Work Text:
“So who’re we fixing up this time?” Gladio asks.
“His name is Noctis,” Ignis says.
“Oh!” Prompto perks up. “Like the prince?”
“Exactly like the prince,” Ignis confirms, his eyes on the road.
“You can practise your love confessions on him,” Gladio says.
“I’m not – I’m not in love with the prince,” Prompto protests. “I just think he’s interesting.”
Gladio leans back in his seat. “Noctis, huh? So he’ll be young.”
“Nineteen,” Ignis says.
“How’d you know?” Prompto asks, craning back to look at Gladio.
“Name didn’t get popular until His Highness was born,” Gladio says. “Wasn’t exactly hard to figure out.”
“We know anything else about this guy?” Prompto asks, looking over at Ignis again.
Ignis doesn’t say a word.
-
It takes a while for their knock to be answered. “A late riser,” Ignis observes, quietly. “His father mentioned as much.”
The door opens at last, and Ignis launches into his usual speech, introducing the three of them, whatever. Prompto edges to the side so he can see past him, through the doorway. This is one of his favourite parts: seeing what a mess the guy’s living space is when they first show up, and then seeing how great it looks once Ignis has been at it.
Discarded clothes, half-eaten food. Blankets and cushions lying everywhere, for some reason. “Wow,” Prompto says. “Yeah, I can see why you might need hel— aah! Aaaaah!”
The prince blinks at him, looking sleepy and confused. The prince. Actual Prince Noctis.
There is no possible way this is real.
“Ignis,” Prompto hisses, yanking him back into the corridor. “Ignis.”
“May I assist?” Ignis asks, mildly.
“That’s the prince in there! That’s Prince Noctis! We are literally making over the prince.”
“Is that so?” Ignis asks. “I suppose that would explain why he looks familiar.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Ignis only smiles and goes back to talking to the crown prince, like that’s a normal thing to do.
“Okay,” Prompto mutters. “Okay. I’m definitely dreaming, and I just have to wake up before I dream-embarrass myself in front of my dream guy.”
Gladio looks over at him, eyebrows raised.
“I mean—” Prompto casts a desperate glance in the prince’s direction. He doesn’t look like he’s heard, fortunately; he mainly just looks bewildered. “I mean the guy in my dream, don’t give me that look! How are you not freaking out about this?”
“So... who are you guys?” Noctis, who is the prince, asks. “You’re not reporters, right? You look familiar.”
Ignis frowns slightly. “Were you not told to expect our arrival? I did ask your referee to warn you, but I suppose he has a great deal else to occupy his mind.”
“My referee? Seriously, who are you?”
“My apologies,” Ignis says. “You may know us as the Chocobros.”
The name for the show was Prompto’s idea, back in their first real meeting, when he was the nervous new hire. (He still kind of feels like he is, to be honest.) Gladio and Ignis already knew each other, but they wanted a third person for the show, and apparently Prompto somehow impressed them in the tryout he’s still pretty sure was actually a disaster. And he suggested they could be the Chocobros, mostly as a joke. And they went for it.
It’s still weird to hear Ignis say it. Somehow it sounds a little too grand in his voice.
“The Chocobros?” Noctis echoes, his frown deepening. “Wait, from that makeover show?”
It doesn’t sound like he actually watches it. Prompto is privately disappointed.
“What are you doing here?” Noctis asks.
“His Majesty felt you might require some assistance,” Ignis says, “in your endeavour to live independently.”
Noctis’s expression darkens. “Seriously? Seriously? I’m gonna kill him.”
Ignis pauses. “Well, if you’d rather we didn’t assist, all you’d need to do is refuse us permission to film.”
Prompto finds himself caught between hoping Noctis lets them in and really hoping he doesn’t. The prince! The! Prince! Prompto is definitely going to embarrass himself; he probably already has. But they can’t not do the episode; they’ll get so many viewers!
So many viewers, watching Prompto embarrass himself in front of Prince Noctis.
Noctis looks at Ignis for a moment, his hand on the door, and then groans. “Well, if you’re here I guess you might as well tell me what you do.”
He steps back from the doorway and gestures them in.
Prompto is being invited into Prince Noctis’s apartment.
This is a dream, right?
-
The prince has to move some pizza boxes off the couch so they can sit. Prompto can’t get his head around what a normal dude thing that is.
“We appreciate your hospitality, Your Highness,” Ignis says, taking a seat.
“Call me Noct,” the prince says. He’s still standing, shifting a little from foot to foot.
Prompto is being invited to call the prince Noct.
“You don’t feel Highness would be more appropriate?” Ignis asks.
