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Chapter Text

After spending two weeks awaiting their clearance from Meldacio, Prompto had been ecstatic to finally stop camping at the Malmalam Thicket’s borders, to get the royal arm hidden somewhere within its depths for Noct, and to get back to some semblance of civilisation so that they could all have proper showers and sleep in real beds.

Several hours and very little progress later, he’s wondering if the royal arm is even worth the effort.

“Why are these tombs built in the absolute worst places?” he grumbles, staring at his waterlogged and mud-caked boots forlornly as he sits on the trunk of a downed tree, their group taking a short break to pour potions over their wounds after struggling through what should’ve been an easy fight against some mandrakes.

The Thicket sits at the ass-end of nowhere, nothing but wilderness for miles around. It was already a mess of trees, bugs, and barely traversable trails, but the rainfall the night before has turned the trails to near shin-deep mud that slows their progress to barely above a crawl and makes manoeuvring in a fight nigh impossible. The day is a hot one, the Thicket’s air heavy and humid, a dense fog obscuring their visibility to barely a few feet in front of their noses, and they’re drenched in sweat.

And that’s all without even mentioning the giant wasps that keep dive bombing them.

He hates bugs, full stop, but he hates wasps the most of them, and giant wasps? It’s like his nightmares come to life.

Astrals, he really hates wasps.

“According to a number of chronicles in the Citadel’s library, the tombs were built to commemorate territories claimed for Lucis by the Kings of Yore during their reign,” Iggy rattles off instantly, because of course he’d know something like that off the top of his head. He stands above Prompto, wiping mandrake blood from the lenses of his glasses. “If there is truly a tomb located somewhere within this brush, then it most likely belongs to –“

“Silas Lucis Caelum,” Noct, standing close by, finishes for him, trying to wipe mud from his arms and wrinkling his nose with disgust when he only succeeds in smearing it further. After a beat of silence, he looks up, frowning when he sees the other three staring at him. “What?”

“Since when did you pay attention in history?” Prompto asks incredulously. He has more than a few memories of Noct going headfirst onto the desk as soon as their horrendously boring history teacher began droning on about this war or that king, only resurfacing when the bell signalling the end of the class had rung. It had become such a routine that Prompto, during one lunch break, had scribbled out ‘history’ on Noct’s schedule and renamed it to ‘nap time’.

“You think I wouldn’t know my own ancestors?” Noct asks with a raised brow.

“You couldn’t remember Crepera’s name back in Myrlwood,” Gladio remarks with a snarky smile. He sits on the trunk also, and Prompto hates him – only for a second – because Gladio somehow makes being covered in mud, sweat, and monster blood look attractive whilst the rest of them look and smell like swamp creatures.

“Yeah, because who the fuck names their kid Crepera?”

“One of your ancestors. Remember his name?”

“I’m with Noct on this one,” Prompto says, saving Noct, as it’s obvious from the way his cheeks immediately heat up that he doesn’t know and it’s about to cause a bickering match. He swats at his arm as he does, glaring at the mosquitoes attempting to make a feast of his bare skin. “‘Crepera’ is such a dumb name.”

“Says the guy named ‘Prompto’,” Gladio mocks.

“Says the dude named after a flower!”

“Gentlemen,” Iggy says with a sigh, in a tone that has never once failed to make them all stand to attention, as if Ignis is the King of Lucis and not Noct, “as truly riveting as this conversation is, I’m sure we can all agree that concluding our business here and leaving sooner rather than later would be preferable, no?”

If he was to be honest, Prompto would much rather sit on this log until the burning in his calves finally abates, or just get the hell out of this horrific forest instead of trying to continue their largely uphill struggle through mud and bug attacks. However, Iggy ran out of Ebony two days back and none of them are brave enough to try arguing with an Ebony-less Iggy. Instead, they get back to their feet and back on the trail with minimal complaints, Noct taking point as always with Iggy and Gladio right behind him, Prompto flagging a few paces behind.

“So why the hell did that Silas guy even claim this place?” Prompto calls out, trying to not make his ragged breathing too obvious as they work their way uphill. “There’s nothing even here.”

“I believe the true goal was to claim the Wennath River,” Iggy says, his breathing significantly more controlled. Not for the first time, Prompto wishes he had even a fraction of Iggy’s inborn grace; whilst he’s flailing in the mud like a feral chocobo, Iggy is making half-decent progress, barely even getting stuck. “It was an important trade route for settlements in the region. The Thicket happened to be part of the territory.”

