Chapter Text
Footsteps, quick and heavy, were catching up to Noct. Having gained a sixth sense for when someone was about to touch him, Noctis dodged to the side. Then he looked over.
Blond hair, blue eyes. A crestfallen expression. His hand was stuffed awkwardly in his pocket.
Noctis had been quietly observing this schoolmate of his for years now. Now that he’d finally approached him, Noct didn’t want to scare him away.
“Hey,” he greeted, offering the guy a smile.
From there, the blond summoned up the enthusiasm he almost lost earlier. “Heya, Prince Noctis! I’m Prompto! Nice to meet you.”
“‘Meet me’?” Noct asked teasingly. “You sure this is the first time?”
Prompto laughed self-consciously and didn’t answer. He kept walking, ahead of Noct, and Noct followed while watching Prompto’s ears turn red.
“Anyway,” Prompto segued conspicuously, “what do you think of high school so far, Prince Noctis? I’ve been saddled with homework already, if you can believe it. It’s literally the first day!”
“Noctis,” he corrected him.
Prompto spun to face him. “Huh?”
“Just call me ‘Noctis’,” he repeated. Despite the language, his tone was light when he clarified, “No ‘Prince’ or ‘Your Highness’ crap.”
Slowly, Prompto’s confusion faded into a beaming smile. “Alright! Noctis it is.”
From there, the two of them walked down the path side by side. Not once did they touch, but it was the first time anyone at school had seen the prince treat someone like a friend, and as such, rumours that they were soulmates had made it to the paparazzi by the end of the day.
Whether they were true or not, neither of them could say. They had to touch skin-to-skin for their soulmate marks to surface, and Noctis wasn’t letting that happen, no matter what.
When Noctis was six years old, he met his third nanny for the first time. She knelt down to shake Noct’s hand, and when she did, she got slashed to pieces by a monstrous woman with purple skin and six arms.
The vision was gone quickly, but Noctis was absolutely terrified. He burst into frantic tears that no one could console, because with every touch that was meant to be comforting, he saw more. One of the cleaners got crushed to death by a pillar. Another got shot by a robot. The Crownsguard who was always outside Noctis’ room was going to die when he was fifty-three, and his tutor was going to be sleeping in a cramped room with her whole family in it.
His dad was going to get stabbed in the back by a suit of armour that was seven feet tall. Noct was scared. Noct didn’t want his dad to die.
“I’m here, Son,” Dad assured him, stroking his hair. “I’m alright.”
“You’re not,” Noctis sobbed. “You’re not!”
That was the day that Noctis learnt the story of the creator of the Hexatheon: Etro, the goddess of death, fate, and time, who had a love for humanity even greater than the Glacian.
The Crystal was all that was left of her, but it wasn’t made by her. Because of that, its gifts came with unintended side effects. When a Lucis Caelum made physical contact with someone for the first time, it showed them an aspect of that person’s death. It could be their age, their location, or the means; on rare occasions, it could be even the last thought that would pass through the person’s mind.
On this information alone, it might seem like a useful power. Knowing something about someone’s death could prevent them from dying when the moment came. Numerous monarchs before King Regis had tried this, however, and all had failed, every single time. It didn’t matter whether their target was a stranger or their best friend; fate was cruel, and refused to change its course.
“But never has it manifested so young,” Regis murmured, once his son had finally been soothed to sleep. He was already to be so burdened, and yet the gods had seen fit to pile on more. Regis wished desperately, bitterly, that he could fight it.
As a teenager, Noctis began covering himself up from neck to toe whenever he left his room in the Citadel, or later, his apartment. Even in summer’s blistering heat, no one ever saw him in less than full sleeves, long pants, and gloves that covered his fingers. He situated himself either behind or between Gladio and Ignis whenever they were with him in public. He’d become an expert at weaving through crowds while touching people as little as possible. It was only the first touch that forced the information into Noctis’ brain, which meant there was no risk with his personal guard; he’d only be reminded if he chose to be.
The list of drawbacks to this power was practically endless, but the older Noctis got, the more one in particular grated on him. Everyone else was completely fine with brushing past people on the street. They got to look forward to the first time they touched a stranger, because with it came the possibility that they’d leave a permanent mark on that person’s skin. It was Etro’s real final gift to humanity, before she died thousands of years ago—the chance to discover the one person fated to stay by their side, through thick and thin.
