. It’s perfectly normal to miss me that much, and to say so.”

Noctis’ lips move upward, a whisper of a curve in their shape, and he’s—looking at him makes Prompto’s chest feel tight, makes it impossible to tell if this head is foggy because of the humidity or because it’s difficult to breathe, makes something fucking romantic start beating against the inside of his ribcage. It’s unreal, moments like this. They make him wish that he’d brought his camera on his run.

But then the smile burns away, like the fog so far below them, and Noctis drops his eyes. There’s a hairline fracture in the stone floor of the overlook, and his gaze traces it. The breeze sighs against Prompto’s hair. It brushes against the shadows underneath Noctis’ eyes.

And Noctis says, “I did. Miss you, I mean.” A pause, and another breeze sighs over the wall, over the parking lot, through the city proper. Lestallum has started to hum with vehicles and people, with laughter and food-peddling. “I didn’t know where I was when I woke up. Couldn’t get back to sleep.” The nail of one thumb is picking at the surface of the stone wall. Prompto can hear it, even as he can’t look away from Noctis’ face. That’s how he sees the barely-there reflection of mischief in the lifted glance toward Prompto’s eyes, his cheeks, the curve of his eyebrows. “Besides, I like to watch you sweat.”

Prompto doesn’t know what to say when Noctis talks like that—when he says something serious and pretends he didn’t.

It makes him feel like he can hear drumbeats in the distance. His bones vibrate with the feeling.

(Prompto’s camera shutter-sigh-clicked around a picture that left him breathless, but that hadn’t been anything new.

Noctis had been looking at the stars in the middle of the night, after everything. His face had worn his journey like ruined fabric, and the skin beneath his eyes had looked stained with bruises, but he’d still been too gorgeous for words. The haven’s wards had hummed around him as the breeze ran its fingers through his hair, and his eyes had been clear enough to bring to mind the image of a frozen lake.

Or something like that. He’d decided he could figure out the best description as he’d looked through these photos later.

The whisper of the nighttime had gotten lost in the rustle of Prompto’s clothes as he’d taken a seat beside Noctis, perched on the lip of the haven’s edge. The air had felt heavy with… something. Humidity, maybe. But Prompto doubted that.

 “hey,” Noctis had said without turning his head.

“hey yourself,” Prompto had replied. “what’re you looking for?”

Whatever it was, it’d had been a moment that hadn’t been made for a playlist. Prompto hadn’t been able to explain why.

A shrug, almost liquid enough to be natural—but not quite. “nothin’. just couldn’t sleep.” A heartbeat’s worth of silence, not even long enough to breathe in, much less ask why, before Noctis was already speaking again. “did i hear your camera when you came out here?”

The metal edge of his camera had been cool beneath his thumb when he’d said, “sure did. why? thinking of going on an early morning adventure with me?”

Laughter, soft but electric. “you wish. can i look through the photos?”

It’d had been a surprise, despite their history. Sure, they’d looked through pictures together before. Yeah, Noctis had asked him stories about photos he’d taken as a child. And, okay, they’d been looking through these photos regularly for, like, months now but—but—

Well. Noctis hadn’t really the kind of person who asked to look through the same pictures twice.

But Prompto hadn’t been able to say no to that, to the curve of his smile and the exhaustion tucked in the hollows of his cheeks.

They’d been silent, more-or-less, as he’d skimmed the photos on the camera’s screen. Sometimes Noctis would hum. Sometimes Prompto would clarify a memory, relive it with words, create context, bring it into the present with both hands. But, mostly, it’d been quiet, because Noctis didn’t fell the need to fill silence like that.

Until he’d gotten to photos later, where his thumb had paused on one.

Something had begun to shift in him—on his face, in his eyes, in the position of his shoulders. And Noctis had said, “can we print this one?”

dude, it’s just a picture of me, is what Prompto could’ve told him. He could’ve said, altissia made my skin look orange. He could’ve laughed, and spluttered, and replied, aw, are you going to frame it?

But Noctis’ voice had cracked, a little. There’d been something serious in that question, and Prompto hadn’t known how to ask after whatever-it-was. And so Prompto had told him, “sure. first outpost we get to, i’m sure someone will let me toy around in their photo center.”

They’d been quiet for a long time, after that. It’d just been the nighttime and their breathing. It’d just been the pop-hiss of the fire behind them and the sound of rolling thunder as if from far, far away.)

