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brosura · 6 years

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the things that are shared

Word Count: 5009 Rating: G Summary: written for @promptis-fanweek Day 06: soulmate au (matching marks)... very late :’)

When he’s seventeen, Noctis thinks he understands the appeal of soulmates.

It’s a nice idea, that there’s someone out there matched so perfectly to you that you share everything, the past, the future, every moment you breath. Every smile, every laugh, every small joy.

He knows this means every burden, too, but for the first time in a long time, he dares to hope that every weight gets lighter when there’s two people to hold it.

For the first time, he’s found someone he wants to share everything with.

(ft. big cheese, big angst, a cat and some mild trespassing)

[EDIT: now on AO3]

When Noctis is five, he learns what the lines on his wrist mean.

Soulmates - he’s told by his father - can share many things. They can share emotions, they can share pain. They can share thoughts, if they’re close enough. But before all that, they share the canvas of their skin.

That’s how some soulmates find each other, he’s told, through writings or shared tattoos. The permanent things etched into skin bleed through to your other half, mark them with your existence.

He doesn’t quite understand what it means at the time, he’s had them for as long as he can remember. He only revels in the news that he has a soulmate out there, alive and well. As he gets older he’ll understand bit by bit that it was strange for the lines to appear, fine and thin, when he was only a few months old, the string of numbers around them perfectly fitted for the wrist of an infant.

But when Noctis is five, he doesn’t understand why there’s a sad look in his father’s eyes as he runs little fingers over each line and asks, with the optimism and honesty of a child, “What kind of person is my soulmate?”

When Prompto is five, he doesn’t know what the lines on his wrist mean.

He only knows that they’re a shameful thing that needs to be covered up, that can’t be seen by anyone save for his parents. He learns to hate those lines, learns to hold his wrist over the band wrapped around the stain there when strangers coo over him.

He learns to hate them even more later in life when they’re told a fairy tale in school, when his teacher cheerfully recounts the story of two lovers, soulmates, who found each other by pressing a map into their skin, a message between souls that brought them together. He’d asked a question afterwards, afraid to know the answer but afraid of not knowing. He wanted to know if all soulmates were like that, if all of them shared the marks they made on their own skin.

Just the permanent ones, he learned, like the stain on his wrist that wouldn’t go away, that he knows has seeped into the life of his soulmate, who probably wanted it even less than he did, wanted him even less for it.

Don’t find me, he prays later that night, pressing a thumb so hard against the lines that the skin around them is nearly bone white. He doesn't know if his soulmate is looking for him, but he imagines the story, the two lovers guided to each other by the marks on their skin. Don’t find me.

He doesn’t understand why he wants, more than anything, to be able to see their face as he whispers into the empty space around him, again and again, “I’m sorry.”

When he's fifteen, Noctis thinks soulmates are more or less the stuff of fairy tales.

And by this point, he’s mostly outgrown fairy tales. He’s aware of the irony of the situation: out of all his peers, he’s probably the only one with genuine proof that he has a soulmate, and yet he’s stopped putting much stock into the concept.

It’s a nice idea, that there’s someone out there matched so perfectly to you that they could leave an impact on you before you’d met them, that everyone could see. It’s romantic, it’s clean and easy, and he gets why his classmates fuss over the marks they imagine from time to time.

He imagines from the outside, being a prince seems romantic, too. Like the stuff of fairy tales.

But as he’s experienced it, it’s just loneliness and obligation and the crushing weight of expectation. It’s watching his father’s hair grow gray, seeing his tired smiles and sad eyes and knowing that one day the burden of their bloodline will become too much for him, that he won’t have any choice but to pass it on to Noctis. It’s knowing that his mother, his father’s soulmate, died before Noctis was old enough to remember anything but the faintest image of her smile and his father didn’t have the time to even falter under his grief.

The burden of the throne leaves no room for romantics.

The wristband that he’s instructed to strap steadily over the mark he shares with his soulmate each morning is a testament to that.

He’s wearing it when he meets him for the first time, but it’s easy to forget, just like it’s easy to forget the dark cloud over the first few weeks of high school.