Noctis had a soulmate just like everyone else; or at least, every monarch of Lucis before him did. But the first time he touched them, he wouldn’t just get a soulmate mark. He would know every last detail about their death: how old they would be, where they were, what would cause them to die, and how long it would take for their brain to shut down. And he wouldn’t be able to do a single damn thing about it, which was why he aimed to just never discover his soulmate at all.
Noctis didn’t want to live with that knowledge. It would be better to never find his soulmate than to know them and be constantly counting down on their time together, agonising over ways to stay fate from its path that wouldn’t change anything.
“Noct! Here ya go!” Prompto dropped a chocolate bar into Noct’s open hand.
“Thanks,” Noctis replied, ripping the packaging open and taking a bite.
Three years into their friendship, they’d still never touched. Not once. Prompto accommodated Noct's boundaries without even thinking about it, so easily that Noctis was comfortable with interactions like that: ones that let Prompto close, even if they didn’t actually touch. It wasn’t a perfect system, though. With each day, month, and year, there was more jealousy in Prompto’s eyes when Noctis let Gladio and Ignis throw arms over his shoulders and pat his back while keeping Prompto firmly at a distance. The question Noctis knew was on the tip of Prompto’s tongue got closer and closer to being asked. And Noct couldn’t shed his gloves or long sleeves even when the two of them were alone together in his apartment, because the temptation to just reach out for Prompto and hold him was getting unbearable, and he needed that barrier to remind himself why it was a terrible idea.
Prompto set down his bowl of grapes on the table with a metal on metal clack. “So, are we continuing Black Flag, or busting out the Wii U, or…?”
“Pikmin? Next day’s your turn,” Noct reminded him.
“Ooh, good idea! I’ll grab a remote!” Prompto hopped off the couch and headed for the cabinet where Ignis put the Wii Remotes every time he cleaned. Noctis sighed, partly in disappointment, and partly in relief, both for the fact that Prompto was no longer so close. “Hey Noct, is the console plugged in?”
Noctis glanced over while he took another bite of chocolate, and replied, “Yeah.” The red light was on.
He got up to pick up the Gamepad. Noctis only really owned this console because he knew Prompto wanted it, but would never spend that kind of money on himself for non-essentials.
It was a shame the story mode was single-player only, because Noct could imagine it being multiplayer co-op easily. And if it was, maybe he’d be able to focus more on playing, and less on Prompto’s constant presence beside him, with that look of intense concentration, and his nice hands, and his soft-looking hair—
“You good there, dude? Stare at the game, not me.”
Noctis turned his head towards the TV with a wave of embarrassment. This was why he kept on his gloves, even when he was soaking through them with sweat. Developing a crush on his best friend was never supposed to enter the equation, but now it had, and Noctis simultaneously wanted physical affection with him more and less than ever.
And he still hadn’t even managed to explain to Prompto why it wasn’t possible, because every time he tried, the words refused to come out. This power was something that had always been kept from the general population, meaning Noctis would have to tell the whole story from scratch. He’d have to explain that he witnessed his nanny’s death years before it actually happened, and how he was only free to touch Ignis and Gladio because he’d seen their deaths when he was a kid. How could he possibly say to Prompto, I don’t want to know how you die?
By the time the four of them began their journey to Altissia for a wedding Noctis was uninterested in but resigned to, Prompto still didn’t know.
Cor wasn’t wasn’t the type to hold back when he thought Noct or his dad were being idiots, and it particularly applied when he lectured Noctis about the millions of ways that trying to avoid touching Prompto could horribly backfire in battle. Particularly if Prompto didn't understand the gravity of Noctis’ boundary and didn't bother adhering to it when things got dicey. Tell him, Cor had said firmly. Or better yet, touch him. Take that hazard away completely so it isn’t a problem anymore.
Cor didn’t get it. Cor wasn’t the one who couldn’t look Ignis in the eye some days, because all he could see was Ignis’ lifeless, fifty-three year old body. Cor wasn’t the one who kept calling Gladio out of the blue to make sure that this day wasn’t the one where he keeled over between his dining table and the kitchen counter. Cor didn’t have night terrors about Dad being stabbed by a Niff general or Luna pushing herself so hard that she collapsed and never rose again.
Not having any of those fears or anxieties about Prompto was such a relief. Noctis would have loved to poke Prompto in the back of the head during class, work out duo attacks at the Citadel gym, and fall asleep on Prompto’s shoulder during movies. But then Prompto wouldn’t be his safe place anymore—it wouldn’t be the same, anymore. And Noctis couldn’t handle that.
It was Gladio who forced Noct to finally put it into words.
