*crawls out of the bog* hey so remember when I said last chapter that the next one was already written and would be posted soon? Yeah.
I hope you're all well, and thank you for being here if you clicked on the update email (or only just found this fic, thank you for joining) :3
I'll have more to say in the end notes, but for now I hope you enjoy this (very late) next chapter (that really has been written for over a year now, I just. Never got back to it).
One thing Prompto had learnt about Gladio by now was that he could be extremely convincing once he set his mind on something. So it really shouldn't have come as a surprise that Prompto ended up being roped into dinner and movies at the Amicitia estate during the long weekend brought about by a bank holiday.
The second Gladio had found out that Prompto's parents were absent more often than not, this weekend being no exception, Prompto had seen the resolve in his eyes, the exact moment he had decided that wouldn't do. Big brother indeed, Prompto thinks, helplessly accepting the invitation - not that he had much of a choice to begin with.
"I should warn you, Iris loves having guests. She'll insist on entertaining you the whole evening," Gladio told him on the drive there. Prompto knew now why Noct had Ignis drive him everywhere, not Gladio. His driving was jerky, with abrupt braking and accelerating and sharply taken turns.
It would've been endearing, the big guy so excited about getting to show off his family, if Prompto hadn't been so damn nervous. He'd never met Iris, but it sounded like she was basically just a younger version of Gladio, with the same friendly, extroverted personality and the same level of touchy-feely-ness.
Then, there was Jared, the family's butler, and his little grandson Talcott. Prompto had briefly met Jared a few months back when Gladio wouldn't let him walk home in the dark after a prolonged training session and had called Jared to drive him home. He seemed like a very kind man, almost like a grandfather to Gladio and Iris.
Clarus Amicitia, though.
Before starting Crownsguard training, Prompto had thought there couldn't be a man more intimidating than Cor Leonis. Then, Cor had taken over training Prompto and the other recruits, and while he was definitely intimidating and Prompto did not want to get on his bad side, he'd seen the man's lips twitch into the slightest hint of a smile when one of the recruits had lost his balance during the obstacle run and fallen right into a pool of water. Another time, Cor had cracked a joke so dry it had taken them several seconds to even realise he'd made a joke, and the first time he'd praised Prompto, by name and everything, he'd thought he would simply melt into a puddle right there on the gym floor. Cor was intimidating, yes, but Prompto had seen evidence that he was human and at least somewhat approachable.
He was scared shitless of Clarus Amicitia.
The only times he'd met the man had been as the King's shadow, not speaking, not smiling, not displaying any kind of emotion, just pure stoicism. Where the King was surprisingly warm and fatherly, Clarus was a complete mystery to Prompto, and he'd secretly been glad he didn't have much to do with the man.
Until Gladio decided Prompto needed to have dinner with them, apparently.
By the time Gladio pushed open the doors to the mansion and shouted "I'm home!", Prompto was just about ready to throw up from sheer nerves. Only thanks to his subconscious he managed to shake Clarus' hand and stammer out a more or less acceptable greeting.
Then, he was quickly rescued by Iris, who dragged him towards the dinner table by his arm and showed him where he could sit. Relieved he didn't have to see Clarus' reaction to his… well, everything, he happily followed along and let himself be sandwiched between the two Amicitia siblings.
Jared was an exceptional cook - no better or worse than Ignis, just different in a way that was no doubt caused by the years of experience that separated them - and Gladio had clearly told him about Prompto's preferences when it came to food, It was deliciously spicy, just a touch less than Prompto would've made for himself, probably to spare everyone else's taste buds, but still spicier than he'd expected.
It tasted like ash in his mouth.
Prompto did his best to force himself to chew and swallow and smile and compliment Jared on the food, but his enthusiasm sounded just slightly off even to his own ears. He hoped fervently that Gladio wouldn't pick up on it, or anyone else for that matter, not when they were all so nice to him.