“Don’t listen to Ignis,” Prompto says. “He’s no fun. I’ll call you Noct.” He shoots Ignis a look. Don’t take this from me.
Ignis raises his eyebrows. “I suppose I’m in no position to overrule a royal request.”
“So what did my dad ask you to do?” Noct asks. Prince Noct? Maybe just Noct.
“Well, if you’ll accept our help, we’ll work with you over the course of this week,” Ignis says. “We’ll make some lifestyle recommendations.” Noct kind of tenses up at that, and Ignis must notice too, because he adds, “Nothing very high-pressure. General advice on keeping your living space in order, maintaining a schedule et cetera. We won’t try to test or keep tabs on you, so you’re welcome to disregard anything we advise. We’ll also help to furnish your apartment.”
It does seem weirdly underfurnished for a prince’s place. There’s a couch and a TV; there aren’t any chairs or tables, there’s nowhere to sit and eat. Definitely not equipped for having guests over.
They might be able to skip the grooming with this one, though. This guy’s hair looks great.
“Fine,” Noct says. “Do your thing, I guess.”
-
They do their thing for Noct. Ignis educates him in how to dress himself, and Gladio helps him figure out a workout schedule, and Ignis teaches him some cooking basics, and Prompto takes him to a movie, and Ignis does up his apartment, and... look, Ignis pretty much does everything. Ignis always does everything. Prompto has no idea why there are three of them.
“Kid moves better than I’d expected,” Gladio says, coming into their loft from the gym and immediately peeling off his shirt. (Prompto happens to know of a popular drinking game among fans of the show, and Take a shot whenever Gladio is shirtless for no reason made him laugh almost hard enough to make up for Take a shot whenever Prompto falls over or walks into furniture in the background of a scene.) “What’s he like with you, Iggy? Spoiled royalty?”
“His Highness does not seem favourably disposed to change, one might say,” Ignis says. “Particularly with regard to his diet. He appears confused and alarmed by the prospect of vegetables.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Gladio says. He pauses, scratching his chin. “I don’t hate him, though.”
“High praise indeed,” Ignis remarks, passing Gladio a sports drink from their shared fridge.
“Just saying,” Gladio says. “Crown prince. I figured he’d be an asshole. He’s fine.”
“I’ll be sure to pass your glowing assessment on to the king.”
“What do you think of him?” Gladio asks, prodding Prompto’s shoulder. “Everything you were dreaming of?”
“Okay,” Prompto says, batting his hand away, “I wasn’t dreaming of anything.” He hesitates. “But kind of?”
Prompto’s main job is just ‘hang out with whoever they’re fixing up and bolster their confidence’. Practically everyone they work with is cool or fun or skilled and has this weird problem seeing it, which stands out extremely clearly to Prompto because they’re all way cooler than him. So he tells them how great they are. Sometimes they cry, which always gets Prompto crying as well, and it’s seriously embarrassing. He always has to fast-forward his own segments when he’s watching the episodes.
There hadn’t been any crying during Prompto’s pep talk this time. It might’ve been more ‘deranged stream of consciousness’ than ‘pep talk’. When he’s starstruck? Yeah, he rambles. He has a horrible feeling he said something along the lines of yeah, it sucks when it’s hard to wake up in the mornings, I guess sometimes it can be because you feel like you don’t have a lot to look forward to when you get up – I don’t know if that’s you, I’m just making assumptions, I’m just throwing stuff out there – but if I knew I’d be getting to look at that face in the bathroom mirror, holy crap, you’d have to strap me down to the bed to keep me in there. I mean – I mean – I’m not hitting on you, that’s probably treason or something, is that treason? It doesn’t matter, ’cause I’m not! It’s just a great face.
He definitely knows Noct cut him off in the end, looking deeply embarrassed. Look, thanks, but maybe we could just watch TV instead of... doing... whatever this is?
There’s no way Prompto’s ever going to be able to watch this episode back.
But watching TV with him, that had been good. They’d watched game shows and got kind of competitive, yelling answers at the screen. And then Noct had put on an episode of The Chocobros and laughed at Prompto pressing a cushion over his own face, too uncomfortable to watch himself on the screen.
When Cindy and the rest of the camera crew had started to pack up, Noct had looked at Prompto. Do you have to go with them?
Maybe he was just asking to be polite. But Prompto couldn’t resist staying.
They’d made supper together, a fish thing Ignis had apparently tried to teach Noct the day before. Nebula salmon in pastry. It had ended up a little burnt on the edges, but Noct had been so proud of himself it had kind of made Prompto’s heart flutter, in a super manly way.