Prompto’s been silent for two moments too long, and he knows that when he sees both of Noctis’ eyebrows arch, his smile going lopsided, his next glance coming from beneath lowered lashes. “What, no offer of a big, sweaty kiss? Shit, did I miss my window? Should I’ve opened with that?”

“Why do you do that?” The question is out before he can say something funny, before he can figure out a more tactful way to talk about this, before he can get lost in the stupid, beautiful mess of noise that rushes against his ears whenever they kiss.

A blink, surprised. The kiss of his eyelashes against his cheeks. And then, “do what?”

“That thing you just did. Where you say something important and then pretend like you didn’t just say an important thing.” For the second time, Noctis begins to pick at the wall with his thumbnail. Prompto lowers his voice and leans close, slowly, but Noctis doesn’t back away. “What’s keeping you awake?”

The pause between them tastes like the Lestallum morning—tastes like mist and food shops and Noctis’ soap from the night before. Prompto lets it linger for as long as Noctis wants it to.

He keeps the inside of his head quiet while he waits.

One heartbeat. Two heartbeats. Three. A breath. One heartbeat, two—

“Sleeping feels like a waste of time,” Noctis tells him. He’s speaking soft enough that it’s almost impossible to catch it. “Which sounds fucking crazy, doesn’t it? But I—shit, why would I be sleeping when I could be out here, and I can see you, or whatever.” A laugh, and it’s brittle, and Prompto thinks he can see the edges of it cut into Noctis’ cheeks from inside his mouth. “I wasted so much time.”

It’s cryptic in a prophetic sort of way—in an Oracle sort of way. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, even after… this. The end of the world. Whatever-it-is that Noctis had seen in the future.

But Prompto’s pretty sure he understands this feeling, in some ways. At the very least, he’s certain that he’s felt it before.

(Noctis, alone in the schoolyard. In the hallway. In his classrooms. Even surrounded by people.

And all Prompto’d had to do was say hello.

But he hadn’t. He hadn’t.)

Noctis’ cheek is smooth against his knuckles, his hair soft against the pads of his fingers when Noctis tilts his head. “I know that it’s, like, a bad omen to say this, but—“

“You’re going to say it anyway,” is a murmur against his skin.

And he does. Say it anyway, that is. “But who’s around to tell us that we don’t have as much time as we want?” It doesn’t feel like a curse when it comes out of his mouth. There’s no slime left behind on his teeth, or dirt caught against his gums, or anything like that. So—so, maybe it’s not as bad an omen as it could be. Maybe this time, they really do have all the time in the world.

Noctis laughs against his palm. Prompto feels it there like scattered sand.

And then Prompto continues speaking, because a laugh like that has to burn the throat that makes it. “You know there’s not, like, a second that’s felt wasted with you, right? There’s never—I’ve never felt like we’ve wasted time together.”

i wish i’d said something sooner, is what he wants to say. i wish you didn’t feel like you had to take all the blame for this. But the words get stuck, somewhere between his lungs and his tonsils, and the only thing he can do is drag his thumb in loose and slowly mutating circles against Noctis’ cheek.

Noctis’ eyes are closed for this, and Prompto wonders what he’s thinking. He’s letting himself lean into this touch, lets himself breathe in some slightly uneven inhale-stutter-exhale pattern that Prompto’s pretty sure mimics the one from when he sleeps.

Lestallum is noisy. The sun is up. There’s a barcode on Prompto’s wrist and Noctis is leaning into that hand anyway. He can feel the inhale-stutter-exhale against the skin he’d tried to burn off. It tickles.

Prompto thinks that there ought to be a fucking playlist for moments just like this one, even though he doesn’t really know what he’d want it to sound like.

There are just so many options, you know?

(His earbuds had been almost too cold to put beneath his knit cap from all the exposure they’d gotten. But the drone of a snowmobile is only so tolerable, and he’d—gods above, the whole thing had been—fuck. Everything had gone to shit, and his nose was running still, and his cheeks burned, and—shit.

At the end of the day, he’d just—he missed Noctis, and he needed something to soothe that ache. The ache of missing. The throb of will he even want me back. The bittersweet sting of thank the six he doesn’t hate me.

Sure, the playlist he’d chosen had been a roadtrip playlist. And, okay, so it hadn’t really been a roadtrip.

But even when the wind had frozen his tongue to the roof of his mouth, he’d felt lighter than he’d had in days.)

“So,” Noctis says, and that’s the only indication Prompto has that he hadn’t actually fallen asleep against his palm, “I’m starving.”

