#noctis au

(the man saw his chance to do something really funny and took it.)

some assorted thoughts about this one, in no particular order:

upon arrival, Mephisto instructs older!rin to pick a new alias- no, you can't pick Rinka. that would stand out too much. so in all of his cringy sixteen year old glory, Rin names himself Noctis on the spot, bc it sounds cool as hell and he definitely won't regret it when he gets older.

(he absolutely does)

yukio: dada.

noctis: huh!? no! i'm your nii-san, yukio! i'm way too young to be a father!

(noctis struggles valiantly, but he is fighting a losing battle. or: rin's teen dad arc.)

older!rin is the white haired version of himself, to further differentiate himself from younger!rin. of course, this does not stop the two of them from having an uncanny resemblance, so any time the twins introduce him as their foster father, people just look between Noctis and Rin and are like. doubt.png.

Shiro is still roped into becoming the Paladin by Mephisto. as far as he knows, Yuri's twins are being raised by some other unfortunate soul. imagine his shock when a few years in, he comes across a pair of familiar children at a local park under the care of someone who looks equally as familiar.

for a brief moment, Shiro mistakes him for Satan- but it can't be. Satan would never make that kind of expression. but was there another Azazel clone running around other than him? there's no way this guy isn't one, right? that resemblance is uncanny.

(older!rin's cover story is that he's a misfit Azazel clone who got a little too much demon in him, and was thus raised away from Section 13.)

and then he finds out that the guy is only nineteen. Shiro does the math. Mephisto put a sixteen year old boy in charge of taking care of children- which, well. fuck. okay. he's definitely intervening.

(or: becoming friends with his father is a little awkward at first, but Noctis comes to enjoy it, eventually.)

Mephisto gives Noctis a new demon sword and puts him to work right away as an exorcist. no using your own flames, though! we can't let people know there's two of you running around!

Noctis goes and picks up Kuro like, first thing. sorry old man, but he's stealing your familiar. he's really open about being an exorcist to the twins, since he knows he sucks at lying- and the less of it he has to do, the better.

he understands why his old man did it, but he doesn't want yukio to become an exorcist. instead he tries to introduce him to friendly demons like kuro and the greenmen, so he knows they're not all scary- and does not realize he himself is doing like, half of the heavy lifting there.

(rin and yukio both know their foster father is a first generation nephilim. yukio suspects that noctis really is their father, but just refuses to admit it for some reason. is it because he doesn't want them to know they're nephilim too? rin's strength makes it pretty obvious...)

this, ironically, leads to the outcome where both of the twins tell him that they want to join the exorcism cram school in high school. noctis' brain just does a record scratch. hwuah? huh? unexpected outcome????

the older his younger self gets, the more noctis begins to understand why shiro didn't tell him the truth until he couldn't hide it any longer in the original timeline. plus. you know. he has the additional wrinkle of being rin from the future, which is just SO awkward.

noctis gets into fierce arguments with mephisto about changing the past. he wants to prevent things like what happened to shiemi, or the lab in inari, but mephisto counters with the hard to argue fact that if they do prevent those things from happening, the timeline could very quickly spiral out of control. the future could get worse than the one you came from.

mephisto: but since you enjoy being a father so much, why don't you raise kamiki-san's younger sister?

noctis: hwuha!?

(additional child acquired)

mephisto also ropes noctis into teaching at cram school as a swordsmanship instructor, just in time for a familiar batch of cram school students to enroll...

noctis: wow... they're all so young...

noctis: wait. FUCK.

(despite that, he doesn't look a day over 25 even though he's actually 31. it gets on shiro's nerves constantly. you don't have any right to complain about getting old! you don't even get back pain!)

mephisto: I'm surprised you are not trying to prevent me from recruiting shima as a spy.

noctis: nah, that's like enrichment for him.

(noctis watching rin and shiemi interact like. i am going to be the world's most embarrassing father about this.)

literally anyone who knows both rin & noctis: yeah that explains the name

noctis' official story is that he's a first generation nephilim with an unknown demonic parent that was sheltered by asylum. because he had special circumstances, he wasn't raised with the other orphans. he has no special powers, but he's extremely strong and has strong regenerative abilities.

noctis' unofficial story is that he's a misfit azazel clone, and as a result was separated from the rest of the test subjects to be raised as an exorcist by a unknown mentor whose name was lost in the chaos of the blue night.

