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The first month after Noctis’ death Prompto doesn’t eat anything but salad. Plain lettuce could hardly be considered a salad in Ignis’ opinion, but as it was, Prompto was not Ignis. If here were, perhaps he would have come up with a plan that didn’t result in Noctis’ dying. He knew it wasn’t rational to blame Ignis. Ignis who looked like he didn’t sleep these days, who didn’t cook anymore, and spent his time either frantically working on plans to rebuilt Insomnia muttering about how it’s “What Noctis would have wanted” or sitting eerily still in front of the thrown, not speaking for hours.
He doesn’t remember the second month, it moves while he is learning how to cope in Gladio’s fashion. When he wakes up, sober for the first time in weeks, it has been three months since Noctis died.
Month three he is productive. He helps Ignis plan out rebuilding Insomnia. He learns to meditate and decides he hates it, so he picks up an instrument instead and learns to play the harmonica. He’s awful at it and Gladio makes frequent requests for him to play the worst possible songs on it. Prompto cleans his apartment, strikes up a friendship of sorts with Cor, and gets in contact with Aranea.
On the fourth month, Ignis has a mental breakdown and Prompto spends most of his time trying to work on what Ignis had been planning for Insomnia while Gladio takes care of Iggy. He finds that it’s not as easy without the prior advisor to guide him through the process. Luckily Cor steps in to help with organization, his natural leadership pulling together a small army of people to help work out how the government will work without the line of Lucis with the blueprints Ignis had left them.
The fifth month Prompto decides that he’d let Cor run the show, he had been anyways for the most part. He leaves for Hammerhead and learns how to take apart an engine and put it back together. Cid says that he’s never seen anyone take to an engine so quickly and gives him the car it belonged too. Cindy sits in the passenger seat next to him and they smoke stolen cigarettes that Cid knew they took while staring into the dusty horizon.
Half a year after Noctis’ death, he decides to start dirt racing in his new car, much to Cindy’s delight and Cid’s amusement. He kissed Cindy and decides he it wasn’t worth the hype he had built up in his head. Cindy shrugs it off, she tells him that she saw him more of a friend anyway, maybe even a baby brother. He finds he has made a small family in Hammerhead and Cid starts to insist he calls him, “pa”. Cor visits and tells Prompto he’s glad he’s healing and Prompto wonders if that what was happening.
Seven Months after Noctis’ death, Ignis is released from his unofficial house arrest and he makes the trip back to Insomnia to see his old friend. Ignis is like glass and Gladio had at some point sworn off the bottle. When he finds them kissing outside old kingsglaive barracks he is unable to resist wolf-whistling. Ignis tells him he won’t be getting any of the sweets he baked. Despite the loss in pastries, Prompto is happy that Ignis is making them.
Month Eight is a good month. Nothing much happens. He spends his time split between Hammerhead and Insomnia, but doesn’t pick up any responsibilities and no one demands any from him.
On the Ninth month, Aranea shows up at Hammerhead in a trucker-cap and scandalous crop top with a diesel logo stamped onto it. She tells him she’s blending in with the locals. Prompto tells her that she’s getting more attention than Cindy and she preens at the news. Prompto spends a great deal of time that month loosing card games with the woman and warning the boys in Hammerhead that she was trouble.
Ten months after Noctis’ death Insomnia reveals a statue of Noctis in honor of the last King of Insomnia. It had been decided that the monarchy would not be reestablished on the account it would be disrespectful to the line of Lucis. Instead Insomnia has an Aristocracy built up of prior Lords and Ladies along with an elected council that consisted of the common class. It was far from perfect, but it was an attempt to create both a sense of freedom and familiarity. Prompto does not visit the statue.
Eleven months in and Prompto realized it has been nearly a year since his best friend had died. He feels immersible guilt over surviving the final days of darkness. He cries into Cid’s shoulder and asks him how he lived with the knowledge that he had outlived Regis. Cid told him he lived day by day, among family and friends. Prompto wants to find it more comforting than he did. He calls Cor and asks him the same question. Cor tells him that he doesn’t spend his days thinking, he fills them with things to do and duties to fulfill. Prompto knows that it’s not something he’s capable of doing.
The anniversary of Noctis’ death arrives and Prompto cries until he runs out of tears. He dry sobs and chokes on his own spit while he buries his head into his pillow and screams. Cindy brings him tea and sets it on his nightstand. When she leaves he throws the mug across the room and spends an hour staring at the shattered ceramics. He felt the same pain.
Prompto picks up the broken pieces of the mug and drops them in the kitchen trash bin. Cindy doesn’t ask. He sits down at the table and stares at his hands. There are small cuts from the ceramics and he thinks he should bandage them, but can’t find the will to stand up. He thinks he sits there for an hour before Cindy leaves and Cid replaces her frame in the seat across from him.
“I never told him that I was in love with him, you know,” He isn’t sure why he’s telling Cid. He’s not sure it’s even Cid he’s talking to, it feels like he’s talking to himself and Cid is along for the ride. The old man doesn’t seem to mind.
“I told him I loved him, the way you tells your friends. I’d shove him and say, ‘I love you, man’ and it was so easy to pretend that I was saying more. I wonder if he knew? He was kind of dense about romance. I’m not sure he understood it. He never talked about girls when I would gush over them but he never talked about guys when Iggy pointed out which ever ones he thought were handsome,”
Cid pushed a mug of tea towards him. He wasn’t sure when the man had made it, but it was hot and this time he drank it. He wondered if the Hammerhead natives just had some sort of ability to summon the stuff on demand.
“We played truth or dare once, he confessed that he never kissed anyone. I don’t think he was telling the truth. You could always tell when Noctis was lying, he’d scrunch up his nose and look away before he did it. I felt so jealous of whoever it had been,”
He breathed in the steam, the label on the string said Lemon and Honey. They were yellow things, warm and comforting. No one disliked lemon and honey. He tried his best to be the same shade of yellow most days.
“I wanted to tell him so badly. There were so many times I could have. Late nights when I stayed over at his apartment playing video games and eating pizza. When Iggy and Gladio would go grocery shopping, leaving Noct and I alone in the motel rooms. I thought about it when he found me in Zegnautus Keep, after all, I had already told him everything else, what was one more secret? I thought about it before he fought Ardyn but I told myself that it would distract him from his goal,”.
“In the end, you didn’t,” Cid said, with a sigh, “You can’t change that fact, son. You have to leave with the regret. That’s one of the cruelest parts of life. All you can do is let the people around you know. Regrets are meant to be shared, you can’t keep them bottled up,”.
So Prompto tells Ignis and he tells Gladio. He tells Cor and Cindy and Aranea. He calls everyone in his contacts and he cries. Ignis shows up the day after with Gladio. The prior Shield sits in the diner and Ignis hold Prompto and tells him he knows how that regret feels.
“A year like this, it passes so strangely,” Ignis says, “I wonder if it would have been less sorrow and more bliss, had we spoken of regrets sooner than this,”.