Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/8594176.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Final_Fantasy_XV
  Relationship:
      Noctis_Lucis_Caelum/Ignis_Scientia
  Character:
      Noctis_Lucis_Caelum, Ignis_Scientia, Gladiolus_Amicitia, Prompto
      Argentum, Regis_Lucis_Caelum_CXIII
  Additional Tags:
      brief_Ignis/OMC, First_Time, Friends_to_Lovers, Friendship, bros, Magic,
      Slice_of_Life
  Series:
      Part 1 of while_you're_making_other_plans
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-11-19 Completed: 2016-11-27 Chapters: 5/5 Words: 31585
****** while you're busy making other plans ******
by concernedlily
Summary
     Noct grows up.
     (Note on the underage tag: Noct is 17, Ignis is 19.)
Notes
     Thanks as ever to lovely ataraxetta for beta, encouragement, general
     squeedom!
     I'll just write a ficlet about how Ignis goes from combed hair and
     suiting waistcoats to leopardprint shirts and blinged-up jeans, I
     said. It'll be fun, I said...
     The story is complete and will be posted in five parts over the next
     week or so, before the game comes out and probably josses me to
     buggery.
See the end of the work for more notes
***** Chapter 1 *****
When Noct went into senior year, Ignis packed his bags and left.
“I'll just be in the dorms during the week,” Ignis said, his brow creased with
unhappiness, when Noct suggested to him that he was abandoning his important
commitments to the crown, and also that Noct was probably going to starve
during the week. “You've been so busy with Prompto, Noctis. I'll be back at
weekends. You won't even notice.”
But he didn't say he wouldn't go to grad school.
***
“Why would I forbid Ignis from going?” Dad said, heartlessly. “I've been
involved in selecting his programme, his accelerated degree went so well. He's
going to be your closest advisor, Noct. He has to see a bit more of the world
than picking up your dirty socks.”
Everywhere, Noct was betrayed.
***
“You are always saying he cramps your style,” Prompto offered. He pushed half
his fries to Noct and Noct silently poured them onto his plate with his own,
making sure they didn't touch the slimy lettuce and tomato he'd taken off his
burger. “Why do you care? It'll be so cool! We can hang out at your place. We
can have parties.”
Noct took a big bite out of his burger to avoid answering. He liked it when it
was just him and Ignis in the apartment, and he didn't know anyone but Prompto
who would come to a party for any reason other than to gawp at the prince, and
even more than all that he knew he couldn't give the real explanation for why
he cared: it was because Ignis was supposed to be there to help Noct, and Noct
had spent the last few years complaining he didn't need any help, so he could
hardly admit now he really did.
***
Noct woke up late on Saturday, already smiling. He couldn't figure out why for
a minute, until the familiar sounds outside the bedroom properly registered:
the little noises of Ignis messing about, doing kitchen things that made the
apartment smell good and produced delicious treats for Noct to eat but also
meant it took him five minutes to find a water glass because Ignis had thought
of a new system of organising the dishes.
The apartment was in a decent state today. Noct had intended to use his new
freedom to revert to the pigsty way of living but by Wednesday he'd found,
irritatingly, it was actually nice not to be surrounded by takeaway food
starting to rot and tripping over yesterday’s uniform on the floor and unable
to find the right controller when he wanted to play a game.
So he'd spent Friday evening picking up a little. The tabloids were always
speculating about what scandals the teenaged prince got up to in his off time:
if they only knew the glamour.
He'd slept for a pretty long time already. He got out of bed, dragged a
sweatshirt on, and headed out of his room.
“Good morning,” Ignis said, sliding the last of a batch of cookies onto a tray
on the counter to cool. “Or should I say, afternoon.”
He was smiling and Noct smiled back.
Then he frowned. “You’re different,” he said.
Ignis looked mortified. It was so weird: Noct couldn't figure out for a minute
what was different, like he just hadn't bothered to memorise what Ignis looked
like, because why would he need to when Ignis was always there?
“You've - have you done something with your hair?”
“No! It's just…” Ignis hung up the oven gloves and got out a Tupperware
container to start piling the cookies into, even though they obviously weren’t
ready yet: Ignis always cooled cookies for precisely nineteen minutes, because
he'd worked out that was just the right amount of time for the chocolate chips
to still be a little melty and nice but for the cookies to be structurally
sound.
“It's parted on the other side,” Noct said suspiciously. “Isn't it?”
“It's parted on the other side,” Ignis snapped. “Who cares?”
“You do,” Noct said. “You've always - you've looked exactly the same since you
got to the citadel! Just taller!”
Ten years ago. So long ago Noct barely remembered a time Ignis hadn't been
there, although he remembered the day Ignis had come. He'd been seven and Dad
had brought in this serious-faced kid and just said this is Ignis, he lives
here now, you stick with him and show him how things work around here, okay?
And Noct, magnanimously, had shown his toy train track to Ignis, a really cool
one that went all the way around the cathedra, even up and down a little slope
on the first few stairs to the throne, and out into the hall and back, and the
trains ran mechanically and went really fast. Ignis had stared at the train
Noct handed him to play with like he didn't know what to do with it and Noct
had thought he was a complete idiot and hadn't bothered to speak to him again
for two weeks. Until Cor had taken them both out to play soccer in the palace
grounds, and Noct had fallen over, and Ignis had come over to help him up,
small and solemn, and grinned at him when Noct said thanks.
A whole decade. They should've baked a cake.
Although now he thought about it, perhaps Ignis had. There had been a very
elaborate cake, about three months ago, with lots of raspberry jelly and
buttercream in the middle and Noct’s favourite chocolate ganache for frosting,
and Noct had eaten a lot of it and mumbled thanks, and Ignis had looked
pleased, but Ignis hadn't said anything about what it was for. Noct hadn't
asked.
“Then it was more than time for a change,” Ignis said. He smiled again,
although it looked like it took an effort. “How are you, Noctis? How is
school?”
“Fine,” Noct said.
“Fine?” Ignis said. “Even calculus? I talked to your teacher and she -”
“When did you talk to my teacher?” Noct burst out. Even though Ignis talked to
his teachers a lot. It wasn't like the King could rock on up to parent-
teacher’s evening and Ignis was the one who signed the permission forms and
helped Noct with his homework and memorised his class schedule.
“On Wednesday,” Ignis said, sounding a lot calmer now he was back on familiar
territory.
“You came to my school on Wednesday and didn't see me?” Noct said.
“No, I called her,” Ignis said. “And she said -”
“I don't want to know,” Noct said. “Everything's fine. It's only the third week
of the semester.”
Ignis looked at him for a moment. “All right,” he said. “But you'll let me know
if you need help.”
“Yeah,” Noct said, feeling mad and tired. He should've stayed in bed. He went
over to the couch and flomped down onto it. Ignis followed him, out from behind
the kitchen counter, taking his apron off and folding it neatly onto the dining
table and hovering in the little living area. Noct stared up at the ceiling and
refused to look at him. The cushion felt soft under his head: Ignis had plumped
them up and set them at perfect angles in the corners of the sofa.
“I thought maybe you and I could do something together today,” Ignis said
awkwardly. “I really… it was really odd not seeing you this week.”
“I've got plans,” Noct said, even though he didn't. It wasn't until he said it
that he realised he too had had in the back of his mind that maybe he'd spend
the day with Ignis. It wasn't like he couldn't find stuff to do. Prompto was
never busy on weekends either and they could hang out and look at girls Prompto
would never get up the nerve to ask out, or go see a movie, or play games.
“Noctis,” Ignis said, with the note of disapproval Noct knew so well and hated
so much. He'd just wanted a nice day, and everything felt spoiled and cold.
“You can go,” Noct said, knowing he was being horrible and ungracious and yet
unable to stop it from just falling on out of his mouth. It was something he
was usually careful not to do, with Ignis and Gladio, to be so direct: there
was always that little voice of his dad’s in his ear, reminding him that Gladio
and Ignis were under his royal command, in effect. If he outright told them
what to do, it was hard for them to ignore.
“Fine,” Ignis said, clipped. “Enjoy your weekend, Noctis.” He gathered his
things with the sharp, jerky movements that meant he was judging Noct so hard,
and Noct rolled over and buried his face in the sofa cushions.
At the staccato of Ignis’s footsteps, he turned back over. “And your hair looks
stupid!” he shouted after him, meaning it to hurt.
The door didn't slam - Ignis didn't slam doors - but it definitely shut with an
angrier click than usual.
***
Ignis came back the next day and roasted them a chicken for dinner. Noct didn't
talk to him for the first half hour, but he drifted towards the kitchen
eventually and let Ignis teach him how to make the filling for apple pie, with
raisins and lots of cinnamon, the way Noct liked it.
***
He invited Prompto back one evening after school, to try to make the time pass
a little faster and the place feel a bit less quiet. He wouldn't have even said
he and Ignis hung out, particularly - Noct just did stuff after school and
Ignis was usually there - but it was weird without him. Noct kept listening out
for the door to open, or opening his mouth as soon as he walked in the door to
yell that he was back, and he hated the lingering feeling of wrongness when it
didn't happen.
He was sure he must have brought Prompto home before in the year they'd been
friends, but Prompto was openmouthed as Noct said goodbye to Evra, who was
driving him now that Ignis wasn't around, and led Prompto into his building.
Prompto said, “Wow. You really… live in an apartment.”
“Yeah?” Noct said. “You knew that.”
“Yeah, but I figured it was, like, in the palace. Or close. Or something. I
don't know.”
He sounded a bit intimidated. Noct slanted a look at Prompto as he pressed the
button for the top floor. They weren't far from the palace. Noct went back most
weeks to see his dad. Prompto wasn't looking back, instead shrinking behind
Noct as Forlanis tipped his cap to them, watching keenly as they went to his
elevator. Noct had never asked, but all the doormen in his building had the
suspiciously well-muscled and alert air of military, so Noct guessed he could
see how he might look kind of scary.
He opened the laptop to his favourite pizza place and left it with Prompto to
pick what pizza to order while he set up the latest Fall of Darkness game.
“I did mine, what did you want to… oh, hey! I didn’t think that was even out
yet.”
“I don’t know,” Noct said, distracted by trying to figure out the best save
point to start playing with someone else. “The game people sent it to me.” He’d
talked about one of the earlier games in the series in one of the interviews
the palace press people had him do every year so the media would leave him
alone to get on with school the rest of the time, and now games arrived at the
palace; who knew when they were supposed to be out?
“Wow,” Prompto said again and Noct looked up at him. Prompto never acted like
Noct’s deal was a weird deal: that was part of what Noct liked about him.
Prompto went faintly pink and said, “Can I look around?”
“Yeah, if you want,” Noct said, and pulled the laptop over on the couch
cushions to add his usual order of breadsticks, soda, and ice cream. He looked
up when he was done and Prompto was on the balcony, gleefully taking photos of
the glitter and spread of Insomnia from twenty floors up.
Noct hit send on the pizza order and went to dig his second GoStation
controller out of the dresser in the guest room.
Later, they were finished playing and Noct was contemplating the homework he
hadn’t done, and the extra reading Ignis had emailed over based on something
one of the newspapers had said that morning that he also hadn’t done, when
Prompto said tentatively, “How long have you lived here?”
Noct shrugged. He dragged himself up off the floor and curled in a corner of
the couch and Prompto copied him, on the other end. “A year or something, I
don’t know. Why?”
“I don’t know,” Prompto echoed. He glanced around, and so did Noct, following
his gaze. It was a pretty nice apartment: it had been newly decorated when he’d
moved in, and it was boring but it was fine. Noct sometimes thought it might be
nice to put up a poster, or pick out some throw cushions himself, or do
whatever else it was that people did to decorate, but so far he hadn’t done
anything to it.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I like it.”
“Yeah, but. Noct, aren’t you lonely? Don’t you miss him?”
“No,” Noct said, irritated. He leaned his head against the back of the couch
and picked at a loose thread on the cushion he pulled onto his lap. It was a
little chilly in the apartment: he’d have to ask Ignis at the weekend how the
central heating control panel worked. “I don’t miss him at all. He just tried
to get me to do stuff all the time, and… anyway, he’s still in the city, he’s
just at school. He’s still gonna be here a lot.”
There was a silence. Noct looked up and Prompto was eyeing him, with a look on
his face some way between surprise and pity. Prompto was so easy: everything he
thought just showed up on his face, or more usually fell straight out of his
mouth. Not like the people Noct had grown up with at the palace, the kind of
people who surrounded his dad and used to lean over Noct and talk to him like
he was stupid, not just young. Prompto said, “I meant your dad. Don’t you miss
your dad?”
“Oh,” Noct said. And then, “I’m going to call Evra to come pick you up. Your
mom is going to be wondering where you are.”
Prompto was the other way around from Noct. He had a mom, but not a dad; that
was probably why he was asking.
“Sure,” Prompto said uncertainly. “Thanks, man.”
Noct lay awake a pretty long time that night. He often did, magic crackling the
air around him like it had nowhere to go, wiring him up too much to sleep. That
was why he was here, why he'd asked to leave the citadel, what nobody knew. Not
even Ignis, although sometimes his dad looked at him sadly and Noct thought -
he must know. Because it must have happened to him, too, while Noct’s
grandfather tested his strength on the Wall and failed a little more every day;
Noct’s dad must have felt the crystal abandoning its King and reaching for its
Prince, his father losing his skills and raw power bit by bit, weapons
unsummoned, injuries and weaknesses unhealed.
His dad would have felt that then, the way Noct did now.
***
When Ignis came on Saturday, he was wearing an untucked white shirt with his
jacket over it. It made him look taller, somehow, the long line of his chest
flowing into his trim waist and the longer line of his legs. The shirt was
probably expensive - probably all of them had been, but it had been hard to
tell under the severely buttoned-up waistcoat Ignis always wore.
It looked soft, touchable, fine enough to suggest Ignis’s muscled chest beneath
it and the shadowed rounds of his nipples. The top three buttons were undone,
showing a shock of Ignis’s pale skin, and the small necklace he wore, usually
hidden beneath the shirt, the tiny skull that signified his service to the
royal family. Noct had picked that, when they were both small enough for the
simple charm to look bigger.
“What are you wearing,” Noct said. He couldn't look away, his heart beating a
steady hard thrum he could feel in his stomach.
“A shirt,” Ignis said self-consciously. “I always wear a shirt.”
“That is not what you always wear,” Noct said.
“It's just a shirt,” Ignis said. “What do you want to do today? The Museum of
Lucis has a new exhibition about video game design, I thought you might like
it. It's supposed to be very good.”
It was a blatant attempt at misdirection. A museum, Noct thought, where it
would probably be very well-lit, and Ignis’s white shirt might look practically
transparent.
“I have a headache,” he said. “Maybe - tomorrow?”
“Okay,” Ignis said, and smiled at him. He came close and put his hand on Noct’s
forehead and Noct closed his eyes. Ignis’s hand felt warm, reassuring, and he
pressed into the touch. “You don't feel like you're getting sick. You want to
stay on the couch and watch movies today? I'll make soup.”
Noct stayed on the couch and watched movies, with a soft woollen blanket draped
over him Ignis had fetched from the linen closet in the hall and Noct hadn't
even known was there. Ignis made lentil and bacon soup, spicy and filling, and
then he sat on the couch and watched movies too, without complaining when Noct
snuck his feet onto Ignis’s lap.
Ignis stayed over that evening, in case Noct really was ill, although Noct’s
headache was totally gone. In the morning Noct even started to think he might
be well enough to go to the museum.
Ignis emerged from the guest room in the fresh set of clothes he kept there
(although he hadn't, Noct noticed, put the waistcoat back on) and went straight
to the kitchen, dropping an enormous amount of ground Ebony into the coffee
machine. Noct paused the game he was playing, still lounging around in his
sleep clothes, and watched Ignis nimbly getting out a cup and saucer, a silver
spoon and tiny cubes of brown sugar, the little coffee ritual that always made
Ignis relax. He was relaxing now: Noct could see his shoulders coming down from
around his ears, broader than ever in the white shirt. He said, “Can I have
some coffee?”
Ignis smiled at him over his shoulder and said, “You don't drink coffee.”
“I could drink coffee,” Noct said. He probably could. It was an acquired taste,
right? He could acquire it. He could go with Ignis to the fancy shop where
Ignis bought his coffee and had conversations with the sales people where they
were all like, ooh, floral notes, and Noct could just smell burning.
“Okay,” Ignis said, and reached up to get another cup and saucer out. “Whatever
you'd like, Noctis.”
The video game exhibition was pretty good, but it was better the way Ignis
stuck close, and listened carefully when Noct explained to him about how this
RPG worked or that shooter, and clapped when Noct got picked to go up and play
with one of the museum people in a demo and won three battles one after
another. It was a pretty nice weekend.
***
The Saturday after that brought the shirt again, and the part on the other
side, maybe gelled down a little less firmly than usual but otherwise no new
changes. Noct examined Ignis at length, covertly, and was satisfied of it.
The Saturday after that, Ignis messaged Noct and asked if Noct would mind if
Ignis just came around on Sunday, as he had some things to do. Noct lied that
he didn't mind at all.
The Saturday after that, Ignis didn't even ask. Just messaged and said, he'd be
by on Sunday.
Which was fine. Noct stayed in on Saturday and got ahead on his reading for
school, highlighting his ancestors in yellow every time they showed up in his
history textbook.
***
“Are you having fun?” Noct asked, staring at the side of Ignis’s face.
Ignis looked up at him and back down at the button he was sewing back on Noct’s
school blazer.
“Not with that,” Noct said. “And I said I was sorry. At school. Are you having
fun at school.”
“I know you did,” Ignis said. “They don't fix these buttons on tightly enough
at the manufacturer, it's ridiculous.” He made the face that meant they'd have
been getting one of Ignis’s cross letters, if only Ignis weren't very
responsible about who he wrote to on his palace-headed notepaper, because it
always made people panic and fall over themselves to fix things.
Noct waited patiently for another minute after that and then burst out, “Are
you having fun at school, Ignis.”
“Oh, I didn't think you were really…” Ignis said absently. He looked up from
his mending and whatever he saw on Noct’s face made him surprised. “Well, I…
yes, thank you, Noctis. The classes I'm taking are very challenging, but I'm
learning a lot. It's more self-directed study than I'm used to, but that means
more freedom to pursue the things I'm interested in. Things that will be useful
for you.”
Noct started to fidget with the collar of his blazer, lying on the table in
front of him, and Ignis stuck his needle in his mouth to reach over and take it
gently out of his hands.
“Things that'll be useful for us,” Noct said quietly, staring at the table.
Because that was what it was about, still, wasn't it; when Noct was king, when
his dad was dead and Noct was king, and Ignis would be at his side, like he
always had.
“Yes,” Ignis said and when Noct dared to glance back up Ignis was looking at
him with serious dimmed-green eyes. “For us, yeah.”
That kind of killed the conversation. It wasn't what Noct had meant, at all. He
wanted to know who Ignis was meeting, what he talked to them about, did he go
to parties, had he picked up new hobbies: what he was doing in all the giant
stretches of time he used to spend with Noct and now spent doing gods knew
what.
But he didn't have the heart to get back to it now. He splayed out his legs
under the table, kicked Ignis first by accident and then again, more gently,
leaving their shins pressed together.
“I spoke to Gladio on Thursday,” Ignis said, fake-cheerily. “He's going to
start picking you up after school a couple of times a week, take you out for
some driving practice.”
“Oh,” Noct said. He'd turned seventeen a couple of months ago, but he hadn't
had any lessons yet: his dad had told him he'd like to teach him, father to
son, man to man, and Noct had been waiting. “Yeah, great.”
“Noctis...” Ignis said.
Noctis drew a pattern on the table, watching a spark follow his finger and fade
away, and said, “Can you make lasagne for dinner?”