“And then they decided to build the tomb here,” Prompto grumbles. One of his feet gets stuck in the muck, and he loses his balance, throwing his hands out to catch himself and shuddering when they get covered in mud. He lets out a frustrated growl. “I’m pretty sure your ancestors hate you, Noct.”

Ahead, he hears Noct give a chuckle. Gladio turns back and hauls Prompto back to his feet. He’s about to give him a grateful smile when Gladio ruffles his hair, smearing mud through it. He squawks, tries to bat away Gladio’s hand as the treacherous bastard laughs at him, but it’s too late, his hair filthy and slick with mud.

“Not cool, dude,” he whines, briefly trying to salvage the mess before accepting it as a lost cause with a pout.

“Personally, I think it looks better,” Noct says ahead, looking back with a smug smile on his face. Ever the most mature of the group, Prompto sticks his tongue out at him.

“One foot in front of the other,” Gladio says to him. He flicks the side of Prompto’s temple, grins wider when Prompto scowls up at him, before setting off again with a satisfied grin on his face. “Just focus on your feet and breathing.”

“Which means ‘stop talking’,” Noct says.

“You’d miss the sound of my voice too much!” Prompto calls back, but he takes Gladio’s advice. One foot In front of the other, careful of where he steps, focusing on breathing evenly so he can keep pace with the others.

Soon, the mud trail turns into a shallow stream, and that shallow stream angles sharply upwards. As soon as they begin their climb, he finds himself missing the humidity of the mud trail. The stream is freezing, and, whilst it cleans away the layer of mud they’ve accumulated in the last few hours, it soaks them to the bone in seconds. His fingers, constantly clawing at the rocky base of the stream to help him climb upwards, quickly go numb. They fight through the rushing water, following the stream as it curls around a rather bright and strong looking haven. Prompto, too focused on breathing as evenly as possible to voice his complaints for once, privately prays that Noct will call it a day and let them spend the night there before forcing themselves onwards the next morning. It’s too early in the day, though, with bright, early afternoon sunlight still streaming through gaps in the canopy, and Noct keeps struggling upwards through the deluge, so they do too.

Close to the top, Noct slips, losing his grip on a rock and falling onto his front, water rushing into his face. Gladio is there in an instant, pulling him out of the water and pushing him roughly onto the ledge before hauling himself up.

They’re out of sight for a second, literally a second, when all hell breaks loose.

Prompto’s still several feet behind them, struggling to find his grip on the underwater rocks, when he hears Gladio give a shout, the distorted, electrical crackling sound of Noct warping, and the screech of several different kinds of monsters at once. Ahead, Iggy spits out a curse as he, throwing caution to the wind, leaps for the ledge and rather ungracefully – a rarity for him – pulls himself upwards, leaving Prompto to scramble his way to the top as quickly as he can manage. It’s with a loud grunt and a burning in his lungs and limbs that he finally hauls himself over the ledge, laid flat on his front in the water, limbs shaking from exertion and cold, eyes trying to take stock of the chaotic scene before him.

There’s a mass of creatures – mandrakes, shieldshears, those giant fucking wasps that he hates so much – attacking one another and also his three companions, who are doing their best to dodge and fight around the mess. Noct is practically a blur of brilliant blue, spinning and dancing in the air like the world’s deadliest ballerina, switching between weapons with the same ease and swiftness as blinking. Gladio is stuck in a stalemate with one of the shears, the blade of his greatsword caught in the shears’ claws. He summons a second sword into his free hand, driving it through the shears’ eyes with a shout of effort. Iggy moves almost as quickly as Noct does, daggers alight with flames as he weaves around the mandrakes, making well placed slashes to their flanks and limbs.

And Prompto? Once he finally manages to get himself upright, he summons his gun in his hand and focuses on the shears and mandrakes threatening to overwhelm Gladio.

It’s difficult. There’s still that persistent fog covering the area, and the canopy of leaves and trees overhead basks the area in so much darkness that he’s surprised a few daemons haven’t decided to join the fun. With Noct and Iggy dancing around so much and Gladio caught right in the thick of the chaos, he has to hesitate before every shot, terrified right down to his bones of accidentally clipping one of them with a bullet and making their predicament that much worse.

He gets a few good shots off. When he reloads, he uses piercing rounds, is satisfied when he breaks off the armour of one of the shears, leaving it open for Iggy to deliver a devastating deathblow with his lance. The angle he’s at, though, is terrible. He decides to move to the right, skirting around the edge of the small island breaking the stream in two, hoping to get a better angle on the remaining shears bearing down on Gladio, but then –

Chaos.