(both versions list him as rin and yukio's biological father. how do you hide the children of satan? easy. claim they're the children of a nephilim instead. suddenly things like rin's initial hair color and his violent tendencies stand out less.)

noctis never finishes high school, ultimately- but shiro does help him study in order to obtain a GED. the compelling visual of shiro sitting across from a 20 year old noctis at the kitchen table, tutoring him for the test while 5 year old rin and yukio play with kuro.

noctis has a motorcycle license, but not a standard driver's license.

his horns grow out long and thin, making them nearly impossible to hide with regular methods, so mephisto gives him decorative cuffs to put on them that makes them invisible to people without a mashou.

he goes through like. six dozen different image changes. he cannot settle on a look. he grows out his hair and then cuts it off. he experiments with facial hair but always shaves it off in the end.

he definitely gets a few tattoos. love the idea that they're all designs he associates with his friends, as if he's getting his memories of them engraved on his body so he never forgets.

(shiemi's four leaf clovers are tattooed right over his heart. he gets a firebird for suguro, prayer beads for konekomaru, foxes for izumo and a design like yamantaka's eye for shima all entwined on his back. shura's white snakes and yukio's caduceus are tattooed on his arms, so he can never forget how hard he fought to save them, only to lose them in the end.)

noctis does NOT get any taller. he looks at rin bickering with yukio when the latter starts getting his growth spurt and declaring he'll catch up to and surpass him one day like. i've got some bad news, kid. we are fucking cursed.

this timeline's version of rin 100% has piercings lol- several on his ears, but also a pierced tongue. noctis is just like yeah go for it, and so he does.

rin cares a lot less about people who call him a demon this go around- after all, his dad's a half-demon and he's cool as hell! what he does care about, ironically, is people talking shit about noctis. and people talk shit about noctis a lot.

rin, when he and shiemi have kids years down the line just looking shiro dead in the eye and being like: and here's your great-grandpa!

(noctis is cracking up in the background- at least until rin smiles at him and introduces him as grandpa noctis.)

nine year old rin, rolling up his sleeves: i'm gonna make dad breakfast in bed for father's day. :)

(noctis, overcome with emotion. he has such good kids!!

mephisto: didn't you say you weren't going to be their father?

noctis: shut uppppppp.)

rin & yukio like: our dad is rin from the future so if you think about our family dynamics for longer than five seconds they start to get really messed up. so we don't do that.

rin: -unless it's funny!

yukio, nodding: unless it's funny.

rin, yukio, tsukumo, and shura have been trying to get noctis and monaka together for years. as soon as the exwires learn of her existence they join in. they truly don't understand how noctis is not married yet.

(upon learning that noctis is a guilt-ridden rin from a bad future: ohhhh. yeah. that makes sense. but also he needs to cut that the fuck out. matchmaking time.)

noctis, meeting teenage lewin for the first time: ...who's that hanging around osceola?

mephisto: his name is lewin light, i believe!

noctis, recalling the lewin he knows from the future like ????? HUH????

once his life settles down a little, noctis does eventually poke his head into osceola's talismanic cooking workshops.

rin: so do you have any advice about how to pass the certification exam?

noctis, who never actually took it: uhhhhhhhh. go ask your uncle?

shiro walks in to find noctis and rin collapsed on the couch, both with the most ungraceful sleeping posture you can imagine complete with their eyes half open. he just snorts. like father, like son, he guesses.

(shiro, later on: oh wait. that was because they're the same person.)

if you think for one second that noctis staying youthful means that rin won't call him 'old man' you are so wrong. he absolutely does. it's karma. the first time he does it, it's just a critical hit.

the exwires @ rin and yukio: ...so you two are definitely second generation nephilim, right?

yukio: most likely, though father won't be honest with us.

rin: ...maybe he doesn't want to set a bad example? you know, cause he was like sixteen when he had us?

it took noctis a long time to get used to calling his younger self 'rin', when that still felt like it was his name.

it takes him a long time to stop responding to rin, but for all that, he can't really pinpoint the moment he stopped responding to it entirely, nor can he pinpoint the moment he started to respond to noctis without fail.

(ugh. he really wishes he'd picked a different name, though)

just. noctis looking in the mirror one day and realizing he's an adult now and that none of his friends will ever have the chance to grow up.

noctis: listen, rin. if you want to get piercings, get them now. you won't be able to do it later no matter how much you might want to.

yukio: aren't you supposed to tell us not to do that stuff?

rin: shut up yukio, don't make him change his mind!

the only times noctis hides his tail is when he has to go to the twins' school for any reason. hiding his horns is a little more complicated, once they start growing out, but he manages.

noctis at a parent teacher conference. what will he do.