“Certainly,” Ignis said, tied off his thread, and cut it with his little sewing
scissors.
***
It'd be way more fun to learn from Gladio, anyway. Gladio had been taught to
drive at the military academy, so he knew all sorts of tricks and manoeuvres he
could show Noct, and his car was epic, an armoured SUV in matte black.
Gladio showed up in a four-door sedan that looked like he'd driven it straight
from the junkyard. He looked ridiculous, enormous behind the wheel, and he
said, “Dream on, princess,” when Noct mentioned the tricks, his voice eager
with fading hope, although not unkindly.
Prompto came up behind him and said, “Hey, what's going on?” He bent down and
peered into the car, and jumped when he saw Gladio grinning back at him.
“Are you okay?” Noct said. He reached up and ran fingers over where Prompto had
just hit his head on the doorframe, but there was no bump.
“Yeah,” Prompto mumbled, sneaking glances back at Gladio, who'd now leaned over
to the passenger side to talk to them, bare bicep in his sleeveless muscle
shirt visibly bulging where he'd planted his hand on the seat: Noct didn't know
how he wasn't cold.
“You're that kid Noct hangs around with? Prom, right?”
“Yes sir!” Prompto said.
“You don't have to call him sir,” Noct said, nudging him.
“Can you drive?” Gladio said.
“No,” Prompto said. The sir hung on the air, audibly unspoken, a faint
embarrassment and apology behind it. Noct knew that Prompto’s family didn't
even have a car; he took the bus to school and his mom took the bus to her
jobs.
“Get in the car, kid,” Gladio said, and reached to unlock the doors so Prompto
could climb in back. “You're gonna learn too.”
***
Ignis actually managed to show up on Saturday the next week, which Noct tried
not to be pleased about. Ignis was supposed to show up. Showing up was
practically Ignis’s job.
He was wearing blue jeans. Noct was definitely not pleased about that. They
looked a little weird, like maybe Ignis had ironed them, but they showed his
long legs even more than the shirt had, the denim nearly clinging to the
muscles of his thighs. Ignis had always been so professionally dressed and
seeing him in more casual clothes showed him for what he really was, a fighter
trained and honed almost as much as the military, broad and powerful. It was
weird, too, not seeing him in any black at all; nothing that marked him as
anything to do with the royal family, to do with Noct.
“You're wearing jeans,” Noct said, redundantly. He could hear a little note of
helpless whining in his voice and he cleared his throat to make it go away.
“I've never seen you in jeans.”
“It's no big deal,” Ignis said. His ears were a faint pink. “I don't know why
you have to keep commenting on everything, Noctis. It's impolite.”
“You keep changing everything,” Noct said. “Although not… are you just changing
one thing at a time? Is there a spreadsheet?”
“Noctis,” Ignis said in his admonishing tone. He'd brought back the school
uniforms he'd taken away the previous weekend for dry-cleaning and he busied
himself gathering them up in his arms and disappearing into Noct’s room to hang
them up. The tails of the white shirt flapped distractingly over his ass as he
went and Noct glared after it, feeling hot and unsettled and cross.
Ignis hadn’t denied it.
Which meant this whole looking different thing - this changing was a Project.
And that meant it wouldn't stop. Ignis would just change and change and change
until he decided the Project was done and by then Noct probably wouldn't even
recognise him in a crowd.
“What are you playing?” Ignis said when he came back.
“A game,” Noct said. He knew he sounded surly, but he genuinely didn't mean to;
he was barely even aware of what he was doing, Crownsguard Warrior was so old
and he'd played it through so many times.
Ignis came and sat on the couch behind him. His leg brushed against Noct’s
side; Ignis muttered, “Sorry,” and shuffled over a little, and Noct didn't
think, just followed so they were back to touching, Ignis’s shin a warm bony
line against him. Ignis didn't move away again.
“Here,” Noct said. He didn't really think Ignis would take it. Ignis never
played with him - he thought video games were either boring or just pointless,
Noct wasn't sure which - but there was a spare controller lying around anyway.
Prompto came back to Noct’s after school a couple of nights a week now,
usually, and it was just easier to leave stuff out for both of them to use.
Ignis took it and said, “What are we doing?”
“Fighting the empire,” Noct said, ignoring Ignis’s slightly appalled silence.
He liked this game; when he'd been younger he'd liked that there was a King to
defend, and sometimes he was on screen, in the distance but looking a bit like
Noct’s dad.
He got up on the couch next to Ignis, sitting close enough to reach over and
talk him through how to play, pointing out the buttons and combinations,
watching the way Ignis got those little creases between his eyes with
concentration. Sitting up like this, they were touching along their whole
bodies, not just leg and side. It was nice.
Ignis lasted nearly an hour playing the game, manfully pretending to be
interested. He was a quick learner, so he got good at it pretty fast, and Noct
resolved to try to find something he might like more, maybe something that was
less about shooting everything and more about puzzles and strategy. Then Ignis
would feel like he was working, and not wasting his time playing; he’d like
that.
Ignis made grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, and Noct put potato chips in a
bowl to go with them, and poured soda into glasses, helping.
“You want to play some more?” he said. He had some homework he was supposed to
be doing, and he'd meant to ask Ignis for help with his biology, but it seemed
like it could wait.
“Why don't we play a game I pick?” Ignis suggested, only sounding a little
desperate.
“Okay,” Noct said doubtfully. “If you look through the ones I have I guess I
could tell you about them and you can pick.”
“Not a video game,” Ignis said.
“What then?” Noct said. He took a bite of his grilled cheese. It was delicious,
just at the level of viscosity he preferred.
Ignis was banging around in the kitchen drawers. “Cards,” he said triumphantly
and showed Noct the pack he'd found, grubby and if Noct remembered right
missing the charm of spears. “You've played card games before?”
“I guess,” Noct said. “That deck’s missing a card, I think.”
Ignis rifled through them in a way like he worked in a casino. The cards looked
small in his hands, which were big, broad, capable.
A bit of cheese oozed out of Noct's sandwich and burned him and he dropped it
on his plate in reaction.
“You’re correct, but it's only missing one,” Ignis said. “We can play without
and I'll bring new ones next time. It doesn't really matter for the game I have
in mind.”
“What game do you have in mind?” Noct said, interested despite himself. There
was a glint in Ignis’s eye that said he was pleased with himself, which hardly
ever happened.
“Do you know striker?” Ignis said.
“No,” Noct said. He knew a few card games, or half-knew them, from sitting on
his dad’s knee when he was a kid and ‘helping’, which usually led to his dad
good-naturedly losing to Clarus or Cor or both.
“It's popular in the citadel just now,” Ignis said. “Here's how you play.”
His instructions were precise and clear, as they always were, and Noct grasped
about half of them, as he usually did: he'd pick them up when he was playing,
through the fingers instead of through the ears.
“Good,” Ignis said, after they’d played a practice round through with Ignis’s
quiet guidance on Noct’s hand. “Ready to play for real?”
“Yeah,” Noct said. It was a pretty fun way to spend an hour, it turned out, and
there was plenty of time to talk as well; he even got his biology help, and
Ignis told him about the research he was doing in the Lucis archives on
elemental magic. Noct could picture it, Ignis with his glasses pushed right up
the bridge of his nose, bent over the books and even older scrolls of the royal
records, making notes without even looking where he was writing. It was a
soothing image.
***
“Do you know striker? The card game?” he asked Gladio, the next time Gladio
picked them up for driving lessons.
“What’s that?” Prompto said.
“Watch the road, fuck,” Gladio said, making a visible effort to stop himself
grabbing the wheel. Noct was hanging in between their seats from the back,
watching what Prompto was doing and chatting, and Gladio put a hand on his
forehead and shoved him back, gently. Noct rebounded onto the seat and Gladio
said, “Put your seatbelt on, Noct.”
“I’m getting better,” Prompto said, sounding crushed.
“Ain’t putting you in for your test yet, that’s for sure,” Gladio said. “Yeah,
Noct, I know it. Why?”
“Ignis taught it to me this weekend,” he said.
Gladio laughed. “Oh yeah? Yeah, Iggy’s good at striker. He’s taken money off
half the citadel playing it.”
“Ignis has?” Noct said. He was only with Gladio and Prompto, so he didn’t
bother to keep the disbelief out of his voice.
“Sure,” Gladio said. “You know how he is, if he’s gonna do something, he’s
gonna do it perfectly.”
“I want to learn!” Prompto said.
Gladio shrugged. “Sure, I guess. We can go for food after this, it’s easy to
learn, just hard to play good. Okay, kid, pull over. Noct’s turn.”
***
Ignis cancelled the following Saturday, again, and arrived on Sunday wearing a
soft green jacket over his shirt, and bright red sneakers under his jeans. He’d
gelled his hair and it stuck up from his head like a little bristly hedgehog,
and he was frowning, poking at his phone as he came through the door, laden
with bulging cloth grocery bags.
“Good morning, Noctis,” he said. “I was going to make a pork dish I found a
recipe for this week, but we’ve been asked to dinner today with your father.”
He dropped the bags in the kitchen and looked down at his outfit, dismay
stamped all over his face. “I had no idea… I’m not dressed appropriately for an
audience with the King.”
“Forget the jeans, you’re going to go see my dad with that hair?” Noct
demanded. He wore jeans to go see his dad all the time, and anyway if it was
dinner Ignis’s legs would be under the table. Noct would have to look at his
hair all afternoon. The hairstyle made his eyes look bigger somehow, drew
attention to the height of Ignis’s cheekbones and his smooth skin and his wide,
full mouth.
“I suppose not,” Ignis said. “I’m not sure why he wants to see both of us. Have
you - has he said anything? Has anyone said anything to you?”
“No,” Noct said. An immediate summons like this one usually meant he was in
trouble, although Dad didn't really invite Ignis to tellings-off unless Ignis
was in trouble too, and Noct could count the number of times that had happened
in the last decade on his hand. On two fingers, to be specific.
“You’re right though,” Ignis said. “I can’t go looking like this.”
“You came here looking like that,” Noct said petulantly. “Just wash it out. It
washes out, right?”
It did wash out. Ignis disappeared to borrow Noct’s shower, and when he
reappeared he looked like old Ignis again, clearly having found some stuff he’d
left in the closet, right down to the way he’d parted his hair and the careful
shininess of the buttons on his waistcoat.
It looked weird on him. It was pretty much the way he’d looked for the last
seven or eight years, up until this last few months, and it looked weird on
him. Like he was squashed back into the sedate uniform and could’ve been anyone
at the palace, not like the Ignis who’d been starting to come around and laugh
with Noct and talk to him about stuff.
“Are you ready to go?” Ignis said, throwing the abandoned ingredients in the
fridge and looking for where he’d dropped the car keys when he’d come in all
stressed.
Noct looked down at the black combats he’d put on ready for a day hanging
around the apartment, and the t-shirt with the logo of his favourite band, from
when Gladio had taken him to one of their concerts in Insomnia. It had a stain
on it where Noct had dropped his breakfast toast. “Yeah,” he said.
Noct and Ignis stood by habit when Dad came into the private dining room. Ignis
bowed respectfully and Noct dropped back down into his seat and slouched and
tried not to look at the contraption the King was wearing on his leg and how
slow it made him walk, or notice that he had a temporary brace around one
wrist.
“Hello, boys,” Dad said, which didn’t sound like Noct was about to get yelled
at, but he’d been mistaken about that before. Dad flipped out his cloak behind
him - he was wearing full armour, like he thought the empire might invade
through the copper tureen one of the kitchen staff was uncovering on the middle
of the table - and sat, and Ignis sat too.
“How’s school, Ignis?” was Dad’s opener, and Noct watched Ignis sweat over his
tomato soup and then be basically unable to start on his steak while Dad
questioned him mercilessly about his thoughts on where Accordo had gone wrong
in the climactic battle of their long, painful fall to Niflheim. Noct nudged
the toe of his sneaker down on Ignis’s shiny shoe in solidarity, and when Ignis
shifted slightly to make it easier for him he left their ankles pressed
together.
“And how’s your school, Noctis?” Dad said, just when Ignis had finally relaxed
into his subject and started to lecture. Noct hadn’t minded; Ignis could be
pretty interesting when he talked about military stuff.
“Fine,” Noct said. He ate a fry.
“How’s class?” Dad said.
“Fine,” Noct said.
“How’s training with Gladiolus?” Dad said.
“Fine,” Noct said.
“Are you going to eat any of that salad?” Dad said.
Noct looked at the salad. It was green and leafy and disgusting. “No,” he said.
“Is he eating any vegetables?” Dad said, to Ignis.
“Last Sunday he ate a stew with carrots blended into the sauce, eggplant
chunks, and turnips,“ Ignis said.
“You told me that was potato,” Noct said, hurt.
“There was potato,” Ignis said. “And turnip.”
Dad said, “Hmm. Noct, are there any girls at school? In your class?”
“Yeah,” Noct said. There were lots of girls at school.
There was a pause. “I meant, girls you like,” Dad said patiently. “Are you
dating, Noct?”
“No,” Noct said. He wound his feet around the legs of his chair and hunched in,
feeling hot and mad.
“Noctis is still getting a lot of attention at school because of his status,”
Ignis said hastily. “His teachers have assured me they have measures in place
to reduce disruption.”
Noct sneaked a look at him. He hadn’t known that. He’d known, obviously, that
all the girls at school were weird about him: that they talked where they
thought he couldn’t hear about being a princess, and going to parties as Noct’s
girlfriend, and how great it would be, like Noct’s mom hadn’t been killed by
bearing the heir of Lucis. Like it would be fun.
“I see,” Dad said. “You wanted to go to a regular school, Noct. If it’s too
much -”
“It’s not,” Noct said. He had Prompto now, and - he didn’t like the other kids,
really, but it was nice to be near them. Hear the stuff they talked about, go
out after school and at the weekend and do the kinds of things he knew they
did. He’d much rather have that, and put up with the whispers and giggles, than
be locked up in the citadel with tutors droning on at him about whatever Dad
thought he needed to know.
“But perhaps you need more company,” Dad said, persevering. “Did you know
Councillor Enrisha has a granddaughter about your age? She’s an accomplished
girl, by all reports. And pretty.”
“Councillor Enrisha’s granddaughter pushed Noct over at the palace solstice
celebration,” Ignis said coldly.
“Yeah, when I was nine,” Noct said. “I’m over it, Ignis, really.”
“I’ll have her call you, then,” Dad said. “Or text. Whatever it is you do.”
Noct wasn’t totally sure he’d agreed to that. But sure, whatever. If she texted
him he could just ignore it. He did that with a lot of texts he got from people
at school.
“Anyway,” Dad said. He nodded over at the server waiting quietly in the corner
and a few moments later Noct had a chocolate mousse in front of him, while
Ignis and Dad got small cups of strong, bitter-smelling coffee. “That’s not why
I asked you to dine with me today.”
Ignis drew in a deep breath opposite Noct and leaned back in his chair. He was
too well-trained to betray worry on his face, but Noct felt for him with his
foot again anyway. Ignis had stretched out his long legs to Noct’s side of the
table and Noct touched their calves together gently.
“It's time you learned more about the Lucii, Noctis,” Dad said quietly. “About
the magic that runs through our bloodline, how to wield it.”
The dessert was really rich, almost sickly. Noct stirred it around and around,
the lightness of the mousse getting heavier, almost custardy. “Okay,” he said.
“I'm perfectly well,” Dad said. Noct couldn't help his gaze drawing to the
brace on his wrist, and Dad cleared his throat and picked up his coffee, nearly
draining it. “Perfectly well, Noct, really. But it's time for you to start
learning our magic, as you’ve worked with Gladio to learn our weapons.”
“I said okay,” Noct said. He put the spoon in his mouth and sucked the mousse-
soup off it. He glanced up and Ignis was watching him, looking concerned and
protective. Ignis offered a tentative smile and Noct took another spoonful of
mousse.
“You’ll come every Thursday after school,” Dad decreed. “Starting this week.”
“I’m done eating,” Noctis said, pushing his chair away from the table. “Can I
go?”
“Noctis…” Dad said and Noct stared at the table. Dad sighed and said, “Yes.
Thank you for coming. I’ll see you on Thursday.”
Ignis sank his coffee hastily and stood up with Noct. “Might I have a moment
with you, Ignis?” Dad said, and Ignis sat down again, slowly.
Noct escaped.
***** Chapter 2 *****
Macha texted the next day, which was more keen - on both his dad’s and Macha’s
part - than Noct was really comfortable with.
It said hey Noctis, Gran gave me your number from your father, how’s things?”
Things were fine. Noct pushed his phone to the corner of his desk and ignored
it.
“What’s that?” Prompto said, when it beeped again. He leaned over from his desk
to Noct’s side, tilting dangerously on two chair legs.
“Nothing,” Noct said.
“You’ve got a text,” Prompto said. “It’s from Ignis, right?”
“No,” Noct said, irritated. “It’s just from this girl.”
“A girl?” Prompto said blankly. “What kind of girl?”
“I don’t know, a girl! How many kinds of girls are there?”
“Lots,” Prompto said with conviction, even though he could barely get any of
the girls in their class to say hello to him. Or, worse, they said hello to
him, and more, and then part-way into the conversation Prompto realised the
girls were only talking to him because he was Noct’s friend, when they said,
giggling, so, hey, the prince -
Prompto never complained about it. He never said anything about it to Noct at
all, and Noct wouldn’t know it happened if he didn’t hear it sometimes, because
for all people were very interested in him, a lot of the time they didn’t
really notice him when he was actually around.
“Just a girl,” Noct said. “She’s a Councillor’s granddaughter. My dad gave her
my number.”
“Are you going to text her back?” Prompto said, eyes big with eagerness. He
gave the phone a wistful look.
“Maybe,” Noct said. He’d probably have to: someone was sure to ask him about
it. “Hey, if I have to go and meet her or whatever, you’ll come, yeah?”
It was a favour asked more than given. Prompto always had something to say.
Whoever this girl was could bring a friend, and Noct could bring Prompto, and
then he’d hardly have to do anything other than sit there and sometimes smile.
“That’d be okay?” Prompto said, flushing a little.
“Sure,” Noct said.
***
He was hoping his dad would cancel, which happened pretty often when he had
plans with Noct, but no such luck: the next Thursday after the dinner Noct had
to tell Prompto he couldn’t come over for takeout and games and trudge himself
over to the palace.
They ate dinner first, while Dad yammered on and on and on about the importance
of Noct making sure he ate right and slept well and kept himself in tip top
physical condition, because presumably the crystal would have a big appetite
when it started to eat away at Noct’s strength and life. He didn't really speak
during the meal, but then Dad didn't usually need a response to carry on going.
“Come on,” Dad said sombrely when the dinner dishes had been cleared. “We’re
going to it.”
Noct hadn't seen the crystal in years and years. He'd been brought down as a
newborn to be presented as the new heir of the crystal bloodline of Lucis. He'd
been taken right up to the crystal and scratched carefully with one of the
glittering protrusions, for the crystal to taste his blood, so it would know
him. He'd cried, apparently, which Noct figured was pretty much what happened
when a little baby got cut by a giant crystal. Of course he couldn't remember
it but he'd been told about it so many times he could see it in his mind’s eye
as easily as if he'd been standing there, a silent observer; he sometimes
imagined himself as he was now, hovering over proceedings like the massive
avians they got in Duscae. He still had the scratch, a tiny white vertical line
on his chest.
The crystal’s room was bare and black, little more than a cave: it was where
the crystal had been discovered or pretty much, and the palace and then the
city and then the whole country had been built up around it, on top of it. The
crystal threw off its own light. Noct did occasionally listen when people
talked to him, and he knew that was impossible, but as he stood in front of it,
it was absolutely clear it was true.
