Archive of Our Own

They'd just wrapped up a productive farming session in King's Knight - more than halfway done and there was still a week left on the event, they had this in the bag - when a sharp curse from the other end of the sofa made Noctis look up at Prompto, who was staring at his phone with a grimace.

"What?" Noctis said. "Don't tell me you fused the wrong materials because I'm not emailing the GMs again, that was so embarrassing - "

"Nah," Prompto said, still making a face. "But maybe you should email them anyway, ask them to add a clock to the UI." He punctuated the statement by holding his phone up so Noct could see his lock screen. Or rather, the time on his lock screen. Which read -

"Oh," Noctis said. "Shit."

"Yep," Prompto said. "Looks like the last train was... 47 minutes ago at your station."

A long silence filled the room. Prompto scrolled through his phone, fruitlessly searching for an alternate route, and Noctis felt distinctly unhelpful - he knew better than to offer to pay for a taxi, and being stranded wasn't really something he'd ever worried about much, not when he had... oh.

"I'll call Ignis," Noctis said, already pulling up his contact list, before Prompto hurriedly slapped at his hand.

"No way! You can't wake Ignis up at 1 am in the morning just because I'm a dumbass who can't tell the time."

"It was kinda my fault too," Noctis pointed out.

"Aaand still nothing to do with Ignis? Come on, he already hates me - "

"Nobody hates you, Prom," Noctis said, rolling his eyes, but that was an old point of contention and Prompto didn't find 'your insecurities are stupid' to be a convincing argument, which was maybe fair enough? Noctis was working on it. Slowly. Somehow. Anyway. "This is dumb, just stay over."

"What?" Prompto said, eyes wide in genuine surprise. "I - uh, I didn't bring any of my stuff - "

Noctis shrugged. "I can lend you something."

Prompto still looked conflicted, even though it wasn't like he hadn't stayed over before, but Noctis knew he'd won when Prompto slouched and brushed his thumb over his ever-present wristband. "Thanks, Noct."

"You can thank me by doing something about this," Noctis said, sweeping a hand out expansively to indicate the the detritus of their gaming binge - soggy pizza boxes, soda cans, half-empty snack tins...

"Wow, seriously?" Prompto said, the effect of his ire undermined by the way he was already reaching for the nearest plastic bag.

"I'm gonna take a shower," Noctis said, flashing his friend a quick thumbs up.

"Wow," Prompto said again, waving him off.

The hot water went a long way in soothing the stiffness caused by an entire evening bent over his phone. He didn't bother drying his hair, just slung a towel over his shoulders so he wouldn't drip into his dresser as he rummaged for something Prompto could wear. He eventually came up with an old pair of sweats and a t-shirt, close enough to what Prompto always brought when he slept over.

When he returned to the living room, it had been miraculously transformed from disaster zone to tolerably messy. Prompto had even retrieved a dishcloth from the kitchen and was scrubbing at the sticky rings on the glass table.

"Hey, nice job," Noctis said. "You'll make a beautiful housewife one day."

"Tell that to Ignis," Prompto said, still scrubbing. "I dare you."

"Yeah, no," Noctis said. "But... speaking of, I'm surprised your parents didn't look for you earlier?"

"They knew I was with you," Prompto said with a shrug. He kept his head down. "I guess they figured that if anything happened, they'd find out faster from the news? Anyway, I texted them," he continued, artificially bright. "No worries."

Noctis made a short, unconvinced noise, but he knew better than to push, so he pushed the clothes he was holding into Prompto's face instead. Prompto grabbed them with a muffled yelp, the dishcloth falling to the floor, and swatted Noctis hard before he pushed himself up and padded down the hall.

Left alone, Noctis took a moment to survey the living room. Prompto really had done a pretty nice job - most of the trash had been gathered and sorted, and all that was really left was to break out the vacuum or at least sweep for crumbs, and wipe down the rest of the table and that suspicious stain running down one table leg. He could finish the job Prompto started, or... he could make it tomorrow's problem and organise his in-game inventory.

Noctis threw himself onto the sofa and reached for his phone.

Clearing his inventory was time-consuming, boring as hell and weirdly engrossing. He only vaguely registered the sound of the bathroom door sliding open again, and didn't bother paying attention until Prompto called out from the entrance of the living room.

"So, hey, I'm taking the bed," he announced. "I have track practice for the sports festival tomorrow, and if I sleep on your sofa, the 500 metre dash is gonna be more like the 500 metre stagger."

Hell no, Noctis started to say, but the words died on his tongue when he looked up. He'd seen his friend in sweats and t-shirts before; hell, he'd seen Prompto half-naked before, courtesy of a baking accident they'd silently and mutually agreed to never talk about, but his casual wear tended towards neutral greys and greens, not -

Black.

The colour contrasted sharply with his pale complexion. Prompto had his arms raised, carelessly toweling his hair. His shirt rode high with the motion, and his pants - just a little too large - rode low on his hips, and Noct's eye was dizzyingly and inexorably drawn to the flash of skin between the two. He looked like a mess, with his hair falling in damp locks, the harsh black of his clothes making his face seem just a little sallow and drawn. He looked better than Noctis had ever seen him. He looked like he belonged in this colour, royalty be damned. He looked like he belonged to Noctis.

The silence must have gone on a little too long because Prompto stopped drying his hair and looked at Noctis with concern. His shirt fell back down and Noctis didn't know if he missed the uncovered skin or if he wanted to cover Prompto in his colour even further.

"Uh, Eos to Noct?" Prompto said. "I was kidding about the bed, dude."

No, you can have the bed, Noctis thought inanely. You can have my whole fucking wardrobe -

"Yeah," Noctis finally managed to say through a dry mouth. "Wait - no, it's cool - "

"Noct?"

"I mean," Noctis started, wrenching his thoughts into some sort of order, "We're in the same class, so if you lose the sports festival, I lose the sports festival."

"It's just practice, dude," Prompto laughed. "I don't know how one man can be so lazy yet so competitive. Seriously, it's okay."

"Fine, we'll both take the bed," Noctis declared, ignoring Prompto's startled protest. "It's big enough."

It wasn't big enough.

Noctis, who didn't know what "backing down" meant, ignored the rest of Prompto's protests until he sighed and clambered under the unmade sheets. He considered feeling bad for a moment, but he'd learned early that as easy-going as he seemed, nobody could actually make Prompto do anything he didn't want to do, so he flipped the lights off and flopped down next to Prompto instead. They weren't exactly touching, especially with the way Prompto was pressed as close to the wall as he could get, but Noctis could feel the heat of his skin between them. Even in the darkness, he could just about make out the contrast where the nape of Prompto's neck met the collar of his shirt.

"Hey, Prompto," Noctis murmured into the silence, after Prompto's breathing had finally started to even out and slow.

"Mm?" Prompto mumbled back.

"What time's your practice tomorrow?"

"Like 11, why?"

"I gotta pick up something from the library," Noctis lied. "Let's go down together. You can borrow some of my training gear."

"Oh," Prompto yawned. "Cool."

"Cool," Noctis echoed, and let a strange sense of satisfaction chase him into sleep.