(wish shiro was doing this instead.)

noctis listening to some mom prattle on about how rin attacked her son unprovoked, all while vividly remembering said incident from his childhood and knowing he sure as hell was provoked

shiemi looking at noctis post reveal, with the knowledge that rin is going to grow up to look like him one day and just. turning beet red.

rin: huh? no way! I'm going to look way cooler than him!

noctis: literally impossible, kid.

rin: don't call me kid! you're me!

noctis: yeah, but I'm like 32 years old and you're 16. so. kid.

rin and yukio are just. so weirded out by the fact that they've been calling an older version of rin 'dad' for years.

noctis: yeah, welcome to the club. i tried to get you two to call me nii-san, but you wouldn't listen.

rin: and you just went with it!?

noctis: shut up. you literally can't criticize any of my decisions.

yukio: he has a point, nii-san.

(rin squinting at noctis like. is he going to get a tail and horns when his seal breaks?)

noctis starts carrying kurikara around again after his true identity is exposed. he's also very clear to the order that if they try a single thing against either of his kids, he won't hesitate to turn on them in an instant.

(doesn't ask him when he started to think of rin and yukio as his kids for real. like a lot of things, it just sort of happened before he knew it. it is sort of funny watching them come to terms with something he's just sort of learned to roll with.)

juzo asks noctis for parenting advice, which throws him for a fucking loop. huah!? i mean, yeah, he guesses he did raise two kids but how is he still finding weird positions to be in??

rin: wait. so who raised you?

noctis: huh? shiro did.

rin & yukio, looking at shiro: grandpa...

shiro: NOPE, not doing that.

noctis, sensing a chance to mess with him: you're right! this is your grandpa shiro!

("I used to have a friend," he told him with a laugh, "-who used to do this with everyone. now it's my turn!")

he finds, to his surprise, that noctis can't hold his liqueur at all. he would have thought having enough demon blood for him to have horns and a tail would mean he had a strong tolerance for alcohol, but it's like the opposite is true. his emotions are even more pronounced when he's drunk, like he hasn't even heard of the concept of a filter. his tail is the most animated shiro has ever seen it, which is saying something.

in the end, shiro has to carry him back to the monastery on his back.

he feels a little silly, but rick would probably do the same, he thinks. noctis' tail is curled around shiro's waist, his head buried in his shoulder. his body is warm enough that shiro starts to feel hot in his cassock despite the chill of the late march night air. he must be talking in his sleep, because he can hear him faintly apologize to his father.

shiro huffs. he doesn't know many details of how noctis was raised- just that he was taken from section 13 early on as a defect- but he's glad at least one of them got to experience what having a father was like. he rarely talks about the man, but he seems to hold him in high regard. it doesn't sound like he's around anymore, though.

maybe he'll go lay some flowers on fujimoto's grave tomorrow, he thinks. he should have spent more time with the man, he sometimes catches himself thinking. he wonders what he'd make of all of this.

(what shiro won't hear, is the way noctis rin desperately apologizes to his friends in his sleep- but to yukio most of all. sorry. sorry everyone. he's moving on without you. sorry, for being the only one to make it out. sorry. sorry. sorry. he couldn't save anyone, in the end.)

in the morning, noctis will stumble into the kitchen with a hangover. shiro will laugh and make him drink water and eat something. he's not anywhere near as good in the kitchen as noctis is, but even he can make scrambled eggs and toast. he's pretty sure rin will outclass him in a few years though, based on the way his lessons with his father are going.

yukio: -if.

rin: -if they get married. do you think she'll become monaka okumura? or will she be monaka miyama-uguisu-okumura?

oh there's definitely some speculation! those who don't know much about the twins and noctis just assume that monaka is their mother, lmao. she has the coloration for it! but those who know a little more about noctis' (fake) backstory generally tend to assume that their mother was another child from Asylum that may not have survived the blue night, so they tend to have like. the tact not to ask about it.

truthfully, suguro doesn't know what to think!

it's hard to deny that noctis must have some kind of connection to satan. there's too many coincidences piling up, and he wouldn't be a target of lewin's investigation of he didn't think there was some kind of connection. but noctis doesn't act like someone possessed by satan, and the two times that blue flames appeared, no one actually got hurt. the opposite, really- during the kyoto incident, those blue flames saved everyone.

he just can't figure it out. the most obvious explanation is that noctis is possessed by satan, because the only other thing that would make sense is that he's satan's child- but that's not possible. noctis is too old. satan's child, if they survived, would probably be around his age- not an adult.