Could you please write a drabble for the chocobros where they knew their s/o haven't shed a single tear in their life until they broke down where they reveals that tears make them look weak and vulnerable. Hence why, they didn't cry.
FEED ME ALL UR ANGST!!!! apologies if the requests take a while, I spend most of my time at work and I do my best not to give half-assed outputs. enjoy!
“Welcome home!” Prompto greeted you cheerily.
Exhausted, you dropped your bag on the floor and went straight for the couch. Your sunshine boy cuddled up to you, feeling the fatigue radiating off you. His loving embrace was comforting, but the piled up stress of school was starting to get to you. You let out a deep sigh, and when Prompto realized his hug wasn’t taken your stress away, he planted a long kiss on your forehead.
“What’s wrong, chocobabe?” he asked, worry filling his baby blue eyes.
“I’m just–” your voice vanished into thin air. You finished off, “Stressed.”
Noticing the withdrawal of your voice, he knelt on the floor right across you. One of his hands held yours tightly while the other gently brushed your cheek. Prompto bit his tongue; he knew you well enough to know that if you were prepared to tell him what was bugging you, he wouldn’t have to pry.
You knew him well enough to know that he knew that.
You trust him. You love him.
After a long period of silence and much deliberation, you opened your floodgates for the first time in years.
Your sudden change in emotion took him by surprise. “Six–” He sat back down and held your face. “You’re crying. Okay, you’re crying,” he said, although it sounded more like a reminder to himself.
“I’m sorry!” you whined, unable to stop your tears.
“No, no!” Prompto exclaimed in a panic as he began to kiss every open spot his marksman-trained eyes could see. “Please don’t be sorry, just…”
He took a deep breath, wrapping you in his arms protectively.
“It’s okay. You can cry.”
You eventually ran out of tears to cry, but you were unsure how long you’d been crying. It didn’t matter to your boyfriend, though. He held you firmly and never let go throughout your unanticipated ordeal.
“So…” he trailed off when you pulled away. “Are we going to talk about what happened or…?”
You laughed dryly, “I’m really sorry, Prompto. I… don’t cry a lot.”
“You don’t say?” he retorted, slightly amused with his sally.
“I just can’t afford to look weak and vulnerable, that’s all,” you shrugged nonchalantly.
“Hey.” He leaned your backs against the couch and placed his arm around you. You looked up at him, getting distracted by his the sight of his freckles up close. “You’re not weak. You’re not vulnerable.”
You nodded, half-heartedly agreeing with him, but it was obvious to him that you weren’t buying it.
“It isn’t easy to get in touch with your feelings all at once, and I promise I won’t force you,” he said. “But whenever you want to–whenever you’re ready–I’m here.”
If you hadn’t just outcried your tear ducts, you were fairly certain you would be tearing up again.
“I’ll always be here.”
You sat on the wooden chair, staring at the unconscious body of Noctis dressed in hospital garments and never-ending wraps of bandages. It’s been almost 48 hours and your beloved hasn’t moved an inch. His vitals read steady, but being this deep asleep after an unfortunate daemon encounter didn’t ease your troubles.
Exhaling, you rested your forehead on his stationary arm. Your right hand crept up and softly held on to his, simply to reassure yourself of his pulse.
But of course, you couldn’t help but let your anxieties get the best of you.
Nightmarish thoughts of the Prince sleeping into a perpetual coma and even worse flooded your mind. The thought of living your life without him forced its way into your imagination; how you would go home to an empty apartment, or how’d you never get to fish with him in Galdin Quay, or how the Lucian people would never see his coronation–
This was all too much.
Your brain began to pick up the signals of your heartache, prompting your vision to blur with heavy tears. You leaned over and pressed your forehead against his, letting the teardrops hit the edges of his ear.
“Please wake up, please wake up,” you whispered. “Don’t leave me.”
The walls reflected nothing but your tempestuous sobbing and the cyclic pattern of his breathing.
You sat back down and resumed to your previous position. “Come on, Noct,” you murmured between loud snivels. With your eyes closed, you kept your fingers sandwiched his index and thumb and repeated to yourself,
“Wake up… wake up… wake up…”
Snapping out of what seemed like a half-asleep dream, your head shot up at the hospital bed’s abrupt weight shift. It took you a moment to decide whether or not you were in a dream, but the moment his ocean eyes met yours, you were convinced.
“Noct!” you exclaimed softly, carefully positioning your forehead against his once again.
His thumbs slowly moved across your face, taken aback by the tears attacking your soft skin. “Hey, princess,” he said weakly. “Why are you crying?”
