Work Text:
“Respool the line before it’s too late.”
“How about I respool your head, Gladio?”
“Noctis.” Clarus Amicitia-Caelum held a loop of his fishing line, tilted his fly rod back, and cast his lure out to the dark waters on the opposite end of the river. He and his youngest son, Noct, were both standing up to their ankles in the slow-moving water, while his eldest, Gladio, sat on a large stone on the bank. Clarus’ husband, Regis Lucis Amicitia-Caelum and King of the realm, was leaning back against a tree and watching them all with the slight quirk of the lips that counted as his smile.
The water that ran past Clarus’ legs was bracingly cold, and he could hear the rustle of white herons settling in the eaves above. The last time he’d had the time to go fly fishing, he had to bribe Cid to watch a nineteen-year-old Prince Regis, who had an uncanny habit of disappearing the moment Clarus had a proper fish on the line.
“If Gladio thinks he knows so much,” Noctis said, flipping black hair out of his eyes, “then why doesn’t he try catching a trout for once?”
“As if you’ll let me,” Gladio called, and Noct twisted round to flip him a very un-princely gesture indeed.
“Careful, Noctis,” Regis said, and Noct scowled.
Gladio sighed. “Why don’t we cut our losses and go back to the cabin?” he asked. “We’ve been out here forever, and there’s no reception.”
His brother reeled in his line and clumsily casted into the center of the river. “Yeah?” he asked. “Can’t wait to text a million selfies to Ignis, huh?”
“Like you didn’t spend the whole car ride here writing love poetry to Prompto.”
“Boys,” Clarus said, in the tone of a man with sunscreen, a fully-stocked tacklebox, and a limited supply of patience. “If you don’t stop bickering and behave, your father and I will not hesitate to take your phones away for the remainder of the trip.”
“We won’t?” Regis asked, and smiled at the warning look in his husband’s eyes. “Of course. Don’t fight, sons.” He settled back against the tree as both Gladio and Noctis erupted into furious, panicky protests, looking for all the world like a man with all the time in Eos.
---
The road trip had been in the works since Gladio was twelve, when the Niflheim army surrendered following their defeat at the borders of Galahd. Giddy with victory and what felt like centuries of relief, King Regis had burst into the royal manor to find his children gathered in the living room, playing with toy swords. They all stared at each other in shock as their normally cool-headed father strode into the middle of the mess, declared the next week to be a pizza-for-breakfast and waffles-for-dinner celebration, and suggested that they all go out on vacation as soon as the peace treaty was ratified.
The ratification took a bit longer than expected, but Regis was nothing if not true to his word. Shortly after Noctis’ seventeenth birthday, he, Clarus, Noctis and Gladiolus piled into the Regalia and set a course for Duscae.
Iris, unfortunately, had come down with a nasty, infectious bout of strep throat, so the vacation was cut short so that they could all go on a trip to the beach of Gladin Quay at a later time. As it was, they had to leave Iris coughing miserably on the couch while Cor Leonis, resident Marshal of the Lucian military turned babysitter, watched the manor in their absence.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Clarus said, as they left the city of Insomnia. “Looking after a sick eleven-year-old can’t be that difficult.” Regis snorted.
“We’ll see.”
Now, shortly after their two-day stay in a cabin out on the slopes of Duscae, Regis looked down at the smoking hood of the Regalia and sighed.
“Used the last of the water, Dad,” Gladio said, leaning heavily against the passenger-side door. “At least it isn’t gonna set on fire anymore.”
“I’m starving,” Noct moaned, from where he lay behind the car. Clarus nudged his leg with a foot, and the boy groaned and rolled over.
“I believe we’ve lost a prince, love,” Clarus said. Regis raised his brows and leaned over to get a look at his middle child.
“Mm, well. How do you feel about taking the throne, Gladiolus?”
“I can give it a shot. Does this mean Noct’s my shield? He’s kinda scrawny.”
“I got muscle,” Noct said, and Regis chuckled softly as he climbed into the front seat.
“Good to know, son,” Clarus told him. “Then you can use it to help us push the car to Hammerhead.”
"Daaaaaad."
Regis leaned back on the soft fabric of the driver's seat, and reached over to scruff his son's hair as Noctis took up position next to him, pushing the car down the sweltering road with all the fury of a seventeen-year-old with no internet and a family full of traitors.
---
"And this," Regis said, waving out the window towards a field of wheat, "is where the Battle of Diet was held. Diet, of course, being another word for a meeting, which has a funny little history regarding the warrior chieftain of Hale, who set up a table for tea in the middle of the field..."
Noctis slid down his seat, sinking into a puddle of painfully bored teenage ooze. Next to him, Gladio lay upside down with his feet on the back of the seat, flipping through a paranormal romance about high school vampires with every indication of enjoyment.
"And here," Regis continued, "is where your father and I first made sweet, passionate love together..."
Gladiolus turned a page. Noct continued staring up at the sky in mute despair. At Regis' side, Clarus leaned over and patted his husband's shoulder.