He remembers those weeks being lonely. He remembers trying to imagine it was the normal kind of loneliness instead of the rush of panic in his chest every time one of his classmates murmured about his title as he walked by but never approached. He hadn’t expected to have a normal life, he’d known it was too much to wish for. He just didn’t expect it to feel quite so stifling.

He remembers the change in pressure, the way the air seemed to clear, when he’d felt the hand tap his shoulder. He remembers the buzzing in his chest as his classmate introduced himself, as he learned the name of someone who wanted to call him a friend and only that.

Prompto.

He rolls the name around in his head, revels in just saying it.

He can’t shake the feeling that he already knows him.

When he's fifteen, Prompto gives in to the loneliness and the words in the letter written to him by a princess in a faraway country.

He swallows down his fear, the worst things his mind has shown him, and tries to remember the alley when they were children. His vague memories of trying this for the first time and falling to the ground, the kind look in the prince’s eyes as he pointed to Prompto’s wristband and said something along the lines of “We match!” before the ring of a school bell drew him away.

They’re matching when they meet. It’s a weird detail to focus on, but he can’t help squeezing the soft wristband over his tattoo as he eyes the expensive-looking watch on the prince’s wrist. It almost gives him pause to see such a visual representation of the difference in their significance, in their impact on this world, in just their pocket money. And he doesn’t imagine for a second the prince would have something as ugly as the marks on his wrist underneath.

He pushes through his hesitations because the alternative seems worse somehow and when he’s fifteen, Prompto introduces himself to the prince and forgets what it’s like to be lonely, if only for the moment.

He forgets a lot of things when he’s with Noctis.

It’s hard to remember them when he’s never felt like this before, young and reveling, laughing with Noct in an arcade or an ice cream shop over something stupid. It’s easy to forget.

He forgets the lonely years before him, the long stretches of time at a dining table by himself. He forgets that his smiles were different then, more shy than anything else. He forgets what it was like to have never felt the warm and familiar buzzing in his chest at the sound of someone’s voice, to get excited just to talk to someone. He forgets when the sound of his own laugh was rare, replacing it with the sound and feeling of his voice overlapping with Noct’s.

He forgets the details, too.

He forgets that Noctis is the prince, forgets that he’s just some commoner. He forgets the occasional schoolwork or the time that the last train home leaves the station.

He nearly forgets he has a barcode on his wrist and soulmate with a matching stain on their skin.

When he’s seventeen, Noctis thinks he understands the appeal of soulmates.

It’s a nice idea, that there’s someone out there matched so perfectly to you that you share everything, the past, the future, every moment you breathe. Every smile, every laugh, every small joy.

He knows this means every burden, too, but for the first time in a long time, he dares to hope that every weight gets lighter when there’s two people to hold it.

For the first time, he’s found someone he wants to share everything with.

He’s not sure when it started, when the shift happened.

All he knows is they’re on the roof of Noct’s apartment complex in the middle of the night when he admits it to himself, in so many words.

It’s nearing the end of their senior year and they’re buzzing with a mix of excitement, of dread, of inevitability. The pervasive need to make things count. Prompto’s been a near fixture in his apartment, something he’s grateful for whenever he’s gone and Noctis feels the pang of anxiety that all of this will end when they graduate.

But it’s easy to forget that with Prompto, the way everything seems easier with Prompto. Like climbing a fire escape he isn’t certain he’s allowed to in the middle of the night.

“Hey, that’s a ladder,” Prompto had said, pulling his head back in from where he’d been peeking out over the city skyline, taking in the sounds of the night. His excited grin was the kind Noctis knew he’d follow anywhere, which was why Noctis only gave him one back when he asked, “You know where it goes?”

Their answer is the roof, somewhere Noctis isn’t sure they’re supposed to be even though they laugh loudly, carelessly in a light-headed delight as they peek out over the edge at the lights of the city beneath them before settling down to look for pictures in the stars overhead.

It’s a rare night that you can see many stars in the city. Their light competes with the glow of street lights, the cover of smog, the faint but ever-present flicker of the Wall. Usually, he doesn’t like to look at the stars.