“This is it,” Dad said softly. He put his hand on the crystal, casually, like
it was an old friend he hadn't seen for a while. He shut his eyes and his face
smoothed out, all the tiredness and strain and worry of the kingdom falling
away until he looked… not young. Until he looked the age he actually was. Noct
couldn't understand it. It was because of the crystal - because of the Wall -
that Dad was sick. If it made him feel better, too, that was just the crystal
giving his dad back what was already his, but expecting gratitude for it, as
well.
“Touch it, Noct,” Dad said, turning to him encouragingly. In the ethereal light
of the crystal he looked weird, unfamiliar.
“No,” Noct said. He realised he'd stepped back, as well, as if it might grow
spindly crystal arms and reach for him.
“Noctis,” Dad said. “Noct, this is your birthright. Our family, our blood -
this is the crystal of the kings of the Lucii. Touch it.”
Noct swallowed, stepped forward, and touched it.
It didn't feel like anything, at first. Just cool and hard and sharp under his
fingers.
And then, slowly, the thin white scar on his chest began to warm. Prickling
uncomfortable heat and Noct realised his dad's hand was glowing, an eerie blue,
and so was Noct’s, and he pulled his hand back like it was burnt and cradled it
to his chest.
“You'll get used to it,” Dad said and Noct realised - he could feel it, still.
Under his fingertips. In his scar, blood calling to blood. In his mind,
whispering -
“Dad?” he said. He crept closer, needing warmth, and Dad turned to him, smooth
as butter, and pulled a dagger out of the air. He held it out, between them,
and Noct froze, trying to watch the dagger and his dad at the same time.
“Take it,” Dad commanded and Noct shook his head, a tiny motion. He couldn't
summon up any real resistance, it was still whispering, the glow of the crystal
was getting stronger, pure white light and hot.
“Now, Noctis,” Dad said. “It's waiting for you. Haven’t you felt it?”
“No,” Noct said.
“Take it!” Dad said and Noct closed his eyes and reached out.
He didn’t take the dagger out of his dad’s hand. He drew it out of the air, and
he didn’t know how he knew it would be there waiting for him, only that he did,
and it was, his fingers closing around the ghost of a handle that was abruptly
the real thing, fitting into the shape of his palm as perfectly as if it had
been made for him.
“Good,” Dad said and Noct looked at him. The dagger in his hand looked as real
as it felt, and when he tested the blade, lightly, it marked a thin stinging
line of red on the soft pad of his index finger. “Try again.”
***
The elevator up to Noct’s apartment seemed to take ages. He rested his
throbbing head against the side; the cool steel seemed to make the world a
little more solid, seemed to make the disconcerting feeling that he could
twitch reality aside like a curtain and pull things out of thin air a little
less alarming.
There was a light on in his apartment. He stared at it, sluggish, and Ignis
appeared in the doorway. He looked a little rumpled, like maybe he’d been
sitting on the couch, and there was an inkstain on his cheek.
“Hi,” Noct said.
“Good evening,” Ignis said. He came to Noct and Noct let himself be chivvied
straight into his bedroom. Ignis stood over him to strip his blazer off his
shoulders and knelt to take his shoes off and Noct found himself clutching
Ignis’s shoulder as he did, at his warm stability. Ignis’s breathing was coming
a little fast. Noct could feel it on his hand when Ignis turned a little into
Noct’s touch; Ignis was wearing the white shirt again, open down his throat and
below his collarbone, and Noct’s hand brushed the soft skin of his neck.
He gave a little groan and lay down, groping for his pillows, and a moment
later he was being softly covered up by the thick duvet. Ignis turned on a lamp
and turned off the main light as he went out.
“It’s Thursday,” he said muzzily, when Ignis came back with dry crackers and
juice, which he prodded Noct to eat even though they tasted dusty in his mouth,
before he produced two painkillers for Noct to take. “You’re not here on
Thursdays anymore.”
“I wanted to be here today,” Ignis said softly. He laid a damp washcloth over
Noct’s forehead. It felt blissful and Noct reached up to adjust it, settled it
over his aching eyes and sighed his weight back heavily into the bed.
“Do you have to go?” Noct said. It seemed okay to ask, from behind the darkness
of the flannel.
“No, Noctis,” Ignis said, and Noct felt his weight dip the side of the bed,
curled a little around Ignis from beneath his covers. “I’ll stay until you fall
asleep.”
***
When Noct woke up, he found a note from Ignis that said he’d called Noct in
sick, so Noct didn’t have to go to school, if he didn’t want.
There was more juice in the fridge, and a family-sized bag of potato chips, and
Ignis had left fresh pastries chilling in the fridge with instructions of how
high to turn the oven and how long to leave them in.
Noct baked three pastries and ate them all, then went back to bed and didn’t
wake up again until nearly four in the afternoon.
***
That meant he didn't sleep much on Friday night and he was already awake when
Ignis arrived bright and early, eating cereal at the table and looking at the
assignment his chemistry teacher had emailed over.
He looked at Ignis for a while. Then he closed his mouth and finished chewing
his soggy cereal, and said, “Where's your glasses?”
“I'm experimenting with contact lenses,” Ignis said, in a small voice.
“I don't like it,” Noct said reflexively. He didn't. Ignis’s eyes, without the
glasses, looked big and vulnerable and a bright shiny green, and it made Noct
feel a funny, fluttering heaviness in his tummy.
“Yes, thank you, Noctis,” Ignis said. “How are you feeling? I understand you
missed school yesterday.”
“You said I could,” Noct said, annoyed.
“I know I did. I didn't mean it like that. Are you okay?”
“I guess,” Noct said. “I slept a lot.”
“Your father informed me the first few months would likely be difficult.”
Noct said, “The first few months? Ignis, I can't…” he stirred his cereal around
the bowl for a second, watching it get soggy, and then it burst out of him. “I
don't want to, Ignis, I didn't like it.”
Ignis paused in putting the coffee machine on. Noct could only see his profile,
head bowed and face set. “I know,” Ignis said quietly. “We have to, Noct. We
have to.”
He sounded desperately sorry, like he would have taken Noct away from it if he
could. He couldn't. Noct knew he couldn't.
He thought of Cor, suddenly. Who was just always there, since Noct was born,
part of the furniture of the citadel, always his father’s shadow as Clarus was
his shield. How he'd used to joke about the King getting old and frail, until
his dad really had started getting old and frail, way before his time, and Cor
had stopped joking and started watching his dad like he was counting down the
hours in his head.
“I want to stay in this weekend,” he said. He wanted warmth, and quiet, and
nobody touching him he didn't know.
“Yes, of course,” Ignis said.
***
“But you’re going to learn it,” Prompto said. The ball rattled down the machine
and plopped down as his hands lay limp on the controls and he jumped at the
noise and cursed. “I mean… the Wall, and your dad… like, if Niflheim came
again. You’re going to learn it, right?”
“Yeah, of course,” Noct said. He shouldn't have brought it up to Prompto; it
wasn't fair. He did the only thing he could think of to distract Prompto, even
though he didn't want to talk about it: “Hey, Macha texted me again.”
“Yeah?” Prompto said brightly. Noct nudged him over and they started a new
game, with one handle each. “What did she say? Are you going to go on a date?
Are you going to kiss her?”
“No,” Noct said, trying not to squirm. “I don't know, maybe we'll meet up for
coffee or something.” That was casual, right? That was what people did. “You'll
still come, yeah? You said you would.”
“Sure!” Prompto said, any anxiety gone as if it'd never been, sunshine rising
on his face like the gleam of his hair under the lights of the arcade. “I can't
wait.”
***
He thought about it, that night, or tried to. He hadn't met up with Macha yet
but he'd gone online and found pictures of her at formal events with her
family, smiling prettily next to the Councillor in a nice dress.
He tried to think about looking at her in her nice dress, kissing her pretty
smile. Touching her. Maybe her touching him. Kissing him back.
His cock was plump and warm in his hand and he touched himself gently, more
exploring than really jerking off. It didn't take much to get him hard and he
closed his hand tight around the shaft and rubbed his thumb over the head,
feeling slick pre-come start to smooth the way. Ecstatic pressure built in his
chest, gut, balls, and he let out a strangled moan and pinched at his nipple
with his other hand, feeling the hard little point of it sensitive under the
very tips of his fingers.
He couldn't hold it in his mind, the image like the tide receding from the
shore. His pleasure was always more formless, deeply sensual, nothing more than
the hungry sensation of heat and attention, the thrill of freefalling and the
security of the ground under his feet, the fractured sensation of it shaking
through his body.
He should've been able to think about Macha. He should've wanted to, and he
rolled onto his stomach and yelled into the pillow and rubbed off against the
bed, furious and horny, thoughts shimmering and breaking around him into that
same feeling of being seen, indulged, and he was still moving, helpless, deep
within it, and he came with the lingering echo of hands on his skin, big, warm.
Orgasm had barely shivered out of him and Noct cried out and seized, shaking
uncontrollably as crystalline lightning struck through him, pleasure more
intense and more thorough than he'd ever known.
It seemed to go on for ages, more and longer and everything. Finally it
released him, wrung out and sweating, and as he inched over onto his side and
curled up he could still feel it, settling under his skin, see the blue fizz of
magic on him waiting.
***
Noct hit the floor for about the millionth time that evening, and at Gladio's
fond, “You’re done,” he groaned in relief and stayed down, until Gladio came
over and dropped a towel on his head and a bottle of water on his chest.
Gladio looked as lively as ever, like he could've gone another ten rounds and
then eaten a Mag for lunch. He poured half a bottle of water over his own face,
whipping his hair around like he was in an ad, while Noct shoved his sweaty
bangs off his forehead resentfully.
Gladio said, “Oh, hey, Ignis says you’re doing magic stuff with your dad? We
should think about that. It’s a different battle style, being able to
warpstrike. I’ve been talking to the glaivemasters about it.”
“Talking to the glaivemasters,” Noct echoed, only half listening while he wiped
down. Then, “When did Ignis tell you that?”
“In the bar,” Gladio said. “Earlier this week.”
“You’ve been going out drinking with Ignis?” Noct said. His idea of Ignis
burning the midnight oil every night, sitting alone in a library and poring
industriously over a giant leather-lined book - like Ignis didn't have a tablet
and a laptop for his work like everyone else, but that was what Ignis did in
Noct’s imagination - turned topsy-turvy in his mind and became, much more
unpleasantly, an image of Ignis propping up a bar, drink in hand and shirt
unbuttoned rakishly low, smiling at Gladio with his eyes flirtatiously lowered
behind his total lack of glasses. Or smiling at whoever. Anyone. Anyone else.
“Sure,” Gladio said. He got a cloth and oil and Noct watched as he stripped
down the greatsword in thirty seconds flat and started to clean it
methodically.
“What do you even talk about?” Noct demanded.
“You.”
“Really?”
“No, you little ingrate,” Gladio said amiably. “I don’t know, we just talk.”
That didn't seem very likely. As far as Noct knew, they had nothing in common.
Actually as far as Noct knew, they didn't even particularly like one another.
“Oh,” he said. He lay back down and then bolted back upright as he was hit in
the face by an oily, dirty cloth. “Hey!”
“Clean your weapon,” Gladio said. “I ain’t doing it for you.”
Noct glared at him, but he reached for the sword he’d been using and started to
clean it. Gladio was right: just two lessons he’d had now with his dad, and he
could feel the arsenal, waiting for him, almost jealous of the practice blade.
***
Ignis didn’t come over on Saturday, yet again, but this week Noct didn’t mind.
He had a plan, and an excuse - if it wasn’t like Ignis was working, then it
wasn’t like Noct showing up was really bothering him - and most importantly, he
had an address. Drant in his dad’s office hadn’t really wanted to give Ignis’s
address to Noct, and he’d had to eventually gently remind him that Noct was the
prince, and Ignis was his adviser, and if Noct wanted to know where Ignis
lived, because who knew, maybe Noct wanted to send him something… well, he’d
got the address, anyway.
It was getting on for evening, darkening blue and stars coming out. Noct
squinted up and with the ease of long practice he picked out the ripple and
gleam of the Wall easily as it curved over the city; the university was a
little ways out from the citadel, at an angle where the Wall was more obvious.
Not like the palace, where the Wall at its highest point was far enough into
the clouds for the inhabitants to forget it was there. The ones it wasn’t
slowly killing, anyway.
Ignis lived in one of the smaller dorm buildings. It was purpose-built and
modern: it looked squat and ugly and like Ignis would hate it, used as he was
to the soaring grace of the citadel and its views onto some of the oldest, most
classic buildings in the city. It was really busy, too, windows open and
chatter and laughter and noise spilling out, people coming and going in a
constant stream through the front door and lounging around in groups on a
grassy area, too scrubby to really be called a garden.
Noct slunk over to the door. He blended in, he thought, even though he was
self-conscious about being shorter than a lot of the guys. Sure enough, when he
loitered for a few moments and slipped in the door a pair of girls had just
come out barely gave him a glance.
Ignis’s room was on the top floor. Noct took the stairs, trying to look totally
natural and like he knew where he was going.
The corridor was as noisy as the outside had been, doors open between the bare
white walls and people hanging around in them, conversations being shouted
between rooms. It smelled of takeout and too many people and a weird sweet
smell that, slightly shocked and trying not to be, Noct identified after a
minute as pot. He looked at the numbers on the doors: Ignis’s must be at the
other end and he hunched his shoulders and hurried along, trying not to catch
anyone’s eye.
He didn't get to Ignis’s room.
He glanced into one of the rooms he passed. It was a small kitchen, and his
eyes picked out Ignis in a kitchen easily and with relief.
Ignis was leaning on a table, wearing his jeans and white shirt and no shoes or
socks, laughing down at a young woman grimacing in frustration over a thick
textbook. Another girl was sitting next to her, tapping away at a tablet, and
there was a guy maybe a little older than Ignis, standing over a stove and
stirring something spicy-meaty-smelling.
Noct felt a flush rise immediately, the inevitable obvious pink spread of it
prickling hot on his throat and cheeks. He felt awkward as fuck, young and
stupid, and this was the worst idea he'd ever had, coming to bother Ignis here.
Ignis actually knew people, people who were clearly much more on his wavelength
than Noct was. Noct didn't think he'd ever heard Ignis laugh like that, loud
and easy, like he wasn't - like he wasn't working.
He would've made it without being noticed. He'd only really paused and glanced
inside, except then.
The cooking guy dipped into his pan and came out with a steaming spoonful he
cupped his hand under carefully as he carried it the couple of steps over to
Ignis, who opened his mouth for it, smiled and nodded when he'd tasted it, and
the guy smiled back and used his free hand to catch Ignis’s chin so he could
lean in and kiss him.
Noct just stood there. He felt cold, as shocked and numb as the first moment of
his sword trembling in his hands after defending one of Gladio’s two-armed
strikes, his chest as tight and his breath as short as it too. Gods, he
shouldn't have come. He shouldn't have come anywhere near but he couldn't seem
to leave either. He felt bolted down by misery, stomach and feet too heavy to
even move.
“Hi, can we do something for you?” the girl working on her tablet said,
politely but curiously, gazing at him, and Noct jolted, felt the prickling
flare of magic at the base of his skull like an animal scenting the air. He
could see recognition spreading over her face, familiar and dreaded.
They all looked at him. Ignis, his friends, his - the other boy, and Noct
shrank into his jacket and shook his head, unable to find any words.
“Noctis? Is everything okay?” Ignis said, stepping forward and reaching out a
hand to him, and he looked… transformed. He looked like the serious person Noct
knew, the tiny furrows between his eyebrows back, laughter silenced.
“I’ve got to go,” Noct said, words tumbling out, and as he turned to fling
himself back down the hall he heard the guy say, “Was that Noctis as in Crown
Prince Noctis?” and he squeezed his eyes shut and stumbled down the corridor
fast as he could make his feet take him, slamming back into the stairwell.
“Noctis!” Ignis yelled behind him, before he’d gone more than a floor, and Noct
startled, missed a step and grabbed wildly for the bannister, missed that too
and was only saved by Ignis grabbing the back of his jacket and keeping him
upright.
Which meant Ignis was right there. Noct refused to turn and look at him and
Ignis said again, “Noctis,” softly, not like he was mad about Noct coming to
find him, or was sorry Noct was there dragging him back into stupid prince
stuff when Ignis was trying to have fun with his friends.
He turned around, but he still couldn’t look up at Ignis. “Sorry,” he said,
subdued. His voice threatened to get high and he swallowed it back down. “I
didn't mean for your friends…”
I didn't know they didn't know about me, was what he meant, but he couldn't
figure out how to say it without it being totally obvious that he'd taken it
for granted Ignis would have mentioned him, that people would know he was at
school to learn stuff for being advisor to the future king.
“I do talk about you,” Ignis said defensively. “Obviously they don't know
you're actually the prince. Well, they didn’t. Lots of children were named
Noctis after you were born.”
“And who's he,” Noct blurted, mind stuck on the image of Ignis and that boy,
together, kissing so naturally and casually. “Like, you kiss guys now? Who even
is he?”
“He's just a friend!” Ignis said. Without his glasses his eyes looked almost
sparkling against his bright pink face. “And it's not really - I don't - it's
none of your business, Noctis.”
“Whatever,” Noct said, and concentrated every single ounce of will and training
and a thousand years of royal power into not sniffling. Since fucking when was
everything about Ignis not his business? “Fine. You're busy, I'm going to go. I
have homework.”
“Noct,” Ignis said, gently. He hardly ever called Noct that, even though Gladio
and Prompto did all the time. He stepped forward and touched Noct on the arm,
and he hardly ever did that, either. Noct leaned in, wanting Ignis’s warmth so
badly it was pathetic and he didn't even care, and Ignis put his arm around
Noct’s shoulders without a word.
“You don’t mind that… with a guy?” Ignis said, tentatively.
“No,” Noct said. He shuffled closer and pressed harder into Ignis and Ignis
relaxed back into him.
Ignis said, “You want to go out and get dinner?”
“Aren't you eating with him?” Noct said. He really wanted to put his head on
Ignis’s shoulder but it seemed like that might make things weird.
Ignis turned his face and Noct felt his sigh ruffle Noct’s hair. “No,” Ignis
said. “I'm not eating with them.”
They didn't discuss it any more. Ignis went back upstairs to get dressed to go
out, although he was gone a little longer than it should’ve taken. Noct lurked
in the stairwell and smiled weakly at the people who went up or down and gave
him dubious looks. Finally Ignis showed back up, flipping his car keys the way
he flipped his daggers after a good bout kicking the asses of guards who hadn’t
heard yet the prince’s bookish advisor had skills.
He smiled at Noct when Noct smiled hopefully at him, and drove them to a
restaurant, nicer than where they usually went, the kind of place where Ignis
wrote things down and then spent a week solid in the kitchen until he came out
triumphantly with a perfect recreation of the sauce, although he didn’t do that
today. Over dinner Noct went into a long description of the project he was
working on for civics class, which usually he wouldn't have even mentioned, and
after a while Ignis took over and started talking about the role of the
monarchy and the council, as Noct had known he would.
He didn't think about it until later, and then it was a thought he examined
from several different angles. It was kind of insulting that Ignis had thought
Noct might not be cool with it - Noct wasn't a kid, he went to school and
watched TV, he knew things - but Ignis had asked whether Noct cared that he'd
been kissing a guy like he was worried about it. Like it mattered to him what
Noct thought. And that was... that was nice.
***** Chapter 3 *****
Macha seemed like a nice person, but Noct didn’t really know what to say to
her, or where to put his face. To help, he kept going back to the counter and
getting more coffees and brownies and cookies, but from the way Prompto looked
at him every time he came back, kind of agonised and disbelieving, he wasn’t
sure it was actually helping. And the table was filling up with plates faster
than the kid could bus them.