“I’m…”
You closed your eyes for a second and allowed yourself to feel the happiness, relief, and solace in his awakening.
“You’ve been out for almost 2 days and I just–” You shook your head, “I’m just really glad you’re awake.”
“That makes two of us,” he agreed.
“Look, I know I’m not super invested in my emotions,” you began, a part of you silently cursing yourself for admitting your frailty. You continued, “But that’s only because I always thought crying made me weak and vulnerable.”
He chuckled lightly, “And you hate being weak and vulnerable, I know.”
“I love you, Noct.”
The corner of his lips quirked up to a small smile, and you could’ve sworn his cheeks had flushed the darkest shade of red imaginable.
“I love you too. And I’m sorry for getting you so worked up.”
He mustered all his strength and caught you in the middle for a tender kiss. You pulled away quickly, helping his head land back on his pillow. You propped yourself close enough without hurting his wounds as his thumb affectionately rubbed over your knuckles.
“But I mean,” he shrugged. “If this is what it takes to make you cry, I’d be more than happy to receive additional stab wounds.”
You rolled your eyes at his comment and flicked him mercifully as a warning. “That was so not funny!”
“I know babe,” he snickered. “But you loooooove me. You want some of that special Prince Noctis lovin’, huh?” he teased, moving his eyebrows up and down in faux seduction.
You shook your head in an attempt to stifle your laugh, “Keep that up and the only lovin’ Prince Noctis is gonna get is from his hand.”
One of the things that made Gladio fall for you was your emotional strength. Coming from a family sworn to protect the royal family made it easier for him to follow his head over his heart. However, he didn’t think he would ever find someone even more rigid than he was.
And that was starting to become a problem.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” he fumed, sitting on the other side of your dining table.
You shook your head and shrugged, “Because it’s not important?” You couldn’t wrap your head around why he was blowing his lid off.
“Not important?” he scoffed. He leaned his upper body towards you, fists planted on the wooden surface. “This guy’s been trying to get with you for months and you hid it from me! How could you not call this important?”
“Because it’s not important to me!” you loudly retorted, feeling your own anger rising. “I didn’t accept any of his advances, I always left him on read and never replied to his messages, and I don’t even talk to him at work so frankly, I don’t get why you’re whining about this.”
“Oh, so telling you how I feel is counted as whining now?” he sneered at you. “You’re unbelievable,” he muttered under his breath as he walked away.
You quickly followed him into the living room. “Why the hell are you so bothered over some dude I don’t even give my time of day to?”
“It’s not him I’m bothered about,” he answered, keeping his eyes glued to the black screen of the television. “It’s you.”
“Me.” you reiterated. You added, “I’m bothering you for not reacting to the situation.”
“You’re bothering me because nothing matters unless it matters to you!”
This is the first time Gladio’s ever raised his voice at you.
“You can be really selfish, you know that?” he pointed out. “You seem to forget that there are two of us in this relationship. Not one, two.”
You balled your hands into tight fists, “That is such bullshit.”
He scoffed once again, rolling his eyes at your refusal of the truth. “Of course it’s bullshit, because you don’t care how the people around you feel,” he spat out. “As long as you’re drifting on your cloud of casualty, you couldn’t give less of a shit about how anyone else feels!”
Your apparent stone cold heart immediately thawed upon hearing his words. Did your own boyfriend really think that badly of you? Is that seriously how you make him feel?
You looked down and closed your eyes in shame.
“Gladio…” your eyes moved up and rested on him.
“I get that it sucks to feel,” he stood up. “But if you hate feeling so much, then I shouldn’t be here,” he finished quietly, looking over at you.
Your softened heart quickly dissolved into nothingness. He waited in silence for a minute, maybe two, but no sound came out of you. As much as you wanted to move your lips and tell him how much he meant to you, your body was immobile. You were screaming his name in your head over and over again but vocalizing it was a different story.
He sighed in defeat, shaking his head and looking up at the ceiling. Gladio knew that if this wouldn’t get through to you, nothing would.
“I have to go.”
He walked past you without hesitation. The creak of the front door snapped you out of your petrification, causing you to finally move before he closed the entrance completely.
“Gladio please, wait,” you squeaked as you turned around. “I’m… I’m sorry.”
He cocked a brow and stared at you. Were you… crying?
You released a silent sigh of relief as he leaned his beefy physique against the door frame. “You’re right,” you nodded. “I am selfish. I wasn’t–I wasn’t thinking about how it might affect you, and… and…”
Oh, now you were crying.
Watching the tears form by the corner of your eyes and stream down the sides of your face was a first for Gladio. He stood frozen for a split second, only rushing towards you after hearing a loud (and mucus-filled) sniffle. He enveloped you in an embrace, softly holding the back of your head with his mighty hand.
