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How do you deal with a crush on a boy?
‘We will be friends.’
Prompto is determined, more than ever; he’s going to better himself, he’s going to do whatever he can to befriend Noctis. If the prince thinks he is ‘heavy,’ if that’s what he has to do, exercise and eat right, he’ll do it. Nothing else ever motivated him properly but finally he has a reason to do it.
If he had any real friends before this they would probably ask him why Noctis was the final straw. Prompto was always one to just sit in the classroom by himself, take photos by himself, go home after school alone and never talk to much of anyone. It wasn’t that he didn’t want friends, but it was much harder than it seemed to actually make them. So he just never made the effort. Why was Noctis different?
Prompto had hardly spoken to him, truth be told, he knows little about him besides what everyone knew, him being the prince and all. Yet something draws him to the boy…
All the girls in school swoon over him because of his good looks and the fact that he’s a prince. They didn’t know him either yet they still vied for his attention every day. During his jog home one day Prompto thinks about this, about what it was that made Noctis so important to him, why he wants to badly to be his friend. He can’t think of much.
“Maybe I’m falling for his good looks too,” he jokes to Chibi as he sets the puppy’s food bowl on the ground. He gives a small laugh and doesn’t think more of it.
The more he runs, the more time he has to think. He’s been running and dieting so he can lose weight, so he can be friends with Noctis. Why couldn’t he just befriend someone else? And why did he have to look just right before they meet again?
“I can’t have him call me heavy again,” he says to Chibi, sitting at his feet as he prepares his own dinner, a light caesar salad. “I’m… getting there. Soon I’ll look great and I can impress him and then he’ll have to be friends with me!” He smiles down at the little pup who barks happily back at him, probably because it’s expecting its own dinner soon as well, though Prompto takes it as a bark of encouragement.
That night, tucked under his covers, Prompto dreams of Noctis for what is not exactly the first time. The dream starts off fairly normal, the two of them at school in a classroom that is for some reason empty besides the two. Prompto looks up from his camera to see Noctis standing in front of his desk. Noctis takes the seat in front of him, turns around in the chair to lean on Prompto’s desk.
“Do you want me to take your picture?” Prompto asks, smiling up at the prince. Noctis shakes his head and leans in a little closer. Prompto thinks he wants to see the photos he was looking at on his camera, so he turns it around, makes it easier for him to see.
Noctis uses a hand to push the camera aside, leans in further, and plants a kiss on Prompto’s lips.
The shock is enough to wake him up, and he gets very little sleep again that night.
How do you deal with a crush on your best friend?
They settle into their friendship so easily, so naturally in their high school years. They spend so much of their free time together their classmates practically count them as a unit. Prompto finally has a friend, a best friend, he’s no longer quite so alone. Everything feels alright when they’re together.
Yet when he invites him to spend the night one evening, just after a video game they both had been looking forward to had been released, Prompto is sweating bullets.
It took him a while to get used to the idea, but across the time he’s spent following Noctis he’d learned to accept that he might have some kind of thing for him. It was fine, usually. He didn’t think much of it. He knew nothing could happen, both of them being boys, let alone the fact that Noctis was still the prince . So Prompto simply enjoyed Noctis’ company in whatever way he could get it and that was enough.
Sometimes it did hurt, but it always passed. Sometimes nights would come when Prompto wondered to himself why things couldn’t be easier, why he couldn’t just fall for some girl in their class instead (not that he’d be brave enough to act on it then either, but still). Sometimes it got to him, but Prompto was usually pretty good at choking everything down, at least until he was home to scream into his pillow by himself.
But when Noctis invites him to spend the night instead of leaving, he loses a bit of his cool. He knows it’s just to hang out longer and stay up later than they should, he logically knows nothing has changed and nothing ever will, yet he still can’t stop his mind from wandering.
“Yeah, sure dude!” is the casual response he gives, at least retaining his composure on the outside. Noctis’ character on the screen is covered by a splatter of virtual blood, the words ‘GAME OVER’ flashing in white over top of it. He hands Prompto the controller, and everything is normal.
That night, however, is when things get a little harder. Eventually the two decide they’re too tired to deal with retrying the same boss battle they’re stuck on for a fourth time, so they’re off to bed.
They lie in Noctis’ bed, Noctis facing Prompto who instead faces away, a good foot or so of space between them. Noctis passes out pretty immediately, though Prompto is rather anxious despite himself which ends up keeping him awake. He listens to the silence of the room, the soft breathing coming from Noctis who is right behind him. It’s oddly soothing and yet it has his mind going crazy at the same time.
