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Noctis is glad it’s raining. Not just because it washes the blood and sweat and grime off of his face, cleaning the scrape on his cheekbone from where he’d skidded along the pavement, getting the sweat off of his eyebrows. But, because it hides the fact that he knows they’re both crying.
How fucked up is that, really?
How fucked up is it that he finally gets in past Ardyn’s defences, defences left so gaping wide-open that Noct could have Warped in as a child who could barely lift a sword, and buries his father’s blade in Ardyn’s chest to the hilt, they’re both crying? Noct’s tears are hot and angry and make him feel like a child again, frustrated and overwhelmed. Ardyn’s tears are—
He’s smiling, beatifically, as he wraps his hands around Noct’s fingers on the hilt. The leather of his gloves is slick with water from the rain, his fingers are cold, and he leans forward slightly, looks at Noctis with the most—gentle. Expression Noct has ever seen on his face; relaxed and open and finally, finally free. “So,” Ardyn’s deep voice comes out grating and raw, tired, more tired than Noctis thinks he’s ever sounded before, more tired than he knew a person could be, “That is how you would end it.”
Noct's hands, where he holds his father’s sword, shake.
Noctis has never been happier to let the blade Warp away from between his hands, and without it holding him up, Ardyn collapses to the ground, after a few unsteady steps. This time, he has one hand pressed to his wound, black blood bleeding hot as it soaks the white of his shirt, the blue of his waistcoat. It blooms steadily. It reminds Noctis of the way Luna looked, when he saw her last, red staining her white dress like the opening petals of a new-bloomed flower.
Ardyn doesn’t get up again. The Kings of Eld, appeased, dissolve back into the aether, and without them Insomnia is very dark. Without their light casting an unhealthy glow, Ardyn defeated doesn’t look like a victory to Noctis. He just looks like an old, tired man, sprawled boneless and empty on the courtyard pavement.
Noct falls to his knees, and he has never felt less victorious in his life.
“Now it is over, Majesty.” Ardyn smiles as he says it. His eyes are tired, so tired. It’s the first time he’s called Noctis King, without a hint of mocking in his voice. Is this truly what he had to do to earn that title? “What will you do? Banish the daemons and bring peace?” Noctis reaches a shaking hand up to brush Ardyn’s hair off of his face. In the starless night, water- and blood-logged, it isn’t the same red he’s used to, nearly purple in the lost sunlight. It’s just brown like this, damp and sopping and plastered to his skin. Ardyn looks so much less without it. He’s colourless, and sad, and Noctis wonders how he was ever scared of this man. Ever hated him. “Erase me from history once more?”
Noct shakes his head. He can’t do that. He cups Ardyn’s face, and the other man sighs, closes his eyes, presses his cheek into Noct’s hand like a love-starved cat, anxious for something, anything.
For the first time, he wonders the last that someone touched this man. The last time that someone hugged Ardyn. The last time he had an affectionate hand on his shoulder.
For all Ardyn had harassed them, ten years before, he’d never touched any of them.
What would that do to a person?
“This time,” Noctis finally manages, his voice cracking in his throat as he leans down, presses their foreheads together—feels how cold Ardyn is, from losing blood, from the rain, from whatever the Scourge had done to his body—is glad for the rain. Is glad for the rain, the rain washing the tears off of his face. He can deny this later. He can deny these tears later.
Noctis kisses Ardyn, for the first and last time. His lips are cold, but they’re soft, plush, almost. He returns it with the slow and lazy exhaustion of a man on the very precipice of rest, who has, at last, seen the opportunity for sleep. “You can rest in peace.” He doesn’t sob, but it’s a near thing, eyes closed, fingers tangled in Ardyn’s thick hair, so wet the coarse curls are straight. He can't look at the other man like this, can't see the resignation and the regret and whatever is in his eyes. Noctis can't bring himself to see Ardyn glad for the gift of death.
The tiny breath of Ardyn’s laugh is a puff against his lips.
“Close your eyes...forevermore.”
Ardyn laughs again. It’s something soft and raw; to hear it, to feel it against his skin, reveals how tender and weak it is. Here is the crack in Ardyns armour, open for Noctis to see at last. He almost wishes he couldn’t. “I will await you,” he whispers, lips brushing Noct’s, still. Finally, finally still. “In the beyond.”
It is quiet, after he’s gone. He fragments into dust and magic and nothing but air, and Noctis finds himself strangely empty.
The world feels oddly small to him now.