There’s a shout – he thinks it might be Iggy – right before the wasps release some kind of – secretion. It’s a green mist, shimmering like glitter and consuming the entire small island. Iggy, standing directly under the mass of wasps, disappears within it. All Prompto can hear is him coughing and spluttering, thinks he might see Iggy’s almost obscured silhouette falling to his knees. One of the shears is also caught in the mist, flies into a rage. It lets out a horribly shrill screech, claws swinging back and forth, catching mandrakes and flinging them against the trees and boulders. There’s the sound of clanging metal – the claws catching on Gladio’s shield. Another shout, Noct this time, distant and out of Prompto’s sight. A flash of orange in the air, small and spherical. Flaming.

A Firaga. Noct made a fresh batch a few days ago.

It’s going straight for the shears.

Prompto opens his mouth to scream for Iggy, still lost somewhere in the mist, but it soars over the shears –

Heading straight for him.

He leaps back towards the ledge. The Firaga hits the rocks behind him and explodes, propelling him forward into the water, blazing heat at his back. His gun is knocked from his hand, disappears with a crystalline crack. The entire area is bathed in orange light, fire exploding towards the canopy. He hears screaming – mandrakes, shears, his partners crying out in pain and confusion – and the buzzing of the wasps grows angrier. He gets onto his hands and knees, ready to move, to try and call out for the others to regroup or something –

But there’s a mandrake right in front of him.

He freezes, blood running cold. It hasn’t noticed him yet, rolling over in the water and yowling with pain, its wooden limbs and the leaves on its back burning. He goes to summon his gun, hand out and fingers curling around the grip, feeling the tingle in his teeth that he always does when he interacts with the armiger, the gun almost forming in his hand.

But then the mandrake rights itself, looks directly at him, teeth dripping with saliva and eyes wild with rage and pain.

“Oh shit,” he squeaks.

The mandrake leaps at him.

He’s too slow to react. By the time he realises what’s happening, the mandrake has slammed into him with the force of a truck, knocking him backwards –

And over the ledge.

The mandrake’s weight forces him under the water, head hitting the rocks, blinding pain erupting from the point of impact. For a moment, he thinks he blacks out. His daze is only temporary; on taking a breath, water fills his airways, and his brain sparks up again with panic. He tries to sit up, the mandrake’s weight gone, but he realises he’s sliding downwards. His hands move down, fingers scraping the rocky bottom of the stream, scrambling for purchase. He manages to stop himself, sits up, gasping as he surfaces. He only has a second to breathe, water blurring his eyes, when a brown and green blob leaps at him.

He can’t stop the scream that escapes him as the mandrake tackles him once more, throwing up his arms to protect his face. Its claws and teeth sink into his arms, its weight forcing him back under the water. He’s screaming, gargled from the water flooding his mouth and airways again, legs thrashing uselessly. They’re moving, sliding down the brook again, swept away with the current. His shoulders hit something hard protruding from the bottom. He flips over, the mandrake flung from him by the momentum, landing on his side. He hits another rock, hard. His ribs take the brunt of the impact, forcing what little air is left in his lungs out violently. He rolls through the water, catching his arms, his legs, his face on the rocks before he finally comes to a stop where the brook levels off.

Shakily, he pushes himself upright, sucking in breaths as best he can through the protesting of his ribs. His hair is in his face, his eyes are blurry, but he can see the green blob that is the mandrake scrambling to its feet, ready to charge again. In an instant, his gun is in his hand, aimed in the direction of the mandrake, and he pulls the trigger, again and again until the chambers are empty and it’s clicking uselessly. The mandrake collapses into a pathetically mewling pile in the water before finally going silent.

Distantly, he hears shouting, names and incoherent noises, the clanging of metal. His head hurts, his ears ring, his lungs burn. He coughs up water, laced with red blood, tastes iron in his mouth; he bit his tongue somewhere in his fall. His ribs ache where he’d hit the rocks, and his arms are a mess of lacerations and gouging bites. He forces himself to his feet, groaning and gasping through the pain, and struggles against the current to reach the top of the brook once more.

At the top, the already messy fight has devolved into pure anarchy. Most of the shears and mandrakes lie dead, thankfully, but the ones who remain and the wasps are still providing a significant challenge. Part of the brook is frozen solid – one of Noct’s Blizzaga spells – and the bushes and trees where the Firaga had landed are burning. The strange green mist still partially obscures the island. He can see the blue flash that is Noct, dancing in the air, and sees the metallic blur of Gladio’s greatsword amidst the crowd of mandrakes and shears.

He can’t see Iggy. He can’t hear his voice.