But tonight, the moon is bright and if he focuses, he can almost see the outlines Prompto’s tracing in the sky between the faintest flickers of starlight.

He finds he can’t focus very hard, though. Because the moon is bright, and it casts the softest glow over Prompto’s features as he looks up at the stars and traces pictures in them. His eyelids droop slightly - it’s very late at night - but he’s got a small, subtle smile on his lips as he tells Noctis a story about the things he used to do when he couldn’t sleep as a kid, the stories he would tell himself by the light of the stars.

Noctis isn’t sure why this is the moment he realizes how deeply he wants to share everything with Prompto. Their past, their future, every moment in between. Every easy, breathless laugh. And every fear, every insecurity.

All he knows is that they’re on the roof of Noct’s apartment complex when the moonlight catches the thin band over Prompto’s right wrist, and Noctis catches himself wishing that there are thin black lines underneath.

When he’s seventeen, Prompto wishes soulmates didn’t exist.

It’s a selfish wish, but it’s a desperate one.

The past two years, the years he spent with Noctis, have made him a very different person than the lonely child he’d been. He has friends now, he has memories he wants to keep, and he has Noctis.

He knows he shouldn’t, that he’s just some commoner friend of the prince, but he feels comfortable at Noct’s side, lets himself feel comfortable there. It feels natural to hear the sounds of their footprints ringing together as they walk side-by-side, every laugh from Noctis resonating with something inside Prompto until he can’t help but feel a breathless kind of delight.

The years have been easy with that, with the feeling of belonging somewhere, of being wanted. A lot of things get easier when he’s with Noctis.

Like making selfish wishes.

It’s near the start of summer when he thinks it for the first time, and they’re hovering in the limbo of the week after exams but before graduation.

It’s a good place to be at the start of the summer when the sun sets later and later every day. There’s more time to wander, less reason not to. And Prompto knows that when they’re done, he won’t even need to ask to be able to walk home with Noctis.

So he feels bolder in the orange-pink rays of the setting sun, more adventurous.

If Noctis can tell he’s stalling every time he stops - at a gas station, at a grocery store, at a vending machine - he doesn’t say anything. And he seems to be enjoying himself, too, even though what would usually be a fifteen-minute walk has stretched to nearly an hour and landed them farther than where they intended to go.

He doesn’t recognize this area, but he’s not concerned with that.

He’s just concerned with the way it feels, falling in step next to Noctis, chatting idly. The fullness in his chest every time he glances to his right, always to his right, to find Noctis there, laughing or smiling or just existing in the fading light of the sun.

He’s pointing out a cat sitting on a high wall when Prompto realizes he never wants this to end, realizes what that means.

He’s entertained the idea that he’s had a crush on Noctis for a while, but it’s never been more relevant than now as he watches in stunned silence as Noctis laughs, reaching a hand out for the cat to examine. Prompto can feel his delight when the cat leans down in the thrumming of his chest the way every emotion Noctis felt seemed to stir something in him.

He doesn’t want this to end.

But a part of him knows that it has to, that it was never destined to end the way Prompto hoped. Noctis was never his, and he never belonged with Noctis.

There are thin, black lines on his wrist and only his wrist. He’s grateful that they aren’t on Noct’s skin and that Noctis doesn’t have to endure the stain of Prompto’s past. But it’s still painful to know that there’s someone else out there with his mark, someone he doesn’t know yet, doesn’t trust, doesn’t love the way he loves Noctis. That the person he loves, the person he wants to walk beside for the rest of his life, isn’t his soulmate.

He draws in a shaking breath before jogging up to join Noctis with the cat, summoning the best smile that he can over the bitter, hopeful wish he makes in his mind.

The wish, the prayer, that there isn’t anyone with thin black lines over their right wrist.

They’re closer to nineteen when Noctis takes a leap of faith.

It’s an evening like any other, Ignis has just left the apartment and Prompto and Noctis are pressed close together on the couch, taking care of their respective tasks. Prompto’s fiddling with his camera, a loaner from his college, while Noctis reads over some reports, an arm slung behind him over the couch.

They’ve toed the line between a normal friendship and something else like this for a while.

