Darling, stay. [Shipping Wars] @EnglishRosie
Darling, stay. [Shipping Wars]  @EnglishRosie
Uploaded January 2013 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
Bahhhhhhhh I'm an arsehole and I'm late for shipping wars again gahhhhhhhh

Some idiot went and got a job right before her huge important final exams and hasn't really spent much time editing anything remotely productive this past month.

Right. Anyway. The theme was meant to be obsession, so I kind of ended up panicking and going for the ever-so-cliche "no one else can have you if I can't" kind of obsession. But it's kind of... less of romantic interest and more of protectiveness gone wrong? Like, it didn't really start with romantic feelings or jealous feelings, it just turned out that way because Zack wanted to have Noctis completely to himself in every way?

Story is really muddled and confusing because I edited this in a half-confused blur; basically, Noctis is some mafia boss' son (hello plot of Versus XIII, I'm sliding off into you here) and Zack is his -very- dedicated bodyguard who gradually turns possessive over him. Whether it's just a general fixated fascination or lust or romantic interest or whatever is up to interpretation, but Zack tries to dominate every moment of Noct's existence, even to the point where when he has to stand by while Noctis interacts with his own fucking sister he can't take it and gets twitchy. Aerith accidentally catches Zack forcing a kiss on Noct at some point, and when she asks him about it he insists he's fine and that it was nothing and even that he didn't mind, it didn't hurt, etc. She still remains worried.

Because it's a magical world and I say so, and because they do horrible shit, the Caelum family have a few skeletons under the floorboards, and a cursed/possessed portrait (to go with that whole theme of possession and obsession and so on) which feeds energy off strong emotion. Zack's overwhelming obsession and jealousy cause the spirit to latch onto him, and eventually it's able to manifest and try to get rid of Noct, since he's the spitting image of his father or something and that pisses her off.

Instead of protecting him, Zack taunts Noct, finally stripping off the nice friendly guy act he keeps up most of the time to be the little shit he really is. Noct is understandably horrified, and the ghost dead spirit portraity thing instructs Zack to go off and do what he wants while she makes Noct pay for not... returning his psycho weird feelings. So Zack runs off and goes to get rid of Aerith, who he's convinced himself is the reason Noct is reluctant to be with him (and not that he's a complete weirdo), but when he goes to attack her, she panics and shoots him in self defense.

He collapses, and dies, and the spirit returns to him to cradle his dying body, because his anger and frustration and lust and crap was her anchor to be able to take proper form and that. And she says "darling, you fucked up", since he's doomed them both. Yipee. Cheery.

I'm sorry about the language.

BONUS QUESTION:
1. They're both gorgeous as fuck. That's the shallow one.
2. From what little we've seen of Noct's personality (from trailers and Nomura interviews and stuff), he's just about the polar opposite of Zack, really. Shy and reserved and adorkable, with a frosty outer shell- and I think that would create a really interesting dynamic with Zack, since they'd balance each other out and encourage different traits in one another.
3. Given that Zack dies a brutal gory death and Noctis is from a game based on HAMLET, I think it's safe to say there could be buckets of glorious angst.
3b. They're also very pretty.
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EnglishRosie |

Darling, stay. [Shipping Wars]

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