Work Text:
Ignis
‘Iggy! What happened?’
Prompto’s touch is featherlight as he brushes his thumb against the corner of Ignis’s mouth. There’s a cut there, above his lip — the slightest nick from when Ignis shaved this morning. It doesn’t hurt any more; Ignis scarcely even remembered it was there.
In the blink of an eye, Prompto leans in and touches a kiss to the corner of Ignis’s mouth, right where the cut is.
‘There! All better.’
Just like that, Prompto traipses off again, humming a tune to himself.
In silent befuddlement, Ignis watches him go.
Gladio
‘Think fast!’
A fury of blonde hair, a tornado of five-feet-eight-inches, barrels towards him. Gladio has barely a minute to brace himself before Prompto launches at him, flinging freckled arms around his neck.
Prompto plants a kiss on the tip of Gladio’s nose. He has to stretch all the way up, using Gladio as leverage, just to reach.
Gladio’s pretty sure his heart skips a beat.
‘What was that for?’ he asks, feeling his lips curl into a smile of their own accord.
Prompto drops down, slipping his arms from around Gladio’s neck. His shrug is carefree. Completely innocent.
‘Just ‘cause!’
And then he’s gone, just as quickly as he appeared.
Noct
He can feel his eyes drooping. It’s only three and he’s fading fast. He’ll be lucky if he lasts until dinner.
‘Some one’s a sleepyhead,’ Prompto sings.
‘Am not.’
Noct fights off a yawn. He loses.
When he opens his eyes, Prompto’s standing in front of him, his hands on the arms of the camping chair. Up close, Noct can see the faded sunburn he got last week, already turning into a fresh spray of freckles.
‘Maybe it’s like the fairytales.’
There’s something in Prompto’s voice; in his face. A hint of mischief.
‘Maybe I can wake you up with a kiss.’
Noct’s mouth goes dry. He feels like he’s in someone else’s body, passively observing, as Prompto leans in close. One of Prompto’s hands comes up and covers Noct’s mouth. With a grin, the blonde leans in and kisses the back of his hand, right where Noct’s lips would be.
‘Mwah. So, what do you think? You awake now?’
Numbly, Noct nods. When Prompto pulls away, Noct can still feel the imprint of the hand over his lips.
Prompto
It’s a beautiful day — the sun is shining, the lake by the haven reflects a perfect blue sky, and they’re having pancakes for breakfast.
Prompto’s pretty sure nothing could knock the smile from his face.
‘Noct? Would you give me a hand for a moment?’
One seat over, Noct flops back in his chair with a dramatic groan. To look at him, you’d think Ignis had asked him to take on a behemoth singlehanded.
‘Do I have to?’
Prompto doesn’t have to look over at Ignis to imagine the expression on his face: the thin line of his lips, his eyes narrowed. He knows what comes next, too — they’ll bicker for a while, and Noct will give in eventually, but the mood for the day will be soured.
‘It’s okay,’ Prompto says brightly, jumping to his feet. ‘I got this!’
Secretly, he loves helping Ignis. Loves fetching things, mixing, chopping… loves just watching the master at work. It’s something he never really got to do growing up. His parents were always so tired after work that they never cooked.
Prompto has no delusions about being a particularly capable kitchen assistant, but he does his best. He thinks maybe — just maybe — Ignis likes having a hand around the grill, too.
‘Wonderful.’
Ignis beckons him over. He puts Prompto to work at once with the stirring. That part, at least, is pretty tough to screw up.
‘What do you think, Prompto?’
Ignis leans in, dropping his voice candidly. Like they’re sharing some secret. It makes Prompto’s stomach flutter.
‘U-uh, about what?’ Prompto stutters, his cheeks heating.
He tries not to look too long at the curl of Ignis’s lips as he smiles. Instead, he finds himself staring up into the man’s green eyes. Which isn’t much better.
‘Blueberries,’ Ignis says, ‘or bananas?’
It takes Prompto a hot minute to understand what Ignis is asking him — to go into the pancake batter, of course. Prompto pokes his tongue out of the corner of his mouth and thinks long and hard about it. This is an important decision, after all.
‘Mmmm. Half blueberries and half bananas.’
After a beat, he catches himself.
‘And half plain!’
Ignis laughs and turns to the chopping board. With adept hands, he makes quick work of the fruit.
‘Grab me two more bowls, would you? They should be there, underneath.’
Prompto ducks to open the little door under the worktop and picks out two bowls, setting them down in front of Ignis.
‘Okay! What next?’
Ignis drums his hand thoughtfully on the chopping board.
‘The batter is a touch runny. Perhaps a pinch of flour, if you wouldn’t mind.’
Prompto nods his head.
‘Coming right up!’
He adds flour, little by little, and stops when Ignis gives a satisfied nod.
‘Perfect,’ Ignis says.
His smile is encouraging. Proud, almost. Prompto’s stomach does another little jig, and he can’t say it’s entirely unpleasant.
Ignis is so nice, once you get to know him. A little intimidating at first, maybe — and Prompto was pretty sure the first few times they did anything social together that Ignis found him annoying — but once he warms up to you, it’s different.
Prompto loves Noct — even Gladio, as hot-headed as he can be sometimes — but Ignis… with Ignis, he feels safe. He never really got to have that when he was a kid. Like a home away from home.
‘Is something the matter?’
Ignis’s eyebrows lift in an almost exaggerated expression of concern. Prompto’s quick to shake his head. The last thing he wants to do is make Ignis worry.
‘Nope,’ Prompto says, with a grin. ‘Just thinking about how much I love pancakes!’