Initially, Noctis had thought it was too good to be true, that the way Prompto actively sought out opportunities to be close to him was just a remnant of their senior year clinginess. But things have been changing, slowly but surely. The casual touches - the brushes of fingers, the warm feeling of a hand circling his wrist or on his shoulder - feel more intimate, somehow. They sit closer on the couch, seek each other out when they enter a room.

And lately, Noctis has been catching glimpses of things from Prompto. Small smiles, content, satisfied looks whenever he comes close enough that he can feel Prompto’s warmth. He can feel them, too. He can feel some of the affection coming off Prompto as if it was his own.

He hopes it isn’t just his own as he clears his throat, feeling Prompto shift to give him a curious quirk of the brow.

“Hey Prompto,” he manages, choking under the sudden pressure. “Can I tell you something, or I guess, can I show you something?”

He leads them to the futon that Prompto’s been sleeping on to show him and he realizes too late how suggestive it is when Prompto gives him an exaggerated smirk that he tries to brush off. He’d only wanted to face Prompto and for Prompto to be somewhere he was comfortable when he showed him the mark on his wrist he hoped they shared.

He isn’t sure how to start when Prompto sits in front of him, watching him, head tilted slightly in question.

“Look, I know, I know things have been different between us,” he manages and it’s a rough start when he sees Prompto start to fidget. “Not-not in a bad way! I just- there are things I’ve been feeling, and I think you’ve been feeling them, too.”

He grimaces at his wording, wishing he’d thought this out beforehand, but there’s the faintest glint of recognition in Prompto’s eyes and that’s enough encouragement for him to fiddle with the band on his wrist.

“I just- I wanted to show you something. It’s not something I really share with people, but if we- if I-” he draws in a shaking breath. “I want you to know.”

He can feel the tense line of Prompto’s back, the tightness of his smile as he says, perfectly casual, “Shoot.”

Noctis doesn’t say anything as he starts to undo his wristband, just bites his lip. He’s not sure if the anticipation is coming from him or Prompto when he unravels it. He has the briefest thought, a sudden anxiety that he’s wrong and that when Prompto sees a mark on Noctis that he doesn’t have, he’ll think it’s Noct’s way of ending things.

He doesn’t have time to dwell on that, on what to do after that, before he sets his wristband on the bed between them and watches Prompto pale at the sight of the barcodes on his wrist.

Something in his stomach tightens into a hard ball of guilt, disappointment, despair and they have to be coming from him because they’re not coming from Prompto, speechless and heartbroken and not his soulmate.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says, quickly, firmly. Because it doesn't. It doesn’t matter.

He’d never put stock in soulmates before, so why should he now? It doesn’t matter that there’s someone else out there with thin black lines on their wrist because he loves Prompto, soulmate or not.

“It doesn’t matter.”

But Prompto doesn’t say anything, doesn’t look relieved, or hopeful or angry or anything. He just stares at the black lines on Noct’s wrist for a long, painful moment.

“I- I’m sorry. I need to go,” he says, finally.

Noctis doesn’t stop him from leaving.

The next few days are difficult for Prompto.

He imagines they’re difficult for Noctis, too.

Noctis, who texts him once every day. I’ll be here when you’re ready. and How are you? and I’m sorry.

Noctis, who thinks that Prompto wants to end things between them.

Noctis, who doesn’t realize that his soulmate had left him alone, to suffer alone because Prompto is a coward.

So Prompto suffers alone, too. It’s the only thing he can do now.

He should have stopped this a long time ago. He should have walked away when he caught himself wanting things he didn’t deserve, wishing to be places he didn’t belong. Noctis was the prince and he should have realized sooner that Noctis didn’t need a soulmate with a stain on his wrist who ran from every problem, everything difficult to face.

He shouldn’t have fallen in love with him.

But he did, and he feels guilty at the occasional rush of excitement, of delight when the memory returns and he realizes that not only did Noctis return those feelings in some way, but that Noctis is his soulmate.

The thing he’d dreaded and wished for more than anything. The right to be together for the rest of their lives, etched into shared lines on their skin. But also the ugliness, the fear, the mystery surrounding them.