This job is incredible sometimes. Getting to live and work with Ignis and Gladio; getting to watch people gain confidence. Getting to interact with the crown prince, as a person. Prompto still has no idea how he ended up here, but he’s glad he did.
-
The week comes to an end way too quickly.
“Okay,” Noct says, very reluctantly. “I guess maybe my dad was right. Maybe I needed a hand. Thanks.”
“We all do, on occasion,” Ignis says. “Does this mean you’ll take my advice about your vegetable intake to heart?”
Noct winces. “I’ll think about it.”
Gladio snorts. “Keep up the workouts, at least. Maybe I’ll see you down the gym sometime.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right.” Noct pulls out his phone. “I wanted to ask for your numbers. Maybe we could... you know, maybe we could hang out? I mean, this...” He scratches the back of his neck. He’s not looking at any of them. “It’s been good. You know? I’m glad I could meet you guys.”
Holy crap! The prince wants Prompto’s phone number!
Prompto’s about to take out his own phone before he realises Ignis has gone tense.
Wait. Crap. Yeah, this has happened a couple of times before. Somehow, in Prompto’s head, Noct would be different.
Gladio signals to Cindy and the crew to stop filming.
“This isn’t anything personal, I assure you,” Ignis says, quietly, “but we have a policy of not developing a personal relationship with clients.”
Noct takes a step back. “I mean – I thought...”
His expression hurts. All Prompto can think about is the barely-furnished apartment before Ignis fixed it up. Nowhere to sit and eat. No expectation that he’d ever have guests over.
“We are professionals, Your Highness,” Ignis says. “Given the nature of our work, you might be forgiven for feeling we formed some sort of intimate connection, but it is important not to mistake it for true intimacy.”
There’s a pause.
“Okay,” Noct says.
“I apologise if we misled you.”
“No, it’s fine,” Noct says. He looks pissed off and embarrassed and Prompto’s stomach is crumpling up in sympathy. “It’s your job. I was stupid. I get that.”
Prompto desperately tries to apologise to Noct with his eyes. The thing is, he understands they have to be professionally detached, he knows that, but...
But would it really be that bad, if they made actual friends with one client? Well, yeah, one client who happened to be royalty, but...
“I won’t bug you again,” Noct says.
Prompto feels like the worst person in the world.
-
For a while, after they get back to their loft, Prompto just sits in miserable silence. At last, though, he works up the courage to approach Ignis about it.
“I’m just saying,” Prompto says, “if it’s so important to keep personal and professional lives separate, why are we living together?”
“That’s entirely different,” Ignis says. “We’ve already made a commitment to spend a substantial amount of time together for the programme, and we know we enjoy each other’s company.”
They enjoy Prompto’s company! No, wait, focus.
“Are you saying you didn’t like him?” Prompto asks. “I liked him.”
“If you’ll forgive my saying so,” Ignis says, “you seem to like everyone we work with.”
“Well, yeah! We’ve worked with a bunch of cool people. But most of them don’t try to stay friends after.”
“To be friends,” Ignis says, gently but firmly. “Saying ‘to stay friends’ implies they were friends in the first place. They’re simply people we’ve worked with. Spending time with one client socially will lead others to have expectations that we can’t feasibly fulfil.”
“Ugh,” Prompto says. “Sorry we can’t all be robots. What am I supposed to do, forget about the guy the moment we walk out the door?”
Ignis pauses.
“I liked His Highness, certainly,” he says, quietly. “It’s all the more reason we need to keep him at arm’s length.”
-
Ignis is right. They can’t be friends with the people they work with. It’s a show, it’s entertainment. Maybe – hopefully – they leave a few people with their lives a little better, but they can’t be part of those lives.
They don’t have the time to hang out socially with everyone. They wouldn’t want to. And they can’t just become actual friends with the clients they really like, and go ‘okay, we’ve done our job, bye’ to the rest, because they work with a lot of lonely people with low self-esteem, and that’s going to make some of them feel really bad.
If they don’t get personally involved with any of their clients, most of them are going to know where the boundaries are. If they get personally involved with even one of them, and their new clients know about that, they’re going to start having to have that horrible ‘no, we can’t be friends’ conversation with everyone.
Wait. There’s a loophole here. If they get personally involved, and their new clients know about that. So... maybe the answer is to be secret friends?
Right. Yeah. Because it’s totally possible to be secret friends with the crown prince of Lucis. Not like that guy ever gets photographed.
Prompto should probably just let this go. But... he knows what it’s like to be lonely. And it doesn’t seem possible that this incredibly important, good-looking guy is dealing with the same feelings Prompto did as a total nobody, but he knows what he saw in Noct’s face when he got turned down.