“Hey Blondie,” Gladio called out after they set up camp on the first night (for some reason, they didn’t have any money to spare, not even for the camper van in Hammerhead. Noctis didn’t get how Ignis managed to come so unprepared, or how Dad let them go without enough money for an emergency like this).
“Huh? ‘Sup?” asked Prompto.
Noct was barely paying attention to this until Gladio said, “Noct’s got something to tell you. And if he chickens out again, his head’s goin’ on a pike, treason be damned.”
“What—?” said Noct, abruptly lifting his head to stare at Gladio incredulously. In the next moment it clicked and he scowled, looking back down at his phone again. He didn’t react to Prompto taking a seat beside him, letting his legs dangle off the edge of the Haven.
He similarly ignored Gladio’s heavy footsteps coming up behind him, as well as the large hand that landed on his shoulder. “It’s gonna be a liability either way,” he said into Noct’s ear, “but it’ll be less of one if Prompto gets it.”
Gladio wasn’t always so empathetic. But that was before Noctis got fed up of the, ‘Everyone dies eventually. Why’s it such a big deal to know how?’ bullshit, and told him how Iris was going to die lonely—thinking she was better off dead because all of her loved ones would be there.
Gladio wallowed over that knowledge for a long time. Noctis’ guilt had been through the roof the moment the words were out of his mouth, but Ignis had insisted that Gladio deserved it. Noctis always wondered if the harsh judgement was despite Gladio being Ignis’ soulmate, or because of it.
Noctis shrugged Gladio off and twisted so he was angled towards Prompto just in time to catch the flicker in Prompto’s eyes—the way he watched Gladio’s hand slip off of Noct’s shoulder.
Gladio was right. More than that, though, Prompto deserved to understand.
“So…” Prompto began. “Uh… what was that all about?”
“It was…” Noctis’ gaze slipped away from his best friend, off into the distance. “I… Fuck.”
Prompto summoned his camera from the Armiger and started fiddling with it. His heels kept hitting the stone of the Haven. “You know… we don’t have to do this right now if you don’t wanna. …Just because Gladio said—”
“I have to,” Noctis interjected.
Silence reigned again.
Then, Noctis sighed. Just talk, damnit. “One of the powers of my bloodline is… letting us see premonitions. About how someone is gonna die.”
He chanced a glance at wide-eyed, shocked Prompto. “Woah. …What?”
“I see them when I touch someone. Kinda like—”
“How people leave marks on their soulmates the first time they touch,” completed Prompto. “Isn’t that… that sucks, but maybe it could be kinda useful, too? Like, if you know someone’s gonna get stabbed tomorrow, you can intervene—”
“It doesn’t work like that.” Noctis said. Maybe he’d be more irritated, but this wasn’t something he had to explain often. Or, well, ever. He’d only ever said this to Luna. “People’s deaths are… fated. Knowing how they’ll go doesn’t make it possible to change.”
“Oh.”
Prompto didn’t have anything else to say for a while after that. Noctis let him think. Prompto was constantly giving Noct processing time, so Prompto deserved the same courtesy, even if sitting still was a little torturous.
Noctis tried to tune into Ignis and Gladio behind them, instead: the sizzling of dinner on the cooktop, and their quiet conversation, too muted for Noct to catch.
Soulmates were usually romantic, but they weren’t always, and for the longest time, Specs and Gladio had tried to pretend. When Noctis had learnt that part of the reason was him, he’d kind of blown up at Ignis. Just because Noctis would never meet his soulmate (or be with him the way he wanted to, some part of him despaired) didn’t mean Ignis had to force limitations on himself.
The Wise, the first king of Lucis, had compared the power to a curse when he wrote that knowledge of its existence should always remain private. Noctis thought it wasn’t like a curse—it was one.
And right now, the most painful part of it was, “So… that’s why you don’t touch me, isn’t it? Because, if you do, you’ll…”
Noctis could only glance at Prompto’s face for a moment before turning away. “Yeah.”
“So, does that mean you just endure it with Gladio, and Iggy and stuff? I mean, they touch you all the time.” Prompto tried to sound like his usual self, injecting as much levity into the question as he could. It didn’t really work.
Noctis shook his head. “No, it’s… only the first time. After that, I could still see it if I wanted to, but it’s my choice.”
“I get it.” Noctis watched Prompto try and fail to put on a wobbly smile. “You didn’t need a reason to not wanna touch me—I don’t mind, y’know?” Why say that when they both knew it was a lie? “But you do! So I’m not—it’s fine, okay Noct? We’re best friends, no matter what. No getting rid of me.”
