[A/N - Sorry this took so long :< I've been really busy and work has been burning me out so, apologies. Not proof-read as really I just wanted to get it up and stop picking at it]
3. I rebuild when I break down.
The first time Ravus has a panic attack he is seven years old and gets lost in the forest surrounding Tenebrae's palace. He doesn't recall the finer details, only the way the trees seemed to spiral in on him as the ground shifts and unsettles his feet, and that by the time his mother finds him, he has half-burrowed into the hollow remains of a treetrunk, filthy and half-delirious with panic. He remembers the after, too, how he felt weary and not quite there for hours, and the deepset itch in his skin. Anxiety attacks follow and he learns how discomfort felt when it was everywhere at once, and how to anticipate and hide the worst of it. Adolescence turns into adulthood, and as Lunafreya becomes the youngest Oracle in history, and Ravus takes his seat within Niflheim's empire, he perfects the facade, knowing he can't risk to shed a single drop of blood, lest the hounds waiting for him to stumble devour him alive.
The war over and peace returned to Eos does not herald calm within his bones, however, though the pressure on the back of his skull recedes for all of a few weeks amidst the meetings and public addresses that bring in the new Era. Ravus is still not head of House Fleuret, but he serves in her place as Lunafreya recovers, safeguarding Tenebrae's position and allowing Lucian and Accordian heads of state to bare their grievances with him until the tables are bare and the true talks begin. Noctis has his back when he is present – something Ravus is knee-quakingly grateful for – and Luna offers her support when she can, further protecting Tenebrae's position within the new treaties, and the morning that Lucis will publish the new terms, Ravus wakes two hours before his alarm with the uncanny and insistent notion that something is terribly wrong.
It begins with a weighty pressure on his forehead that drags him off balance as he sits up in the half-light, and spreads down through his torso to the pads of his fingers and toes until his limbs wrack with tremours. Ravus scoots carefully to the edge of the bed, noticing that Prompto is gone; the coolness of the sheets on that side of the bed belying the age of the absence, and Ravus wonders, briefly, if this is better or worse. He reaches for the glass of water on the bedside table, spilling some of it onto his pyjama-clad thigh as he raises it to his lips. There is a note beside the water pitcher, he notices when he replaces the glass, and Ravus recognises Prompto's scrawling handwriting before he reads it;
Ravus -
Sorry to leave you. Noct's called an urgent meeting, us only. Nothing to worry about.
See you for lunch? :)
- Prom xxx
Ravus sets the paper back down and slides down the sheets again, closes his eyes and tries to relax back into sleep and still his thoughts and body both.
It doesn't work, and Ravus grows bored quickly. He rises, goes to the bathroom and turns the shower on, confident that the room – a guest suite within the Citadel itself – must be at least soundproof enough for him to have a shower without disturbing anyone else, even at this hour.
He showers, thoroughly, dresses in the white suit with the back accents Luna had insisted he wear, fastens the black and silver tie at his neck, then unfastens it when the pressure is too much against his skin. The sun finally crests the wall visible from his window, and Ravus checks the clock on the wall again, checks the dog-eared schedule that a servant had handed him on the first day of the summit. Prompto isn't officially attending any of these meetings, but no one is going to stand in the way of one of the King of Light's entourage, and Prompto has that ability to charm anyone into liking him and there is little doubt in Ravus's mind that he'll be in all of those meetings today.
Ravus paces the room again, counts the number of times his boot heels click against the marble floor on each circuit until he loses count and his thoughts echo louder than ever until he's almost sure he can hear them escape from his head to reverberate against the dark walls and rebound a little more distorted each time. He closes his eyes and sits down on the edge of the bed, his thoughts crossing briefly to Prompto, and Ravus knows that his little blond boyfriend would know just what to say and how to say it to calm the fluttering of his nerves, and the wound-sensitive way his skin feels, and Ravus allows himself this moment of weakness, the fingers of his prosthetic (still metal, no longer sharp-edged and made from a material lighter and more in tune with his body temperature than Magitek) curling tight in the sheets. The edge of a joint in his little finger snags as he moves his hand away, tearing a hole in the delicate fabric. It's a small thing; unlikely to be noticed by the cleaning staff, but Ravus feels the past few hours clump together like a solid mass and it undoes all the reasoning and positive thoughts that have tried to cleave through.
Ravus reaches for the schedule Prompto had left on his side of the bed.