“So,” Prompto replies, and Noctis snorts, a huff of air against his skin, “let’s get breakfast.”

A hum, and it vibrates in the bones of Prompto’s forearm. One eye opens, and it glows the color of an early morning sky—a blue-gray dawn with a rain-squall on the horizon. “Wow, are you asking me out on a date? How forward. So unlike you.”

(A heartbeat’s worth of a moment, years in the making.

“hey, prince noctis!”)

When Prompto laughs, it tastes like taffy, like something sweet and sticky. “Wow, you really don’t want that sweaty kiss do you?”

“Why not get a kiss and breakfast? Do I have to choose?” Noctis lifts his head, both eyes open, and the smile pulling at his mouth makes him look five years younger. This must be what older people talk about—feeling young again.

Prompto can’t say no to a look like that—can’t say no to Noctis when he looks like that. But he blusters anyway, even as he lifts his other hand to cradle Noctis’ face like something precious. “Breakfast and a kiss? Who do you think you are? The King?” Noctis is laughing, and it’s barely audible, but Prompto can feel it in his palms. “So greedy.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Noctis says when their noses brush together. “The King wants to admire his cake and eat it too, blah, blah, blah.” He still sounds so tired, still looks like there’s a ghost behind the mercurial color of his eyes, but this is better. “Do I get that kiss now?”

A moment passes. Prompto can feel his heart kicking against his ribs in double-time, because kissing Noctis never gets any less exciting. But before he can close the infinitesimal distance, he drops a hand from Noctis’ cheek and offers out one earbud.

“You get your kiss,” Prompto tells him, “but you’ve gotta listen to this.”

Confusion, moving across Noctis’ face from left to right, and he takes the earbud and puts it in his ear. “What is this?”

“Nothing,” Prompto replies, and tucks the one left behind into his own ear. The music murmurs, swells, bops along in some staccato rhythm, and there’s probably nothing better than this. “It just makes me think of you, nerd.”

Indignation tightens the skin at the corners of Noctis’ mouth, and he’s about to say something—a rebuttal, for sure. It probably would’ve been hilarious, would’ve just been a parroting of ‘um, who’s the nerd with the playlist here?’, except something about it hits him. That’s the awe-inspiring power of a playlist made for running across asphalt in the Lestallum heat, or through the endless maze of Insomnia, or up and down the beach at Galdin Quay.

“I’ve never heard this one before,” Noctis’ voice is like—it’s comparable to—it’s like snowfall. Snowfall in the summertime, melting before it even gets to the pavement. “And I’m the nerd?” Ah, there it is!

Prompto could explain himself, about the differences between things-they-listen-to-on-the-road and things-only-he­-listens-to-when-he-runs. This is a glimpse behind the curtain, and maybe Noctis knows that. He’s attentive, in some ways—in the ways that matter.

For all the things Prompto could tell him, he doesn’t say any of it. He holds Noctis’ face, because this whole setting-up-the-kiss business has taken long enough, and there will be thousands of other cinematic moments that he can lead into more properly than this one. But for now, their noses brush for the second time, and they tilt their heads in opposite directions just so, and they kiss.

It’s slow, because Prompto keeps it that way. Noctis’ mouth opens underneath his own, and there’s a choir of sound in his head, and this kiss feels exactly like all their other ones and like something else entirely. Tongues over teeth, heads tilt in the opposite directions, a sigh from the nose. The sun is warm against Prompto’s face.

Noctis steps forward, half-a-hair, and it’s a reflex that Prompto recognizes. He shifts his hands from Noctis’ cheeks, to his shoulders, to slide down his waist, and then—

A gasp against Prompto’s lips, a laugh low enough to rattle the overlook beneath their feet, and Prompto tils his head up to compensate for the new angle, for the lift, for the way the toes of Noctis’ boots settle above the laces on Prompto’s sneakers.

“Show-off,” Noctis almost-whispers, and it’s wet. By the Astrals and their shitty personalities, his cheeks are pink. “And you were right. That was a sweaty kiss.”

“I told you so.” Prompto loves this view, with this stupid song vibrating on his tongue. It’s like there’s a winter sky from horizon to horizon, punctuated by too-wide pupils for this time of day. A breeze gossips around their faces, having trouble trying to make space between them. “Want another?”

“Um, duh.” A pause, and the hint of an almost-sad smile in the future crow’s feet beside his eyes. “What kind of question is that?”

The next kiss tastes like memories, and earns them passing acknowledgement by someone easing into a parking space above-and-behind the overlook. The person whistles, high-pitched.