Prompto curls his legs up a little further, closes his eyes and tries to force sleep to come to him. Easier said than done. After a few minutes he gives up and carefully turns over, making sure not to wake Noctis, instead carefully watching the little bits of him he can see in the moonlight that sneaks past the sides of the window blinds.
His breathing is slow, his shoulders rising and falling just the tiniest bit as Prompto watches him, as he tries to make out the details of his face in the near-darkness. Pitch black hair a mess as it’s pressed against the pillow, such rounded cheeks, his softly closed but perfectly shaped eyes with their long lashes, a few strands of hair falling over them— he’s beautiful in how relaxed and unkempt he looks. As Prompto’s eyes adjust further to his squinting in the darkness he finds himself struck by the prince’s good looks in a way he never had been before. He’d never had such a chance to stare, at least not outside of the photos he’d taken.
He’s only brought back to reality when he becomes aware of the warm feeling rising in his gut — a sudden tightness, not something he was prepared to deal with tonight. He immediately scans Noctis’ face again for any signs of him waking up. When he finds nothing but his best friend sound asleep, he releases the breath he didn’t realize he was holding and carefully turns back over in the bed.
Yet trying to sleep again like this proved to be even harder than he thought. His eyes might close but he can’t stop thinking, can’t stop panicking over the idea that Noctis might wake up, might somehow find out what’s going on — not the most logical train of thought, seeing as the thick comforter over top of them obscures any telltale signs of anything if Noctis were to even wake up and get up out of bed and look at him through the darkness. It’d be nearly impossible for him to be ‘found out’, except the flurry of anxiety overwhelms him.
‘How bad would it be if I snuck off to the bathroom and…’ he throws this idea out the window as soon as it comes to mind. There’s no way he could live with himself after that, doing such a thing in not only his best friend’s apartment, but the prince’s ? So instead he must wait it out; he tries his best to think of anything but this.
In the end he passes out a good hour or two after Noctis, and still wakes up multiple times through the night. He vows to himself in the morning, the two of them boiling water for a cup noodle breakfast, that he’ll try to avoid sleepovers as best as he can from here on out. Everything is just too difficult this way.
How do you deal with a crush on the prince?
Before they know it, Noctis is engaged and Prompto is joining him, along with Gladio and Ignis, to escort him on his way to his bride. Prompto is happy to be able to spend so much time with Noctis again, in any case, he’d been so busy lately with all that had been going on, yet the specific circumstances of their trip still weighed heavily on him.
He knows that, above all, this is a political marriage. Noctis never waxed poetic to him about his love for Lady Lunafreya, never spoke of his desire to be with her in that sort of sense. They had been friends since before Prompto ever met him, so of course there was a close bond between the prince and the oracle, yet what kind of bond exactly was unknown to him. Prompto never asked. An occasion to do so never properly came up and he had to admit he would be a little scared to hear the answer anyway. Just in case. Lady Lunafreya is beautiful and kind, and Prompto couldn’t blame him if he did fall for her somewhere along the way.
Either way, a marriage is still a marriage, whether it’s from a deep, passionate love, or one stemming rather from a commitment to the people of your land, a dedication to protect them. Noctis is getting married.
Prompto isn’t sure how to feel about it.
He often spaces out on their travels, wind blowing through his hair as the hum of the Regalia’s engine fills the air around them. He leans his folded arms on the car door and watches the scenery pass them by as he thinks of what this all means exactly. He hadn’t seen much of Noctis lately because of all the turmoil going on around them; would this get even worse now? Would his marriage leave the prince no time at all for his best friend? Regardless of his romantic interest in him, this isn’t something Prompto wants in any case.
Yet when they run into a convenience store and Noctis offers to pay for Prompto’s snacks (and when he teases him for his horrible taste in candy), everything is alright. When the two fight side by side, when they work together and link-strike a monster to deliver the final blow, everything feels okay.
Gladio and Ignis, being his guards specifically, seem to do more to protect Noctis a lot of the time, and Prompto often wishes he were a bit stronger, a bit more useful.
Except for one thing: if he ever had to die for Noctis, he knows he would.
It might be a little difficult still to sleep in a small tent alongside his long-time crush. Prompto slowly gets used to it, seeing it instead as some of the last time he may have with his best friend before the kingdom comes first. Time that he needs to enjoy to the fullest.
Everything is fine.
When Noctis wakes up to news that Insomnia has fallen… nothing is any semblance of ‘fine’ anymore. Prompto’s previous worries are nothing but specks of dust in the wind compared to this. The whole world has been turned upside down and what can he do to fix it? Practically nothing . The drive back toward Insomnia — they have to make sure this is the truth, see it with their own eyes — is one of the longest and quietest he’s ever experienced.
