Iggy and Gladio to the rescue! o(≧▽≦)o
Rubbing his eyes, Prompto was surprised that he felt so rested upon waking. Well aware of the awkwardness of the previous night, he glanced cautiously across to Noct's bed, only to see that it was unmade and empty. The door to the en-suite was open, and no sounds came from within. This likely meant only one thing, and it wasn't good.
Noct was up early.
Checking his phone, Prompto discovered that it was barely 7am. Nobody had come to the room to wake them, and he hadn't heard any alarms from Noct's own phone, so he could only surmise that sleeplessness had driven the Prince to evacuate his bed so early without provocation.
Therefore, Noct was probably not only still troubled by what he'd done last night, but also sleep-deprived, and if that was the case, the rest of them were going to be in for a world of pain.
Taking a very deep breath and sighing out a long, calming exhale, the blond exited his deliciously-comfortable bed into the chilly air of the room. He proceeded to wash and get dressed, trying not to fret too much about what he was going to say when he saw his friend. Focussing his attention on the swollen dark clouds in the sky, looking ready to burst, he swept hair gel into his quiff with a few practised movements, and put on his game face.
Prompto was making his way out into the main building cautiously, not particularly wanting to bump into any saccharine-smiled staff wishing him a good morning. However, there was almost nobody to be seen. A young man who couldn't have been more than seventeen was sweeping the floor of the dining room, and a pretty brunette was tapping away at the computer by the central cooking hub. Neither of them paid him much attention. There didn't appear to be any other guests…at least, none who were requiring breakfast yet.
Trotting outside and onto the morning-damp pier, Prompto scratched his head and pulled his phone from his jeans, tapping through to Noct's message log (by far the longest he had on his phone), and feeling a bit miffed that there was no fresh contact from him. He had half-expected some abusive or embittered texts, but the screen remained inactive.
He leaned on the wooden rail, trying to decide what to type, his cobalt eyes distant and his chin resting in one palm. Healthy-looking seagulls were wheeling, making mournful keening sounds that were abruptly offset by a distant, threatening grumble of thunder.
Prompto yelped and nearly dropped his phone into the still ocean when it abruptly beeped and vibrated in his hand. Stepping away from the railing and holding it extra tightly, he read his new message, heart still racing from surprise.
It seemed that he had been the last to awaken.
'We are all near the fishing spot by the cliffs. Noct too. Need to talk. – Ignis.'
Ignis always signed himself off in texts, which usually made Prompto smirk, but right now his stomach was wrenching at the thought of what this conversation might entail. He was bound to get told off – that was nothing new – but in fact, he hadn't actually done anything wrong, right? In fact, he'd been a gentleman.
It then occurred to him that it might not have anything to do with that– after all, Noctis was unlikely to have gone running to Iggy to complain that he had been rejected in bed. When he pooled his ideas of all the other things that he might be due a lecture for, he got a little dizzy with the sheer number of options, and wisely decided to ignore that entire line of thought.
Staring around him, he nibbled upon his bottom lip.
"What cliffs? Place is surrounded by 'em," he mumbled to himself.
It was only after he had rather sheepishly asked directions at the tackle shop on the beach, that he was pointed towards some rather ominous looking sheer cliffs to his left, with soft green hills leading down to a rocky seafront.
Trudging across the empty beach, he rounded the curve of the bay until he saw Ignis and Gladio sitting atop a grassy swathe of land, just before it fell steeply away into treacherous, black-looking rockpools. He raised a hand in greeting, flinching at the same time at a deafening crack of thunder that exploded somewhere near the horizon, amidst the bruise-coloured clouds.
Trotting to the older men, he clambered up beside them, glad that there was a large recess in the damp cliff behind them. It would house them all should it start to rain, which seemed imminent at this point.
"Morning," Ignis said, and Gladio grunted a greeting too, though his attention was mostly on the book he was reading. Ignis looked like he had been editing his recipe notes, his pretty handwriting meaning that even his mistakes looked elegant in his expensive notebook.
"Hey…Is Noct…okay?" Prompto asked, biting his lip and pointing out to where his friend was distantly standing on a rickety-looking deck, rod in hand.
"He woke us up and insisted on doing some early fishing. Naturally, we were concerned. There are very few fish native to this area that proliferate at this time in the morning, and also – not to put too fine a point on it – our Prince isn't overly fond of getting out of bed for anything less than a fire in the building."
"…Right," Prompto said feebly, scratching the back of his head. "I think he's mad at me."
"Did you have a fight?" Gladio asked, putting his book temporarily aside after turning down the corner of the page.
"No, just a…kind of…misunderstanding."
Ignis and Gladio glanced at each other. The strategist adjusted his glasses with one gloved hand, and fixed his cool gaze upon the blond.
"Did you mention Lady Lunafreya?"
"Uh, no? What's she got to do with it?" Prompto queried, frowning.
"Never mind. Prompto, when you joined the Guard…did anyone ever…I suppose 'school' is the wrong word…did they ever offer you any advice on…personal matters to do with Noct?"
"Huh? I guess not? I mean, I think they assumed I already knew everything about him 'cos I was his best friend."
"I see." Ignis and Gladio exchanged wordless looks once more.
"Guys, I am totally confused," Prom complained, sighing. He cast an exasperated look out at Noct, who had forgone wearing a jacket, and looked freezing. He hadn't caught anything. Seeing that Ignis and Gladio were about to swap another mute expression, he groaned miserably.
"Quit doing that, if you're gonna kick me out then do it already. I know they only let me join so they could watch me crash and burn."
"Nobody's firing you, kid," Gladio assured him.
"It seems as though you might be a teensy bit behind with…the Prince's current affairs, shall we say," Ignis told him. "It might surprise you to learn, for example, that our Noctis is quite the romantic type? Indeed, his enforced marriage is one of the things that has caused him the most…difficulty with his royal duties."
Prompto felt this information was going way over his head, but he half-nodded, half-shrugged.
"But he's marrying Lady Luna. So it's all good, right?"
There followed an awkward pause.
"He does love her, right?" Prompto asked.
"…Like a sister maybe," Gladio muttered.
"But she's so pretty, and nice, and they were kids together, yeah?"
"That's not…quite enough, in this case," Ignis said delicately.
"…I have no idea what you're talking about," Prompto surrendered.
"We can't tell you ourselves, kid. But try and get it from Noct," Gladio told him kindly.
"Ugh, fine. And don't call me kid," the blond sulked. "But you know he's totally in a huff with me."
"You must know by now that the Prince's defence mechanisms are sulking and fishing," Ignis pointed out. "Barriers that can be easily overcome."
"Better go rescue him anyway," Gladio muttered. "Before the idiot gets struck by lightning," he smirked, gesturing at the distant thunderclouds.
"I don't know what to say," Prompto wheedled.
"Trust us," Gladio assured him. "We're a little more informed than you. And Iggy here might seem like a cold fish, but he knows as well as I do what things are like when you get two dumb kids in love."
Prompto stared at him open-mouthed, then frowned at Ignis, who was gazing back at him with serene seriousness. He made a sound as if to start arguing with Gladio's sentiment, but found that, in all honesty, he couldn't really contest it.
The fact was, he had fallen for his best friend some time ago.
"…..Don't call me kid," he finally mumbled, turning to make his way down the grassy slope, toward the windswept, stony shoreline.
It was only as he drew near to the Prince that it occurred to him that Gladio had been speaking in plural.