“I’m sorry for being such an ass!” you sobbed. “I’m sorry for being so insensitive! I’m sorry for c-crying!”
“Calm down, babe. Don’t be sorry.”
You shook your head, “I swear I’m not weak!”
He pulled away with his hands on your shoulders. He bent down to meet you at eye level, “I don’t think you’re weak. I never thought you were.”
He wiped your tears and pulled you back in. Your tear-stained face dampened his black tank top, but neither one of you could care right now.
“Contrary to your belief, crying doesn’t make you weak,” he reminded you. “I’ve had my fair share of tears, but I can still kick Noct, Prompto, and Iggy’s asses with one hand and a blindfold.”
You chuckled, “But not mine in Mario Kart, apparently.”
“Mmph… Ignis?” you groaned drowsily.
The bed’s shift in weight indicated that he was finally home. It also indicated that he missed date night… for the fourth time in a row.
He whispered, “Go back to sleep, my love,” but even the affection in his voice couldn’t stop your emotions from festering.
You nodded, trying to ignore the mixture of disappointment and sadness building in the pit of your stomach. You turned the other way and allowed him to spoon you from behind. As soon as his shoulders began to move in time with his breathing, you cautiously removed yourself from his grasps and slipped into the bathroom.
The moment you turned the light on, the first thing you saw was your worn out reflection in the mirror: dark circles, pale skin, and misty eyes.
If Ignis Scientia ever caught you crying, you would drop dead.
Thankfully, he was deep asleep on the other side of the door.
You fell to your knees, tightly clasping your mouth shut as sobs began to vibrate the palm of your hands. Your pathetic facade at acting indifferent towards his recent shortcomings slowly came undone tear by tear.
Suddenly, a half-asleep Iggy opened the bathroom door. Hand still rubbing his eyes, he initially failed to notice what you were doing.
“Is everything–”
Seeing your figure on the floor was enough to jolt him awake and into a panic. “Six!” he exclaimed as he quickly knelt down beside you. He grabbed a hold of you, checking every part of your body. “Are you alright? Are you in pain?”
You remained silent. Once he examined every inch of your exposed skin, his head moved up to see the horror of tears on your face.
“Darling…” he murmured, slowly reaching for your cheek.
“No!” you swatted his hand away. You held up your fingers, “Four nights straight, Ignis. Four!”
He was dumbfounded at two things: one, you referred to him as Ignis rather than Iggy or one of your mushy nicknames, and two, seeing you cry. You barely teared up over any situation, and being the reason behind your current predicament broke his heart in half.
“I always swore I would harm the catalyst of your tears,” he remarked in a low voice. “But I never thought I’d be that person.”
His hand reached out to your face once more, warily this time in case you were to swat it away again. You flinched at the touch of his thumb caressing your cheek. His emerald green eyes shone apologetically, hiding behind groups of dirty blonde hair resting against his forehead. You leaned your head to the left, caressing your soft face on his coarse hands.
“I’m well aware that I’ve been… lax with my promises recently, and for that I apologize, my love.”
He moved closer and moved his other hand on your empty cheek.
“You are worth everything and more,” he reassured you, kissing your forehead and cradling your upper half. “Nothing and no one in this world will ever take me away from you.”
“I’m sorry, Iggy,” you sniffled.
He placed a gentle kiss on your lips then proceeded to get rid of the last reminders of your tears. “You’ve been staying awake for me the past four nights–you have nothing to apologize for.”
“No, for… for crying,” you corrected him. “I know that I must look like such a wimp right now and honestly, I’m ashamed for letting you see this side of me.”
Well, Ignis could add that to the list of things he was dumbfounded at.
“As much as Noct and the others like to poke fun at me for being robotic,” he said. “I’ve never seen crying as a sign of fragility. If anything, it’s quite a bold act, don’t you think?”
You shook your head, “Not really. This was how I was raised, and… It stuck.”
“Your ability to be vulnerable and honest with your feelings signifies your humanity,” he explained. “It’s perfectly acceptable to cry, my dear. We all go through it, and it will never affect how I see you nor the never-ending extent of my feelings for you.”
“And what exactly are those feelings?” you asked with a playful grin.
“It all depends on the mood, kitten,” he answered with the same zest. “It’s always stemming from my heart, of course, but there are moments when it’s… bulging from the seams.”
You bit your lower lip, “Shall we go back to b–Iggy!”
Before you could even finish your sentence, your body was already being bridal carried back in to the bedroom. With the lights off, the breeze cool, and the city asleep, you were back in your own world with the man you loved.