Swallowing thickly, he staggers away from the edge and towards the cover of rock, all but collapsing to the ground, his back pressed against the rock as he reloads his gun with shaking fingers. He looks around his cover, takes a few shots at the mandrakes. A few go down; Gladio has room to manoeuvre. With a shout, Gladio summons his shield, uses it to blast away a few of the remaining mandrakes. He swings his greatsword in a downwards arc, slices off one of the claws of a shears in a swift, powerful move. The shears screams, blood spraying across the ground. Prompto, meanwhile, tosses his revolver to one side, summons his SMG before it’s even disappeared back into the armiger. He takes aim at the wasps, still dive bombing Gladio and spraying that weird secretion at random. He downs a few of them, their bodies collapsing with sickening crunches in the water. One rolls around on its back, buzzing in agony before it finally goes still. The mist starts to clear, but he still can’t see Iggy.

Across the area, the blue flash that is Noct suddenly comes to a screeching halt. Six feet off the ground, Noct’s form materialises, and his limbs flail useless. Prompto can’t help but swear when he realises that Noct has entered stasis, and no one is close enough to help. Noct hits the ground hard and struggles to stand again. A few mandrakes on the periphery catch sight of him, easy prey that’s writhing on the ground in pain, and Prompto’s vision almost goes red. Growling, he raises his SMG and aims at the mandrakes. One goes down, but another reaches Noct before he can react. Noct thrashes in its grip, daggers flashing into his hands. One buries itself in the neck of the mandrake, maroon blood and splinters raining down on him; Prompto can see the white flash of his teeth, bared as he snarls.

With Gladio’s attention on what’s left of the wasps and mandrakes, slicing through them with reckless abandon, Prompto leaves his cover, guns down a second mandrake, takes off at a run for Noct.

He’s only a few feet away when a shadow leaps down on him from above.

The ground beneath his feet erupts. His body is flung forwards, SMG falling from his hands. He flips over, lands on his back roughly, grunting as he does, his ribs screaming out in protest. He struggles for breath, writhes in agony. Above, there’s a flash of silver in the orange light; a blade, heading right for his face. With a yelp, he rolls over, scrambles away, fingers digging into the mud for purchase. He risks looking up and pales.

Iggy raises his spear and attacks.

All Prompto can do is dodge. The tip of the spear misses him by inches, buried in the mud where he’s just been crouched. He scrambles in a semi-circle around Iggy, manages to get to his feet behind him. Iggy turns, brow drawn into a glare, teeth bared. Something’s wrong, though; his eyes are wild and unfocused, shining with panic, with fear, and there’s a green shimmer to his skin, his hair, his clothes. With an animalistic snarl, he lunges at Prompto, spear aimed right at his heart. He dodges around it, ducks when Iggy sweeps the spear in an arc.

“Iggy!” he shouts, panic in his throat as he ducks back again. “What – fuck!”

He miscalculates his dodge, and the blade of the spear rakes across his chest. The material of the Crownsguard uniforms are sturdy, meant to withstand conventional bullets and blades. Apparently, though, Cid has worked his magic a bit too well on Iggy’s spear as it cuts through the fabric like a hot knife through butter, slicing a long – but thankfully shallow – gash across Prompto’s chest. He staggers back, a hand going to the wound, but Iggy presses his assault, raises the spear again.

Noct jumps at him from behind. Like an oversized monkey, he wraps his legs around Iggy’s waist and jams one arm under his chin. Iggy is thrown almost off his feet by the sudden weight, dropping the spear, but recovers and begins thrashing, trying to reach behind and pull at Noct’s hair, his clothes, whatever he can reach to try and pull him off.

“What the fuck, Specs?!” Noct grunts, keeping his arm jammed under Iggy’s chin, grip strong enough to be painful but not enough to cut off his airways. “It’s just us, it’s just –“

Iggy flings himself backwards. Noct hits the ground, Iggy’s weight on top of him, and the wind is knocked from him with a loud grunt. He wheezes, barely able to move, but Iggy is already back on his feet. Prompto lunges forward as Iggy turns, ozone and crackling in the air as he goes to summon his spear again. He catches Iggy’s hand, pulls him away from Noct, scared to do anything else out of fear of hurting him.

Iggy has no such reservations. His free hand collides with Prompto’s eye in a punch so hard is rattles his brain inside his head. There’s a shout, an indistinct word, as he does down in the mud again. A solid wall of pain throbs where Iggy hit him, and his eyes, when he attempts to open them, are blurred. He shakes his head, moans when his skull aches and nausea bubbles in his throat. He tries to push himself up, his hand slipping in the mud. He uses his other hand to hit his temple once, twice, forcing his brain to restart, his eyes to focus. He can hear the clanging of metal – swords and spears colliding somewhere nearby – and Gladio’s voice shouting for Noct.