-
“I think we need another presenter,” Prompto says.
He feels kind of giddy suggesting it. It’s not his show! He’s not the one who came up with it! Is he allowed to say things like this?
“Taking some of the pressure off Iggy?” Gladio asks. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking it too.”
Prompto is instantly, infinitely grateful to Gladio.
“I don’t feel I’m unduly pressured,” Ignis says. “I’m happy to fulfil my role. But I’m willing to listen to your suggestion.”
“Grooming,” Gladio says, starting to tick things off on his fingers. “Fashion. Food. Interior design. All on one person. I just help with exercise. Prompto, what’s his job title? ‘Buddy’?”
“Emotional support is an important role,” Ignis says, “and Prompto is the most approachable of us.”
Prompto squirms, trying not to blush too hard.
“Not saying it’s not,” Gladio says. “Just saying, there’s kind of an imbalance of work here. We’re doing well. We’ve got the budget to take someone else on.”
Ignis adjusts his glasses. “I suppose we could hold auditions. It’s important to have someone who works well with all of us.”
“Hey,” Prompto says, bouncing restlessly on his toes. “Hey, I have an idea. What about Noct?”
There’s a pause.
“To clarify,” Ignis says, “you’re referring to His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum?”
Gladio snorts. “Guy’s a mess. You want him on television giving out lifestyle advice?”
“Hey, I’m a mess,” Prompto says. “It’s all about finding your niche. Like, his hair looks great, he knows something about that, we could send him on a hairdressing course—”
“Have you discussed this with His Highness?” Ignis asks. “Or indeed with His Majesty, who may also have something to say about it?”
Prompto hesitates. “I mean, no?”
“I see,” Ignis says. It’s very mild and yet somehow manages to feel absolutely scathing.
“But, you know, he’d – it would be great for ratings. Right?”
“Not wrong there,” Gladio admits. “If he’d go for it. Who wouldn’t tune in to watch the crown prince cutting hair for the public?”
“And... you know, I wouldn’t mind seeing him again,” Prompto admits, trying to speak as quietly as possible so maybe they won’t actually hear it. It occurs to him too late that ‘not talking at all’ might be a better strategy for that.
He glances up from the floor and catches Ignis’s eyes. He’s expecting scorn.
“He was reasonably personable,” Ignis says, after a moment. “And he did seem rather bad at looking after himself. It might benefit the entire kingdom if we kept him where we can keep an eye on him.”
-
Noct opens his door. He kind of lights up when he sees them, just for half a second, and then goes straight to closed-off wariness, like he’s expecting a punch in the face.
“Do you have a moment to speak?” Ignis asks. “We have a proposition for you.”
-
“Seriously?” Noct asks. “I can’t do anything.”
“We’ll get you trained,” Gladio says. “Honestly, Iggy’s the only one who pulls the weight around here anyway. Rest of us just stand around and look pretty. You can do that much.”
Noct gives him a flat look. “I’m touched by your confidence in me.”
“Hey, if you wanted someone to pretend we want you ’cause you’re the best guy for the job, you should’ve asked Prompto,” Gladio says. “Your qualification is being the prince. You just show up and we’ll get every viewer in Lucis. You want the job or not?”
Noct folds his arms. “Only if you give me more martial arts lessons so I can kick your ass.”
Gladio smirks. “I’ll take that deal. Like to see you try.”
“You mean it?” Prompto asks, trying and failing not to hop on the spot. “You want to be a Chocobro?”
“I... guess so,” Noct says. “I know I don’t want to live like royalty. I mean, fine, I guess one day I’ll be king, I’ll step up and do it when I have to, but it might be good to live like a normal person until then. Just... have a normal job.”
There’s a pause.
“Uh,” Prompto says, “hate to break it to you, buddy...”
“Yeah,” Gladio says, “not sure ‘presenter on Lucis’s biggest reality show’ counts as a ‘normal job’.”
“Oh,” Noct says. “Right, yeah. I... don’t know if I’d be good in front of cameras. I mean, I’ve been filmed for stuff about the royal family; I just get awkward.”
Noct needs to stop ruining Prompto’s brilliant excuse to be friends with him.
“You spent a week in front of cameras very recently,” Ignis says. “You acquitted yourself perfectly well.”
Noct hesitates. “I guess so. It didn’t really feel like being in front of cameras. It was just... being with you guys.”
“So you won’t be in front of cameras, right?” Prompto says. “You’ll be with us.”
Noct laughs at that, and it’s quiet and warm, and hopefully they’ll all get the chance to hear it plenty of times in the future. “Sounds good.”