The kiss after that tastes like the future.

And, inevitably, the next one will taste like pop music and breakfast. French toast, probably. With strawberries. Maybe with orange juice, but that’s up in the air.

They’ve got a lot of time to make up for, after all. On both ends.

(“let’s take some photos,” Noctis will say with whipped cream on the curve of his upper lip before his tongue flicks across it to wipe it away. “after you shower, i mean. we don’t have a whole lot of scenic lestallum shots, do we?”

“is that you offering to be my muse? and i don’t even have to ask!”

“shut up,” Noctis will say, stealing half-a-wisp of whipped cream from Prompto’s plate with absolutely no shame. “i meant together.” The weight of the fork in his mouth will give him a second to think and to swallow before he continues speaking, “and, you know... thanks. for...”

This pause will be too long to just let lie, but Noctis won’t know what it is he wants to say. Prompto will see it on his face.

So instead of saying anything, Noctis will reach across the space between them, and he’ll take Prompto’s right hand in his own, and his thumb will rest on the barcode that is now one-hundred-percent, absolutely, undeniably outdated. The print of his thumb will move back and forth along the tattoo itself, and goosebumps will rise on Prompto’s arm, up his shoulder, down his spine.

The clatter of dishware, the murmur of people, and Noctis’ weighted silence as he keeps his eyes on where their hands will be joined together. The optimum soundtrack for a breakfast.

“i love you,” and he will speak in his serious-voice. The voice that makes him King. But it will only last a second, because Prompto’s never demanded that of him in his life. “i—forever. so—thank you. for... letting me.”

Prompto will want to cry, but he’ll swallow the urge. He’ll smile, and he’ll wrinkle his nose, and he’ll say, “haven’t i told you before? you’re the one who makes time for this loser.”

“shut up,” and it’ll be insistent enough to sound like a fork against a ceramic plate.

“i love you,” Prompto will continue.

The only thing Noctis will say to that is, “come here.”)

-

If there’s anything Noctis has learned over the course of his life—besides the obvious, painful, stupid, brutal lessons—it’s that the universe is hooked up to one giant mixtape.

Sure, it sounds crazy when he says it like that, but honestly, it’s the truth. Everything, from the heavens downward, is plugged into a semi-constant, barely-interrupted stream of ambient noise, the music of life, the general chaos of a world-in-motion.

The whisper of the wind over sand, or grass, or the sea. The sound of boots against polished wood, or tile, or newly-soft earth from recent rainfall. The hiss of tires on asphalt, over cracked roadways, over bridges that go on forever. The murmur of cities and outposts, in the morning, the afternoon, and the middle of the fucking night. The groan of a catopblepas that way too close for comfort, its feet sloshing through mud older than anyone Noctis knows.

The sigh of a breeze through an open window, on air that smells like the hour before a sunset in Lestallum. A pause with all the weight of a warm, late afternoon behind it, and then—

“Shit,” a whisper, scattered against the hotel room carpet, catching itself on the fibers there. “Fuck.”

The mixtape skips, swears for the third time, and settles into Prompto’s unique and punctuated sound-effects. The Prompto-playlist. The tap-tap-tap of an index finger against a phone screen, a fourth swear, a drawn out groan that’s not even loud enough to make it to the windowpane.

Something in Noctis’ chest tightens as Prompto’s thigh shifts behind his head.

(His knee ached.

It’d been more-or-less a noise he’d lived with for... years. Years of his life, spent walking to this invisible beat that triggered itself every five steps, lodged in his hip on the sixth, and faded out into a rhythm that started all over again five steps later.

He hadn’t known the truth about the universal mixtape yet, but it’d been coming just down the hallway that already felt like it’d been decorated with the trappings of early winter.

The stutter of sneakers against tile as Noctis pushed open the door to the courtyard, his ears going cold in the newness of the chill. The rattle of a schoolbag at someone’s side, adorned with at least one loose charm swinging from a clasp. Uneven huffs of air.

“hey, prince noctis!”

The play button had clicked, tucked away beneath the murmur of the courtyard, the whisper of his clothes as he’d turned, the sigh of the wind through the trees.)

“Let me guess,” Noctis says without opening his eyes, “did that dungeon just annihilate you?”

There’s a pause that lasts only half-a-heartbeat, and then, “no. The boss actually ran away, thanks. I didn’t get annihilated.” Another pause, and this time Noctis opens his eyes to find himself being watched. Watched softly, even, with Prompto’s phone placed somewhere out of sight. “Did I wake you up, or...?”