Then –

There’s a bloodcurdling scream, a wet shucking sound, someone gasping.

Panic seizes him. He fumbles; there’s a boulder to his left, and he uses that to push himself upright. He blinks, sees the blurry sparks of weapons colliding. His vision clears and bile works its way up his throat at the sight of Noct, a gory hole in his chest, blood in the mud around him, his skin drained of colour. Gladio stands over him, shield raised, wild panic in his eyes, a look he’s never sported before and one that Prompto never wants to see again. Ignis bears down on Gladio, the entire weight of his body pressed down on his spear.

Prompto goes to move, to help, to do something, but there’s a purple spark in Ignis’ hand, and he only has a moment to be thankful that it’s just a Thunder and not a Thundaga – because holy shit – before it’s exploding right in Gladio’s face and Gladio – unflappable, immovable, indestructible Gladio – screams. The blinding light of the Thunder is too much and he has to close his eyes, raising an arm to shield his face, his teeth tingling and his hair standing on edge.

When he opens his eyes again, Gladio is on the ground. He’s still conscious, still trying to shield Noct, but the entire left side of his body is a spiderweb of angry red and black burns, his limbs twitching. His eyes are barely open, his right arm raised, struggling to form words; beneath him, Noct, just clinging to consciousness himself, is breathing heavily, one bloodied hand gripping tightly to the back of Gladio’s vest.

And Ignis stands over them, lance in hand, ready to go in for the kill.

The icy terror that had locked Prompto’s limbs in place melts, a burning fury replacing it. In a moment of madness, he summons his revolver into his hands, takes aim, teeth pulled back in a snarl, finger curling around the trigger. At the last second, he panics, aware that he’s aiming at Ignis – their Iggy – and jerks the barrel to the left before pulling the trigger.

The bullet clips Iggy’s temple, his head jerking to one side before his clouded, fear-stricken eyes turn onto him. He’s frozen, feels a bit like a chocobo staring down a dread behemoth, and only has a moment to feel guilty at the sight of the shallow wound his bullet has left on Iggy’s head, a slow trickle of blood leaking from it, when Iggy charges.

The spear lunges for him. He uses the barrel of his gun to deflect it, the clang of metal ringing around the clearing. He weaves around Iggy, jams an elbow into his back to make him stagger before kicking at the back of his knees, forcing him down. He looks up, teeth bared, snarling and gnashing like a wild animal, too far gone for words, and Prompto, not knowing what else to do, lifts up his gun –

And brings it down on Iggy’s head.

The thud is sickening, but it works. Instantly, Iggy’s eyes roll back into his head. His body slumps forward, face first into the mud, lance disappearing with that familiar crystalline crack.

Finally, the area grows quiet save for the ambience of rushing water and buzzing insects. Prompto can feel himself panting heavily, his eyes wide and hands shaking as he looks down at Iggy’s prone form, blood streaking down his face from the graze on his temple.

Prompto staggers back, gun slipping from his fingers and disappearing. His veins are burning, his mind a muddled mess. He smells blood and sweat, fire and ozone and decay – burning, burning meat, burning flesh. His stomach churns and bile rises up his throat. He falls to his knees, vomits into the mud, tears leaking from his eyes and his skull throbbing. His stomach empty, he sits back, trying to catch his breath.

What the fuck just happened?

“Prompto,” a weak voice says. His eyes find Gladio, still twitching on the ground. Beneath him, Noct is still conscious but slowly slipping away, his breaths turning to wheezes and the pool of blood around him growing larger by the second.

He moves.

Not for the first time since they left Insomnia, he curses their constant financial troubles and their lack of curatives. Right now, they have a handful of the more potent variety of potions, but even those won’t be enough to fully restore all four of them. His priority, first and foremost, is Noct. It takes two of their meagre supply just to get the horrendous wound to fully close, Noct’s skin, lungs, and veins stitching themselves back together before his very eyes. Noct is weak, his skin pallid and sweaty, hair matted to his head, and he can barely keep his eyes open. He’s slumped into the mud, unable to move, a mix of stasis and blood loss, but he’s alive, and that’s good enough for Prompto.

He pours the remaining two potions onto Gladio’s ruined skin, raw burns and blackened skin healing back to their natural light brown colour. Gladio’s vest, which he’d opted to wear instead of his jacket today, is ruined, hanging from one shoulder, and his trousers are damaged. The burns are so terrible, so extensive, that he only manages to heal up Gladio’s face and chest before he runs out; there’s still burns down his arms, some peaking out of the waistband of his trousers, and Gladio’s limbs are twitching. There’s nothing left to heal with, though, and that’s without even attending to himself or Iggy.