Breaks are scheduled at regular intervals, of course, but the tea and coffee breaks are too short for this, and Ravus just can't justify taking Prompto away from his duties to the crown just because it's only his voice and his touch that will still the demons inside Ravus's head. He paces the length of the room once more, twice, and then unzips his boots and leans back until he freefalls onto the mattress. The ceiling is mapped by white veins running across the black marble, and Ravus concentrates hard on tracing each line until his vision goes funny and he feels like he's floating a foot off of the mattress, and the dizzy pressure on his joints makes continuing the game near enough impossible.
He leaves the suite then, lets the door click shut without checking whether or not it automatically locks, and follows the route down into the royal gardens. The guide had pointed it out to him during the tour so Ravus is sure it's not out of bounds, but he doesn't too much care right now, anyway. It's a distraction until the meeting ends, though Ravus finds himself pacing outside the council room door eventually anyway. The door is guarded by two King's Glaive soldiers, neither of whom pay Ravus much mind, either when he first arrives or when he fails to leave after the aide stood to one side tells him that the meeting isn't due to finish for another half an hour, and that it's more than likely not going to finish on time. It's fine, Ravus says, he's a patient man.
The meeting overruns by thirty-five minutes and forty-six seconds.
Ravus bites a ragged crescent into the nail on his thumb, and the wound leaves a pink smear on the white sleeve of his formal jacket that he knows Prompto will notice first. It stings as he presses a handkerchief against it to try and still the bleeding, but the pain grounds him more into the now and out of the misty other he has been entertaining most of the day.
He's thinking maybe he's persisted through it when one of the double doors into the meeting chamber sighs open and the illusions shatters as Ravus turns bodily towards it, feels his neck twinge in protest, but accepts the later pain with nary a concerned thought. Ravus watches the women and men of the new royal council walk out, scans each until a familiar tuft of blond hair comes into view, and Ravus pauses mid-step as he sees Prompto in animated conversation with the young king. Something settles in the pit of his stomach, threatens to drag him to his knees, and Ravus feels physically sick because now he looks clingy, and maybe like a stalker...Is that what they'll think of him now? Prompto is a valued and talented member of the council, and the general public have his ear and he has their trust, and Ravus has barely that as he tries to help Lunafreya restore Tenebrae and reassure his citizens and -
Ravus isn't aware he's hyperventilating until Prompto's hand is on his right arm, and when he opens his eyes (when had he closed them?) Prompto's mouth is moving, and Ravus can't make out his words over the white noise in his ears, but he can tell he's worried by the crease between his eyebrows.
“..... a sec,”
Prompto's hands are on his arm again, firmer now, and Ravus allows himself to be lead and sat down somewhere. He's on the floor, against a wall, he can tell this much from the solid mass at his back and beneath his legs. Prompto is there again, leaning up against his side and Ravus feels himself part the surface enough to feel it in real time when Prompto wraps his arms around him.
“Why didn't you tell me it was this bad?”
Prompto's tone is sad, hurt, but it sounds like an accusation and Ravus wants to curl in on himself and just hibernate until this is erased from living memory.
“I apolo-”
“Damnit, Ravus, don't apologise!”
He doesn't want to, but the flinch is automatic and Ravus reaches for Prompto on the rebound to stop him pulling away.
“Don't..”
“...Shit, I'm sorry,”
Prompto huffs in annoyance, though Ravus can tell even now that it's directed inwards,]
“It's just...you could have come got me, you know?”
“It was not-”
“Don't tell me it's not important. Please, don't tell me that.”
“Then I won't.”
They sit in silence for several moments before Ravus broaches speech again.
“It was not urgent. I can deal with this much on my own.”
Beside him Prompt sighs and presses his face into the hollow between Ravus's collar and his throat.
“...You freaked me out there.”
“I'm sorry. I did not intend to.”
“Geez, I know that. No one asks to have a panic attack.” “It has been a while since the last...there are fewer distractions here, and more....”
Ravus twists his mouth as he considers his words, wishing to be honest without over speaking;
“There is more fuel here.”
Beside him Prompto swears and presses the heel of one hand against his forehead,
“Shit, you're right. I didn't even think, the Citadel, c'mon, let's go get a hotel room instead. I'd take you to my place but er...that neighbourhood was kind of flattened during the invasion. Not that that's a problem, really, I mean, it was a shithole and about to fall to pieces anyway so maybe the Niffs kind of did it a favour, but yeah, I wouldn't have taken you there even if it was still standing. That crappy apartment is no place for a prince, or my boyfriend.”
Prompto is still talking as he takes his phone out and books them a room at a nearby hotel instead. Ravus closes his eyes again and concentrates on the inflections in his voice and lets the words all meld together as he drifts down. When he reopens his eyes, Prompto is watching him with a mixture of concern and relief, and when Ravus smiles at him, Prompto nearly tackles him to the ground in a hug that threatens to squeeze the air right out of him.