Prompto’s fingers are gentle against Noctis’ forehead as he moves hair away from his eyebrows, and the expression on his face is ten years too old.

“No,” Noctis tells him, caught between pushing himself upright so Prompto will stop looking at him like that and staying exactly where he is. His body opts for the latter. “I wasn’t sleeping. I was basking.”

“Uh-huh, basking. Right-o.” That’s better, the way Prompto’s nose wrinkles in a snort, making his freckles dance along his cheeks. It’s beautiful. Breathtaking. And that cliché, about constellations made of freckles? That image was about moments like this, about Prompto in particular. It’s just that Noctis had been born a little too late to tell that to everyone else.  “So since you weren’t sleeping, I guess that means you know that Ignis and Gladio went to go meet up with the Hunters in town.”

Noctis hadn’t known that, and from the way Prompto’s lips are curling at the corners, he’s sure that it’s all over his face. “I’d guessed as much,” is what he says, even though it’s more-or-less a half-truth. “It’s so quiet around here. I had the opportunity to just sit and listen to you swear at King’s Knight.”

Prompto scoffs, scattering the sound like gem dust. “Uh-huh. You do know that there’s no shame in catching some sleep, right?”

It’s not like there’s anything sharp in the way Prompto says that. It’s not a barb, or—or something vicious. In fact, it’s soft, and light, and fucking gentle, and all the things that Prompto’s always been. It puts pressure on his ear drums, sends blood rushing against them hard enough to make his eyes hurt. He can’t breathe under conditions like this.

Noctis is drowning, somehow. It’s hard to describe.

But his voice is even when it comes from behind his teeth, “okay, sure, says the one that gets up before the sunrise to go for a run.”

That wasn’t a jab either, and yet it flickers across Prompto’s face like light on the surface of a lake. The silence around them is brittle, the curtains beside the open window settling for fear of breaking it. There’s a tension in the line of Prompto’s mouth, even as it refuses to fall into anything less than a smile.

The tape skips again.

(Noctis had been watching the window, his spine pressed to Prompto’s chest. Gladio had been snoring, rattling the walls as if he’d been throwing marbles around the room. Underneath that, he’d been able to hear Lestallum—the hum of the lights in the alleyways, the murmur of the people who never sleep, the laughter of bar-hoppers who’d had too much to drink.

Still further beneath all of that, a whisper into his hair, paired with the tightening of Prompto’s arms around his ribcage.

“shut up,” Prompto had said, his fingers twitching against his own forearms. The sigh of his skin against the bedsheets had somehow become louder than Gladio. His words had been pulled taut, like wire about to snap. “shut up—i’m—“

A gasp, a shudder, the tightening and loosening of his arms—and a sigh, breaking the even rhythm of sleep.

The soft whine of the tape rewinding. “hey,” Noctis had said, resetting… everything. The tape of the universe clicked around them both. “roll over.”

“what?” The question was a weight against the sheets, heavy with sleep.

“roll over,” Noctis had said again, even as Prompto’s body had already been moving.

They’d shifted against one another, Noctis worming his arms around Prompto’s waist, pressing his nose to the back of Prompto’s neck—and he’d sighed. The bedclothes had settled back around them, had huffed against their shoulders.

“oh,” Prompto had said into the shadows across from his face. “you didn’t—i mean… thanks.”

“yeah,” Noctis had replied, had shut his eyes to listen.

The tape began to roll forward again, Lestallum singing at his back.)

“We’ve talked about this.” Speaking dulls the edges of Prompto’s cheekbones, soothes the tension that’s pulling his skin tight across them. “We literally just talked about this. You like gross kisses. And watching me run. You said so!”

“The run isn’t the problem with that sentence,” Noctis replies, and for a moment he catches himself thinking of that—of whatever playlist Prompto had shown him this morning. It feels like it might be stuck in his head, pulled along with the ambient noise he’s so used to. “The problem with that sentence is ‘gets up before the sunrise.’ I’m not the only one with a fucked sleep schedule.”

Prompto’s cheek puffs out against his finger when Noctis lifts his hand to touch it. There’s a ridiculous amount of self-control that goes into trying not to smile, and it’s almost effective—but not quite. “I think we’re comparing apples and oranges here.”

“Nah. Pots and kettles.” Noctis feels Prompto’s laughter in his chest, feels it move though his body and pool in his palms like the lost Power of Kings. It raises the hairs on the back of his neck, even as they’re pressed flat against his skin where it rests against Prompto’s thigh. “You know something, though?”