Gladio realises this one the pain has abated enough that he can speak and think coherently again, because he fixes Prompto with a deadly glare. “You’re concussed.”

“I’m fine,” he says, voice croaky.

“Like hell you are.”

“I am, I’m fine,” he says, but his mouth is dry and tastes like shit, his limbs are shaking from the cold and the adrenaline comedown, and he’s covered in wounds.

Gladio shakes his head, reaches out for him with his good hand. “Prom –“

“You and Noct needed them more,” he insists, turning away and shuffling over to Iggy, wincing as he jostles his ribs. Gladio watches him disapprovingly before he turns his attention to Noct with a sigh, whilst Prompto flips Iggy onto his front, grunting with exertion as he does. There’s mud down Iggy’s clothes, streaked into his hair and across his face; beneath the mud, Prompto can see there’s still a layer of glittery, green mist across his front, though it’s much fainter now than it had been before.

Iggy’s glasses are askew, covered in shimmery mist and mud; carefully, Prompto slips them off and tucks them into the pocket of his jacket for safekeeping, hands shaking as he does.

“Iggy,” a voice says hoarsely from behind. Prompto glances over his shoulder and sees Noct, sat up with Gladio’s help, eyes wide with concern as he looks over at Iggy. “Is he –“

“Knocked out,” Gladio grunts. “Probably gonna have one hell of a headache when he wakes up, but he’s alive.”

“Yeah,” Prompto forces himself to say. His heart is aching, and his stomach is churning. Not once had he ever imagined having to use his weapon on any of his three companions, hated even subjecting them to rubber bullets during their sparring sessions at havens or Cape Caem. Now, Iggy is unconscious and bleeding on the ground, because of him.

Iggy could’ve killed them. Prompto could’ve killed Iggy.

In the gloomy like of the Thicket, Iggy’s face, completely blank and still, looks washed out. There’s blood coating one side of his face.

He feels like he needs to be sick again.

“What was wrong with him?” Noct asks. “It was like he was – I don’t know, possessed?”

“It was probably whatever shit those wasps were spraying,” Gladio says. “He was right in the middle of it.”

“What, and that made him go into a rage?”

“I don’t know, Noct, I’m not an expert on wasp piss.”

“We should move him,” Prompto says, a little shrilly, if only because he knows Noct is about to argue right back, and one of their prolonged bickering matches is just not something any of them can handle in their current condition. “The haven isn’t too far –“

“No chance,” Gladio says. “We’re getting out of her. Now.”

“What?” Prompto squeaks, looking back. Gladio struggles to his feet, grunting as he does. He’s favouring his left leg, evidence enough that his right really is just as severely burnt as his face and torso had been. “But –“

“We can make it to the car,” Gladio insists, helping Noct to stand. “I’ll take Iggy, you help Noct. We keep moving, run if anything comes after us. If we go now, we can make it to Old Lestallum before night.”

Prompto licks his lips. Really, he thinks Gladio is putting too much faith in them. Noct looks like death warmed over, Iggy is out for the count for Astrals only know how long, Gladio is absolutely limping, and Prompto’s brain feels as if it’s sloshing around inside his skull, every breath causing a sharp stab of pain across his chest from his bruised ribs, his arms and his chest stinging with pain and lazily leaking blood. If they’re too slow, if they run into anything – spiracorns or shears or sahagins down along the riverfront, daemons on the road if it gets too dark – then they’re dead, plain and simple.

There must be something on his face, a shadow of fear perhaps, because Gladio, instead of getting frustrated with his hesitation, softens. “We can do it. We can make it, Prom.”

He hates it when he says that nickname in that tone; it makes his limbs turn to melted butter, spreads a bloom of warmth across his chest that assuages his fears and hesitations. But still, he’s frozen, crouching by Iggy, until Noct, leaning so heavily against Gladio that he’s barely standing at all, says, “We can’t stay here.”

That’s the truth of it, really. They have no more curatives. They’ll be even more fucked than they already if they stay and something else is waiting up the pathway for them, if it decides to come down and check out what all the commotion had been about. Better to go now, with the way behind them largely cleared from passing through earlier, than to try and leave in the morning or, worse, forge on ahead and get themselves into an even worse mess with whatever horror is waiting for him in the heart of the woods.