“Don't do that again.”
It's spoken so softly that Ravus almost doesn't hear it, and he lifts his arms to return the hug then, and lets Prompto drag him to his feet a moment later.
“I will try.”
“I mean it. Don't. I don't.....look, those meetings are important, sure, but so much of it is just...”
Prompto lowers his voice.
“There's a lot of back-and-forthing. It's not...restoring the whole of Lucis, and working out how to best deal with the remnants of the Empire – no you don't get to feel guilty about that, stop it – is kind of a mess, so...anyway, you're never interrupting, Ravus, and... Noct said if you do that again he'll order you to come sit in these meetings with us.”
His reluctance must show on his face because Prompto laughs.
“Yeah, I thought you'd feel that way.”
Ravus feels an answering chuckle slip out of his mouth and he allows it, looking around for the first time and realising then that they were still stood in the foyer, the doors to the council room closed once more, and all the guests and guards gone.
“What-”
“Oh, yeah, Noct told everyone to get lost. Well, more politely and kingly like, anyway.”
It's not something Ravus had expected from Noctis, not as king or as the friend of his sister.
“Why?”
“Oh, geez, c'mon,”
Prompto lightly smacks his arm and laughs softly.
“Noctis doesn't hate you. I don't think he hates anyone. Well, Ardyn might be an exception but that guy was a creep and you're definitely not a creep.”
That makes Ravus laugh, albeit quietly, and he lets Prompto take him back to their suite.
“Thank you.”
He says after a pause, and he smiles when Prompto reappears from the other side of his bed with a pair of socks in one hand.
“Anytime. I'm your boyfriend, yeah? It's what I do. And, even if I wasn't – no I'm not thinking about that – even if I wasn't I'd still do.”
Prompto crosses the room and leans up to loop his arms around Ravus's neck, and Ravus leans down to meet him halfway into the kiss, feeling fingers slid into his neatly combed hair and tease it back into disarray and Ravus lets him, picks Prompto up and carries him back to the bed, drops him the last foot onto it and takes advantage of his surprise to join him, meeting his mouth in another kiss. The dark and heavy feelings from before are forgotten as Prompto kisses him back and traces prickles of light along his skin wherever he touches. Ravus's consciousness retracts until it begins and ends with Prompto's hands on him, and outside the open curtains night falls without witness.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: [Fill] Prompto/Ravus - Show me where my Armour ends (3/6)
Date: 2017-03-18 10:13 am (UTC)3. I rebuild when I break down.
The first time Ravus has a panic attack he is seven years old and gets lost in the forest surrounding Tenebrae's palace. He doesn't recall the finer details, only the way the trees seemed to spiral in on him as the ground shifts and unsettles his feet, and that by the time his mother finds him, he has half-burrowed into the hollow remains of a treetrunk, filthy and half-delirious with panic. He remembers the after, too, how he felt weary and not quite there for hours, and the deepset itch in his skin. Anxiety attacks follow and he learns how discomfort felt when it was everywhere at once, and how to anticipate and hide the worst of it. Adolescence turns into adulthood, and as Lunafreya becomes the youngest Oracle in history, and Ravus takes his seat within Niflheim's empire, he perfects the facade, knowing he can't risk to shed a single drop of blood, lest the hounds waiting for him to stumble devour him alive.
The war over and peace returned to Eos does not herald calm within his bones, however, though the pressure on the back of his skull recedes for all of a few weeks amidst the meetings and public addresses that bring in the new Era. Ravus is still not head of House Fleuret, but he serves in her place as Lunafreya recovers, safeguarding Tenebrae's position and allowing Lucian and Accordian heads of state to bare their grievances with him until the tables are bare and the true talks begin. Noctis has his back when he is present – something Ravus is knee-quakingly grateful for – and Luna offers her support when she can, further protecting Tenebrae's position within the new treaties, and the morning that Lucis will publish the new terms, Ravus wakes two hours before his alarm with the uncanny and insistent notion that something is terribly wrong.
It begins with a weighty pressure on his forehead that drags him off balance as he sits up in the half-light, and spreads down through his torso to the pads of his fingers and toes until his limbs wrack with tremours. Ravus scoots carefully to the edge of the bed, noticing that Prompto is gone; the coolness of the sheets on that side of the bed belying the age of the absence, and Ravus wonders, briefly, if this is better or worse. He reaches for the glass of water on the bedside table, spilling some of it onto his pyjama-clad thigh as he raises it to his lips. There is a note beside the water pitcher, he notices when he replaces the glass, and Ravus recognises Prompto's scrawling handwriting before he reads it;
Ravus -
Sorry to leave you. Noct's called an urgent meeting, us only. Nothing to worry about.