Noct sighed, relieved. “I—”
“And it’s out of your control, so don’t apologise, Noct,” said Prompto, like he knew exactly what Noctis had been about to say.
“It is, sort of,” argued Noct quietly. “I could just… get it over with. But, I…”
“It’s fine, Noct.” A flash of blue sparks, and Prompto’s camera had been replaced with his second-favourite chocobo plushie. His number one favourite, the one he had since he was a baby, was safe at home in Insomnia. This was the one he felt safe travelling with, and he used it now to boop Noctis in the shoulder. “See? Lovely little Daisy’s happy to be our go-between. Now, isn’t that right?”
Noctis snorted, lightly shoving the stuffed toy away.
In response, Prompto gasped in mock defence, hugging Daisy and turning away like he was protecting an infant. “How dare you raise your hand against poor Daisy!?”
“She’ll live,” said Noctis dryly, smiling, and Prompto wailed theatrically.
Prompto used to be so self-conscious about his collection of stuffed toys. That was before he saw Noct’s bedroom in the Citadel, complete with his own prized shelf of toys that he was too sentimental to get rid of. Then Prompto bought Noct a stuffed fish for his birthday one year, and later, they were using it to have the facsimile of touch without actually touching. It wasn’t enough, could never come close; but it was something.
“Dinner is served,” announced Ignis, causing Noctis to startle. Prompto laughed.
What Noctis told Prompto was true: if he wanted to, for whatever reason, he could touch someone and experience the vision he got the first time all over again.
When Noctis was young, he didn’t realise it was a choice. He thought exactly what Prompto had assumed—that he was tormented to see the visions over, and over, and over. It took a long time to learn how to make it stop.
Thanks to that, he had the figure of his dad’s murderer memorised. He knew exactly what they would look like, standing over Dad’s prone body in a location that Noctis couldn’t make out, their long sword stained crimson with their victim’s blood.
The first time Noct saw clips of General Glauca on the news, it gave him a panic attack.
And yet, it hadn’t been on his mind when they let thousands of Niflheimrs into the Crown City. He hadn’t even paused to consider all of those visions of strangers he passed on the streets dying to bullets or collapsed buildings, or praying in the milliseconds before an explosion blew them to bits. He’d always thought it was weird, but he was too focused on not thinking about it to make the connection between them and Niflheim.
Not until it was too late, anyway. When he woke up that fateful morning in Galdin Quay and heard the news Insomnia Falls, he knew.
The king had to have seen as many visions of people dying to the empire as the prince had. But he’s let it happen anyway—probably because he’d seen how Noctis would die the first time he held him as a baby, and knew that Noctis would survive that day.
How could he stomach doing it?
Why?
“Nooooct!”
Noctis grunted, scrabbling at the flexitusk’s neck, fighting to keep those sharp teeth away from his face. Prompto’s yell didn’t register until Prompto himself appeared, shoving the animal off him and shooting it in the eye. It went down quickly.
If it had been Specs or Gladio, Prompto wouldn’t have hesitated after offering out a hand. The movement was automatic, some built-in human instinct to physically support one another, and if Noctis had been anyone else, Prompto wouldn’t have faltered the way he did. Noctis would have been able to shove both Prompto and himself out of the way without thinking twice about it.
But Noct was Noct, and Prompto didn’t notice another flexitusk sprinting up to tackle him until it was too late to do anything but brace for it.
After a potion, Prompto came out of it none the worse for wear, but the mood was soured anyway. Gladio and Ignis were getting annoyed at Noct and Prompto’s inability to work together. Noctis hated that he just froze up and watched Prompto get hurt.
“Guys… all’s well that ends well, right? Lighten up a little,” Prompto tried to encourage. But the others weren’t having it.
“This is becoming a problem,” said Ignis matter-of-factly. “One we dearly need a solution to, lest we stop having you enter battle together entirely.”
“What!?” Prompto blurted. “Really? You’d…?”
“You’re endangering yourselves, and each other,” Gladio said. “You’re not terrible in a fight, but if it becomes safer to sit you out, we will.”
Prompto turned, helplessly, to Noct. Noctis could only keep his eyes straight ahead, trying and failing not to look too grim. Prompto’s worth didn’t depend on whether he could fight with them or not. Even if he couldn’t, they’d just drop him off at Lestallum with Iris, where he was safer. But Prompto was too concerned about pulling his weight, proving himself useful, to not take Ignis and Gladio’s words to heart.