He wonders for a second why they’re desperately trying to convince him to attempt the return trip instead of either of them putting their foot down like they normally do, before realising, with a start and the biting back of a hysterical giggle, that he’s the least injured for once and, therefore, ostensibly in charge of keeping their half-dead entourage alive.

“Alright,” he says, managing a small grin. He’s not particularly happy about it, but he knows seeing him smile always makes the others feel better – they’ve said as much a dozen times over, often to his embarrassment. Noct’s pain dulled eyes brighten instantly, and Gladio manages a small grin in return.

“Let’s get moving then,” Gladio says. Prompto stands, momentarily stopping, hissing at the intense pain in his ribs and waving the other two off when they move forward with concern. He takes Noct from Gladio; when he realises Noct’s knees are weak, shaking and unable to take his own weight, he pulls Noct onto his back, hands hooked under his knees. He’s lucky, really – in the most awful kind of way – that it’s Noct he’s carrying, since he weighs about a hundred pounds soaking wet, and it’s not Gladio’s brick wall ass that he has to drag out of here.

The man in question lifts Iggy bodily out of the mud, slinging him over one shoulder, and Prompto hates how limply Iggy hangs. If he was awake, he could imagine the string of profanities – something he hadn’t believed Iggy to be capable of producing until the advent of the Great Ebony Shortage – that would be aimed in Gladio’s direction. As it is, he’s as still and silent as the dead, and Prompto can’t take his eyes away from the blood dripping from his forehead.

Gladio looks back then. “Take point.”

“Right,” he mutters, grateful that he doesn’t have to look at Iggy’s unconscious form all the way down to the Regalia. He goes first, Noct’s solid weight pressing against his back, his arms hanging limply on either side of his neck, breath ghosting against his back.

Paranoid, hearing the distant angry buzz of wasps, he summons his gun into one hand.

He really fucking hates wasps.

Getting back out of the Thicket and down to the mud road where they’d parked the Regalia is far easier than the initial venture. Once, he hears the distant neighing of a spiracorn herd along the trail, but it’s distant enough to not be a cause for concern, and the sahagins that inhabit the riverbank are too busy bathing in the sun to take notice of their severely weakened group passing by. It’s still a rough journey, though; Gladio, for once, flags behind, and Prompto has to slow his pace to ensure that they actually stick together, even forcing them to stop a few times so that Gladio lean against a wall or a rock to catch his breath, wincing as he takes the weight off his injured leg for a few moments before forcing himself to keep moving. Noct is passed out on Prompto’s back, still as the dead, and Prompto would think he’s joined them if he couldn’t still feel breaths against his neck. Iggy doesn’t stir once, and Prompto wheezes, struggling to breath through the combination of Noct’s weight and the agony in his ribs, his head banging like the midday bells of a cathedral and his calves burning from exertion.

It doesn’t help that he’s practically vibrating with anxiety. Every rustle of the leaves, every distant buzzing sound, even just the feel of the breeze on his skin – it sends his heart racing. Deliriously, he thinks he must look insane, wide-eyed and jumpy, splattered with mud and blood, fingers trembling around the trigger of his gun. His mind is going a thousand miles an hour, his stomach is broiling, and there’s a persistent sickly feeling at the back of his throat.

When the Regalia comes into sight, black paint and tinted windows shining bright in the afternoon sunlight, he almost sobs with relief.

“You’re driving,” Gladio says, his voice strained, as they reach the car, lifting one hand up to pat Iggy’s pockets, searching for the keys.

All relief suddenly expels itself from his body, and he makes a strangled noise. “What?!”

Noct stires against his neck at the sudden noise, a small whine escaping him.

“Noct’s half-dead, Iggy’s unconscious, and my leg is fucked,” Gladio says, holding the keys out. “Please, Prom.”

The last time he took the wheel, the Regalia broke down and they spent six hours pushing it under the blistering Leiden sun. He’d had sunburn across his shoulders and cheeks for weeks that Gladio had made fun of him for, and his legs and arms had been sore for days after. He’s pretty sure he’s going to jinx them if he drives, and he feels somewhat ill when he realises the sun is already arching down towards the horizon; if he gets them stranded, they’re absolutely toast. But he also knows that Gladio is right, that he’s the only one who can drive right now. He accepts the keys from him with an overdramatic swallow, holding them as gingerly as he’d hold a flask of Firaga.

Gladio takes the back seat, carefully arranging Iggy so that he’s laid out as comfortably as possible, his head in Gladio’s lap. Prompto helps Noct into the front passenger seat and, his heart hammering and his adrenaline kicking into overdrive once more, he gets into the driver’s seat. There’s mud all over the carpets, and they’re getting grime and blood onto the once pristine leather seats – Cindy will likely throw a fit at the sight when they inevitably have to take a trip all the way up to Hammerhead for a service, will probably bemoan the grime and berate them for not taking care of the old girl better.