Prompto doesn’t know why he has them, doesn’t know who gave him a barcode, what they meant to use it for. He only knows that it’s felt wrong all his life, from the moment his parents gave him a little elastic sweatband and told him not to let the other kids look at it. It’s marked him as different, as an outsider to every other normal human, as someone who didn’t belong here or anywhere.

And now he knows it’s marked Noctis as those things, as well.

He spends a lot of time staring at the marks he shares with Noctis, his stomach flipping wildly between the cold, tight feeling of guilt and the lightness of relief.

He doesn’t spend a lot of time sleeping. It’s hard to, if he’s going to be honest. He hadn’t realized how easily he started thinking of Noctis’ apartment as his home, how difficult it was to relax, to sleep away from that.

Away from Noctis.

As the days drag on he realizes how much emptier his life is without Noctis, how lonely he feels, how much he misses him. He desperately wants to talk to Noctis, even to hear his voice, but he doesn’t want to talk about the barcode on his wrist. And it’s unfair to keep Noctis in the dark, but some part of him is still afraid of what Noctis will do when Prompto shows him that he’s the reason they both have to hide the marks on their wrists.

“It doesn’t matter,” Noctis had said. And he wishes that was true.

He wishes things could just go back to normal.

But a part of him, a selfish part, wishes for something else as he runs his thumb over the barcode and hears Noctis say, again and again, “It doesn’t matter.”

Prompto appears on his doorstep after a week of radio silence.

It’s past midnight, but Noctis is awake when he hears his phone ring. He knows it’s Prompto before he even finds it in the mess of his sheets. He sounds tense over the phone as Noctis buzzes him in. Noctis can understand that. As much as he’s wanted to see Prompto, to just hear back from him, he’s just as nervous about how this conversation will go, where they’ll go after Noctis pushed them both into this difficult situation.

So he doesn’t say anything, isn’t sure what to say as Prompto pushes past him into the apartment. His eyes are red-rimmed and there are deep bags underneath, but Noctis doesn’t even have time to feel heartbroken that he’s done this to Prompto before Prompto wraps a gentle, tentative hand around his wrist and pulls him towards the room he used to sleep in, the futon where Noctis had first shown him the barcode.

Noctis lets himself be sat down where he was a week ago, Prompto biting his lip and fidgeting with his hands in front of him.

They sit like that for a long, tense moment, until Prompto reaches out, hesitates, but takes Noct’s right hand in both of his.

“Can I see it again?” he says, quiet.

Noctis only nods, doesn’t trust himself to speak. He watches as Prompto’s fingers slowly but steadily undo the strap of his wristband, sliding the leather until it’s loose and free and the thin lines are clear in even the dim lighting of the room.

He watches as Prompto stares at them, takes in the way he presses his lips together, the conflict in his eyes. He feels him running a thumb over the mark.

It’s a long moment before Prompto says anything else.

It’s a long moment before Prompto can summon the courage in him to let go of Noct’s hand, to offer him his wrist.

“Take mine off,” he says before he can stop himself, before he can think about it.

He sees Noctis hesitate, meets his eyes as they search for some kind of approval. Noctis was always kind like that. He nods and Noct’s hands find his wrist, warm and comforting for a moment, only a moment, before they’re undoing the clasp and he can feel the fabric sliding away.

It takes a moment for Noctis to recognize it, the barcode that he knows they share, etched in dark lines on Prompto’s wrist.

And for a moment, he feels excitement. He feels the childish joy of watching a fairytale come true, of finding his prayers, his wishes were answered for once in his life.

They share the lines, the numbers above them, they share everything just like they will share everything. Prompto is his soulmate. The friend he’d found, the one he’d fallen in love with, was matched so perfectly to him that he’d left an impact on Noctis before they’d even known, before they’d realized.

But then Noctis feels guilt and shame that he knows are coming from Prompto. And he remembers his father’s sad face when he’d told him that the marks had appeared when he was only a baby, when Prompto was only a baby. The way Prompto dodged talking about his childhood.