The air was relaxed. Gladio and Iris were bickering just the way Prompto had always imagined siblings to, making Talcott laugh and Jared shake his head at them with barely hidden fondness. And Clarus Amicitia, while still intimidating - Prompto couldn't look the man in the eye for more than a few seconds - turned out to be much less serious and stone-faced in the presence of his family than when he was silently shadowing the King.
Prompto's jitters had dissipated over the course of the dinner, calmed by the warm, familial atmosphere. His nervousness had turned into relief, but then, inexplicably, it had transformed into bone-deep sadness.
Whenever Prompto saw to dinner for himself at home, he'd pretend he didn't mind eating in silence. He'd turn on the TV or pull up a random stream of a video game on his laptop, just to fill the silence. He'd tell himself he appreciated the peace and quiet, the opportunity to cook what he wanted and not have to consider someone else's taste. And he'd convince himself the reason why he turned on all the lights and left them burning even when he went to bed was to ward off burglars, not because the lights helped him pretend there was someone else still awake and watching over him as he slept.
It worked, for the most part, but sometimes he just couldn't fool himself any longer. Like when Noct invited him to stay for dinner and Ignis could be persuaded to put his work aside for a while and join them for a meal, or when he and Noct scarfed down a pizza during a gaming session, and Prompto caught himself wishing for it to last forever.
None of those situations had ever hit him quite as hard as the Amicitia family dinner, though, and he was completely unprepared for it.
He'd managed to choke down most of the food and now it sat heavy in his stomach. The warmth of the family's chatter around him that had felt like a comforting blanket at first was wrapping itself tighter and tighter around him until it threatened to suffocate him.
Rapidly, he shot to his feet and claimed he had to use the bathroom, turning down Iris' offer to show him the way, and all but fled the dining room.
Iris' offer turned out to be reasonable with the sheer number of doors in the manor's hallway, and by the time he found the bathroom, he really did feel like he might need it soon with the way the food churned in his stomach.
He staggered to the sink, closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths.
"Pull yourself together, man," he whispered to himself. Only him, he thought, he was the only person who could take a dinner invitation from a friend and turn it into a self-pity party.
Opening his eyes, he stared at himself in the mirror for a few long moments and, to his utter horror, felt his eyes fill up with tears.
"Shit, no-" he whisper-exclaimed and hurriedly wiped them away, but they wouldn't stop. Rapidly, his vision became blurry with tears that resisted any attempt to staunch them.
Still, he tried, desperately dabbing at his eyes with a wad of toilet paper, cursing his pale face that always turned bright red and blotchy the second he even shed a single tear.
Once his eyes finally stopped watering, he stuck some more toilet paper under the cold tap water and pressed it to his eyes and nose to hopefully lessen the redness a little. It worked, a little, and considering the light in the dining room was rather dim, Prompto was almost certain no one would be able to tell he'd cried.
Taking one more deep breath, he stepped out of the bathroom and immediately collided with a broad chest.
"Hey, you good? You've been gone for- what's wrong?"
Gladio's expression changed from curiously concerned to openly worried within a split second. It would've been sweet, really, had Prompto not been so focused on not appearing like a weirdo who cried in his friend's bathroom, holy shit.
But apparently, his face didn't hold up in the bright hallway nearly as well as he'd hoped it would in the dining room, and Gladio saw right through him in a heartbeat.
Prompto opened his mouth, then closer it again, because, shit, how could he even explain himself? Claim the vet had called to let him know his hamster had died? Gladio knew he didn't own any pets. His grandmother, then?
Gladio didn't give him much time to think of a good excuse. With a gentle but firm hand on his shoulder, he pulled him away from the hallway and into a random guest room, away from prying eyes.
"Come on, what's wrong?" Gladio asked again. His hand remained steady on Prompto's shoulder, strong and warm and grounding.
Frantically, Prompto tried to come up with an excuse, something to explain his weird behaviour. Because how could he even begin to explain that sitting at the dinner table tonight had made him feel like an intruder, had made him long for a family of his own, had ripped the wound in his chest his parents had left over the years wide open until it bled, and had made him wish so badly for a place to belong?