See you for lunch? :)
- Prom xxx
Ravus sets the paper back down and slides down the sheets again, closes his eyes and tries to relax back into sleep and still his thoughts and body both.
It doesn't work, and Ravus grows bored quickly. He rises, goes to the bathroom and turns the shower on, confident that the room – a guest suite within the Citadel itself – must be at least soundproof enough for him to have a shower without disturbing anyone else, even at this hour.
He showers, thoroughly, dresses in the white suit with the back accents Luna had insisted he wear, fastens the black and silver tie at his neck, then unfastens it when the pressure is too much against his skin. The sun finally crests the wall visible from his window, and Ravus checks the clock on the wall again, checks the dog-eared schedule that a servant had handed him on the first day of the summit. Prompto isn't officially attending any of these meetings, but no one is going to stand in the way of one of the King of Light's entourage, and Prompto has that ability to charm anyone into liking him and there is little doubt in Ravus's mind that he'll be in all of those meetings today.
Ravus paces the room again, counts the number of times his boot heels click against the marble floor on each circuit until he loses count and his thoughts echo louder than ever until he's almost sure he can hear them escape from his head to reverberate against the dark walls and rebound a little more distorted each time. He closes his eyes and sits down on the edge of the bed, his thoughts crossing briefly to Prompto, and Ravus knows that his little blond boyfriend would know just what to say and how to say it to calm the fluttering of his nerves, and the wound-sensitive way his skin feels, and Ravus allows himself this moment of weakness, the fingers of his prosthetic (still metal, no longer sharp-edged and made from a material lighter and more in tune with his body temperature than Magitek) curling tight in the sheets. The edge of a joint in his little finger snags as he moves his hand away, tearing a hole in the delicate fabric. It's a small thing; unlikely to be noticed by the cleaning staff, but Ravus feels the past few hours clump together like a solid mass and it undoes all the reasoning and positive thoughts that have tried to cleave through.
Ravus reaches for the schedule Prompto had left on his side of the bed.
Breaks are scheduled at regular intervals, of course, but the tea and coffee breaks are too short for this, and Ravus just can't justify taking Prompto away from his duties to the crown just because it's only his voice and his touch that will still the demons inside Ravus's head. He paces the length of the room once more, twice, and then unzips his boots and leans back until he freefalls onto the mattress. The ceiling is mapped by white veins running across the black marble, and Ravus concentrates hard on tracing each line until his vision goes funny and he feels like he's floating a foot off of the mattress, and the dizzy pressure on his joints makes continuing the game near enough impossible.
He leaves the suite then, lets the door click shut without checking whether or not it automatically locks, and follows the route down into the royal gardens. The guide had pointed it out to him during the tour so Ravus is sure it's not out of bounds, but he doesn't too much care right now, anyway. It's a distraction until the meeting ends, though Ravus finds himself pacing outside the council room door eventually anyway. The door is guarded by two King's Glaive soldiers, neither of whom pay Ravus much mind, either when he first arrives or when he fails to leave after the aide stood to one side tells him that the meeting isn't due to finish for another half an hour, and that it's more than likely not going to finish on time. It's fine, Ravus says, he's a patient man.
The meeting overruns by thirty-five minutes and forty-six seconds.
Ravus bites a ragged crescent into the nail on his thumb, and the wound leaves a pink smear on the white sleeve of his formal jacket that he knows Prompto will notice first. It stings as he presses a handkerchief against it to try and still the bleeding, but the pain grounds him more into the now and out of the misty other he has been entertaining most of the day.
He's thinking maybe he's persisted through it when one of the double doors into the meeting chamber sighs open and the illusions shatters as Ravus turns bodily towards it, feels his neck twinge in protest, but accepts the later pain with nary a concerned thought. Ravus watches the women and men of the new royal council walk out, scans each until a familiar tuft of blond hair comes into view, and Ravus pauses mid-step as he sees Prompto in animated conversation with the young king. Something settles in the pit of his stomach, threatens to drag him to his knees, and Ravus feels physically sick because now he looks clingy, and maybe like a stalker...Is that what they'll think of him now? Prompto is a valued and talented member of the council, and the general public have his ear and he has their trust, and Ravus has barely that as he tries to help Lunafreya restore Tenebrae and reassure his citizens and -
Ravus isn't aware he's hyperventilating until Prompto's hand is on his right arm, and when he opens his eyes (when had he closed them?) Prompto's mouth is moving, and Ravus can't make out his words over the white noise in his ears, but he can tell he's worried by the crease between his eyebrows.