These marks that they share hold something painful for Prompto, something he’s had to carry alone for all his life under wristbands and secrecy. Something he’s felt the need to hide from Noctis since they’d met.

And Noctis knows it’s too much to ask for so soon, but he wants to help. He wants to hope that it’s a weight that gets lighter with two people holding it.

“Do you know what it is?” he asks, quiet and somber, as gentle as he can ask a question.

“I don’t know,” Prompto admits, only just above a whisper. He can’t bear to look in Noct’s eyes, can’t bear to look at the lines on his wrist. “I don’t know what it is or where it came from or what it means. I just know I’ve had it since I was a kid. Which- which means you must have had it since you were a kid. I- I’m so s-”

“Don’t,” Noctis hisses, but the pad of his thumb is gentle over Prompto’s wrist. “Don’t apologize.”

“But I-” he starts, feeling the word stumble around a sob. “I hid it from you.”

“Hey,” Noctis says with a shaky laugh, and Prompto feels a warm hand against his cheek as he’s made to look at Noctis and his tentative smile and his eyes shining with the beginnings of tears. “I hid it from you, too. We’re even.”

“You had to hide it,” Prompto feels the words spill from his mouth before he can stop them. “Because of me. I gave them to you.”

“You didn’t,” Noctis says and Prompto can feel the low rumble of anger, the pain of failure coming from Noctis with a clarity he hadn’t felt before. “Some bastard out there who thought it was a good idea to mark up a baby did this to you, did this to us. You had nothing to do with it.”

And Prompto feels his confidence in that, his faith in Prompto, and an overwhelming affection that Prompto can’t fathom. Even so, Noctis is a grounding presence in Prompto’s mind, one he didn’t realize he was missing until now, and Prompto finds himself nodding weakly.

For the first time, he wants to believe that.

He wants to believe this isn’t his fault.

He wants to believe he deserves what he has with Noctis.

And maybe it’s selfish, but he wants to believe he’ll be happy, that he can make Noctis happy, too.

“I can’t believe,” he manages, shaky around the tears he’s still holding back. “I can’t believe all this time, I thought I’d never have a chance with you. I mean, you’re the prince. I thought it was impossible that you- that you were-”

“My soulmate?” Noctis finishes for him, and he feels giddy as he says it even though he can still feel hot tears start to pool at the corner of his eyes.

“Y-yeah,” Prompto says, but it’s more a shaking laugh than anything. He can feel something stirring in his chest, and he’s not sure if it’s coming from Noctis, but he knows that the smile that reaches his lips is his. “Yeah. And I can’t believe when I found out, it was- it was like this.”

“Me either,” Noctis says with a shaky laugh of his own. “But hey, we’re- we’re here now, right?”

“We are,” Prompto says.

And Prompto knows that it isn’t over, that he won’t stop looking at the barcode and feeling that pang of guilt, of fear, of disgust. But he’ll think of Noctis now, too, of how this mark brought him to the person he belonged with, like the lovers in the fairytale he hated so long ago.

He’ll think of Noctis, and he’ll think of this moment.

Prompto can’t tell if he’s the one who leans forward first or if it’s Noctis, but in one moment they’re sitting there, looking at each other as they hold back tears, affection stirring in their chests, and in the next there’s a hand on his cheek and Noct’s hair is between his fingers and they’re kissing. It’s wet from the tears and the lateness of the hour, but Noctis finds he doesn’t care.

When they separate, there’s a warm hum of satisfaction in both of their chests as they lean close, foreheads still touching.

“Thank you,” Prompto breathes into the space between them.

“I love you,” is Noct’s answer, full of all the affection curling in his chest.

And it’s with the weight of every time he left it unspoken, the weight that they’ll carry together, that Prompto says, “I love you, too.”

noctis: now we can wear matching wristbands :) prompto, crying: oh my god

THANK U FOR THE READ please feel free to yell in my inbox or @ me on twitter . also keep an eye out, as once i finish my final prompt i’m attempting, i’ll be posting the completed fics to ao3!

im. gonna sleep now thank u everyone

#ffxv #promptis #promptis-fanweek #my fic #pls b gentle this is my first soulmate cheese

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