He thinks he catches a smile on Ignis’s lips as he turns back to the griddle. Just a little one.
They work together to cook it all up — there’s pancakes, of course, and bacon and sausages. Prompto knows the guys like their pancakes savoury, but he’s always had a sweet tooth, so there’s maple syrup and powdered sugar for him, and even—
‘Is that lemon?!’
He picks up the bottle in disbelief. It’s the squeezy, artificial kind in a plastic bottle shaped like a lemon, just like his parents used to get, back when they still had the time to make pancakes for him.
‘A little bird may have told me you like your pancakes Tenebrae style,’ Ignis says. Then, as if sharing a secret, he leans down close to Prompto. ‘I prefer them that way, myself.’
Prompto’s cheeks heat with delight. He’s never met anybody in Lucis who even knows what pancakes with lemon are like. Most people look at him in confusion. Even Noct wrinkled his nose in disgust at the thought of it.
Ignis’s eyes are crinkled at the corner as he smiles. His glasses have slipped a little down the bridge of his nose, so Prompto can see the colour of his eyes up close. How has he never noticed just how green they are before?
And now he’s staring, and Ignis hasn’t looked away, and there’s a tight feeling in Prompto’s chest. His mouth feels like it’s packed with cotton wool.
‘Oh. You have a bit of…’
Gently, methodically, Ignis sweeps the pad of his thumb against Prompto’s cheek.
‘There,’ he says warmly. ‘Seems you were a bit overenthusiastic with the flour.’
Prompto’s heart knocks against his ribs. He feels like he should make some witty retort to keep the moment from getting awkward, but all that comes out is a high-pitched sort of sound.
And now Ignis is looking at him funny. Like he thinks Prompto’s an idiot, probably. Not that Prompto would blame him, not when half the time his body doesn’t seem to want to do what it’s told.
Is Ignis leaning in again? He is. And his eyes are shut, and his face is getting real close, and Prompto thinks this might be—
Ignis lips brush against his, soft and warm. Another embarrassing sound threatens to bubble out of Prompto’s throat, but he just about manages to tamp it down until another sound entirely comes out and—
Okay, he just moaned. Ignis just kissed him, and he just moaned.
Titan, please open up the world and swallow me now.
When Ignis pulls away — too quickly, Prompto thinks, with a rush of disappointment — there’s a divot between his brows. He must really think Prompto’s an idiot now.
‘I’m sorry,’ Ignis says. ‘I should have asked…’
‘No!’
Prompto’s voice comes out a squeak. He shakes his head urgently.
‘No, you don’t need— you don’t have to apologise. That was… good, I promise.’
Ignis doesn’t look totally convinced.
‘Are you certain?’ he asks. ‘You seemed—’
Prompto shakes his head again. Somehow, this is not how he expected his first kiss to play out.
‘You just— you caught me by surprise,’ he stammers. ‘And I’ve never really… It’s not something I’ve… I mean, I don’t usually…’
He watches Ignis’s expression transform, bit by bit, from concern to amusement. Nothing sly or cruel; if anything, there’s something affectionate in his eyes that makes Prompto’s stomach squirm so much he’s pretty sure the butterflies trapped in there have taken flight all at once.
‘Prompto.’
Ignis reaches out and takes his hand. He’s wearing his gloves like he always does, but the tip of the thumb is cut out, and he runs it over Prompto’s knuckles.
‘Are you trying to say you’ve never kissed anyone before?’
Prompto gives a little nod. He doesn’t trust his voice right now.
‘Well then.’
Ignis tugs gently at his hand. Willingly, Prompto lets Ignis pull him closer.
‘If I’d known that,’ Ignis says, ‘I would have tried to make your first one special.’
They’re so close Prompto’s uncomfortably aware of how much space he occupies in the world, and yet he can’t help thinking what it’d feel like to be up against Ignis — to slip into his arms.
‘I mean…’ He can feel his cheeks heating as he tries to get the words out. ‘It was… pretty special.’
‘Then perhaps,’ Ignis says, slipping his hand from Prompto’s. He glides it up Prompto’s arm, stopping at his shoulder. ‘You wouldn’t object to another?’
Prompto wets his lips. Today was already a great day, with pancakes to look forward to, and now he gets Iggy kisses, too?
‘Nope,’ he says, as breezily as he can muster. ‘I mean— I don’t object. At all. Like, not even a little. I’m, like, the opposite of objecting. What is that, anyways—’
Before he can make even more of a fool of himself, Ignis lifts a hand to his cheek, effectively shutting him up. It’s hard not to be stunned into silence with those green eyes looking into yours.
This time, at least, Prompto is prepared. He closes his eyes, and when Ignis’s lips move to meet his own, he’s ready for it.
Ignis’s arms slip around him and he sinks so easily into them, and he doesn’t even care this time if a few content little noises of pleasure come out.
Turns out, the second time around is even better.
‘Hey! You smell burning?’
Gladio’s brash voice breaks them out of their moment. With a jolt of alarm, Prompto twirls away from Ignis to find the pancakes smoldering on the griddle. When Ignis flips one of them over, it’s as black as the Lucian raiment.
‘Ah.’
Prompto half expects Ignis to be annoyed, but he seems more amused than anything. With his hands on his hips, he turns to Prompto and smiles.
‘I suppose we got a bit distracted, hm?’
Prompto snorts, in spite of himself. It’s an undignified sound, and it makes his cheeks burn hotter, but suddenly he doesn’t even care any more.
‘Yeah,’ he laughs. ‘I guess we did!’