But Gladio was looking at him with so much concern that eventually, the only words that spilled from Prompto's lips were nothing but the truth.
When he finished, again on the verge of bursting into tears, he couldn't meet Gladio's eyes, instead choosing to study the painting of a flower hanging behind the bed with an interest that would've put any art collector to shame.
Which was why Gladio's arms around him caught him completely by surprise and his nose collided painfully with Gladio's chest for the second time that night. Only this time, Gladio's arms tightened around him and folded him neatly into his chest, and it was almost enough to send Prompto over the edge right then and there.
"I'm sorry" Gladio rumbled. "I shouldn't have made you come here. Should've asked how you felt about it first. Didn't even give you a choice, did I?"
Prompto shuddered. He'd ruined the night by being an absolute weirdo about a family dinner, and here Gladio was, apologizing like he had done something wrong. Shit. Prompto didn't deserve any of his friends.
"Not your fault," Prompto mutters into Gladio's shirt. "You did nothing wrong, I'm the one who made this weird."
Gladio gently peeled Prompto away from his chest and held him at arm's length so he could catch his eye. "You're not making anything weird. I get it, don't worry about it. Tell you what, we can make this a weekly thing if you want, you can-" he broke off when he saw the devastated look on Prompto's face. "Or not. Yeah, let's not do that."
He pulled Prompto back into his arms, which, in turn, threatened to start a new round of tears on Prompto's part.
"Well, what do you want to do?" Gladio asked gently, patiently.
Prompto sniffled and closed his eyes, focusing on Gladio's arms around him. Gladio wouldn't make fun of him, he reminded himself. Gladio was safe.
"I just want something of my own," he said, so quietly he was afraid Gladio didn't even hear it.
But he did.
"Gotcha," Gladio's hand was running up and down Prompto's spine now, soothing in a way that made Prompto's knees go weak. "We'll do a thing with the guys, then. With Noct and Iggy, make it something recurring. I'll work out the details, you don't worry about anything. We'll have our own thing. That sound good?"
Prompto nodded into Gladio's chest, now crying in earnest. "Yeah. Yeah, I'd. I think I'd like that."
"Okay, good. Hey, do you wanna stay here for the night? If not, I can drive you home. Either way, I'll make an excuse for you, tell them the wine didn't agree with you or something."
The thought of staying here and having to face Gladio and his family again in the morning didn't sound particularly appealing to him. Now that the sadness was disappearing, embarrassment set in full force - he could barely handle Gladio seeing him like this.
But returning to his empty apartment sounded downright unbearable right now, so he nodded again and croaked, "I'll stay here, please."
"Okay," Gladio said, finally releasing him. "You get settled here, I'll get you a shirt to sleep in and be right back."
We'll have our own thing. It sounded almost too good to be true, but Gladio had said it with such conviction that Prompto couldn't help but believe him.
Okay so the reason why I didn't post in a hot minute was because I wrote a whole lot in October for the Whumptober event and then I got kind of a little burnt out on writing/being an author as a whole so I only really managed one unrelated thing in uhhhh December I think and nothing else. So I guess I just needed to take a little break, though I hadn't quite realised how long it actually ended up being.
On the topic of Whumptober, you can find it all posted as one fic called Bleed It Out (Whumptober 2023). If you enjoy this project, you might also enjoy my Whumptober stuff - it's really just more of the same but with more injuries, more sickfics and more angst. All FFXV, all platonic chocobros (well, almost, there's a stray Ravus in there in one fic), 31 of them. Howssat sound babey?
I won't make any promises on when the next chapter's going to be posted, we've all seen how that turns out. But just know that I have no intention of abandoning this fic. I've been furiously rotating these blorbos in my head for six years now and I'm not going to stop, and as long as I still love those boys, I'll keep working on this project.
That's it for now, be well, and I'll see you next time!