When Noctis got into the Regalia, Prompto had slid into the back seat with him instead of Gladio for a change, too nervous over the prince’s state of mind to leave his side, even just to be an extra few feet away in the front seat. The other two don’t question anything and the four quickly fall into this total silence.
Noctis faces the horizon, not looking at the others at all, his mind very much elsewhere. Prompto takes many inspected glances over at him. He knows the way Noctis’ jaw clenches, he can always tell. He knows to look out for it. It’s when he holds it in and allows nothing to spill over. That’s why he’s in the back.
Prompto reaches a hand out and takes Noctis’ own, something he’s never done before, though it’s all he can think to do in such a situation. When Noctis looks back at him, Prompto is unsure if his expression is more hurt, angry, or surprised, an unusual succession when Noctis tries so hard to keep it clear. Prompto can hardly meet his eyes. All that matters is how he squeezes Prompto’s hand a bit tighter before looking away once more. They remain holding hands for the rest of the drive.
How do you deal with being in love?
It takes a while for things to settle a bit, for the grim facts of reality to sink in and steel them all for what else is sure to come. They distract themselves helping Cindy with various tasks, collecting frogs for Sania, gathering gems for Dino… it’s busywork. They know they should be moving on, getting the new king back to important regal matters, though these easier mindless tasks just seem so much more appealing to him at the moment.
Noctis is plagued with nightmares of his father, of the people he disappointed, all the people that died that he might have been able to help save, nightmares that haunt him practically every single time he closes his eyes. One night in particular he gets up from the tent, paces the small outskirts of their camp for a while, wanting to get away but not quite reckless enough to venture into the dark by himself. Prompto soon notices his absence, being a light sleeper, and steps out of the tent to see Noctis on the other side of the fire, now sitting in one of their folding chairs and staring up at the stars.
Noctis looks back down at him when he notices his presence and asks in a half-whisper, “Why are you up?”
“Why are you?” Prompto shoots back, circling the fire to sit down next to him.
“It’s nothing.” Noctis tilts his head back and looks up to the sky once again.
“Doesn’t seem like nothin’.”
There’s a silence that hangs thick in the air. Prompto can sense Noctis is trying to think of what to say. The way he sighs, keeps his focus on the sky, Prompto has been his friend long enough to read him and know not to prod more until he’s ready. Sure enough, a brief moment later, Noctis finally looks down, makes eye contact with Prompto for just a second before his eyes graze the ground instead.
“I let everyone down. Absolutely everyone.”
“No, you didn’t, there’s no way you could’ve known—” Prompto instantly jumps to his defense, yet he’s interrupted.
“That doesn’t matter. I could’ve done something, I could have protected everyone…”
“Listen, Noct…” He shares a gaze with Noctis that he only occasionally meets, with gentle eyes, ones that wish they could comfort in more ways than just this. “You did what you could. You were on your way to get married and everything, you were doing a big thing to end this and protect everyone… what happened was out of your control.”
“Prompto.” Noctis stands up from his chair rather suddenly.
“Yeah?”
“Can we just… go back to sleep? I really don’t want to think right now.”
Prompto gives a nod and stands up too. “Sure, buddy.” This gets a small chuckle from Noctis but before he knows it Prompto’s arms are around him, closing him in a tight hug. Noctis smiles and hugs him back, both boys patting each other on the back before they separate.
The next few days Prompto thinks a lot about this night; about the simple vulnerability, before the warm hug happened. Noctis had always been so guarded. This was how he was raised, Prompto figures, having to develop a harder outer shell for when he would one day become king. But no one ever thought that day would come so quickly.
When they stay the night at a motel for a change, Noctis is still not inside when it starts to get late, so Prompto goes out to look for him. He ends up spotting him and climbing all the way up onto the large ‘MOTEL’ sign where the prince sits, thankfully not looking quite as troubled as a few days prior.
“So, whatcha doin’?” Prompto asks as casually as he can, trying to remain his playful self in hopes it might cheer Noctis up.
“Nothing much. Just chilling.” His tone at least sounds friendlier this time.
The two talk for a little while, Prompto trying his best not to bring up how Noctis is feeling, trying to keep the topic on something more lighthearted, or just something that won’t drag him down even more — a strategy that only works so well, as it somehow ends up with Prompto spilling his guts instead this time. He talks about his insecurities and how he sometimes feels worthless, and all Noctis does is encourage him, tell him that it’s alright. He listens with such intent it’s a miracle that Prompto doesn’t spill the beans about how he feels for Noctis too while he’s at it.
He even goes so far as to apologize in the end, not knowing where any of this came from. “I’m sorry I got so… real all of a sudden.”