"I was listening, Reg," he said.
Regis let out a gusty sigh. "Fine," he said, making a sharp u-turn. "We can go to the chocobo races. Gods forbid we try to make this trip remotely educational."
Noct flailed from his spot halfway to the floor, kicking Gladiolus in the back of the head. Gladio yelped and dropped his book. "Chocobos?" Noct asked. His brother gave him a slow, knowing look, and he tried to put on a bored, unaffected expression. "I mean, yeah, sure. Sounds cool, I guess."
"Nice save, man." Gladio ruffled Noct's hair. Noct tugged at the end of Gladio's man-bun. Gladio pushed Noct's shoulder, and then Regis had to pull over the car as the two boys wrestled themselves off of the seat and partly onto the back of the Regalia, laughing and shrieking loud enough to wake every behemoth in the surrounding area.
"We've raised a pack of wolves," Regis said, turning round to stare as Noct shoved a bare foot in Gladiolus' face.
"I don't know, love," Clarus said, as Gladio wrapped his brother in a chokehold. "There's hope for Iris, at least."
----
"I mean this with deep respect, Your Majesty," Cor Leonis said, frowning into the video chat on Regis' phone, "but I think there may be something... off... about Iris."
"Of course, Leonis," Regis said. "She's ill. That's the point of your being there."
"All she does is draw pictures of Kenny Crow," Cor said. There was a shuffling, and a white sheet of paper was shoved into the screen, depicting a poorly-drawn picture of a green-clad crow fighting a purple-haired man in a ridiculous hat. "She has an entire story about him now. Maybe it's the fever talking, but... The part where the crow... man... creature entered this giant crystal and the world fell to darkness for ten years..."
"Ah, yes, the manga she's drawing," Clarus said.
"The ending is just a complicated murder-suicide!" Cor cried. "She's making us act out the parts like a play. I'm... I'm a little unsettled, Your M—"
"DAD." Iris' face mashed into the frame, shoving Cor out of the way. "Dad! Did you really go see chocobos without me?"
"We'll go again when you're better, darling," Regis said. "Do try not to break Cor's spirit while we're away."
Iris coughed. "I'll try, but it's so easy, Dad. Oh! Oh! Noct! Noctis."
Regis waved his son over, and Noct squinted into the screen.
"Hey, nerd," he said. Iris scowled.
"I wanted to tell you," she said, "Now that you're, you know, out on your big trip cross-country, I decided to look around a bit. And guess what? I found the key to the bottom drawer of your desk. You know. The one with the magazines."
“Magazines?” Regis asked, in a cheery tone.
"You what." Noct's hands clenched into claws on the upholstery of the car. Behind him, Gladio let out a low whistle and patted his back in comfort.
Iris winked. "Anyways, I gotta go! Cor promised he'd play the part of Lord Ravenous, and I don't wanna keep him waiting. Love you Dad, love you Daddy! Love you Gladio! Love you soooo much, Noctis!"
"I'm going to strangle y—" Noct fell forward as his father lightly smacked the back of his head, and the screen of the phone went black. Noct groaned and fell sideways onto the backseat, and Gladio gently rubbed his shoulder.
"Do I want to know?" Clarus asked.
"No!" both boys shouted at once, and Clarus ran his fingers up the back of Regis' neck as the king struggled to keep his composure, shoulders shaking with the force of repressed laughter.
---
King Regis sat on the hood of the Regalia, back pressed to his husband's chest. Clarus' arms were wrapped around him as the two men watched their sons gently corral Gladiolus' rogue rented chocobo out from a charred, smoke-ridden path leading towards the Disc of Cauthess. Above them, thunder rolled and boomed, dark clouds heavy with the promise of rain.
"You know, Clarus," he said, as Gladio yelped and skidded into a warm pool of mud. "This has to be the most relaxing week I've spent in years."
Noctis, whose arm was in a sling thanks to a warping accident during an afternoon spent hunting down frogs, tried to heave his brother out of the mud one-handed. Gladiolus' hand shot out and dragged him down, taking care that his brother landed on his back. A glorious spray of muddy water shone against the grey sky.
"You're quite right," Clarus said, as fluent curses echoed throughout the stone steppes of the Disc. "The Empire no longer knocking on our door. The Oracle well on her way to cleansing the Scourge..."
Noctis held out Gladio's leather jacket, and the mud on it froze in sheets of ice, cracking away to shatter on the ground. So, too, did pieces of the jacket itself.
"I do believe we'll be alright," Regis said. Noctis screeched and ran into a stuttering warp towards the car, a furious Gladiolus at his heels. As the two boys went tumbling into the grass near the car, the chocobo they'd been cornering ran past them, stepping squarely on Gladio's back as it scampered off into the distance.
With the sound of their sons scrabbling and cursing in the grass at their feet, the buzz of their phones going off with updates on Iris' new production, and the sun just beginning to set beyond the dark clouds over the Disc, King and Shield kissed slow and soft, savoring the warmth that only true peace could bring.