“This one looks good,” he said hopefully, putting down a plate with red velvet
cookies.
“Um… yeah,” Macha said, and gave him a confused smile.
Her friend, Rizann, reached out and broke off a neat bit of cookie: she was the
only one who was actually tasting any of it. “Yeah, pretty good,” she said.
They’d already talked about school, the weather, Noct’s dad, Macha’s grandma,
the dog that lived next door to Prompto, the cat that lived two doors down from
Prompto on the other side, exams, the weather, public transport, and the
weather. It was horrible. Noct didn’t know how anyone dated anyone, or why.
“So what do you guys do outside of school?” Prompto said, soldiering on,
apparently perfectly happy. He’d started off pretty much every topic. Apart
from the weather; Noct had brought up the weather, the second time, and Macha
had been the one to talk about exams.
“We go to the movies,” Rizann said, shrugging, and she and Prompto talked about
movies for a couple of minutes, while Noct wondered whether he should go up and
get some more snacks. They’d been bringing out lemon and poppyseed muffins
while he was paying for the cookies: they hadn’t tried them yet.
“We go to parties sometimes with people from school,” Macha said, when the
movies conversation trailed off. “Do you guys like parties?”
“Sure!” Prompto said, at the same time Noct said, “No.” Rizann looked at Macha
and then checked the time on her phone, not very subtly.
“We go to parties,” Prompto said, heroically. “We love parties. Right, Noct?”
“Right,” Noct said, hating everything. “Does anyone want a muffin?”
***
“It got a bad write-up in the broadsheets, but I thought the writing was great,
lyrical, I don’t so much - Shiv’s sake, Noct! Watch the road.” He wagged his
finger in Noct’s face and Noct wrinkled his nose and snapped at it.
He said, “I know what I’m doing, I’m a good driver. I was thinking maybe I
could have a go in your car,” Noct said, but hope was fading as fast as
Gladio’s complexion as Noct made sure he was indicating, checked over his
shoulder, and swerved into the next lane.
“You’re not getting behind the wheel of my car,” Gladio said. “Maybe in about
four years.”
“Do you think,” Noct said, and now he did watch the road, because he didn’t
want to be looking at Gladio’s face. “I could - do you think my dad would let
me drive his car?”
He’d been into trains and trucks as a little kid, more than cars, and he’d been
probably eight or nine before he really realised that of all the endless cars
he was shepherded into, there was one special car for when it was just him and
his dad; and Ignis, sometimes, but mostly just him and Dad, his dad driving
them himself. Almost never in the city, with its stop-start traffic and angry
drivers and risk-taking cyclists; outside, with open roads and the wind in his
hair when Dad laughed and indulged Noct when he begged for the roof to be
opened to the blazing sun or star-ridden night sky. Dad’s car was the smoothest
ride, the fastest, just the two of them safe, everything they needed inside.
“Maybe when you’re not going to try and kill your passengers,” Gladio said.
Noct could kind of see in the windshield, blurrily, the look that crossed his
own face, mingled regret and chagrin, and he could see Gladio reflected too,
when he briefly looked sorry. Gladio said quietly, “Noct, hey. Yeah, I’m sure
he will. That thing could do with a test drive, it hasn’t been out since…”
“Since he started needing the leg brace,” Noct said. “Yeah, I know.”
It was rare enough it had taken him a while to realise it had stopped: that
occasionally had turned into never. He missed it.
***
Noct had started taking aspirin before he went over to the palace on Thursdays,
now: it saved time. They hadn't been down to the crystal again and while he was
glad for that, everything was a little more difficult further away from it.
He was still pulling the dagger out of the air. He'd been pulling the dagger
out of the air for weeks and it was getting incredibly fucking dull.
“I know it seems boring,” Dad said, striving obviously for patience. “But it
needs to be natural, Noct, it needs to be as easy and instinctive as picking
something up from a table you're standing in front of. Remember when you were
younger and just starting to train with Gladio? You complained for ages about
the drills, how awful it was doing the same thing all the time. But it's muscle
memory now and you use those drills every time you fight. This is the same.”
“There must be something else I can do,” Noct said, trying not to massively
roll his eyes. “Just once, even.”
Dad sighed. “All right.”
He opened his hand and closed it again around the hilt of a rapier. Even from a
small distance Noct could see the glint of its razor sharpness. He stepped
close, intrigued, and as he peered at it he could make out the ornate
decoration of the blade, how lovingly and intricately patterns were worked up
and down the steel.
Dad opened his hand again and it was gone. “Now you,” he said.
Noct closed his eyes and opened his fingers and thought really hard. He thought
about the sword he'd just seen, the detail and reality of it, the way he
reached for his dagger and plucked it into existence, how it was a part of him
- he called on the magic that he could feel within him all the time now, a
wellspring at the base of his spine, vital and warm - he could feel the sword,
the weight and comfort of it in his hand -
He opened his eyes. His hand was still empty: anything he'd thought he'd felt
there had been imagination, no more.
“You have yet to grasp even the essentials,” Dad said quietly and Noct set his
mouth and gave a quick, sulky nod. “Can you feel the arsenal where the dagger
rests until you call upon it? Do you know the patterns of your mind and magic
that draw it out of there?”
“Then teach me,” Noct said.
“You must be ready to learn!” Dad said and Noct snapped his head up to look at
him. Dad turned away, abruptly, and Noct saw just his arm move, as if he was
wiping over his face. From the back, his dad looked tired; the proud line of
his shoulders slumped, his head bowed, his posture awkward and uneven with his
leg unable to bear its full share of his weight.
“I'm ready to learn,” Noct said, subdued. He thought about it, really
concentrated on drawing up his magic, reaching out with it as a limb, a sense,
like it was his dad had said and it was easy as stretching out and picking
something up off the table.
And there was - he could feel something bigger, for the first time, as if the
blue light of his magic was echoing against a real space, and he bit down on
his lip and then the dagger was there in his hand, almost vibrating, easier
than the last time he'd done it.
His dad was watching him, a faint smile on his lips, a touch of troubledness at
his brow. Noct offered up the dagger shyly and Dad clapped a hand on his
shoulder and rested it there. “Good,” he said softly. “That's good, Noct.”
***
“No,” Noct said, before Ignis had even taken his jacket off. “No way, Ignis.
You look awful.”
“It's not one of the better ideas,” Ignis admitted. He took the baseball cap
off and regarded it for a moment with a nostalgic little smile. “I should leave
it off.”
“You should burn it,” Noct said.
“Don't be wasteful,” Ignis said. “Anyway, I just borrowed it.” His hair was
tousled and soft under the hat, sticking to his forehead a little, looking
almost blond: he must have left his usual product out of it. Noct tapped his
fingers on the report he was reading, suddenly restless.
“What are you doing?” Ignis said and Noct flipped the report he was reading so
Ignis could read the cover. “Oh, that,” Ignis said, sounding disapproving.
“What do you think? I found some of his conclusions about the agricultural base
in the north fanciful, frankly, and as for the supply chain into the city, I
barely have words.”
Noct looked at the report. “I don't think I got that far yet.”
“You needn't bother,” Ignis said, switching the coffee machine on. “Fararr
Tethier wrote a book about six years ago that's more incisive, even if it's a
little out of date now, and has more sensible policy recommendations. I'll
bring a copy next week. Do you want coffee?”
“No thanks,” Noct said. “Don't you drink coffee in the dorm? You get here like
you're dying of thirst.”
“Your coffeemaker is much better,” Ignis said, sounding like it was a pleasant
surprise, even though he'd been the one to tell the office that Noct needed a
super top of the line coffee machine for the coffee everyone knew Noct didn't
even drink.
“Oh, so that's why you keep coming over,” Noct said. He meant it as a joke and
then his voice, horrifyingly, wobbled.
Ignis paused in his Ebony quest, but he didn't turn around. He said, “Noctis,”
in a tone Noct didn't quite know how to read.
“I think this report isn't too bad,” Noct said hastily. “I thought what he said
about, er, irrigation was really good.”
“What he says about irrigation is completely wrongheaded,” Ignis said.
He came up to the table with his coffee and Noct pretended he was totally
absorbed in his wrongheaded report. He could feel Ignis’s eyes on him and it
made him self-conscious as hell at the same time as a quiet part of him
settled, happy to have Ignis’s attention where it belonged.
“Noctis,” Ignis said again. He was sitting at right-angles on the chair, all
the better to stare at Noctis, and Noct almost jumped, then relaxed as Ignis
nudged at Noct’s knee with his own. “Noct, you know all this…. university, and
the people there, it's not -”
“Not what,” Noct said, meaning to sound irritated, mature, and hearing it come
out as a childish plea for reassurance. He felt like a child again, the despair
and loneliness like waiting up for dinner for a father who never came and a
mother who'd never been, and he hated the way Ignis’s face crumpled in his
peripheral vision like Ignis had heard it that way too.
“It's just a means to an end,” Ignis said, eventually. “I'll always… I'm coming
back, okay?”
“Yeah?” Noct said, hating how desperate for reassurance he sounded, but he was,
and he'd never worried before about hiding how he felt from Ignis.
“Yeah, of course,” Ignis said. He looked awkward, and he could hardly look at
Noct, but at least he'd said it.
“Ignis?” Noct said, after the silence had become a bit weird.
“Yeah?”
“Whose hat is it?”
“It's Geraind’s hat,” Ignis said reluctantly. “The boy you… met.”
“You should definitely burn it,” Noct muttered.
“Noctis,” Ignis said reprovingly. But when Noct sneaked a look at him, he was
smiling.
***
“What did you get for question three?” Prompto said.
Noct flipped a page back in his math text. “Four point seven seven.”
“Using cosine?” Prompto said hopefully.
“No,” Noct said. “Tangent. Sorry. You want me to take a look at it?”
Prompto stared at his book glumly and took another bite of the meatloaf Ignis
had left in the fridge. “No, it’s okay. I’ll get it.”
“You’re doing well,” Noct said encouragingly. It wasn’t totally true, but
Prompto was doing better, at least. He tended to be really good at the stuff he
was interested in, and not at all at the things he wasn’t, and math was very
definitely in the basket of things he wasn’t.
“You have such good study habits,” Prompto said dismally.
Noct glanced at his bookshelf, which as well as regular books and movies and
games held a number of the reports and papers Ignis and his dad’s people had
been foisting on him for years, now. “Yeah, well, I started young.”
“How’s your magic training going?” Prompto said. “With the King?”
“It’s okay,” Noct said. “Slow.”
“How does it feel, doing magic?” Prompto said.
His dinner seemed forgotten. He sounded genuinely interested - and not so much
in the magic, but actually in Noct, which was new. Ignis knew an awful lot
about magic, he’d made it his business to know, but he treated it like an
academic pursuit; Noct didn’t think he’d ever ask how magic felt to Noct.
“Weird,” he said honestly. “It’s getting easier, I guess. I haven’t even done
anything yet other than summon this one dagger, over and over.”
“Oh,” Prompto said, pondering. It occurred to Noct that he didn’t even really
know how much the public knew about the Lucii magic, and he felt a confused
twist in his stomach about how much he was supposed to say, whether he was
supposed to lie. Prompto said, “Can you get other stuff?”
“Like what?” Noct said.
“I don’t know,” Prompto said. “Like… I don’t know. Money! You could store stuff
in it. You’d never have to carry a wallet again.”
“I guess,” Noct said. He didn’t carry a wallet now; he had a credit card, or
there would be someone with him to pick up the cheque, or for places he went a
lot they knew him and they sent bills to the palace directly. Even the arcade
did that for him and Prompto, they were there so much. He said, “I’ll think
about it.”
***
Noct was at a party, and it was terrible.
He’d allowed himself to be towed around by Macha for a while, but after about
the twentieth kid who’d said, “Oh, Noctis, er, hi,” and stared at him like
maybe he’d summon the armiger right in front of them he’d escaped to the
kitchen and was now sitting on the floor in the pantry, playing on his phone.
The keg was just outside, so it wasn’t the safest of places. Noct had had a
couple of drinks, and then when he’d started hearing himself get loud he’d
stopped, Ignis’s voice echoing seriously in his brain about the dignity of the
station of the prince and how Noct needed to not be a giant embarrassment to
the throne. His head was still spinning unpleasantly and he felt kind of
nauseous and anxious; the pit of his stomach where his magic seemed to live was
roiling and uncomfortable, as if the magic was agitating to be let out. He
wondered if he’d have to just stay in the pantry forever, because from the
racket outside it seemed like everyone else was having a great time and might
never leave.
There was a rising argument outside.
“Noct! Hey!” Prompto said, as Noct emerged from the pantry, trying to look like
he thought sitting alone in the pantry was a normal party activity. His voice
was high and excited and he gave Noct a big drunk beam. The couple of kids
who’d been getting at him gave Noct a glance, then another one, slower.
“Prince Noctis,” the girl said, and gave him a flirty smile. “It’s so great you
came to the party tonight!”
“We have to go,” he said. “Prom. Hey, Prom. Come here.”
He grabbed Prompto and pulled him out of the first door he saw, which turned
out to lead into a garden. The crowd and clamour of the party was spilling out
of the open windows, but here it was dark and quiet, nice, and Noct felt his
throbbing head start to calm a little.
“Noct,” Prompto said uncertainly and Noct turned to him, steadied his swaying.
He was looking pale, suddenly, and then he said, “I don’t feel so good.”
The terribleness continued. Noct patted Prompto’s back awkwardly while he was
noisily sick into what was probably Macha’s friend’s mom’s favourite shubbery.
“I don’t feel good,” Prompto said finally, again, and Noct was too slow to stop
him lying down on the grass, rubbing his face in the damp coolness of it, and
starting to cry.
“It’s okay,” he said. He kind of wanted to cry, too, but he felt like they
couldn’t both cry.
“I want to go home,” Prompto said, tearstreaked and smelling lightly of beer
and vomit. “Noct, let’s go.”
“Okay,” Noct said. He could call a regular taxi, or call the palace and they’d
send someone for him, but that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted Ignis, simply
and powerfully, wanted his cool hands and his judgemental face and even the
telling-off he’d probably get.
It wasn’t that late. Not even midnight, although it wasn’t far off. He got his
phone out and dialled Ignis.
It rang and rang and then Ignis said, “Noct?” fuzzily, as if he’d been asleep.
Noct resisted the suspicious desire to ask him whether he was alone and said
just, “Can you come get us?”
“What? Where are you?”
“At a party,” Noct said guiltily. There was a certain quality of silence on the
other end of the line, which he chose to interpret as Ignis just still waking
up.
“Are you drunk?” Ignis said.
“No!” Noct said, and then, compelled by drunken honesty, “Maybe a bit, but
Prom’s pretty bad. He just threw up a lot and now he's lying on the back lawn
and he won’t get up.”
“Try to keep him awake,” Ignis ordered. Noct could hear sounds on the other end
of the line, Ignis getting out of bed, finding clothes and thumping shoes
around. “I'm on my way.”
It was nearly thirty minutes before he got there and by then Noct very
definitely had a headache, mainly because Prompto was snoring beside him and
the party was still loud and he was chilly and irritated. He’d ducked back into
the kitchen when it was nearly empty and got two cups of water. Prompto had
drunk his and then sat next to Noct, then leaned on him, carefully like he
thought he might get pushed away, and said, “Are you mad?” which Noct was but
he’d told Prompto he wasn’t because it wasn’t Prom’s fault, and despite Ignis’s
instruction Noct hadn’t had the heart to stop him when he went to sleep on
Noct’s shoulder.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. “Are you okay? I’m outside.”
“We’re good,” Noct said, trying not to sound as pitifully relieved as he was.
“We’ll come out now.”
He poked and bullied Prompto awake, albeit whining about it, and found a side
gate; he really didn’t want to go back through the house. It was probably
incredibly rude to just leave without telling Macha, or her friend whose house
it was whom he’d met earlier and whose name he’d instantly forgotten, but who
cared? It wasn’t like he was going to come to a party again. He didn’t
understand why anyone ever did.
He pushed Prompto into the backseat, where he lay down without even saying hi
to Ignis, and tumbled into the passenger side.
Ignis was watching him, and when Noct turned and squinted at him and said,
“What?” he took a deep breath, his face smoothing out, and said, “Nothing. I’m
glad you’re all right.” He was back wearing his glasses, probably because he’d
been in bed, and he looked normal and good, like Noct’s Ignis again.
“Yeah, it’s cool,” Noct said, gracelessly, because now Ignis was there he
didn’t really have a good explanation for why he’d woken Ignis up after his
busy week at school and made him come get them, instead of just gotten a car.
“Thanks for picking me up.”
Ignis looked out the windshield and put the car in drive. “I’d rather you
called me.”
Prompto was snoring again and Ignis tilted the rearview mirror to check on him.
“Do you have his mother’s number? I think he ought to stay with you tonight
rather than take him home like this.”
“I can text her off his phone later,” Noct said, fidgeting.
Ignis glanced at Noct and then reached behind the passenger seat and came up
with a sweatshirt. He said tentatively, “You don't really party.”
“Well you're off doing new things,” Noct said, struggling into the sweatshirt
in his seat and hunching into its warmth. He felt torn between being
belligerent and grown-up, standing his ground, and wanting to crawl into the
backseat and go to sleep on Prompto while Ignis just took care of everything.
“Why shouldn't I?”
“Whose party was it?” Ignis said.
“Some girl, I don’t know,” Noct said. His hands were cold and he pulled them
into the sleeves of the sweatshirt. It smelled a little of Ignis’s cologne and
a little of the freshly-cleaned scent of Ignis’s car. “Macha brought us.”
“Councillor Enrisha’s granddaughter? I didn’t know you’d actually started
seeing her,” Ignis said. He sounded put-out, almost upset. Noct looked out of
the window and shrugged; it wasn’t like he’d deliberately not told Ignis, but
Ignis didn’t like not knowing what was going on.
“I probably won’t now I ran out of her friend’s party,” he said.
“Hmm,” Ignis said, and that seemed to be it. Noct leaned his head against the
nice smooth glass of the window and closed his eyes.
***
He didn’t really have a hangover when he woke up, or he didn’t think he did,
just a little headache. He lay in bed for a while anyway, replaying the evening
in his mind and trying to figure out whether he’d been too weird, and why he
couldn’t have just gone and enjoyed partying and talked to girls and got drunk
like Prompto. Eventually the fetid smell of his room and the claustrophobia of
his thoughts both started to get to him and he got up and opened a window, then
shuffled silently out.
Ignis was sitting on the couch and working on a laptop, steaming coffee next to
him, a comforting smell of baking in the air. A neatly folded set of sheets
were placed on the table, like he’d slept over. Ignis looked up when he heard
Noct come in, and smiled.
“Morning,” Noct mumbled. “Where’s Prom?”
“He woke very early, feeling quite unwell,” Ignis said. “I thought it best he
sleep the remainder off in his own bed so I drove him home. He showed me some
of his photos. He’s quite talented, actually.” He put the laptop aside and came
over to Noct. He was still wearing his glasses and as he came in close to check
Noct over, Noct had to tilt his chin up to keep looking into his eyes. “You
don’t look too bad. Do you want breakfast?”
“Yes please,” Noct said. “Did you - what’d you bake?”
“Brownies,” Ignis said. “For later. What do you want?”
“Pancakes, please,” Noct said, and he sat at the table and propped his head in
his hands and watched Ignis make him pancakes, moving around the kitchen
smoothly and quietly. Noct’s headache seemed to fade while he watched, as if
the pain was draining from his head down his arms and into the wooden table.