“Maybe. What do I know?” Prompto’s hand finds his own in a way that takes no effort on either of their parts. Their fingers tangle together and then unwind. They push and pull and lace up again. The pattern restarts.

“We’re going to have to get better at this whole ‘sleeping’ thing,” the words taste sweet in his mouth, but thick, sticking to his teeth in long strings. “If we want to make time for, like, Council meetings and shit, but also have time to do… our stuff, we’ll have to manage our time better.”

Prompto’s fingers stutter against his own. The curtain whispers against the open window. “Um. Yeah?”

“Yeah. You know, like, date stuff. I don’t really—“ Noctis wrinkles his nose, watches Prompto’s eyes move back and forth across his face, listens to the sound of musicians in the street below. “I’m sure we’ll still have to sneak out, or whatever but—I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

A shimmer of pink dances across the bridge of Prompto’s nose, flooding his cheeks and muffling the shapes of his freckles against his skin. Noctis can feel warmth under his own cheeks, curling over his bones, prickling along his scalp. By the—by—by whatever, this is… embarrassing. His bones are creaking around this feeling in his chest, he can feel the vibrations of it in his teeth, and—maybe he shouldn’t’ve said anything.

The tape skips, stalls, whines. Noctis wonders if that means the universe is listening, or something.

“Isn’t Ignis the future Councilman? Wasn’t that, like, his thing when we were in school?” Prompto’s trying for humor, but the words don’t bounce quite right. They go wide, sigh against the carpet, pulling sharply at the threads.

Noctis’ voice pops in his mouth—like it’s electrified. With nerves, maybe. Stupidity, probably. “Yeah, that’s a responsibility of his, but the—but the King and the Consort attend Council meetings, too. There’s not a difference between personal and political unity, so, uh...”

Their fingers pause against one another, and Prompto’s looking at him like—looking at him like—

Prompto’s leaning down as Noctis levers himself up on his free hand for a kiss. Their fingers lace tightly, this time. Noctis can feel his knuckles go bloodless as he opens his mouth against Prompto’s lips.

The angle is unique, sure, but not unfamiliar. They’ve kissed like this countless times—in Prompto’s house, in Noctis’ apartment, in the backseat of Cor’s car, in the Regalia. And they’ll kiss like this countless more. In royal bedchambers and on cross-country trains, on ferries to Altissia and airships to Tenebrae.

Noctis hopes to remember their travels like that—in all the places they kissed, how they kissed there.

If his mouth hadn’t been otherwise occupied (angles shift in the rustle of clothes, the floor creaks under Noctis’ weight, his hand moves from the floor to Prompto’s hair to find it soft beneath his fingertips,) he’d say it out loud. But it is, and they’re alone, (they both sigh, groan softly, kiss again) and the farthest wall is turning golden, sunlight smeared along the off-patterned paper as if by human hands—

The kiss stops, the tape skips, and Noctis pushes himself fully upright.

“Hey,” Prompto’s fingers squeeze his own, and his half-smile is still wet from the kiss—kisses—they’d just shared on a hotel room floor. “Uh, I wasn’t done?”

It works like... warping, when Prompto tilts his head and smiles a little wider and arches his eyebrows. All Noctis would have to do is lean into it, a reflex borne of daydreams and practice. It’d bring to life the sensation of stars against his bones, of wind rushing around his ears, of—

Noctis stops, half-a-hair away from being caught in another kiss. Instead, he bumps their foreheads, huffing against Prompto’s lips.

“After,” he says. “We need another photo, first.”

Prompto laughs, and it dances across the room on light feet, barely touching the floor. “Dude, did you talk to Vyv this morning, or something?  One last hurrah before he can’t send us on his errands anymore?”

The shadows made by the curtains shift on the wall, eavesdropping. Noctis scoffs, his knees popping as he stands, offering his hand for Prompto to take. “No. I didn’t want to end up in an underground volcano on the way back home. We already know that Dino’s gonna have a magnum opus fetch-quest for us when we stop by Galdin.”

More laughter, peppered against Noctis’ knuckles like kisses as Prompto pulls himself to his feet. “‘Hey, Ince-pray, I know youse have a home to get back to, but there’s this one last gem—’”

“Stop, you’re too good at that, holy shit.” There’s—there’s something rising in his chest, cresting the horizon of his heart, blossoming against the backs of his lungs. He can taste it when he breathes. “But—anyway, no, Vyv didn’t give us work to do. I asked Holly—Holly told me about—“ A pause, a huff, and he shakes his head. “The roof of the Leville has the best view in Lestallum at sunset. Even though Titan’s not holding onto the Disc anymore, it still looks—I don’t fucking know. Touched.”

