Chapter Text
Prompto could hardly contain himself as he charged into Luna’s garage. Luna was at her drums fixing one of the cymbals, while Noct sat on a chair tuning his bass. They both looked up as Prompto skidded to a stop just inside.
“Guys! Guys! I got us a gig! A real one! With a little pay!” He held up the flyer in his hand as if it were worth a million dollars, and it really felt like it was. They had been talking about playing anywhere besides their garage for years, big dreams of playing shows for huge crowds being what got them all playing together back in high school.
“What?” Luna stood and climbed around her drum kit, and Noct set down his bass before standing. “What do you mean got us one? I thought we agreed-”
“I know I know but,” Prompto adjusted his glasses on his nose and huffed. He had gone into this aware Luna would be a tough sell since he jumped at the chance without telling her first.
“I was walking by this place on my way home from work and saw this!” He held the flyer out towards them both, but Noct was the first to take it.
“Emo Cover Band Night? Next month?” He looked over the edge of the paper at Prompto, then to Luna, handing her the flyer.
“Ya! I mean, that’s what we do already, right? Might as well do it for an audience.” Prompto hopped from foot to foot with a mix of excitement and anxiety. He had hoped they would be at least a little enthusiastic, but their response of basically nothing was definitely not what he had imagined.
“Sure, but that’s just us. For fun…I didn’t think we’d actually get the chance...” Noct was still studying Luna, waiting for her response. This was pretty standard though - Noct always waited for Luna to determine whether or not something was a bad idea, no matter who it came from. And if there was anything Noct was unsure about, it was being in front of people he didn’t know.
He reached out and gripped Noct’s shoulder, shaking him. “But I thought the whole point of this was to play for people.” Prompto whined.
Meanwhile, Luna sighed, shrugged, and handed the flyer back to Prompto while returning Noct’s stare. “I mean, what could one night hurt? You might even have fun, Noctis.”
“Yes!” Prompto shouted out over Noct’s ‘hey’ and spun in the air. “We’re gonna kick so much ass you guys.”
“But--” Luna lifted a finger, pointed directly at him. He froze in place. “We don’t get anymore gigs without the full group agreeing first, okay?”
Prompto grinned widely. He would do whatever it took to make sure they had at least one real chance to play in front of someone aside from a grumpy Ravus, Noct’s dad, and Ignis and Gladio when they could bribe them. “Deal!”
Luna smiled and walked back to her drums. She grabbed her sticks and spun them between her fingers idly. “We should really get to practicing then, right?”
“Guess so,” Noct picked up his bass to finish tuning, still clearly not entirely bought in but clearly resigned to his fate. Prompto ran to his guitar and hit the button for the garage door to close, more giddy than ever to play dramatic as fuck music.
They sat on the floor of the garage after going through their usual set and doing some other random songs for fun, and he was thoroughly wiped. But still the energy drummed through him as he thought about performing the next month.
“You know, maybe we should rent some studio space, get out of the garage finally. I’ve been picking up extra shifts at the camera shop.” Prompto said between small bites of pizza.
“You don’t need to do that,” Luna chided, and Prompto just shrugged with a smile.
He knew money wasn’t the issue, but he never wanted to seem like he was taking advantage of Luna and Noct.
“Ya, and why move? The garage seems fine.” Noct devoured his third slice.
Prompto nudged his knee. “Well, for one, then Ravus wouldn’t keep barging in when you do the screaming parts, thinking someone is getting stabbed.”
“Hey!” Noct threw a napkin at him and Prompto dodged it laughing.
“Ravus is just doing that to be a brat, you don’t sound like you’re dying, Noctis.” Luna sipped her beer. Noct looked somewhat satisfied with that response and went back to his pizza. She leaned back to get more of the air from the small fan they had set up. Another reason for a better space could definitely be better air conditioning. Even just in a baggy tank top and loose pants he felt gross with sweat.
“You could always do more than the screaming parts, if you wanted,” Prompto offered. He didn’t like the screaming parts himself, because he just hadn’t been able to figure out how to do it without feeling like he was destroying his throat. But Noct somehow had, the natural he was at almost everything. But a part of Prompto also wanted to hear him sing more, because he would bet he would also be amazing at that.
