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Prompto wakes at 4am, like he does every morning, and quietly leaves the tent.
He isn’t sure why he does it; it’s a certain kind of torture to wake up and turn to his phone in the dark and see that it’s after 10am and the darkness is as inky and unyielding as it was yesterday, and the day, week, month, year before that, but it’s a completely different kind of torture to watch the sun try to rise, see the long, tremulous line of light for a few blessed minutes, glimpse what could have been, before it slips back below the horizon. There’s some kind of psychology to that, which they learned in school what feels like eons ago, something about how getting second is worse than coming last because of the belief that if you had just tried a little harder, made a different choice, you could have won.
One thing they don’t tell you, though, is that logic like that only applies when your intention is to win; Prompto has never been very competitive.
He sits in one of the camper chairs that’s still sitting out. The fire has burned itself out during the night, but the coals are still hot, deep red, the color of a wound. It’s less pronounced than it would be if it was all dark, though. Prompto always thought he would miss the vibrance of color when the world went dark, but what he really missed was soft pastels and blurred lines. His hands itch to take a picture, but he destroyed his camera years ago, when it became too painful to relive the memories inside it.
He’s wrapped up enough in his thoughts that he doesn’t hear the footsteps approach until Noctis is grabbing one of the camper chairs from behind him and dragging it next to Prompto’s.
“Hey,” Noctis says. His voice is so familiar but it’s not as easy to place as it once was, like a song he remembers from childhood but hasn’t heard since. Prompto’s still not used to him looking as old as he is, and certainly not under anything that’s not harsh fluorescents, or flickering bulbs. The purple of the morning brings out his eyes, softens the lines of his face. Prompto never wants to look away from him again, caught between fear and desire.
“Hey, yourself,” Prompto says. “Sorry if I woke you.”
“S’ok,” he says. “I’ve been sleeping enough.”
He has been, since his return, nearly 18 hours a day. They all make jokes about how some things never change, but the worry is still present in Ignis’ eyes, in how Gladio has become Noctis’ shadow, and in the way that Prompto can’t sleep most nights, too busy watching the steady rise and fall of Noctis’ chest.
“I wasn’t expecting it to be this light out,” Noctis says. It’s still a far cry from what they once knew, from when they laid out in the sand in Galdin and shared drinks with dirty names. “Was it always like this?”
While I was gone, is unspoken, as it always is between them. “Nah,” Prompto says, keeping things light. “This started happening when you got back. It only lasts for about half an hour.”
Noctis doesn’t say anything for a long moment, looking out at the horizon. Prompto watches him, memorizing his face in the dusky light, trying to see the places the light touches instead of the shadows it creates.
“If I had gone through with it…”
“Don’t,” Prompto says before he can continue. In every conversation with him these days, Noctis tries to approach the subject of the decision he made. The decision they all made to sacrifice the world for Noctis. It’s clear what Noctis feels about it; guilt warring with relief, all undercut by a current of fear that seems to rise off of him like heat in the desert. Prompto has no such regrets, not when this is the most hopeful he’s felt in years. It’s selfish, maybe, but that’s the least of his sins.
“They all hate me,” Noctis says, his voice quiet.
“They don’t,” Prompto says. He isn’t sure it’s true. When they had returned to Hammerhead from Insomnia with Noctis, the sky still dark and starless, Cindy had taken one look at him, turned around, and locked herself in the garage. Prompto had followed her, and he had let her cry in his arms for nearly an hour.
“This isn’t what they all died for,” Cindy had said. “This isn’t what I lived for.”
Noctis snorts, an inelegant sound without humor. His hands are clasped in front of him, his elbows resting on his knees. He’s squeezing them so tight the blood is running out of his fingers. “I hate me.”
“Noct,” Prompto says, a little heartbroken. It’s always been hard to watch Noctis struggle like this with Prompto powerless to help, completely and utterly useless for solving the problems of a would-be king. But there’s no throne to ascend to, no kingdom to uphold, no titles left that mean anything in the face of a broken world.
Things are not the same, and never will be again. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
After all, Prompto isn’t the same. Whatever lies he’d told himself all those years ago, he knows now that he isn’t powerless, and never has been. He may not be able to solve the problems of a king, but he can ease the pain of his best friend, the man he’s desperately in love with.
Prompto reaches over and gently coaxes Noctis’ fingers loose from one another. They’re cold from the chill of the morning, and Prompto takes Noctis’ right hand and folds it between both of his own. He pulls it gently toward his lips and blows warm air over his fingertips, rubbing warmth back into them.
“It was my duty, Prompto,” Noctis says, his voice shaky and barely carrying even in the still air. His fingers curl further into Prompto’s hands and he can feel him tremble against his palms. “Luna, my father...they died so I could do this one thing. How am I supposed to live with myself?”
“I don’t know,” Prompto says. “But I don’t think they died thinking, ‘if I die, then Noctis better hold up his end of the bargain‘.” It isn’t funny, not really, but it still earns him a wistful ghost of a smile. Prompto squeezes his hand. “They loved you, Noct. All they wanted to do was let you live long enough to make a choice. And you did.”
“I think it was the wrong one.”
He says it in such an obstinate, painfully Noctis way that Prompto can’t help but smile. “Then you don’t get how all this works,” Prompto says. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, there’s nothing that straightforward in the whole world. We all thought Ignis loved Ebony unconditionally, full stop, end of story, but I put a few tablespoons of sugar and some cream in it one time and suddenly, there is a wrong way to enjoy coffee.”
Noctis lets out a huff of laughter at the memory. “He didn’t talk to you for three days.”
“Most blissful three days of my life,” Prompto says, and then automatically glances back to make sure that Ignis isn’t standing behind them, out of habit. Noctis catches it, and his eyes glitter in the low light, the barest glimpse of the boy he used to know hidden in them. “My point is, it isn’t about right and wrong. It’s about what you were willing to sacrifice and what you weren’t. And maybe that changes the way you see yourself, or how other people see you, but the bottom line is that you didn’t just let it happen to you. You made a choice. And whatever the result, that was so much braver than dying because they told you to.
“And look,” Prompto continues, gesturing toward the horizon, tearing himself from Noctis’ gaze which has an intensity to it that makes Prompto’s heart beat out of sync in his chest. “It isn’t perfect, but this is more than we had before. It’s more than I ever had before. I would take a world with twenty-three and a half hours of darkness with you, than one where the sun rose without you.”
He turns back towards Noctis, but before he can properly look at him, Noctis’ hand comes up to his jaw and pulls him closer and suddenly, Noctis is kissing him. It takes Prompto a full twenty seconds to realize that this is real, that this is really happening, and then he’s kissing back with everything he has. It’s soft, and messy and a little desperate, and when they finally break apart, they don’t go far, Noctis tracing the swell of Prompto’s cheekbone with cold fingertips as if he can’t quite believe he’s real, and Prompto’s own hand still clutching Noctis’ other one as if he’ll somehow disappear.
The sky’s darkening again, the hazy shadows they were casting growing longer and longer until they twist into each other. There’s a rustle behind them, and then they hear Gladio’s deep rumble of complaint and Ignis’ much softer tones. Noctis steals one more kiss, shorter, sweeter, and with a promise that has Prompto’s pulse jumping, and emotion sticking in the back of his throat.
“We missed it,” Noctis says, when they settle back, their hands still twined together, unwilling to let go. “The sunrise.”
“That’s ok,” Prompto says, as the light fades. “There’s always tomorrow.”