“Thanks again,” he said, when Ignis slid a plate in front of him piled with
pancakes, with thick honey and fresh-whipped cream on them and strawberries on
the side, like Noct liked. “For, you know. Sorry I dragged you out.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” Ignis said quietly. He sat opposite Noct at the
table and took a strawberry.
He went back to his laptop when Noct was about halfway through. When Noct was
done eating he went over to the couch and Ignis shifted over to make room for
him, seemingly unaware he was doing it. Noct sat down, and then lay down,
pulling the blanket that was still over the back of the couch over himself,
propping his head on Ignis’s hip and shutting his eyes.
Magic was crackling through Noct again, as if rest and pancakes had totally
replenished it. In the blurred moments before he napped he thought he felt soft
fingers in his hair and he reached back for Ignis, not with his hands which
were cosy under the blanket but with his magic, instinctively, wrapped a warm
welcoming thread of it around Ignis’s wrist and slipped back into sleep.
***
Thursday was magic lesson day again. Cor texted him earlier on to say Dad had
time to eat with him that night first, for once, so Noct went over a little
earlier than usual.
“So I hear you and Macha have been getting on very well,” Dad said, clearly
trying to be casual, over the main course.
Noct paused in picking the mushrooms carefully out of his sauce. “I guess,” he
said cautiously. He hadn’t heard from her since the party. Prompto had texted
Rizann to say sorry for them peacing out, and she’d texted back it was cool,
but she hadn’t responded to Prompto’s follow-up text and Noct had forbidden him
from keeping trying.
“Do you like her?” Dad said.
“She’s a nice person?” Noct said.
“Well, if you don’t like her, perhaps there’s another girl you might like
more?” Dad said. “And eat your vegetables, please, Noct. Don’t just push them
all to the side.”
“Look what I learned,” Noct said, desperately, under attack on dual fronts.
He’d figured out Prompto’s idea on Sunday, with Ignis’s help, and now he closed
his eyes and reached out into the space where the dagger lived, and came up
with a coin, flourishing it like a street magician. “Cool, right? I put it in
there earlier and I can get it back out again.”
“You put a coin in the arsenal,” Dad said slowly. “That’s… why?”
Noct frowned and ate another bite of chicken. He closed his hand around the
coin, pushing it with a stray extension of thought back into the space. He’d
been pretty pleased with that and Dad was pouring cold water all over it.
“Never mind,” he said.
***
He found it hard to sleep that night, magic still fluorescing through his body;
it was just like that now, and more after the lessons. He kicked at the sheets
and punched at the pillows and tried lying on his side, on his tummy, and
finally on his back, the sheets constraining and twisted around him. He
scrabbled them away in a bad temper, tensed all the muscles in his body at
once, so hard he thought he might snap, and relaxed them all in a rush, trying
to imagine himself heavy and still and restful.
It didn’t really work. He snuffled into his pillow in irritation and wriggled,
messing up the sheets. He was kind of warm: he sat up and took off his pajama
top, and then on a whim his pajama pants too, feeling a little thrill of
disobedience as he lay back down naked, the cover draped demurely over him, a
little rough against his skin.
It felt good. He slid his hands up his chest and pinched at his nipples,
experimentally, sighed and thrust his hips up at the little jolt of pleasure,
his plumping cock rubbing against the fabric, thickening fast. His skin was
warm and sensitive under his fingertips, even more so when magic seemed to
follow his hands and pool there, sparks arcing between his fingers and his
body.
He cried out when he touched his cock, and then bit down on his lip, even
though nobody could hear him; old habits from when he’d been in the palace, and
Ignis had slept in the room next door. He’d used to have to remind himself of
that a lot to keep quiet, thought about Ignis next door, maybe hearing, maybe
listening as Noct jerked off, as he wrapped his fingers around his cock and
fucked his hand, like he was now, maybe mad, or embarrassed, or maybe - maybe
Ignis doing the same thing, whining out how good it felt to touch, to let go,
to come -
He was much more sleepy after. He grabbed a tissue and wiped himself up, sort
of, then rolled onto his stomach and snuggled down.
***
Gladio picked him up on Friday to go over for training. Noct slipped into the
driver’s seat and adjusted it from all the settings that accommodated Gladio’s
enormousness.
“Hear you went to a party last week,” Gladio said.
“You too?” Noct said in disgust. “Who told you?”
“Prom and Iggy both did,” Gladio said. “Prom said he had a great time.”
“Prompto got so drunk he threw up in someone’s rose bushes,” Noct muttered. “He
did not have a great time.”
“Well, he said he did,” Gladio said, unruffled. “Nothing wrong with looking on
the bright side now and again, Noct.”
“What did Ignis say?”
“Said he had to pick you two up. He didn’t mention the rose bushes, though. Try
and change gears more smoothly. Clutch, change, let it out.”
“I’m never going to a party again,” Noct said, trying to change gears more
smoothly, but it was hard; the car rattled and made alarmed noises whenever he
did anything. “So he won’t have to any more.”
“I don’t think he minded. He’s coming this evening.”
“He is? Why?” Noct said. He glanced at Gladio, who was looking totally
unconcerned.
“We were talking about the magic again, I dunno. He said he thinks it’s time we
get more used to fighting together. You know how my dad and your dad have their
stuff they can do together? Like that. It’s not a bad idea.”
“Oh,” Noct said.
Ignis was already there and waiting for them when they pulled up to Gladio’s
place, sitting on the hood of his car and reading a thick book. The cover was
written in a script Noct didn't know. Accordan, maybe. “Hi,” Ignis said.
“Hi,” Noct said. “Don't you have anything better to do on a Friday night?”
“No,” Ignis said, and smiled. He was wearing a leather jacket; black leather,
familiar black again, a good one cut almost like a suit jacket to fall over his
chest and hips, open over the white shirt. It looked good, soft and touchable.
He was wearing his glasses again, a new pair, narrower, so maybe the contacts
experiment was over; Noct tried not to care either way.
“Hey, Iggy,” Gladio said, and the pair of them did some ridiculous handshake
with bumping shoulders Noct didn't even recognise.
“Wow,” he said, loud enough they both knew how impressed he wasn't, and went
inside to change into practice gear.
He trained with Gladio most weeks, and he saw Ignis train sometimes, but it had
been a long time since he'd really seen Ignis fight. He'd always excelled with
knives but he was stupid good now, laughing with Gladio and doing tricks like
throwing them up in the air and kicking them for Gladio to hit away with his
greatsword held like it was a baseball bat, always totally accurate and in
control. They looked comfortable, like maybe they did this pretty regularly.
“Have you been working on this?” Noct said suspiciously.
“Chill, princess,” Gladio said. “We’re at the palace gym at the same time
sometimes, it makes sense to check out what we’re doing.”
Noct tried to hide how that made him feel, not so much jealous as left out. It
wasn't that he didn't want them to have that, just that he wanted it too; he
wanted to be there with them, to have handshakes and jokes.
Ignis came to him and their hands brushed as Ignis handed him a practice sword.
“Here,” Ignis said gently. “Practice bout, okay?”
It was hard-fought. Noct went on the attack immediately, thinking maybe he
could take Ignis by surprise, because he certainly couldn't take him by force.
Ignis let himself be duelled back, losing one step and then two, and Noct fell
into his best swordwork, eager to show off.
Ignis met it and more and Noctis felt a fierce joy rise up in him, the
simplicity of battle calling to a deep part of him. He could almost feel the
blood thundering through his body, hear it in the glad beat of his heart in his
ears, knew that now electric magic was chasing it there, spreading through him.
A feint and a twist and Ignis was on him, hilt to hilt and struggling, and Noct
dropped the sword and just flung himself on Ignis, bringing him down more by
surprise than by weight.
Ignis’s body was solid and alive bucking under his, the bare skin of Ignis’s
arms under Noct’s hands and his chest heaving beneath Noct’s. His face was
buried in Ignis’s throat; he could have ripped at it with his teeth and he
gasped instead, wrestling Ignis down in helpless straining effort, barely
noticing when Ignis practically head butted him then just grabbed Noct’s hips
hard down to his and flipped them, getting his hands around Noct’s wrists and
pinning him, his face over Noct’s glowing with effort and victory. Noct’s magic
joined the fight gladly, but not struggling against Ignis’s hold; it ran up
Noct’s arms and over onto Ignis in happy blue streams, and Ignis groaned above
him and abruptly went heavy, like with sleep or bliss, pressing Noct into the
floor, and Noct went limp under him, squashed, his legs spreading to cradle
Ignis’s hips and take some of the pressure off.
“Okay,” Gladio called, somewhere above them, his voice a bit strangled, “tap
out, boys,” and Ignis rolled off him and up.
Noct lay back, breath coming hard and ragged. His nose ached; he touched it
gingerly, felt his fingers dampen with blood.
Ignis crouched over him and offered him a healing spell and Noct crunched it
and winced as the prickling energy washed over him, feeling his nose straighten
and the pain fade. “They should invent something easier,” he said, blinking up
at Ignis as the spell dissipated. “Hey, remember when you used to go easy on
me?”
Ignis grinned. He wasn't unscathed, Noct had got a little of his own back;
Ignis was breathless and scruffed up, hair falling over his forehead, sweat
gleaming on his shoulders and the bare hollow of his throat and cheeks, one of
which was tender and reddened. He reached out, running his fingertips over
Noct’s nose, his cheek. “I remember when you needed it, Highness,” he said,
teasing, and Noct found his eyes closing as Ignis cradled his face, careful and
sweet.
***
Ignis drove Noct home and stayed over. When Noct came out of his room in the
morning Ignis was reading the newspaper and eating his way through bowls of the
really healthy cereal Noct disliked, which hadn’t been in the apartment
earlier, so Ignis must have got up, gone out grocery shopping, and come back.
It felt nice and comfortable and Noct mumbled his good mornings and went to
pick up his game.
Ignis cooked burgers for lunch, and didn’t even put lettuce on Noct’s. After,
he said, with a deceptive air of harmless enquiry, “Homework…?” and Noct said,
“Some,” and went to get his bookbag.
“What are you working on?” Ignis said, peering over his laptop.
“History,” Noct said. He came over and sat next to Ignis at the table and Ignis
obligingly shuffled some of his stuff over to make room. “Recent history. The
fall of Solheim.”
“I’m surprised they’re teaching that,” Ignis said, frowning.
“I don’t think it’s very accurate,” Noct said. He opened his textbook and
showed Ignis the introduction and Ignis pulled it over and started to read.
“No,” he said after a minute. “What a waste of your time, Noctis. How long are
you supposed to spend on this? I’ll speak to your teacher.”
“Not long,” Noct said hastily. “It’s okay, I want to learn what everyone else
is learning. I should know what people think, right? And hey, look -”
He leaned in close and took possession of the book back. His fingers brushed
against Ignis’s as he flipped forward a few pages and pointed at a section he’d
noticed reading ahead in class the other day. “Look, Ambassador Feren is in it,
from before he was an Ambassador. You remember when we were kids and he came to
the citadel?”
“Very well,” Ignis said wryly. “I remember he was rude to the King and you put
a fart cushion on his chair for the high banquet.”
“He was so rude!” Noct said, grinning. “He deserved it, right? It was funny,
you remember? He was so offended.”
“It wasn’t funny,” Ignis said, but he’d laughed at the time and he was laughing
now, his face open and sweet and boyish, and Noct leaned in, driven by sudden
desire that drowned out everything else, and met Ignis’s lips with his, a
little off-target, felt Ignis’s shoulder under his hand like he was in a dream.
Ignis’s mouth moved under his. Kissing back -
- No -
Saying, “Noct -”
“I have to go,” Noctis said, flattened by fear, and ran.
He’d forgotten they were in his own apartment. He crept into a cafe on the
other side of the street and bought five sodas, one after the other, until he
saw Ignis leave, and then he went home and pulled the covers over his head
until Monday.
***** Chapter 4 *****
He spent the next week hoping and praying to every Astral he could think of
that Ignis wouldn't talk about it, ever.
“You’re in a weird mood,” Gladio said, over cards; Prompto still hadn’t got the
hang of the tactics of striker, but he kept insisting he could improve.
“He’s been in a weird mood all week,” Prompto said.
Noct snarled faintly and held his cards closer to his chest.
“Hmm,” Gladio said. He was watching Noct knowingly and it made Noct want to
climb under the table and wait for everyone to leave.
“Don’t hmm at me,” he snapped. Gladio raised an eyebrow at him and stretched
obnoxiously.
“What’s that?” Prompto said. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“What’s what?” Noct said, and then he saw it, the dressing wrapped around
Gladio’s arm, exposed when the long sleeve of his hoodie had ridden up.
“It’s nothing,” Gladio said, and pulled the sleeve back down over it. “Back
off, okay?”
“It’s something,” Prompto said, dismayed.
“Did you get hurt?” Noct said. “Training accident? Did something happen?”
Gladio looked furious, but he seemed to relent at Prompto’s genuine concern. “I
got a tattoo, okay?”
“A tattoo?” Noct said, over Prompto’s, “That’s so cool!” He looked at Gladio
and said, “Your dad is going to be so mad.”
“I know, so you can’t tell him, okay? I’ll show him when they’re done.”
“They?” Prompto said, dismay turned to delight. “Are you getting more?”
“I’m gonna get full sleeves,” Gladio said self-consciously.
“Why?” Noct said, fascinated. He’d never bothered to even think about tattoos,
or piercings, or any of that stuff that kids at school had started to talk
about; not right for the dignity of the throne. That was what Dad would say,
and it was definitely what Clarus was going to say, that Gladio’s body was the
crown’s, and not for idle defacing.
“I don’t know,” Gladio said, but he ran he fingers lightly over his forearm,
maybe picturing whatever it was he’d had put there, with a soft smile. “I just
wanted something that was… I don’t know. I thought it’d look good.”
“I’m sure it’s gonna look great,” Noct said.
***
Ignis came around on Saturday.
He talked about his week at school, then he talked about Noct’s week at school,
then he talked about the origin of the beef of the chilli he was planning to
cook for them, in bulk so there'd be plenty left for Noct to heat up later, and
then he talked about vegetables for about ten minutes, and then, in utter
distress and unable to bear it for a moment longer, Noct cried out, “Aren't we
even gonna talk about it?”
“I didn't think you'd want to!” Ignis said, loud, instantly. He'd gone a colour
Noct had never seen him before, blotchy pink and pale underneath.
“I don't!” Noct yelled.
“You brought it up!” Ignis yelled back.
“Yeah,” Noct said, in his normal voice. He gazed at Ignis, helplessly, and
Ignis threw himself off the sofa and went to stare out of the glass to the
balcony.
Noct’s stomach felt tight, his body wracked with uncertainty, like stepping up
to the bottom of the grand stair in the cathedra, judgement seated at the
heights. “Ignis,” he said. Ignis’s shoulders hunched almost imperceptibly, and
Noct said it again, pleading, “Ignis. I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry. I didn't mean
it. I won't… I won't do it again.”
Ignis bowed his head at that. Noct could feel his magic within him, almost
alive, waiting, wanting Ignis closer so badly he could feel it crackling the
air between them, and something made him add, “Not if you don't want.”
Ignis turned back to him then and he was still pale, his face strained. He
tried to smile at Noct, but it was just his mouth moving; his eyes were bright,
almost wet, not crinkled and glittering like when he smiled for real.
“It’s not about what I want,” Ignis said, visibly trying to be calm. “I know
your dad has been on your back about... things. And… and you don’t know very
many people -”
“That's got nothing to do with anything!” Noct said, swinging wildly to
annoyance. “Gods, if it was that I’d kiss Prompto. I don’t want to kiss
Prompto."
“You would not kiss Prompto,” Ignis snapped, going red and stormy, and Noct
looked at him with slow, dawning amazement.
“Are you jealous?” he said. “That’s - you don’t want me to kiss Prompto."
“No,” Ignis said, and now he looked sad. Noct was abruptly reminded of one day
when they'd been kids, stupid kids, pricking their fingers and sharing blood
and Ignis had sworn loyalty forever to Noct, proudly. “No, Noct, I don’t and
that’s not fair to you. I’m supposed to take care of you, not… I’m not supposed
to feel like that.”
“But you do,” Noct said, disbelief and excitement rising in him. He took a step
closer to Ignis, and Ignis took a step closer to him, hesitant but as if he was
magnetised, as if he couldn’t stop himself. “You do feel like that?”
“Noct…” Ignis said, and the way he was looking at Noct, soft and hopeful and
with a trembling smile, made Noct brave.
He stepped in close as he could, his body up against Ignis’s, and drew in a
sharp little breath when Ignis settled his hands gently on Noct’s hips. But
Ignis didn’t make that final move: Noct was the one to stand up on his tiptoes
and bring their mouths together.
It was good, so good, Ignis’s lips delicate and moving tentatively on his.
Noct's knees shivered a little and Ignis slid his arms all the way around
Noct’s waist, holding him tight and secure.
It was so good, but Noct had no idea what he was doing. It looked super easy
and natural when people did it on TV and in the movies but when he tried to
flap his mouth the way he'd seen it just felt weird, not fun, and he wriggled
against Ignis and tried to press apologetically closer.
Ignis let him go, but only to cup Noct’s face and slow the kiss, showing Noct
what to do, and Noct clung to him and tried to copy, finding what felt good,
what made his body come gorgeously alive in Ignis’s arms. He sucked gently on
Ignis’s full lower lip, inquisitive and emboldened, and Ignis sighed and pulled
away just enough to brush their noses together, kiss the corner of his mouth
and murmur, “Noct."
***
And that was it for the weekend, then, pretty much: they made out non-stop,
parting only when Ignis insisted he had to sleep in the guest room, and even
then Noct lay awake for ages vibrating with the knowledge Ignis was so close,
and in the morning Noct could touch again, could have what he wanted, just had
to go within a metre of Ignis and Ignis would smile and reach for him, pull him
into hugs that turned into Noct tilting his face up for long, deep, perfect
kisses.
Even Ignis cooking, when he'd usually shoo Noct away unless he was being
deliberately helpful, turned into wild kissing up against the kitchen cabinets,
and Sunday lunch was totally burned and they had to eat pot noodles; Noct
didn't care.
He even congratulated himself that by Sunday night, when Ignis left to go back
to the dorms - with one last kiss, then another, and a final one, then a
totally final one, for serious this time, he was going, and then just one more
for the road - Noct had this kissing thing down. He was so good at it by then
Ignis was making little noises into Noct’s mouth when they kissed that made
Noct want, that made them both press their hard cocks together through their
pants urgently even though no hands had even wandered below-waistwards; it was
so good Noct was alive and ecstatic with it, so good he thought magic might
explode out of him and light up the whole city with happiness.
***
“You’re in a better mood,” Prompto said, cheerfully.
Noct, interrupted from a pleasant reverie about the softness of Ignis’s lips
and the shy touch of his tongue, said, “Am I?”
***
“You’re in a better mood,” Gladio said, suspiciously.
Noct, interrupted from a pleasant reverie about Ignis’s long legs and muscled
thighs in his blue jeans, said, “Am I?”
***
“You’re in a better mood,” Dad said, gratefully.
Noct, interrupted from a pleasant reverie about the breadth of Ignis’s
shoulders under his hands as they’d kissed, said, “Am I?”
***
Ignis came to training with Gladio again on Friday and it was complete torture.
Ignis looked so good in his thin training clothes, and he moved so beautifully
wielding the long poleaxe, and he smelled so delicious when Noct couldn't pay
attention and he took Noct to the floor for the third time in a row. Being
underneath Ignis felt right, felt lovely, and Noct had to forcibly stop himself
from just letting his legs wrap around Ignis’s trim waist the way they wanted
to and pulling Ignis’s mouth down to his. It had been nearly a week since
they'd touched, and he was jerking off so much his dick was practically raw in
his boxers.