They were mostly fine in caves and stuff, where Noctis led the group, and Prompto stayed at the back so he could have as much space to shoot as possible. During hunts, though, Prompto took to sniping rather than joining them directly in the fray.
“So… is the wedding still on?” Prompto asked much, much later, after they heard that Luna had been in Lestallum and they just missed her.
“At the moment, it wouldn’t serve much political benefit,” Ignis replied neutrally. It made sense; Noct had kept his feelings about the whole thing close to his chest. He knew his dad would feel bad about marrying Noctis off, especially since he had been free to choose. Noctis thought it would make things easier.
Now? He didn’t know. When they got Lucis back, would a peace treaty sealed with his and Luna’s marriage still benefit them?
Would it be worth marrying Luna anyway, because it was the best deal he was ever going to get? She was nobility, and together they’d be able to bear children. Most importantly though, Noctis had already seen a vision about her when he was little; he wouldn’t be afraid to touch her.
Gladio pointed out, “Right now, taking back Lucis is what’s important.”
“Yeah,” Noctis agreed. It was better not to say anything definitive. (He didn’t want to get his own hopes up.)
Prompto’s hand hovered over his shoulder. Prompto had gloves on, and Noct was wearing both his jacket and his T-shirt. There were several inches of space between them. And still, Noct’s skin prickled.
Gladio and Ignis were sitting directly across from them, pretending not to see this thing between Prompto and Noctis, whatever it was.
Noctis wasn’t moving.
A breath later, Prompto let his hand fall away.
It was like that moment triggered something in Noct’s brain; there was no better explanation for the dream he had that night.
He was following Prompto through the Citadel, which for some reason was completely barren. They were holding hands—and each of their palms was stained with their soulmarks, matching brilliant gold.
“I’m sorry it took so long,” Noctis found himself saying, but Prompto, always so achingly forgiving, just said,
“It’s okay. You’re here now.”
They went into a random room and laid down together on the couch they found inside; Prompto a comforting weight on top of Noct’s body. Noctis threaded his fingers through the back of Prompto’s hair, where he didn’t use gel, and it was soft. Prompto sighed, managing to snuggle even closer.
When Noctis woke up in the morning without needing to be roused, he found Gladio’s loud breaths to be a poor replacement for Prompto’s desperately comfortable warmth.
He was smiling, but he also wanted to cry.
In the chaos that came after that, Noctis felt more and more like a puppet being strung along to fulfil the purposes of others. Everyone needed or expected something from him. He had to be a leader, a king—the Chosen King of prophecy. For Prompto, he was nothing but a friend.
Prompto didn’t have to stay. But he chose to anyway, announced that intention with a grin and no hesitation, like it was easy.
Noctis loved him.
Luna’s soulmark had been on her left cheek.
Once Niflheim invaded, she began covering it up with makeup all the time. He’d asked her once why it didn’t show up on TV, and she wrote back that it could endanger her other half. But when they first met, Luna displayed her soulmark freely.
“So, whose is it?” Noct had asked while he was in Tenebrae, pointing at his own cheek to indicate what he meant.
“My brother’s,” Luna answered easily, her own hand coming up to cup the sylleblossom blue ovals on her face. “I’m told that he caressed my cheek shortly after I was born. My soulmark is on his fingertips.”
Noctis leaned back on his hands. It made sense why he hadn’t noticed it, then. Such a small soulmark, even on a place as obvious as his hands, was easy to miss. “That means it’s not… rom… romantic. My dad’s isn’t, either.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah,” said Noctis, nodding. “His soulmate is Uncle Car, his Shield.”
“They’ve been by each other’s sides for their entire lives. It’s only sensible that they would turn out to be tied by fate,” Luna decided.
“You’re right.”
Her death premonition had been different—she touched him before he could insist that she didn’t.
Waking up in the Leville in Altissia, her notebook on the bedside table and the Ring in his hand, he learnt that he had interpreted it wrong.
‘She’ll drown under the weight of her duty.’ The entire time, he thought she would fatigue herself the normal way. He’d hoped that she would live long despite that. But that wasn’t it, after all—she completely drained herself to save his life, passing away on the edge of the ocean. It had been a metaphor. No one else’s was like that; he always saw flashes, or heard thoughts, or suddenly had information implanted in his brain.
Maybe it was better like this. Her death was still all his fault, but—he couldn’t possibly have known it would be like this.