The corners of Prompto’s eyes soften when he says, “okay. You know I can’t say no to a photo op.”

“I know. Which is why we need to head to the roof. You’ll love the lighting.”

“I don’t get how you can always call me a nerd when you do that.” Prompto swipes the camera from where it had been resting at the foot of their bed, tucking it into the satchel strapped to his belt. “Let me get my shoes.”

Noctis’ fingertips are already pressed to the handle of the door. “Leave ‘em. We’re just going up some stairs.”

“Ignis would be ashamed.” Laughter, like pop rocks in soda.

“Ignis isn’t here.” His own, hitting the floor like rainfall.

The door’s hinges are almost silent when it swings open into the empty hall, leaving room in the almost-perfect quiet for the roll-click-sigh of the mixtape, resetting around their shoulders.

Noctis cocks his head to listen.

(Insomina had been a different genre of noise, even when it bled through the barely-there opening in Noctis’ living room window. It laid itself on the floor, bounced along the wood, painted itself across the baseboards like dust.

It’d only been punctuated by Noctis’ quiet coughs and occasional sniffles.

“i didn’t know being sick could get you out of royal soirees,” Prompto had told him, shifting against the sofa to cover Noctis’ bare toes just a little more effectively. Noctis had appreciated it, hadn’t had the words to say so, and so had said nothing. “like, i figured you’d need to be on your deathbed, or something.”

“red noses and snot don’t look so great on magazine covers,” Noctis had replied, clearing cotton spurs from the back of his tonsils. He’d always hated being sick. “it’s not very regal. kings don’t get colds. and i didn’t want to go in the first place.”

“i guess.” The living room, swelling around the sounds of traffic far below them, the distant reek of gasoline and late-night street food. “but i still feel bad getting you all to myself when you could be bumping elbows with, like, the lucian leaders and whatever.”

don’t, Noctis had wanted to say. you usually get me to yourself anyway.

What had come out of his mouth was, “did you want to dance or something?” A sniffle, the tape rolling in the background. The discovery of the universal soundtrack had changed his life, maybe. “since you’re so concerned about my welfare.”

“oh wow a dance with the prince!” Prompto had spoken just a fraction of a decibel too loudly. The question had made him nervous. “be still my beating heart.”

Noctis slid from the couch and onto his feet, his knee aching with the effort, and he’d turned to offer out his hand. Another sniffle, a cough, “come on. my hands are clean and everything, and i’m pretty sure i don’t have cooties.”

“you know,” Prompto’s hand fit into his own, and he’d pulled himself up to standing, “there’s nothing to dance to.”

“i think we can make it work.” Sniffle, cough, repeat.

Prompto had been staring at him, then—had looked him up and down, had watched his face, had let his eyes glitter, had smiled. And then his shoulders had begun to shimmy back and forth, as they’d stood there in the middle of Noctis’ living room, wearing sweatpants and T-shirts. Insomnia rattled against the window.

“i believe in miracles,” Prompto sang very, very softly, had taken Noctis’ hands and threatened to rock them both from side to side like some scene from a school dance in movies, “you sexy thing, you sexy thing you.”

The tape skipped, whirred, stalled—but Noctis had been laughing too loudly to notice it.)

When Noctis’ foot hits the surface of the roof, the sun is kissing the horizon behind them, setting the valley ahead of them ablaze. It catches on the still-prismatic flame coming from beneath the unmanned Disc of Cauthess, breaking into pieces to tear through the clouds beyond the lip of the overlook, barely visible past the roofline of Lestallum.

Holly had been right about this. The view really is spectacular.

In the breeze, Noctis hears the tape whirring—the universe whispers in his ear.

“Holy shit,” or maybe it’s just Prompto beside him. But, really, what’s the difference between the two? “Noct, holy shit, how did we not know about this before? Vyv shorted us. You should probably have him arrested for that.” Whatever bite had been trying to come out of Prompto’s mouth dies as he pulls his camera from his satchel, lifting it to his face to snap a shot.

Whisper-click. One. Prompto hums low, taking two steps to the side. Whisper-click. Two. He takes a step back, his thumb against one of the camera’s buttons.