He’d been a little worried that maybe Ignis would have forgotten about the
kissing, or changed his mind, or… or been making out his stupid university hat-
lending friend and realised Noct was useless and had never done anything with
another person apart from Ignis and Ignis didn’t need to put up with that, but
Ignis went pink when they said hello, and smiled, and his gaze dipped to Noct’s
mouth and stuck there. The way he looked at Noct made Noct feel wanted, made
him feel seen, and it kept him floating on a high through the whole training
session, even when Gladio hit him really hard on the ass with the flat of his
broadsword and it stung for a good twenty minutes afterwards.
He was too happy to really notice Gladio watching them both in a cynical,
narrow-eyed way, until it was nearly time to leave and Gladio said, “Hey, Noct,
what are you doing next weekend?”
“Um,” Noct said, trying to think of something to say other than the only thing
filling his head, which was kiss Ignis a lot and maybe get him to take off his
shirt for it. “Nothing. I guess.”
“I’m going camping,” Gladio announced, which was really nice for him although
Noct couldn’t figure out why he thought they needed to know about it, but then
Gladio went on, “why don’t you come with me?”
“Camping?” Noct said, literally unable to imagine anything worse.
“Camping,” Gladio said grimly. “I’ll pick you up from school on Friday.”
He stalked off, leaving Noct protesting, “But I don’t want to go camping,” to
thin air.
“I don’t want to go camping,” he said to Ignis, instead.
Ignis was looking after Gladio, but he transferred his attention to Noct the
second Noct spoke to him. “Go camping with him,” he said, and smiled a half-
smile. “You might like it. You could take your fishing stuff, you used to enjoy
fishing with your father.”
“I guess,” Noct said, grumpily, second-guessing himself again. Weekends were
their time, him and Ignis; did Ignis really want to lose one of them, give up
seeing Noct? Especially now. Maybe he was already thanking the gods to have
Noct out of his hair for at least one weekend.
“Hey,” Ignis said, and brushed their hands together. Noct turned his a little,
just to see, and Ignis grabbed his hand, their palms slipping together, both of
them sweaty and kind of gross. “Go camping with Gladio,” Ignis said, low, and
his gaze was fixed on Noct’s mouth again. “We’ll still… we’ll still have our
time, okay? As much as you want. If you want.”
“Can we go home now?” Noct said. It came out on a whine but it was lucky it
came out at all because he was breathless, suddenly so desperate for Ignis’s
mouth on his he felt faint for it.
Ignis caught his breath, too. “Go get in the car,” he said, and Noct
practically ran for it.
***
He turned against Ignis and pushed him back against the front door as soon as
they were inside the apartment and Ignis was just as eager, meeting Noct and
more than giving back in a fierce, joyous kiss. Noct couldn’t help being noisy,
he’d been thinking about this all week long, and he groaned into Ignis’s mouth,
clutching at his hair to keep him close, as close as possible.
“Iggy,” he said, hardly recognising his own voice, and pushed Ignis’s head down
a little, hopefully. Ignis had kissed his throat last week and the feel of his
breath and lips and teeth there had been so good Noct had thought he might
rocket out of his skin.
He’d always kind of assumed, when all the kids in school were whispering and
boasting and making out in the corridors, that it couldn’t be that good with
someone else - Noct had his hands and his dick, he could make himself feel
amazing, what else could there be? But he definitely couldn’t suck gently at
his own neck, he couldn’t slouch down against the door like Ignis was now with
his leg sliding tentatively between Noct’s thighs so Noct could rock gratefully
against it.
“Let’s… inside, okay?” Ignis said, and when he raised his head he looked
fantastic, mussed up and flushed, eyes dark and dizzy, and Noct had to lean up
and take another long kiss before he could even think about moving.
They pulled one another through to the lounge, stopping every step or two to
kiss hungrily, like they were trying to fit a whole last week’s worth of
kissing into right now. Noct felt like he was full of bubbles, everything
narrowing down to just Ignis’s hands on him, his in Ignis’s hair and scratching
gently at the nape of his neck and exploring the taut muscle of his back.
Ignis more or less fell onto the sofa and yanked Noct down after him, on top of
him. They hadn’t done this last weekend and it took Noct a minute to figure out
where to put himself, how to straddle Ignis’s lap with his knees snugged up
against Ignis’s hips and his weight on Ignis’s thighs. Ignis let him get
comfortable, hands roaming restlessly over Noct’s chest and hips. He was gazing
up at Noct the way he looked at the bright night sky and Noct closed his eyes,
dipped down to find Ignis’s mouth again with his, and lost himself to how good
it felt.
***
By the time the weekend was done, Noct was a man who had had an orgasm when
someone else was in the room.
It was okay, though; he didn’t think Ignis had noticed him coming in his pants,
and he’d sneaked out early and done his own laundry Sunday morning before Ignis
woke up. It was only natural, anyway. Normal. He’d looked it up on the
internet.
He and Ignis had never really got into the habit of texting a lot. For ten
years they’d practically lived in one another’s back pockets, they’d never
needed to, or at least Noct had known he’d see Ignis at the end of the day and
talk to him about whatever he wanted; the most he’d ever really texted Ignis
was to ask him to pick something up at the store or check something his
teachers had told him that he was pretty sure was wrong.
Now, he was on the phone to Ignis almost all the time. It was like his fingers
ached for Ignis, and if Noct couldn’t have him actually there to touch then
using them to text him was the next best thing. Ignis usually answered right
away, even when he was in class; Noct had the class schedule Ignis had given
him, back at the beginning of the semester, and he tried not to message Ignis
when he was busy, but sometimes he just needed to know Ignis was there so
badly. It wasn’t sexting or anything, wasn’t anything Noct couldn’t have shown
his dad, if it came to it, but it was good.
***
Noct opened his eyes, but he already knew he’d done it: he looked down and the
rapier was there in his hand.
“Very good, Noctis!” Dad said. He rested a hand on Noct’s shoulder and Noct
grinned up at him proudly.
Dad must’ve been really pleased with him, because he made time to spend with
Noct, after, in his private rooms. He splashed brandy into a glass for himself,
and laughed in a nice way when Noct asked, optimistically, for beer. He had
Noct’s favourite soda in the fridge and Noct got a can of that instead.
“You’ve really come along in the last few weeks,” Dad said quietly, when they
were both settled in the comfortable sitting room off the King’s bedchamber. He
had the leg brace off, so he must’ve been done for the day. Noct tried to keep
his eyes off the visible muscle wastage the brace usually distracted from;
without it his dad’s trouser leg flapped around, outlining the thinness of his
leg disturbingly.
“Thanks,” Noct said, deciding to assume it was a compliment. He held his can up
to his dad hesitantly and Dad smiled, if wearily, and clinked his glass against
it.
“I know you’re working hard,” Dad said. “Noct… if I push you, it’s just because
I… I see what’s ahead of you. Of us. I want to do everything I can to prepare
you, to give you the best possible chance.”
“Yeah, I know,” Noct said quickly, and drained half his drink. He didn’t want
to have this conversation, not at all, and he didn’t want to come along if it
meant his dad was going to talk like this to him, like oh great Noct was ready
and his dad could just… give up. Fade away.
Dad eyed him and then sighed and took a big gulp of his own drink. “I’m not
trying to upset you,
“I know,” Noct said again. “It’s fine, whatever.”
“The crystal is responding to you very nicely now,” Dad said. He stared at his
own hand for a minute and then he held his hand up to Noct, palm out and
fingers spread. Noct looked at it, looked at him, and held his own hand up in a
mirror image, nearly but not quite touching. His hand was smaller than his
dad’s, smooth and young, and then his attention was dragged from that as the
Ring of the Lucii began to glow steadily on his dad’s finger, pure white light
that leapt to Noct like fire between buildings and twined around his fingers.
It was warm, hot even, and Noct hissed as it coiled painfully tight around his
own ring finger, just for a second, and watched as it faded.
He looked at Dad again. He didn’t know what the hell that had all been about,
but Dad was looking satisfied.
“I didn’t get this advanced until my glaive was much more developed,” Dad said
thoughtfully. “You’re still seeing Gladio and Ignis regularly, yes?”
A vivid picture intruded on Noct’s thoughts of the last time he’d seen Ignis,
grinning with kiss-tender pink lips and leaning in for more, neither of them
even caring Noct was half sitting on a textbook, Noct’s legs wide and his
fingers in Ignis’s beltloops and pulling him in tight.
“Yeah,” he said, and tried to use drinking the rest of his soda to hide behind
the can and let it cool his suddenly fiery cheeks.
“And this boy you’re friends with at school,” Dad said.
“Prompto?” Noct said.
“Yes, Prompto,” Dad said. “I want to meet him.”
“Yeah, great,” Noct said, so relieved that Dad hadn’t said anything about Noct
making out with his adviser that he was barely aware what he was promising.
“I’m sure he’d love to.”
***
“Bring him to solstice,” Gladio suggested, halfway to wherever the fuck it was
they were camping. “Meet and greet, five minutes, the King can see Prom don’t
have two heads or whatever he’s worried about, and we’ll all have a great time
eating waffles round the bonfire.”
“That’s a good idea,” Noct said, pleased. “I can ask him to that.”
“I have a lot of good ideas,” Gladio said. “And don’t even think about it.
Driver picks the music.”
“I offered to drive,” Noct pointed out sulkily, plugging Gladio’s phone back
into the stereo jack. “You wouldn’t let me.”
“You’re still not up to this car,” Gladio said, patting the steering wheel so
fondly it was a bit weird, frankly. He had another bandage on his other wrist.
“Did you tell Clarus about the tattoos yet?” Noct said.
Gladio looked over at him and said, “I'll tell him when the time’s right for
him to know,” meaningfully.
Noct didn't know what he meant. He looked out of the window, at the dusty
outskirts of the city, near the forgotten edge of the Wall, and muttered,
“Right.”
***
“Do you know why I asked you camping this weekend?” Gladio said, the next
afternoon.
Because misery loved company? Noct had slept really badly, with a rock digging
into his kidneys and Gladio on a hairtrigger for possible threats to his prince
that Noct was pretty sure even he hadn't expected, so he'd woken up about every
hour and that had made Noct wake up too. Then instead of the fantastic cooked
breakfast Noct would have gotten if he'd had his normal weekend with Ignis,
Gladio had handed him an energy bar and made him go hiking for three hours, to
places where Noct couldn't even get a phone signal. He missed Ignis like he
missed four walls and a roof and it was all adding up to making him very
cranky.
“No,” he said, politely.
“Okay,” Gladio said. “You want to go fishing?”
“Yes, please,” Noct said, seizing gratefully on anything that meant he could
sit down and nurse the blister he already had, rather than making more.
Although, “I forgot to bring the fishing stuff.”
“You forgot to bring anything,” Gladio pointed out. “It's fine. Iggy brought
fishing gear when he dropped your weekend bag at my place.”
“Great,” Noct said. That was right: Ignis had come over on Wednesday evening to
pack Noct an overnight bag, and after he'd had Noct do his homework and before
he'd sent Noct to bed so he'd be rested for school they'd grabbed a precious
half an hour together, back on the couch.
He found there was a soft smile stuck to his face. Gladio raised his eyebrow at
him and Noct shrugged.
Fishing was more fun than Noct remembered. The last time he'd done it he'd been
very little, before he even got hurt and went to Tenebrae. He hadn't really
fished himself, just played around his dad’s chair and Dad had helped him reel
in whenever the line pulled and let him boast to everyone about the fish he'd
caught.
He had more on his mind now and there was something soothing about kicking back
and watching the line wait quietly in the water of the lake, and then something
satisfying about the brief moments of action when he caught something. Maybe
next time they could bring Ignis; Noct was only catching tiddlers here so they
were throwing them back anyway, but Ignis liked to cook seafood and rarely got
it as fresh as to his liking in Insomnia.
“Here,” Gladio said, sitting down beside him and offering him a can.
“Really?” Noct said, when he realised what it was. “I'm allowed a beer?”
“Just that one,” Gladio said severely. “And if you act drunk I'm throwing you
in the lake to cool off, so take it slow.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Noct said.
“Yeah,” Gladio said. Then he said, “Are you and Ignis fucking?” and Noct choked
on the first mouthful of beer.
“What?” he said, trying to act shocked and confused, then wondering if he
should've gone for mad and trying to look forbidding, but it was useless; he
could already feel the blush rising over his throat and up to his cheeks.
“I'm gonna take that as a yes,” Gladio said, and at Noct’s spluttered,
embarrassed wordless denial, “oh, okay, right, maybe you're not fucking yet.
But you're messing around, yeah? I thought it was pretty new.”
“I'm not messing,” was all Noct could think of to say. Had Ignis told Gladio
that was what it was? Fooling around, not serious, just something they were
playing at? “Did he say that to you?”
“No,” Gladio said. He was watching Noct and his eyes were kind. Noct drew up
his knees and hugged them and didn't even move when there was a tug on the
line, and Gladio sighed and got up to deal with it. “I haven't spoken to Iggy
yet,” he said, over his shoulder.
“Don't,” Noct pleaded.
“Oh, I'm gonna,” Gladio said. “I got to talk to him about this, Noct, come on.
Both of you guys are my problem.”
“Is it really obvious?” Noct said. He almost wanted it to be: he wanted people
to see them, to know they were together, that Noct got to touch Ignis and kiss
him, but at the same time he wanted it to be private, just theirs. He didn't
want to explain it to his dad, or gods forbid have it getting out into the
press, that the crown prince was in love with one of his companions
“Only in the training room,” Gladio said wryly. “Which I’d appreciate it if you
could get a lid on, by the way. Most people don't spend time with the both of
you together.”
“Don't say anything to make him think it's a bad idea,” Noct said quietly.
“Please, Gladio."
Gladio turned to look at him, cursed at another tug on the line and went back
to it while Noct stared at his kneecaps and tried not to panic. His foot was
throbbing where he'd got the blister and he wanted to go home, eat Ignis’s
cooking and have Ignis’s arms around him again.
“Noct…” Gladio said, and Noct felt too bad not to lean into it when he put his
arm around Noct’s shoulders. “I'm not going to put him off. Like I could,
anyway. I just want both of you to be careful, okay? I wanna know you're
treating each other right.”
“Okay,” Noct whispered.
“And,” Gladio said. He delved back into the cooler and Noct watched in horror
as he brought out a banana and a strip of condoms. “I want you to be safe. Get
practicing, lover boy.”
***
Gladio brought Noct home on Sunday morning. Noct woke up as they pulled into
the underground parking garage and Gladio parked.
“I think I'll come up,” Gladio said.
Noct followed his gaze to Ignis’s car in the space reserved for Noct’s
apartment. “Okay,” he said, accepting the inevitable.
Ignis didn't look that happy to see Gladio, especially when he exclaimed over
how good lunch smelled and invited himself to stay to eat. He wandered off into
the living room and Noct lingered in the hall. Ignis helped him off with his
coat and Noct sighed as he brushed the sensitive nape of Noct’s neck with his
fingertips, then followed it, daring, with his mouth, so Noct had to bite back
a moan. All he wanted was to be alone with Ignis, but they could hardly throw
Gladio out.
“Did you have a good time?” Ignis said. The smile on his face was new: it was
small and curving and intimate and Noct wanted to see it on Ignis’s face
basically for the rest of time.
“It was okay,” Noct said. He still hadn't slept well, and the trauma hadn't
faded of having to put fourteen condoms on the banana one after the other while
Gladio told him horrible stories about the apparently numerous sexual diseases
rampant amongst his friends in the crownsguard. Like Ignis would have diseases;
he was meticulous about his health, and if there was any chance he did have
any, there was no way he'd ever put Noct at risk of getting them too: Noct knew
that like he knew his own name.
Ignis was wearing his apron. He wiped his hand on it and then cradled Noct’s
chin, running the pad of his thumb over Noct’s bottom lip gently. He liked
doing that, Noct had noticed, and he liked it too, the warmth of Ignis’s big
clever hand on his face. It made his eyes want to close like they were doing
now, made him want to sway close to Ignis and be held.
“Hi,” Ignis said, low, and kissed him. It was a different kind of kiss than any
others they'd shared yet, which had mainly been part of frantic makeout
sessions. This one was soft and affectionate, just a quick taste, a brief
acknowledgement of hey, they hadn't seen each other in a while and wasn't it
nice to be together again, and Noct loved it.
“Hi,” he said. He put his arms around Ignis’s neck and buried his face in the
vee of skin at the undone collar of his shirt, and Ignis relaxed into the hug
like he'd missed Noct too.
***
Gladio hung around all over lunch and afterwards like the smuggest cockblock
ever. Noct gave up at about three.
“Deal me out,” he said, disgruntled. “I've got some homework to finish by
tomorrow.”
“Great, see you,” Gladio said, and stretched out his legs to prop his feet
obnoxiously on the chair Noct had just got up from, making it pretty clear he
wanted Noct out of the way and studying in his room. “Care to make it
interesting, Iggy?”
Ignis was so damn competitive, Noct thought resentfully. He dealt the last
round back into the deck and said, “Certainly.” He barely looked at Noct as
Noct headed into his room, only just remembering to flash Noct a quick smile as
he left, meaning Noct had to immediately paste a neutral look on his face and
pretend he hadn't been glowering at Gladio from behind Ignis’s head.
Noct worked on his arts term paper for about an hour, and then Gladio knocked
on the doorframe.
“Are you leaving?” Noct said, trying his best to add a loudly unspoken finally
to the end.
“Yeah,” Gladio said. He came into the room and knuckled the top of Noct’s head
while Noct yelped. “Don't say thanks for taking you away or anything, kid.
You're welcome.”
“Thanks,” Noct said. He really didn't want to know, but he said, “Did you talk
to Ignis?"
“Yeah,” Gladio said. “Don't worry. We’re cool, yeah?”
Well, Noct hoped so. But he really wasn't sure how Ignis was going to react to
this, and he hated it; ten years and he'd have said he could predict Ignis
easily, but this was new unmapped territory.
He wanted to go out there and talk to Ignis, and he was afraid to. He stayed in
his desk chair for a while longer, listening to the sounds of Ignis clearing up
from lunch.
He'd just about decided to go out there and face it when the noises stopped. He
swung around in his chair and Ignis was leaning in the doorframe, shoulders
practically filling it, and watching him.
“Hi,” Noct said, his tongue thick with anxiety in his mouth.
“Hi,” Ignis said. He looked serious but not upset and he stepped into the room
and came to sit on the bed.
“Did Gladio talk to you?” Noct blurted, because it was better than his
unbelievably mortifying real question, which was do you still like me?
“Yeah,” Ignis said.
He didn't seem to be about to say anything more. Noct stared at him for a few
seconds and then he plucked up his courage and went to Ignis and Ignis widened
his stance immediately to welcome Noct in between his legs. He looked…
relieved, like he had anything to worry about; he searched Noct’s face for a
second and then he wrapped his arms around Noct’s waist and pressed his
forehead to Noct’s tummy and Noct ran his fingers through Ignis’s hair,
bewildered and content.
The novelty of being able to touch Ignis so freely, with such casual
possessiveness, hadn't worn off; Noct was used to getting the things he wanted,
but never usually just for him, Noct, only because he was the prince. He
unwound Ignis from around him and climbed onto Ignis’s lap, leaning down for a
proper kiss, warm and messy and sweet.
They hadn't got so far as the bedroom yet, although they'd lain squashed
together on the couch, Noct sprawled over Ignis or crammed against the back
cushions while Ignis balanced precariously on the edge. Kissing Ignis on his
bed sent a little thrill through Noct that made his cock feel sensitive and
thick in his pants, hardening swiftly, and he rubbed himself on Ignis, trying
to be subtle.