Noctis just shakes his head. “You should know better by now. You think I make time for just any old loser?”
Prompto is taken slightly off guard by this and can only think to tease back with a laugh and a, “Why? You mad bro?” Noctis gives a half-smile before Prompto adds on, in a more serious tone once again, “Seriously though. Thanks for making time for this loser.”
The two head back down for solid ground a moment or so later, and before Noctis’ feet have even touched the pavement Prompto decides to ask, now more concerned that he took over their conversation, “So… you’re doing okay too?”
“Yeah. You don’t have to worry,” Noctis turns to him and nods, both boys headed back toward the actual motel building.
Prompto can’t help but smile at hearing that Noctis is doing a little better now. Yet he also smiles at how much Noctis cares about him, how special he suddenly feels after this long talk…at the ripe age of eleven, Prompto had many thoughts about why he didn’t have any friends, how he couldn’t reach out to people, if he would ever even be worthy of being someone’s friend at all. It took time to introduce himself to Noctis, years, even, but this was his own doing. As soon as he did, the two clicked instantly. Noctis had been his best friend practically since that very day.
All this time he’d been supporting him, standing by him. He was Prompto’s best friend for a reason, and if he had to fall in love with anyone, Noctis was a good choice.
Even if they could never be together. Even if he was getting married soon, and soon they might be apart even more than ever, soon he might be too busy to see him much at all anymore — even if this was his last chance to…
Prompto drops his smile and asks, “Hey, Noct?” He stops walking and Noctis follows suit, turning to look at him.
“Yeah?”
The two are standing in a fairly dark corner on the side of the building when Prompto takes a step in, closes the distance between them, and kisses him. The instant they connect everything feels right, and for a split second he has to wonder why this took him so long, why he hadn’t taken the chance before, why he ever questioned this.
That is, until Noctis quickly pulls back, eyes wide. In that second a million and one new things flash through Prompto’s mind. What has he done? It all felt so nice to him, but if Noctis was about to reject him, if he didn’t want this… If Prompto resisted just a little longer everything would have been done, Noctis would have gotten married and he would be forced to move on from this stupid crush of way too many goddamn years. He knows why he did this, he knows why he leapt for the chance. He’s just never good at dealing with the aftermath, with the rejection and awkwardness. It’s fight or flight: now he has to run, just head to their room and never mention this again—
Noctis grabs his wrist and stops him.
“Hey.”
Prompto meets his eyes and he wouldn’t be surprised if he was shaking from all this. He can feel his heart pounding and he can’t bring himself to say anything, which is fine, because before he knows it Noctis is kissing him back. If the first kiss wasn’t a big enough shock to his system, this practically puts Prompto in cardiac arrest. Noctis is kissing him ? Why? He can’t make any sense of it. He doesn’t care, though, because their lips are touching, moving against each other for just a brief second before a more natural separation this time.
Prompto would be lying if he said he’d never imagined a moment like this, never imagined Noctis kissing him, even just in a passing thought… it made him feel like he was an adolescent with small dreams all over again. “Wha— wait, what??”
Noctis laughs a little. “Took you long enough, idiot.”
Prompto furrows his brow, half glares at him before yelling, forgetting how late it is, “What do you mean, ‘took me long enough’?! And why are you calling me an idiot?”
“You’re not that subtle, you know.”
“Wha— so you just let me suffer?? ” Prompto is frustrated, sure, but he’s also trying not to laugh at just how ridiculous his life suddenly seems in retrospect.
“It wouldn’t be proper for me to make a move, would it? I’m getting married…!” Noctis teases, earning him a playful punch to the arm that leaves them both laughing.
“You’re the worst!” Prompto sighs dramatically, leaning up against the outer wall of the building for support. The whole moment is utterly surreal, in the way that things you hope for always are: is this really me? Am I really here?
“Fine, if I’m the worst, then I guess you’ll never want to do that again, huh?” Noctis turns toward their room and starts walking again, and by the time Prompto has shifted his weight off the wall he’s chasing after him again.
“Not fair! Noct, come on…! You can’t just do that to a guy!” And as the prince’s pace increases, playing with the blond and trying to stay just out of his reach, he hears another cry of, “Noct! Wait up!”
He only catches up with him again when they reach the door, knowing full well that Ignis and Gladio are both inside, oblivious to everything. Noctis holds up a finger in a ‘shush’ gesture as he turns to Prompto, who frowns in return. At least, until he receives one more kiss: a much slower, longer, gentler one than the ones that came before. One that lets Prompto really focus on how soft Noctis’ lips are, how perfectly they fit with his own.
Noctis opens the door for Prompto with a grin and a teasing, “Come on, loser.”