“Oh-ho,” Prompto says, and it’s a tone that Noctis would recognize anywhere, anytime, anyplace, always, “love the lighting.”

“I told you,” Noctis crosses his arms over his chest, shifting his weight to ease the pressure on his knee, curling his bare toes against the pebbled rooftop, “you needed to get this photo before we got back in the car tomorrow. Priceless, right?”

Noctis doesn’t know what noise that is that presses against the seam of Prompto’s lips, but it could be noncommittal. It’s the only sound he gets, apart from Lestallum, still breathing around them both. Or—it’s not the only sound, or set of sounds. There’s the winding of the timer on Prompto’s camera, the scrape of its frame against the stone sill of a utility window, the sound of Prompto’s feet against the roof.

The tape tightens, rolling forward. It skips, once. Or, alternatively, Noctis’ heart is skipping, stuttering along the cage of his ribs.

And then Prompto’s smiling, and one of Noctis’ hands is viced around his bicep, and he’s being lifted, and his backside is resting against the curved iron of the railing fixed to the lip of the rooftop, and Prompto is between his legs.

Prompto tilts his head up for a kiss. Noctis tilts his head down for the same.

But they pause. Well, Prompto pauses. The sun is making his hair look spun from gold.

“So, we’ll be going to Council meetings,” he says, and for a moment, Noctis can’t fucking believe that they’re not kissing for this barely-even-a-question.

“Yeah,” Noctis replies. “Unless we’re doing something elsewhere. Visiting the people, which phased out for the Regency during the war, or going to different cities to meet with local leaders. Business shit.”

“Okay, so—in exchange, I want to make our playlist.” Prompto’s eyes look—they look purple-blue, like a fucking sunrise-sky, and his freckles are impossibly close. Noctis wants to kiss him right now. Which they could be doing, except—

“What?”

“For the—for the wedding. I want to make the playlist.”

The tape skips.

(“hey,” an index finger on the play button, waiting, “prince noctis!”)

“Duh,” is what comes out of Noctis’ mouth, even as it sounds like it comes from far away. “Who else would get the really important job?”

“Besides marrying you?”

Noctis plans to say something to that, but it disappears, pressed instead to Prompto’s mouth as they kiss for the—however many’th time today. It’s—it’s always like this. Noctis’ fingers make their way across Prompto’s cheekbones. Prompto’s thumb pressed to the underside of Noctis’ jaw.

Whisper-click. Noctis’ ankles hook against the back of Prompto’s calves. Whisper-click.

The mixtape goes silent—the universe goes silent—when Prompto says, “I fucking love you.”

Noctis’ heart stumbles, skips, twitters beneath his sternum. “Oh yeah?” Prompto’s left hand, resting on his hip. “I fucking love you. Funny how that worked out.”

“Yeah,” Prompto replies, and the skin beside his eyes will be blessed with laughter lines one day. Noctis can see it when he smiles. “Funny.”

(“you know something,” Prompto will say later as he Noctis towels his hair dry, the sun having set at least an hour prior. He’ll smell of Noctis’ soap—lavender-and-vanilla.

“maybe,” Noctis will mime back, a parody of the conversation they’d had on the floor. “what do i know?”

“i can’t think of anything i’d rather do than marry you.” The towel will almost steal Prompto’s words from his mouth, catching them before they hit the carpet. “besides, you know, the whole photographer thing. but i can do that any time i want, and they’re basically equivalent anyway, and people will line up to buy my photos after vyv publishes all the work we did.”

Noctis’ hands will pause against the curve of Prompto’s skull, the towel soft against his palms. It’ll be hard to swallow around all the things crawling up his throat. He won’t know what to say to that.

“noct?” Prompto will worry, probably, when Noctis doesn’t say anything after six heartbeats. “uh, buddy?”

The towel will slip from Noctis’ fingers, and it’ll feel impossible to breathe. But Noctis will speak anyway, because if he doesn’t, his voice will burn a hole in his windpipe. “i almost asked to marry you, ten years from now.” The universe whirs. “just because i couldn’t believe i hadn’t done it.”

A pause, filled with the nighttime. Prompto will turn to look at him, and his eyes will be depthless. “for the record,” he says, “i would’ve said yes anyway, ten years from now.”

Noctis’ knee won’t ache when he levers himself onto them to lean down for a kiss. Prompto will make a soft sound against his mouth when their lips meet, their nose bumping together for half-a-breath until they find the angle that always works.

The tape will click-click-click into the silence of the hotel room.

And then it will flip to Side B.)