Hello! Since this one was already written, have an update.

First, though, I'd like to say thanks to everyone who's returned to this story after such a long hiatus! It hasn't been an easy year for anyone and I hope you're all managing. As for myself, I'm still depressed (but, yknow, without a diagnosis and therefore without treatment) and Things Are Not Great, but I also started my apprenticeship back in August and I'm really happy, I've made friends both at work and at school (unexpected but so very appreciated) which I really benefit from. So, that's that for anyone who's interested, now back to the fic!

Heed the warnings for this one, it contains drinking, or more specifically the aftermath thereof (without any description of the drinking itself, just the hangover the morning after). If it's underage drinking or not depends on both what counts as underage drinking in your countries and what age you read the boys at this point.

I had fun with this one so I hope you do too!


When Prompto had first come into Noct's life, people in the Citadel had expressed concerns about the possibility of the peasant boy having a negative influence on their Crown Prince. There was a reason why he rarely took Prompto to the Citadel; Prompto didn't deserve to deal with their disapproving glances and hushed remarks when they thought Noct couldn't hear them.

(They never did care about Prompto overhearing, however).

Noct had wanted his own place anyway, but his then-budding friendship with Prompto had been what'd really made him push and fight until his father would allow him to move out. That, of course, sparked an entirely different discussion because, after all, if the Prince was to spend less time with noblemen and more time with a commoner, and that was just bound to affect their young, impressionable Prince.

The truth was, Noct was the negative influence. Really, didn't people remember he used to get Ignis to sneak out with him all the time when they were kids? Everyone knew Noct was the real culprit despite Ignis always taking the fall, although everyone seemed to conveniently forget about that part now.

Nowadays, his bad influence mainly consisted of persuading Prompto to just stay on the couch and play video games instead of doing homework, or exchanging little notes during class. Ignis let it slide because Noct's grades were still alright, and the teachers let it slide because they were cowards who thought his dad would have them executed if they dared tell him no, but even without his royal status preventing him from any consequences, those things were truly harmless.

This time, though, Noct was going to be in big trouble if anyone found out what they were up to last night- and going to find out they were.

Because see, Noct, to this day, had never been allowed to try even a single glass of champagne at any formal gathering he had to attend. And he had to attend a lot of them. It was unfair, Noct always thought, because whenever rulers from other places brought their kids to anything, they'd be allowed to (provided they weren't like, five). Only his own father - and Ignis and Gladio too, those killjoys – had objected.

It'd never been his intention to get super drunk. He'd just been curious, and some classmates had recently started bragging about the parties they attended and how they got so drunk they barely remembered their own names. The parties Noct truly couldn't care any less for, but he'd been extremely curious if alcohol felt anything like everyone kept saying.

Prompto, after some pestering from Noct, had admitted to never having tried anything either. But unlike Noct, he didn't seem too bothered by it and had only agreed to buy some booze from one of the older students because Noct had wanted to. But once they were in Noct's apartment, certain that Ignis was heading home for the night, and that there was no danger whatsoever of being found out, curiosity had gotten the better of him, too.

What Noct hadn't accounted for was that the media wasn't lying about feeling like absolute shit the next day.

It wasn't that he wasn't used to waking up in pain; on days his chronic backache flared up, waking up sucked even more than usual. But he wasn't used to this throbbing pain like that one time he'd hit himself in the head with the handle of Gladio's broadsword during training, his mouth feeling like sandpaper, and the unsettled feeling in his stomach as if the slightest disturbance would make it turn.

He couldn't stop himself from groaning when he blinked his eyes open and the light stabbed into his skull. Even making the damn noise hurt, somehow.

The small part of his brain that was still capable of thinking instead of lying down in a corner and sobbing in pain supplied that perhaps he shouldn't have picked a night that preceded a morning of training with Gladio to drink himself stupid.

The mere thought of training made him want to curl up and die. No way he'd be able to stand an entire two hours of Gladio beating the shit out of him- hell, he wasn't even sure he could stand in general.

As he lay there pitying himself, a groan not dissimilar to the one he'd made upon waking up came from somewhere next to him. Painstakingly, he turned his head and blinked at the mop of blond hair next to him.

Oh. Right. Prompto.

"Dude, I think I'm dying," Prompto slurred out, eyes squeezed shut.

"Mmmsame," Noct mumbled, feeling vaguely guilty for making Prompto suffer the same way he was suffering. But then again, at least he wasn't alone in his misery. A small comfort.

After lying silent and motionless for a couple minutes, Prompto let out another heavy groan and quite literally rolled out of bed, dragging himself towards the bathroom with determination Noct could only admire. As Prompto wobbled off, Noct realized they were both still wearing their regular clothes. They hadn't even managed to change into their pyjamas before passing out, how pitiful.

Somehow, the throbbing in his head had subsided a little since waking up, and even though he still didn't really want to be alive, he no longer felt like he'd gone straight to hell.

Purgatory, maybe.

Either way, he felt okay enough to roll over and grab the water bottle next to his bed (and mentally thanking Ignis a thousand times for always putting water on his nightstand. If he'd had to get some from the kitchen, he might just have started crying).

After drinking some of the water, slowly and carefully so his stomach wouldn't complain, he still had a headache and he still felt slightly sick, but at least his mouth was no longer quite so dry.

He kind of needed to go to the bathroom too, but he couldn't find the strength to get up so he simply lay there existing, vaguely aware of Prompto plopping back onto the bed at some point, and then just he sort of drifted in and out of consciousness for an indefinite amount of time.

The next thing he knew was a loud banging sound from outside the room as the door to his apartment was flung open and a familiar booming voice bellowed, "Wakey wakey, get your ass out of bed immediately or so help me!"