Ignis gave a muffled chuckle into Noct’s mouth so Noct maybe wasn't too
successful with that, but he didn't care. Ignis’s hands were soft and sure all
over Noct, supporting him even when Ignis shuffled further back on the bed and
brought Noct with him, and Noct took a deep explosive breath into the kiss and
pushed Ignis down onto his back.
He lay there, looking up at Noct. He was so handsome it made Noct’s eyes hurt
and he reached to take Ignis’s glasses off, setting them carefully on the night
table. He was still straddling Ignis’s waist, Ignis’s hands resting on his
hips, and he took another deep breath and leaned forward and started to
unbutton Ignis’s shirt.
“Noct, are you sure?” Ignis said, but he didn't try to stop Noct. Noct nodded,
his voice stuck in his throat, and tried to make his fingers stop shaking with
nerves and arousal.
He pushed the open sides of Ignis’s shirt away and just stared, greedy and
shameless. Ignis was leanly muscled and narrow-waisted, which Noct had known,
but he hadn't known the creamy shade of his skin, how smooth it would feel
under Noct’s hands when he ran them over Ignis’s pecs and flat stomach, how
good it would feel to listen to Ignis’s breath come hard and feel his heart
hammering in his chest and know it was Noct having that effect. His magic
seemed to pool in his fingertips and spread eagerly on Ignis’s skin, like it
wanted to be with him too, more silvery and shining than usual, and Ignis cried
out in a way that seemed more pleasured than shocked as it soaked into him,
arching under Noct and tossing his head back against the covers.
“Ignis?” Noct said, pausing, uncertain. It felt good to him, his magic and
Ignis, like a thread connecting them from somewhere in Noct’s heart, but it
wasn't… normal, it wasn't anything Ignis could have expected. New, just for
them, and Noct shook with relief when Ignis felt for him, eyes still closed,
grabbed Noct’s hand and twined their fingers where they rested on Ignis’s
chest.
“It's okay,” Ignis said, sounding lazy and dripped-honey rich. “Feels good,
Noct.” With his other hand he toyed with the hem of Noct’s sweatshirt, and Noct
bit his lip as Ignis opened his eyes and looked up at him, said tentatively,
“You?”
Noct wasn't nearly as well-developed and beautiful as Ignis, even with how much
he trained. He was just skinny and pale, but Ignis was looking at him with such
devoted hope, and Noct wanted so badly for them to be that close, to kiss skin-
to-skin and feel Ignis’s body against his.
He pulled his sweatshirt and t-shirt off fast, before he could get too shy.
Ignis made a sound that almost sounded hurt and Noct looked down to see that he
was dazed, his eyes big and full of the look Noct was learning to interpret as
desire, gratifying something incredibly deep and solitary inside him. And
making his cock throb, but mainly it was the feelings.
He'd always vaguely assumed he'd just avoid getting naked with another person
forever. He hardly ever thought about the scar on his back from the daemon
who'd hurt him, the damage to his spine that had stopped him walking while Dad
looked for ever more complex and powerful healing magic; it was just something
that had happened. But it wasn't something he liked to talk about, and he hated
the attention and cloying sympathy it had got him as a kid, and he knew the
scar wasn't great to look at, poison stopping it from healing cleanly so it was
gnarled and still looked an angry red even eight years after the attack.
But Ignis had seen it before. Ignis had seen everything, been there for all of
it, seen it when it was new and Noct was lying in a coma, and later when it was
raw and open and the healing magic was so painful it made Noct weep; it was
Ignis’s bed he'd crept into to be comforted from the nightmares.
“Noctis,” Ignis said and reached for him, and Noct let himself crash down onto
the bed at Ignis’s side so Ignis could do what he wanted, could run his hands
along Noct’s side and hips and chest, smiling. He even touched the scar without
fear, without any reaction other than the calm pleasure he seemed to take in
all of Noct’s body, and it lulled Noct into a sweetly lax state; he drew even
closer, started to caress Ignis back, a little shyly.
“You’re so lovely,” Ignis murmured and Noct pressed in and kissed him, a hard
driving kiss, longing. It was as perfect as he’d wanted, lying together half-
naked, Ignis’s chest silky and warm against Noct’s, and he tried to memorise
it, struck as he occasionally was in this whole thing that these were their
firsts, the moments they might treasure… well, forever. Ignis was going to be
with him forever, he was Noct’s, bound by duty and magic and probably fate
going by what his dad droned on about.
He didn’t know how long they just held each other and made out, but it was long
enough for Noct to get hot and almost dizzy-feeling, even though it was cool in
the room, Ignis’s hands slipping in fresh light sweat as he stroked him. Noct
broke away to try to drag in breaths and Ignis murmured, “Are you okay?” and
waited for Noct’s restless nod and Noct’s hand in his hair guiding him
hopefully down his chest.
Ignis’s mouth around his nipple was like an electric shock, almost literally
with how Noct’s magic reared up inside him and started sparking up his spine as
Ignis rasped delicately at it with the wet of his tongue. He let out a moan
that startled even himself with how loud he’d gotten, felt Ignis’s shoulders
move in satisfied acknowledgement as Noct grabbed onto him instinctively.
It was too much, too sensitive. He jolted, making a sound he was prepared to
swear in court wasn’t a whimper, and Ignis went pliable against him, let
himself be rolled onto his back and Noct to get astride him again, on the firm
shelf of his long thighs, and Noct plucked up all his courage and grabbed
Ignis’s cock through his jeans.
Ignis froze on a long, luxurious moan, his head thrown back, and Noct froze
too. He could feel Ignis’s dick, the hard shape of it stuffed in his jeans,
even tell the softness of the head, and it was… wow, and it was real, and Noct
didn't know what the hell he was doing.
He scuttled away, off Ignis, and threw himself on the bed next to him, burying
his flamingly embarrassed red face in the covers.
“Noct?” Ignis said and then, “Noctis,” sharp with fear and guilt, the bed
moving like he was starting to scramble away, and Noct flailed his hand out and
grabbed the nearest part of Ignis desperately, which turned out to be his
wrist, where he could feel Ignis’s thundering pulse.
A moment ago he'd been considering that maybe Ignis would just go away quietly
and they could forget this whole bedroom thing and Noct being a complete
fucking fool had happened. It hadn't occurred to him that Ignis would think
he'd done something wrong, other than be too amazing for Noct to be able to get
over himself, and it terrified him to think Ignis might go away for real.
“Sorry,” he said, turned his face a little so he could crack one eye open and
so Ignis could hear him not muffled in the covers. “Sorry, I just… it's not
you.”
“Noctis,” Ignis said, and Noct had to raise his head and look at him then
because Ignis sounded genuinely broken. He was avoiding Noct’s eyes and he
swallowed, like it hurt, and mumbled, “I don’t want you to think that you have
to do anything, okay? Especially not because you think I want it. Or because
you think I’ve done it before.”
Noct stared at him for a while, and then eventually he said, “But that’s not…”
“Noct?” Ignis said, when he trailed off, alarmed, and Noct let him go, dodged
him when he tried to reach back out for Noct protectively.
“I’m not the one who can’t say no to you, am I?” Noct said, feeling horribly
upset and unnerved. Gladio’s talk was echoing around his head, and he
understood now what Gladio had meant, when he’d told Noct they had to be
careful of each other. He'd meant that it wasn’t just Noct who was vulnerable
and scared, who didn't really know what they were doing but didn't want to
stop.
“No,” Ignis said immediately, voice thin with real alarm, and Noct was too damn
weak to refuse him again when Ignis all but attached himself to him, pulled
Noct up into his arms and rocked them, his lips on Noct’s forehead. “No, Noct,
okay? That’s not what this is. I want this, I want you,” and when Noct lifted
his chin Ignis was already there, kissing him with fierce reassurance.
Noct moved into him, needing mindlessly to be close, and Ignis got them laying
down again, curled them around each other and helped Noct burrow in tight like
he really wanted to be close too.
“Sorry,” he said again, feeling a little teary, stupidly; he was supposed to
have so much better control over himself, but Ignis had always been where Noct
went to let out the feelings he held back almost all of the time otherwise.
Ignis shook his head. He smiled, his bottom lip still kind of wobbly and said,
“Whatever you want, okay? Anything, Noct.”
Noct rolled over and tried putting his head on Ignis’s chest and Ignis let him
instantly, put his arm around Noct and stroked Noct’s hair and pulled the edge
of the covers over them, and Noct closed his eyes and slept.
They napped for about an hour and when Noct woke and rubbed at his eyes it was
dark out and Ignis said, “I should get going.”
He didn't move, though, didn't try to dislodge Noct from being comfortably
sprawled over him at all. “Just a bit longer,” Noct said coaxingly, feeling
equilibrium and confidence and desire all returned with the comfort of napping
together, Ignis’s skin against his and his breath in Noct’s hair, and leaned up
to find Ignis’s mouth with his.
They kissed lazily at first. Noct was very experienced now and knew just what
Ignis liked, that he liked to cup Noct’s face and for Noct to nibble gently on
his lower lip and tease him with soft open-mouthed kisses; he liked to work up
to tongues and deep messy kissing and hands going everywhere. Noct liked that
too, liked the way it felt like Ignis’s body was waking his up, like every part
of him was just constantly waiting for Ignis in order to come alive. By the
time they were really making out he was always totally into it, completely
focused on Ignis and what they were doing together, every bit of touch and
sensation going right through him.
He pulled Ignis on top of him and that was fantastic too, the first time he'd
really felt Ignis’s weight pressing him down into the bed. It made him feel
safe, like nothing could get past Ignis, and he grabbed Ignis’s hair and made
his kisses demanding, magic sparking between them even stronger than before and
making Ignis groan and clench his fingers in Noct’s hair.
They were both hard again, and this time Noct wasn't afraid. He wrapped his
legs around Ignis’s waist and thrust the greedy bulge of his cock up against
Ignis’s, and when Ignis murmured, “You sure, love?” he just kissed harder and
rubbed up on Ignis more purposefully, the petname that seemed to have just
slipped out of Ignis going straight to the glowing warmth in his chest and the
heat in the pit of his stomach.
“Noct,” Ignis said, “you feel good, you're so good,” and Noct went eagerly as
Ignis readjusted them, planted his knees and shifted Noct’s legs around his
waist for them to get a better angle and started to grind steadily down. Noct
yelled at the pressure, pleasure drenching him from the tips of his toes to his
hair just from the feel of Ignis’s cock against his, Ignis all over him,
sensitive from the wet cotton of his boxers. It was overwhelming but as long as
he had Ignis he was okay and he clung on fiercely, got Ignis’s mouth back on
his to kiss through it as he came, a field of stars blanking out his vision.
Ignis called Noct’s name when he came too, and that was the best, maybe even
better than coming himself, the thrill of having done that for Ignis, the warm
animal satisfaction of sharing this with him.
Ignis collapsed onto him, and when Noct mmphed he said, “Sorry,” his voice raw
and giggly, and Noct said, “S’okay,” feeling giggly and joyous too, like they
had a secret. Ignis tipped over to Noct’s side, much more ungainly than Noct
had ever seen him, and pulled Noct back into his arms. Neither of them could
really make their mouths work but they tried to kiss anyway, just close and
breathing into one another’s mouths; Ignis brushed Noct’s hair out of his face,
even though Noct had sweated and his bangs were kind of sticky, and gazed into
his eyes, and Noct gazed back.
“You don't have to go yet, do you?” Noct said. It felt actually impossible to
stop touching Ignis, it was the worst idea he'd ever heard, to not have Ignis
near enough to kiss.
“No,” Ignis said, and ran his thumb softly over Noct’s bottom lip. “I don't
have to go just yet.”
***** Chapter 5 *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
“You've got a text,” Prompto reported when Noct came back from the bathroom. He
brightened and said, “Is it from a girl? Did Macha start talking to us again?”
“It's not from a girl, it's from Ignis,” Noct said. Then he took a deep breath.
Then he took another deep breath, and then another one, and he said in a rush,
“I don't think I'm going to text any more girls, Prom.”
“No,” Prompto agreed cheerfully. “‘Cause, you’d have to meet some first.”
Noct chewed the inside of his lip and pushed the rest of his hot dog away,
appetite vanished. He said, “No, I mean… I'm not going to text any girls. Like,
any girls. I don't wanna text girls.”
“Oh,” said Prompto, obligingly, and then, “oh. Like… for sure? You're not going
to text any girls ever?”
Noct fought off a blush, unsuccessfully, and couldn’t stop himself from
glancing at his phone. “I'm not going to text any girls right now, okay? I'm,
um. Too busy to text girls.”
Prompto’s eyes slid to the phone too and he said, “Ohhhhh.”
He looked at Noct a little disbelievingly and Noct said in a voice that went a
little squeaky, “Is that okay?”
He told himself it was fine whatever Prompto thought. He'd managed for years
without having anyone just of his own; there'd been nobody who wasn't
inexorably connected to his life at the palace, to being Prince Noctis. He'd be
fine if Prompto didn't want to be his friend anymore.
“Why wouldn't it be okay?” Prompto said, even though his eyes were round and he
was visibly making an effort to be cool.
Noct appreciated the effort a lot. “Thanks, man,” he said quietly.
Prompto’s smile became startled, real, then. “Yeah, of course,” he said, quiet
too, which he hardly ever was, and Noct relaxed under Prompto’s cautious hand
on his arm.
***
Ignis showed up two weekends later with his hair bleached practically white.
“What the fuck,” Noct said, blankly, and then started to laugh.
“It's not that bad,” Ignis said, half-heartedly. Noct stepped up to him and ran
his hand gingerly through it, rubbing a lock between two fingers. It felt rough
and dry, not silky and good like it had just last week. He chewed on the inside
of his lip to keep from collapsing back into laughter, and caught the way Ignis
was looking at him, sweet enough to make Noct forget all about the hair for
just a minute. Ignis had already helpfully slouched down to put them on a level
for Noct’s investigation of the hair situation and Noct took full advantage,
leaned in and took a slow, luxurious kiss.
It was hard to stay off the topic, though. Ignis’s head was right there. “Did
you do this to yourself?” he said doubtfully.
“I don’t wish to discuss it,” Ignis said with his finest hauteur.
“Do you want to fix it?” he said, dripping with sympathy. He slipped his hand
into Ignis’s and squeezed, and Ignis looked pretty mad, but he squeezed back.
“Yes,” he said, grudgingly.
Noct had to listen to a pretty long talk from the duty secretary in his dad’s
office, on how his hair was too dark for drugstore boxed hair dye, but he
managed to finally get through to her that it wasn’t for him, while Ignis went
through his recipe notebook and sulked on the couch beside him. She was very
efficient once he’d got that out of the way, and less than an hour later Noct
was sitting on the bathroom counter next to the sink and watching Ignis
carefully apply the weirdly orange liquid that would apparently turn his hair
back to its normal dull sandiness.
“When are you gonna be done with this?” he said. He kicked his heels back into
the cupboard door idly and without looking Ignis leaned to dig an elbow into
his thigh, keeping his dye-covered gloved hands out of the way.
“I think I’ve nearly finished but it takes thirty minutes to develop, and then
washing until the water runs clear,” Ignis said, frowning into the mirror.
“Check the box.”
“Not done with the dye,” Noct said, annoyed. “Done with this.”
He waved a hand in Ignis’s vague direction, but he meant it to cover the whole
thing: his hair, and his glasses, and the clothes, and the shoes, and the
everything. The everything being different.
“When I find what feels right,” Ignis said absently. He’d started to massage
the dye in, carefully, and then he put a shower cap on over it all, because the
secretary lady had said that would help, and when he looked at Noct properly he
looked so fucking ridiculous, and so perfect Noct was full to the brim of it.
He couldn’t think of anything better to do with his day than be by Ignis, even
when Ignis was doing something as objectively useless as dying his hair back to
normal after he’d fucked it up. It was all Noct wanted, he was all Noct wanted,
and when Ignis smiled and gave Noct a fond kiss, Noct still closed his eyes and
fell into it.
“Aren’t you looking forward to when you never have to wear that school uniform
anymore?” Ignis said. “And you can find something that suits who you want to
be?”
Noct had never thought about that for a second. He figured he’d just wear
pretty much what he wore now at weekends, which was jeans and t-shirts.
“Yeah?” he said.
Ignis looked fond. He said, “They’re just clothes, Noct."
“This isn’t clothes,” Noct pointed out. “Dad’s secretary said your hair might
fall out.”
“Yeah,” Ignis said, and looked in the mirror again, glumly. “I’m going to stick
to clothes from now on. Maybe a different style.”
“You should do the one where it sticks up again,” Noct said and hopped off the
counter. He wrapped his arms round Ignis from behind and propped his head on
Ignis’s shoulder and faced their reflections. They looked pretty good together;
Noct was shorter, and all-around smaller, but they both had nice smiles. There
was a silvery glow around them, almost a trick of the light, except Noct could
feel his magic humming away contentedly inside him, and it calmed when Ignis
touched him.
“Let’s watch one of your comedy shows,” Ignis said, and craned back to kiss him
again. “Twenty-two minutes is just about right for this to develop.”
What Noct hadn’t really thought through was that helping Ignis to wash the dye
out meant Ignis taking his top off, and then Noct taking his top off because it
got wet when Ignis flipped his hair around when Noct was leaning over the bath,
and all in all by the time they got to the couch, Noct alternating between
frantically kissing Ignis and trying to chase droplets of water over the planes
of Ignis’s chest with his tongue, Ignis’s hair was still wet and they had
really no idea whether it looked any better.
He pushed Ignis down and got on top of him: that was still his favourite, being
in Ignis’s lap, able to touch him as much as he wanted, although it meant
sacrificing being able to feel the whole of Ignis pressed against the whole of
Noct. He settled for demanding long kisses instead, kisses that tumbled into
one another without a pause, stroking over Ignis’s shoulders and upper back and
soaking in the muscled strength he could feel there.
Ignis sighed into Noct’s mouth. He felt relaxed under Noct’s hands, and it made
Noct relaxed too, languid and almost dreamy; they had all afternoon, all
weekend. He could feel magical energy pooling between them, but even that was
lazy, too, making them warm everywhere they were touching, twining with the
sparking pressure of desire running through Noct, his cock already stiff in his
jeans.
They had the whole rubbing off thing pretty down by now. Last weekend they'd
done it with just thin pajama pants between them, Noct riding his cock
desperately against the hard muscle of Ignis’s thigh while Ignis gasped beneath
him, one hand cupping and groping his own dick while Noct sucked two fingers of
his other hand. Noct had come so hard he'd felt like he'd been hit by a
behemoth and they'd lain together for ages afterwards, murmuring stupid sweet
stuff and kissing.
“Hey,” he murmured against the corner of Ignis’s mouth, and Ignis made an mming
noise and tilted Noct back, carefully, so he could kiss down Noct’s throat and
find a nipple with his mouth. Noct let him for a moment, but as soon as he
started to feel himself getting speechless with pleasure he grabbed Ignis's
ears, strands of Ignis’s hair falling cool and damp over his fingers, and
pulled him up.
“Hey,” he said again, more insistent. “Ignis, hey, watch, okay?” Ignis did,
looked at him instantly, enthusiastic and hungry for whatever Noct had in mind
and it made something inside Noct shiver with excitement and nervousness. He
slid his hand down his own chest, which still felt pretty silly but Ignis
thought it was sexy, so Noct was getting used to doing it, because that made
him feel good enough to counteract the silliness. Ignis hadn't said so
specifically, that he thought it looked good when Noct stroked himself like
that, but Noct could read what he liked now, he could see it how Ignis’s eyes
went dark and his upper chest to the hollow of his throat went pink, feel it in
the way Ignis’s dick twitched under his ass.