“Naw,” Noct took another bite and gestured to Prompto “your voice is really good. And Luna’s voice works well with yours for backups. I would just mess everything up. If there’s no screaming I would rather just. Not worry about vocals.”
Prompto ducked his head so his bangs settled over his eyes just enough to hide how they widened at Noct’s words. “Thanks, dude. But I doubt you would mess it up. I’m sure you sound great.” He shoved more pizza in his mouth to avoid saying anything else though, face already heating up at such a small admission.
“You should think about it, Noctis.” Luna chimed in. “Always good to have more singers to help make us sound better when we need harmonies.”
“Hmm. I’ll think about it.” Noct said with his mouth full of food before downing his beer.
“By the way,” Luna turned to Prompto, “how many songs do we get to play at the show?”
“Uh, I think since there are a few bands playing that night, probably just three or four. I’ll double check though.”
Luna tapped her bottle to her lips. “That means basically all the songs we play well, unless we learn more before then. At least ones that work for that specific night.”
Noct groaned. “I like the songs we just played, can’t we just stick with those?”
Luna smacked his arm. “Stop being lazy, what if they need us to play more and we look silly because we only have four? And besides, we should practice more than just once a week at least until the show, so we can learn more.”
Prompto couldn’t help laughing a bit at the two. “It’s okay, I’m sure 4 is fine. How about we just see how this first show goes since it’s not like we’ve done this before? We can learn a lot from it I’m sure! And I doubt it will be crowded at all, the place looked pretty empty when I walked by. So we can safely try this and if we don’t like it, then we go back to just playing in our studio.”
“Garage.” Noct said, with that stupid half grin he got when he knew he was being a little shit. Prompto just glared at him, which made Noct smile wider.
Luna smacked him again, and the two looked at each other, and did that thing again where they have some kind of silent conversation, then nodded.
Sometimes Prompto felt something in his chest, like a twinge of jealousy, at their friendship. Sure the three of them were all best friends, and in general inseparable, but Luna and Noct had known each other since they were little kids. Prompto only came around in the middle of high school.
Which, while still going on six years now, felt like nothing compared to Luna and Noct’s connection. A part of him always felt like he was still just slightly outside of the circle. Not that they did anything to make him feel that way. He just did it to himself mostly. Probably. Definitely.
“Cool! I think it’s gonna be fun, playing with you guys.” Prompto grinned, and the two returned it with bright smiles, and he felt like that, that was enough for him.
“Do we really have to practice more?” Noct sighed.
Prompto rolled his eyes jokingly. “Probably, dude. Sorry if it cuts into your nap schedule.”
This time, Noct’s sigh was bigger and he set his drink down. “My dad’s gonna give me hell if he finds out. It’s the last year of school and he’s impatient to get me to work.”
There was silence then between them all. Prompto knew Noct was under a lot of pressure from his dad to carry on the family business eventually. But he was pretty sure Noct didn’t want that at all. But it was a topic they didn’t really broach, because it never ended well.
“So, about that studio space,” Luna changed the topic. Prompto lit up, and Noct seemed to relax as the two delved into discussing studio options to look into.
Despite what he said to Luna and Noct, Prompto was worried about only having four songs to play at the show. But he knew Noct was on the edge of not wanting to do this because two parts laziness and one part anxiety, and if his only requirement was not having to learn more songs, Prompto could work with that.
He got into his apartment after leaving Luna’s place and immediately went to work. He had sound paneling that he put up when he played, and since he had just a small studio apartment it was easy for him to quickly do so. Once he had the set up he had worked out to keep from pissing off his neighbors, he set up his camera on its tripod and grabbed his guitar. Situated on the bed, he grabbed a small notebook from his nightstand and flipped to the last page he had been working on.
Reading over the lyrics, he felt his face heat up over embarrassment at himself. But he started noodling on a tune anyways, trying to turn the lyrics he had once written quickly one late night into a real song.
He tried not to think about who the song was about, and how that was who he could be playing it with.
Doing that just made it harder to sing the words out loud for the camera, let alone think about singing it in front of a room of strangers.