The volume of Gladio's voice nearly made his skull explode, and Noct curled in on himself whining desperately. Beside him, Prompto was making a very similar noise.

Yes. Crap. Training with Gladio.

With a steadily growing sense of impending doom, he listened to Gladio stomp into his living room, stop dead in his tracks, and mutter under his breath, "Oh, they did not."

Yep. Noct was dead. Prompto may just live, because Gladio actually liked him, but Noct was definitely a goner. Death by the hands of his own Shield; what a way to go.

Gladio waltzed into the bedroom and shoved the bottles they'd emptied yesterday right in his face- only one bottle, but unfortunately, it was strong stuff, especially for one's first time drinking. In hindsight, they should probably have gone for something like beer or wine or champagne instead.

"Care to explain?"

As if the empty bottles combined with their obvious misery weren't explanation enough. Noct wanted to roll his eyes, but he just knew that would make his head hurt worse.

"Please don't tell Ignis," he mumbled instead.

"Yeah? Gimme one reason why I shouldn't."

Noct sighed. "Don't wanna disappoint him." He could perfectly imagine the look on his face. I'm not mad, Noct, just disappointed.

Gladio snorted. "But it doesn't matter if you disappoint me, huh?"

"Not what I meant. You're already disappointed now."

"Got a point there. Well. Guess training's cancelled, then. I hope you know that I could make you train, though, if I wanted to. But I won't, because I'm not a monster. Next time you won't be so lucky," Gladio threatened.

"Thank you," Noct managed pathetically. "Now, can you leave us alone to die?"

Gladio grinned, like the asshole he was. "You wish. My training partner for this morning just bailed on me, and the rest of my day is free. I think I'm just gonna spend it here."

Noct groaned again - easily in his top three sounds of this morning - but ultimately accepted his defeat. There was no reasoning with Gladio, the guy was as stubborn as they came.

Gladio peered at the other side of the bed where Prompto was still curled up. "Hey, you alive there, Prompto?"

"Hi, Gladio." Prompto's hand came up to weakly wave in Gladio's direction.

Laughing, Gladio wandered out of the room and went to do... something, Noct didn't know what but he was making a lot of noise and it wasn't helping his headache.

Noct grimaced and tried to tune him out, but soon enough Gladio sauntered back into the room and told both of them to sit up.

"Drink this. You'll feel better," he said, shoving one glass each into their hands.

Inside, there was an aspirin fizzing and bubbling. Noct could have kissed him, if only that didn't require him to get up.

The rest of the day went by in a sort of daze. Noct and Prompto remained in bed for a while, focusing on simply existing, but at some point, they felt good enough to join Gladio on the couch. A TV show was playing on low volume, some historical romance that Gladio was eager to explain was based on his favourite book series. Apparently, it had "just the right balance between bloody battles and tender romance", and that sentence alone from Gladio's mouth was enough to make Noct want to go straight back to bed, if only he hadn't already flopped down on the couch.

By the time the episode was over, Noct had to admit the show didn't completely suck, and Prompto was pretty intrigued, so they agreed to watch another one. Gladio was delighted.


"Guess we should have dinner, if you two feel up to it," Gladio said halfway through the episode. "How do you two feel about cup noodles?"

After getting confirmation in the form of some vaguely affirmative noises, Gladio rose from the couch and wandered into the kitchen.

Waiting for the water to boil, he leaned against the counter and fished his phone out of his pocket.

Ignis [5:38 p.m.]: Is Noct alright? Why is he not reading my texts?

Gladio grinned, completely unsurprised. He tapped out a quick reply and pressed send, and within seconds, Ignis' status switched to online and typing.

You [6:52 p.m]: He's fine. Felt a bit under the weather this morning so we skipped training. No need to worry
Ignis [6:52 p.m]: Is he getting ill? Shall I bring him anything?
You [6:53 p.m.]: Nah, he's gonna be right as rain tomorrow. Spent the day at his place, he's better already

The three little dots indicating Ignis was typing appeared and disappeared several times before a reply came in.

Ignis [6:54 p.m.]: If you say so. If you would be so kind to let him know I'll be stopping by around supper time tomorrow, that'd be appreciated.
You [6:55 p.m.]: Sure thing

Shoving the phone back into his pocket, Gladio poured the now boiling water over the three cups of noodles and carried them back into the living room.

"Got until tomorrow night to get rid of the evidence, kid," he announced as he set the cups down on the table. "Iggy says to let you know he'll be here for dinner."

Noct rubbed his hand across his eyes tiredly. "Sure, yeah. I can do that." He hesitated, then asked carefully nonchalantly, "Did you tell him anything?"

Shovelling a forkful of noodles into his mouth, Gladio raised his eyebrow at him. "Course not. Think I can't keep a promise?"

Noct sunk back into the couch, looking away sheepishly. "Just makin' sure," he muttered. "Thanks for the food."

"Yeah, thanks," Prompto echoed.

"Sure, just," Gladio grinned. "Don't tell Iggy."


Gladio watches Outlander, no I will not take criticism on this. Actually, I don't watch it myself but my mom absolutely adores it and she always gets so hyped when she gets to talk about it. I listen to her rant about her favourite shows and characters and she'll in return listen to me rant about video games and stuff, it's a great system.

You're not gonna believe this but the next one is ALSO pre-written and just needs some tweaking! After that, I'm afraid we're back to painstakingly WRITE that shit, can you believe? But at least my creative juices are flowing somewhat now so maybe it won't turn into a disaster :)

In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed it, this one was a light-hearted one to precede the one that comes next! Until then!