He paused on his stomach, rubbing idly, more for getting up his courage again
than for effect, but Ignis made a strangled noise anyway, gaze fixed to Noct’s
hand, and that gave Noct enough to finish.
He bit his lip and undid his jeans. The button, slowly, and then the zip,
sticking his hand in between the fabric and his dick and whining at the
pressure on his aching cock.
“Noct,” Ignis whispered hoarsely and Noct rose on his knees and pushed his
jeans down, and then in a quick moment before embarrassment could catch up, his
boxers. Bare before Ignis, for the very first time, and he swallowed so loud it
was almost a gulp and looked at the tip of Ignis’s nose, because he couldn't
look in his eyes.
“Come here,” Ignis said softly, and Noct clung to him as Ignis pulled him close
and kissed him, running his tongue carefully over the little dents Noct had
made biting his lip. His cock brushed and then pressed against the silky-warm
skin of Ignis’s flat stomach and he cried out, the feeling of Ignis touching
him there so different to his own hand. He could feel himself leaking, painting
the lightly muscled definition of Ignis’s tummy with it. He could feel it there
when Ignis gasped, tensed, and knowing it was because of how much he wanted
Noct made Noct able to calm down and just feel it, just enjoy it, the sensation
of air on his cock, the light scratch of Ignis’s jeans under his thighs.
“Noct,” Ignis said and Noct said, “Touch me, please Iggy -”
Ignis’s hand closing around his cock made him dissolve, made him yell. He
collapsed against Ignis, the warmth of his fist racing answering fire up Noct’s
spine that was chased by magic, spreading through him until he felt like he was
lit up, every nerve struck with ecstasy.
Ignis’s hand on him was a little too loose, although Noct loved the way he
stroked Noct’s balls as well, with total care, his palm caressing them and
tickling lightly at the secret tender place behind them. Noct twined their
fingers and showed him how to do it, rubbed a thumb over the wet head himself
and groaned. It felt even better when Ignis said his name worshipfully, when he
could see how Ignis was looking between his hands on Noct’s cock and Noct’s
face like he couldn't decide which was better.
“Now you,” he begged, wanting to see Ignis too, wanting to make Ignis feel as
good as he was making Noct feel, and Ignis shuddered and lifted his face for
Noct to dip down for sloppy-needy kisses.
“Do it for me,” Ignis said unsteadily, “I don't want to take my hands off you,
Noct, you feel so good,” and Noct shook and urgently had to have another kiss,
another minute when all there was in the whole world was Ignis’s touch and
Ignis’s kiss, transcendent.
He was so clumsy trying to open Ignis’s pants, too much sensation singing and
warring through him, and Ignis had to help after all, keeping one hand on
Noct’s desperately hard cock and the other to slip the buttons of his fly
undone when Noct couldn't, his entire being focused on imagining Ignis's dick
in his hand until it was real and he sighed with satisfaction as he felt it for
the first time, felt how it seemed to move into his hand, how tender the skin
felt over the big jut of his erection. Ignis called out to him, tossing his
head back hard on the couch, and Noct could just say, “Yes, yeah,” like there
was nothing else in the world but this, nothing important anyway.
Noct couldn't make his legs work to move and take his weight off Ignis so Ignis
could wriggle his pants and underwear down. He yelled and grabbed for Ignis as
Ignis picked him up under the thighs and moved him with sheer strength,
shoulders and arms flexing, dumped Noct on his back on the sofa and shoved his
own pants down.
Noct dragged him down, there was a frantic minute of delicious skin all over
skin as they tripped around one another in the tight space - and they were
lying together, kissing wildly, jerking one another’s cocks. It was hard to
focus on doing when Noct was shattering with the pleasure of being done to, the
brilliant surprise of it all, but he was goal-oriented: he wanted to see Ignis
come, he wanted to make Ignis come, he wanted to feel it through his
fingertips.
“Ignis, I’m gonna -” he managed, and then he was arching against the bulwark of
Ignis’s chest, orgasm whipcracking through him, so hard he could feel wetness
smattering all the way on his chest.
He clenched as he came, helplessly, and Ignis caught in his breath and whined,
high in his throat, and came too, holding Noct fiercely close, his face buried
in Noct’s hair.
“Messy,” Noct said drowsily, trying to inch closer, gingerly, suddenly aware
now he’d come that there was tangled clothes and jizz everywhere.
Ignis got a big hand on Noct’s chest, planted him back against the couch
cushions, and Noct watched, feeling looked-after and adoring, as Ignis stripped
them both efficiently of their pants and underwear, used Noct’s soft cotton
boxers to clean them up, and dropped it all on the floor, which he never ever
did; Noct had blown his mind so much he’d been driven to it, Noct thought,
smugly. He squeezed over again when Ignis was done, invitingly, and Ignis lay
on the couch and pulled Noct to lie comfortably on top of him, and the blanket
on top of Noct from where it was draped on the back of the couch.
“Okay?” Ignis said. He sounded a little awestruck, a little afraid, and Noct
leaned up for soft kisses, to reassure them both.
He felt raw but Ignis’s arms around him were putting him back together like a
jigsaw. Ignis’s cock was lying plump and sticky against Noct’s hip, and Noct’s
was already starting to get a bit perky. “Definitely okay,” he said, snuggling
in. More than okay: the whole weekend was in front of them, and they could do
it all again.
***
Noct heard Prompto before he saw him, protesting, and he made his way across
the entrance chamber - the people milling around while everyone waited for the
celebrations to start falling away respectfully at the passage of the prince -
and rescued him from the pair of guards trying to bar his entrance at the Great
Door.
“Thanks, Noct,” Prompto exclaimed, or tried to, his voice failing him from his
usual exuberance. He was visibly bothered by the palace staff having tried to
turn him away, by their disbelieving his story of being due to join the Crown
Prince for the solstice celebrations: Noct put his arm around Prompto’s
shoulders protectively and led him away, letting Gladio know with a glance to
advise the guards of their mistake.
“Is that Gladio?” Prompto said, trying to peer back around over Noct’s
shoulder.
“Yeah,” Noct said.
“He looks weird,” Prompto said dismally.
Did he? Noct got them installed in his favourite corner to lurk during these
things and glanced back over too. Gladio was coming back over to them, his
entire job at formal events being to stay one step behind Noct, and he looked
normal - not normal for when he picked Noct and Prompto up for driving, or hung
out with them for games, or took Noct camping, or did anything else real life,
no, but he was wearing the Crownsguard uniform he always did for palace stuff.
He’d graduated the Academy this year and moved onto training full-time with his
dad so he had double insignia now, one on his right shoulder for his full rank
and the special one on his left that marked him out as Amicitia and a guard of
the royal family. His hair was neatly pulled back and his stride was different,
full of so much casual strength and power Noct could practically see the
greatsword slung over his shoulder, and people moved out of the way for him;
but that was pretty normal too.
In the meantime, Prompto had clearly looked Noct over. “You look weird too,” he
said. Noct looked down at himself. He was wearing a suit and shirt and tie and
polished shoes - not that much different from his school uniform except it was
all black and tailored especially for him - and the slim half-diadem of the
Crown Prince, which he hated, and which it had taken half an hour and all of
Ignis’s patience that morning to get in place without messing up Noct’s hair
too much.
“What’s weird about this?” he said.
“They didn’t even want to let me in,” Prompto said miserably, but then Gladio
reached them and he was all smiles again, bouncing.
“Everything okay?” Gladio said. Noct saw him take in the way Prompto was acting
in one deliberate glance and then he shifted, smoothly, so naturally Prompto
probably didn’t even notice, but Noct did: he saw the way Gladio’s new stance
put him in between Prompto and the front of the room, shielded him, and he
smiled at Gladio gratefully.
“Yeah,” Prompto said. “Great! I was just -” he looked in between Noct, and
Gladio, and down at his own outfit, which looked fine to Noct. He was wearing a
pair of dark grey trousers and a white shirt and a navy tie; the shirt was a
tiny bit grubby with too many washings, and when Noct looked properly he could
see the little ink stain on the cuff that meant it was one of Prompto’s school
shirts, but it was ironed practically nicer than Noct’s shirt and Noct felt a
surge of protectiveness at Prompto’s evident discomfort.
“You look okay,” Gladio said, a little roughly. “Right, Iggy?”
Noct hadn’t even noticed him. He turned to Ignis, as happy to see him as if
they hadn’t been together about half an hour ago; he wanted to take Ignis’s
hand, wanted to kiss him, but of course they couldn’t. He settled for a
tentative, private smile, instead, and Ignis smiled back, then looked
thoughtfully at Prompto.
“You look good too,” Prompto said, in clear distress. Noct was hardly going to
disagree: Ignis was in a black suit too, the outline of the Lucii symbol sewn
onto lapels of the jacket, making up for the tiny skull pendant being hidden
behind the perfect knot of his tie. He looked untouchable, buttoned up and too
perfect; but in that outfit he also looked like Noct’s, everything he was
wearing marking him out as a close companion of the prince, and it gave Noct a
brilliant thrill in his chest and his groin both to see it.
“Prom’s dressed okay, right?” Noct said, encouragingly.
Prompto was drooping in front of Ignis’s inspection, but he brightened with
surprise and joy when Ignis said, “You should have some black. To show you’re
with the prince.”
“Where do I get -” Prompto started, then said, “oh, um, okay, wow,” as Ignis
turned and summoned one of the palace staffers with the smallest quirk of an
eyebrow, bent to her and murmured. She listened to what he had to say, gave
them a wide, professional smile, sizing Prompto up with one glance, and
shimmered off to acquire a jacket, probably straight off of the back of someone
lower-ranking and unlucky.
“Thanks,” Noct said, and Ignis inclined his head in quiet acknowledgement of
both the service and the gratitude.
Ignis came in close and Noct brushed the backs of their hands together, the
tiny contact soothing and energising him for the attention and bustle of the
ceremony ahead. That, and their warmth around him, the four of them a steadfast
tight huddle against the crowd.
***
Noct had taken his tie off ages ago but Ignis was still wearing his, loosened
just enough for him to undo the top button in the car. Noct put it to good use,
grabbing it and pulling Ignis down to him to kiss as soon as they got in the
apartment.
Dad had allowed Noct a glass of champagne to toast the sunrise and he could
still taste the effervescence in his mouth, imagined he could taste it on
Ignis’s - although if Ignis tasted of anything it was all the tiny strong
coffees he’d drunk during the night and all through the long celebratory
breakfast. Noct felt as if he’d been drinking coffee too, that combination of
languid and wired from staying up all night, and it made some bits of the kiss
blur and others sharp and vibrant: Ignis’s hands cupping Noct’s face still a
little cold from the brisk winter air, his lips rougher and chapped as he
sucked carefully on Noct’s lower lip, the silky feel of the small of his back
as Noct sneaked Ignis’s shirt untucked and slid his hands up onto skin.
Ignis pulled away with a final kiss to Noct’s cheek and wandered through to the
kitchen. “Do you want anything to eat?” he called, putting the machine on for
more coffee, inevitably.
“Nah,” Noct said. He’d only picked at breakfast, but he never had an appetite
after sleepless solstice nights and Ignis had fixed a stew yesterday they could
reheat when they’d slept. That was pretty much all Noct was hungry for, had
been all night; sleeping it off together, nice and quiet. He said, “Do you
think my dad liked Prom?”
“I think so,” Ignis said. He’d got out thick cream for his coffee, which was a
special treat, and he dipped a finger in it, painted the peak of Noct’s top lip
white and watched with every sign of total attention as Noct licked it off,
then grabbed Ignis’s hand and licked the tip of his finger too, the cream
smooth and cool on his tongue. “I think it helped that he was so scared he was
silent for once.”
“Yeah,” Noct said. Dad had looked a little bit confused by Prompto, to be
honest, but he’d nodded and smiled kindly at Prompto’s clumsy bow that Ignis
had taught him about ten minutes before, hand on his upper back and repeating
from the shoulders, not from the hips.
“It’s good that you have him,” Ignis said softly.
“It’s good I have all of you,” Noct blurted, tiredness making him honest, and
at Ignis’s startled smile he had to have Ignis’s mouth again, leaning up over
the counter, and then on the counter, one knee up there and scrambling over
with Ignis’s help until he was perched on the edge of the other side, legs
spread and Ignis between them, cocks tight together through their very best
dress pants.
He put his fingers through Ignis’s belt loops and pulled him in and made him
stay close while they kissed, Sunday on the couch with hot chocolate and
roaring fire kisses. The anxiety and exhilaration of the public’s adoration
were still hot in Noct’s veins, the magic he'd felt to his bones this year when
his father completed the traditional solstice ritual was still glowing through
him, and Ignis calmed him and stoked him in equal measure.
He broke the kiss and hooked his chin over Ignis’s shoulder, hugging tight, and
Ignis slid his arms around Noct’s waist and just held him. “Let’s go to bed,”
he said, quietly into Ignis’s ear, and Ignis sighed and whispered, “Okay,”
abandoning his coffee even, letting Noct take his hand and lead him into the
bedroom.
Undressing Ignis from a whole suit was a lot more annoying than unbuttoning his
shirt and shoving jeans or practice pants or pajamas down, but it added a sense
of ceremony to things that fit nicely with the lingering sensibility of the
night of celebrations. He unwrapped Ignis like a gift, touching every new bared
bit of skin like it was new, and Ignis did the same, and by the time they were
naked together Noct felt like he had the first time his dad had laughed and
said hold on tight, Noct and Noct had shrieked with excitement and happiness as
the Regalia took them flying high into the air.
He was already hard and ready, just from stripping Ignis down. He pulled Ignis
down onto the bed with him, both of them tangling up so easily and sweetly by
now, like the smoothly choreographed dancers who'd performed earlier.
Noct was sleepy but he was also still charged up with magical energy, feeling
the crystal closer than he had any time since he'd started the training. He
pushed Ignis over onto his back and rested a hand on his chest, Ignis watching
him with affectionate, complacent bright eyes. Noct’s magic came alive between
them, glowing over Ignis’s heart and all the way up to Noct’s, a pretty thread
between them, and Ignis shuddered and threw his head back and spread his legs
under Noct’s touch, his cock reddening further against his stomach. He was the
most perfect thing Noct had ever seen and Noct just - Noct just really loved
him, a lot, and he bent to mash their mouths together in a deep passionate
kiss.
He reached down for Ignis’s dick while they kissed and Ignis cried out and
thrust up hard into his fist. “Don't - don't tease,” Ignis begged,
breathlessly, and Noct made an urgent reassuring noise.
He didn't want to tease. There was something else he wanted, that he'd been
thinking about and longing for so much, and he nuzzled Ignis’s cheek and said,
“I want to, um, use my mouth. Ignis, can I?”
“Oh gods,” Ignis said fervently and grabbed Noct’s wrist to stop him moving on
Ignis’s cock, looked up at Noct with shining eyes, slipped a hand through his
hair, clumsy but soft. “Noct, are you sure?”
“I want to,” Noct said again, then, “please, can I?” and Ignis made a
disbelieving groan. Noct could feel his cock moving in Noct’s loose grasp with
how much Ignis wanted it too, ran his fingers down and felt Ignis’s heavy balls
in their neat sack.
“If you… if you really want,” Ignis said shakily. “It's okay if you don't, or
you don't like it.”
“I'm pretty sure I'm going to like it,” Noct said. He was feeling a little
nervous, though, so he laid on top of Ignis for a couple of minutes, Ignis’s
arms around him and his thighs cradling Noct’s hips, their cocks brushing
together, and attached himself to Ignis at the mouth. This was good, he'd
learned how to do this, and Noct could figure this out too. He took a deep
breath and a final kiss, and slithered his way down Ignis’s chest.
It wasn't quite as simple as liking it. It was actually pretty stressful,
trying to remember to keep his teeth covered and be careful, constantly losing
the rhythmic sucking he was trying to get going, worrying that maybe he wasn't
doing it right and Ignis wasn't having a good time.
He did like being so close to Ignis, loved it. He liked it when he closed his
eyes and just concentrated on the nice weight of Ignis’s cock in his mouth and
the way it twitched when Noct tried out using his tongue. He liked the way
Ignis’s fingers trembled in his and squeezed when he reached up and Ignis
reached down at the same moment to hold hands. He liked how Ignis stroked his
hair and said his name in a wondering tone when he came.
It tasted weird. Noct sat up and spat into a tissue, trying to be cool, and
checked nervously to see if Ignis had noticed, if he minded Noct hadn't
swallowed.
Ignis was looking at him fuzzily; he was looking at Noct in a way that made
Noct feel suddenly gorgeous and powerful and adored. He inched closer and tried
to cuddle up and lay his head on Ignis’s chest but Ignis grabbed his chin
instead and kissed him, obviously not minding any taste or spitting or
whatever, nudged Noct’s cheek with his nose and whispered, “That was great.”
“Was it?” Noct said and Ignis laughed, in a nice way, like he thought Noct had
made a joke.
“Yeah,” Ignis said. He slid his hand down Noct’s side like he just had to touch
and felt how hard Noct was. Noct was vaguely aware he was incredibly stiff,
aching even, his belly wet and sticky where he'd leaked, but it seemed like it
took Ignis’s hand around him to really wake him up to it and he moaned and
scrabbled for Ignis’s mouth again, wanting more kisses, wanting Ignis to make
him come in return. “I'll show you,” Ignis whispered, and with a final kiss he
wriggled down Noct’s body. Noct propped himself on his elbows and spread his
legs eagerly for Ignis to lie between, his heart beating so quick with
excitement he thought it couldn't be normal.
Ignis’s wet warm mouth on Noct’s cock was incredible. He'd imagined it before,
tried to, jerking off in the shower and shutting his eyes and pretending the
wetness was someone else, and in retrospect he'd been totally stupid to bother
because he hadn't come close, not anywhere near to how great it was. Ignis
sucked him kind of unevenly and that made Noct feel good too, like maybe Ignis
hadn't done it that much either, like they really were discovering this
together.
He petted Ignis’s hair, trying not to pull, touched Ignis’s cheek curiously and
Ignis curled his tongue around the head of Noct’s cock and pushed it there so
Noct could feel it, feel he was inside Ignis. He couldn't stop himself being
noisy, embarrassing little whines and cries but it felt so good Noct had to get
it out before his whole body turned inside out, sparks of magic and pleasure
racing indistinguishable from his cock and up his spine.
It was over pretty quick. Noct couldn't hold himself back, the sensation of
Ignis’s mouth and tongue too much not to tumble far down into it. He felt
orgasm coalescing in his whole body, braced himself and it was so good his
vision whited out and he lost time, came back to a body gasping for breath and
still trembling with ravishing pleasure.
Ignis was lying next to him, on his side and pressed up against Noct, smiling
down at him and stroking his tummy. His hair was messy from Noct’s fingers and
his lips were tender pink. Noct had no idea if he'd used a tissue or swallowed
or what, he'd missed it, but it didn't seem to matter anymore; all that stuff,
the worries and self-consciousness, had just fallen away some time between
Ignis putting his mouth on Noct and Noct coming his brains out.
Noct rolled into Ignis’s arms and hooked his knee over Ignis’s hips and snugged
their sticky softening dicks together. He touched Ignis’s mouth, felt him shape
Noct’s name silently and smile.
Ignis had always gone back to the guest room for proper sleep, but he didn't
say anything about that now. He just chivvied Noct under the covers and
arranged Noct on his chest, like he belonged in Noct’s bed, like they belonged
there together.
Noct woke up late that afternoon spooned tight against Ignis’s chest, Ignis’s
breath ruffling his hair and his arm wrapped over Noct’s waist, laced up
together. It was too hot and Noct’s neck was cricked and he couldn't figure out
how to get untangled to get up and go to the bathroom. He was happy.
***
When Noct went into university, Ignis packed his bags and moved in.
END
Chapter End Notes
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