“..... a sec,”
Prompto's hands are on his arm again, firmer now, and Ravus allows himself to be lead and sat down somewhere. He's on the floor, against a wall, he can tell this much from the solid mass at his back and beneath his legs. Prompto is there again, leaning up against his side and Ravus feels himself part the surface enough to feel it in real time when Prompto wraps his arms around him.
“Why didn't you tell me it was this bad?”
Prompto's tone is sad, hurt, but it sounds like an accusation and Ravus wants to curl in on himself and just hibernate until this is erased from living memory.
“I apolo-”
“Damnit, Ravus, don't apologise!”
He doesn't want to, but the flinch is automatic and Ravus reaches for Prompto on the rebound to stop him pulling away.
“Don't..”
“...Shit, I'm sorry,”
Prompto huffs in annoyance, though Ravus can tell even now that it's directed inwards,]
“It's just...you could have come got me, you know?”
“It was not-”
“Don't tell me it's not important. Please, don't tell me that.”
“Then I won't.”
They sit in silence for several moments before Ravus broaches speech again.
“It was not urgent. I can deal with this much on my own.”
Beside him Prompt sighs and presses his face into the hollow between Ravus's collar and his throat.
“...You freaked me out there.”
“I'm sorry. I did not intend to.”
“Geez, I know that. No one asks to have a panic attack.”
“It has been a while since the last...there are fewer distractions here, and more....”
Ravus twists his mouth as he considers his words, wishing to be honest without over speaking;
“There is more fuel here.”
Beside him Prompto swears and presses the heel of one hand against his forehead,
“Shit, you're right. I didn't even think, the Citadel, c'mon, let's go get a hotel room instead. I'd take you to my place but er...that neighbourhood was kind of flattened during the invasion. Not that that's a problem, really, I mean, it was a shithole and about to fall to pieces anyway so maybe the Niffs kind of did it a favour, but yeah, I wouldn't have taken you there even if it was still standing. That crappy apartment is no place for a prince, or my boyfriend.”
Prompto is still talking as he takes his phone out and books them a room at a nearby hotel instead. Ravus closes his eyes again and concentrates on the inflections in his voice and lets the words all meld together as he drifts down. When he reopens his eyes, Prompto is watching him with a mixture of concern and relief, and when Ravus smiles at him, Prompto nearly tackles him to the ground in a hug that threatens to squeeze the air right out of him.
“Don't do that again.”
It's spoken so softly that Ravus almost doesn't hear it, and he lifts his arms to return the hug then, and lets Prompto drag him to his feet a moment later.
“I will try.”
“I mean it. Don't. I don't.....look, those meetings are important, sure, but so much of it is just...”
Prompto lowers his voice.
“There's a lot of back-and-forthing. It's not...restoring the whole of Lucis, and working out how to best deal with the remnants of the Empire – no you don't get to feel guilty about that, stop it – is kind of a mess, so...anyway, you're never interrupting, Ravus, and... Noct said if you do that again he'll order you to come sit in these meetings with us.”
His reluctance must show on his face because Prompto laughs.
“Yeah, I thought you'd feel that way.”
Ravus feels an answering chuckle slip out of his mouth and he allows it, looking around for the first time and realising then that they were still stood in the foyer, the doors to the council room closed once more, and all the guests and guards gone.
“What-”
“Oh, yeah, Noct told everyone to get lost. Well, more politely and kingly like, anyway.”
It's not something Ravus had expected from Noctis, not as king or as the friend of his sister.
“Why?”
“Oh, geez, c'mon,”
Prompto lightly smacks his arm and laughs softly.
“Noctis doesn't hate you. I don't think he hates anyone. Well, Ardyn might be an exception but that guy was a creep and you're definitely not a creep.”
That makes Ravus laugh, albeit quietly, and he lets Prompto take him back to their suite.
“Thank you.”
He says after a pause, and he smiles when Prompto reappears from the other side of his bed with a pair of socks in one hand.
“Anytime. I'm your boyfriend, yeah? It's what I do. And, even if I wasn't – no I'm not thinking about that – even if I wasn't I'd still do.”
Prompto crosses the room and leans up to loop his arms around Ravus's neck, and Ravus leans down to meet him halfway into the kiss, feeling fingers slid into his neatly combed hair and tease it back into disarray and Ravus lets him, picks Prompto up and carries him back to the bed, drops him the last foot onto it and takes advantage of his surprise to join him, meeting his mouth in another kiss. The dark and heavy feelings from before are forgotten as Prompto kisses him back and traces prickles of light along his skin wherever he touches. Ravus's consciousness retracts until it begins and ends with Prompto's hands on him, and outside the open curtains night falls without witness.