The thought almost makes him feel a little better.

Almost.

“Okay, Prompto,” he mutters to himself, his hands shaking so badly that it takes him several attempts to just get the keys in the ignition, “it’s okay. It’s only two hours to Old Lestallum. You can do this.”

“Hell yeah you can,” Noct mumbles from the passenger seat, giving Prompto a weak but encouraging smile.

“Okay,” he says again, more forcefully this time, and turns on the engine.

It’s not so bad, he tries to convince himself, once he’s on the highway. This far out from the major settlements, the roads are largely empty. But his nerves are shot to absolute hell and he’s certain his blood is comprised mostly of adrenaline instead of actual blood at this point. He has an iron grip on the wheel, is almost painfully aware of the pressure he’s putting on the pedals, of the position of the gearstick, of the other cars and the barriers that line the highways and any and all potential hazards.

It's better to focus on those things, to let them overtake his mind entirely, instead of focusing on literally anything else. It’s better to focus on that instead of Noct’s ragged breathing and grey face, instead of Gladio’s twitching limbs and the pained grimace that’s permanently settled on his face, instead of Iggy’s unconscious form in the backseat. It’s better to focus on that instead of the churning of his stomach, the dull pain in his ribs, the stinging in his arms and the blood, his own blood, coating his skin and clothes and holy shit there’s a mandrake tooth stuck in his fucking arm –

“Prompto,” Gladio says suddenly from behind, firm but not angry. “Breathe.”

It’s only now that he realises he’s breathing shallowly, noisily, bordering on hyperventilating, and his body is taut like a coiled spring, ready to snap. He forces himself to loosen his grip on the wheel, forces himself to suck in a deep breath. His heart is hammering against his chest. His ribs and lungs are burning, his mouth is dry.

He needs to be sick again.

“Here,” Gladio holds out a bottle of water.

Prompto is not taking his hands off the wheel. He wants to tell Gladio as much, but he’s afraid he’ll just vomit if he opens his mouth.

“Pull over,” Gladio says, and it sounds like there’s a sigh in his voice.

He’s annoyed. Unsurprising, really; it’s the worst possible time for one of his stupid freak outs.

He still can’t speak, bile in his throat. He wants to insist he’s fine, that he can do this like they’re expecting him to, that he’s not having a panic attack, but he just can’t . His body rebels against him, so he just nods and complies with Gladio’s order, slowing down and pulling over on the side of the highway. His hands are trembling when he lets go of the wheel.

“Breathe, Prom,” Gladio murmurs, leaning forward, a hand rubbing between Prompto’s shoulder blades, a comforting pressure. “Breathe.”

All Prompto can do is nod, cursing his stupid brain and stupid body. The last thing they need is this to happen when Iggy and Noct are still on death’s door and he’s the only one who can drive. He focuses on breathing, in and out, slow, deep breaths, until his blood stops rushing in his ears and his heart stops threatening to burst from his ribcage.

He wants to say it’s just the concussion, wants to say it’s the adrenaline, it’s one of the injuries he’s picked up on the way, or some horrible combination of all three. He wants to say it’s all his fault.

And maybe, partially, it is, because his mind keeps focusing on the dull throbbing of both his head and his ribs, on the feeling of the tooth stuck in his arm. 

Really, though, it’s because he shot Iggy, because Iggy almost killed Noct and Gladio, because Iggy is still unconscious and Noct is barely alive and Gladio’s limbs won’t stop twitching with the aftershocks of quite literally getting struck by fucking lightning –

There’s bile in his mouth. He manages to get the door open in time and vomits onto the road.

“Wh’t’s wron’?” he hears Noct mumble as he gasps, spitting onto the ground.

“Concussed,” Gladio says, and there’s the sound of movement, the squeak of leather as he leans between the seats to reach Prompto better, “and he’s having a panic attack.”

He doesn’t sound annoyed this time. Just worried.

Maybe he was never annoyed at all.

Or perhaps that’s just wishful thinking.

Prompto takes a few moments to breath. His mouth tastes acidic; he spits on the ground. He sits back, head tilted against the seat’s headrest. His mouth is still dry, his brain throbs. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, you’re fine,” Gladio says, a hand on the back of his neck, warm and grounding. “You’re doing great. Just breathe, okay? Here.” He takes one of Prompto’s hands, places it against his heart. “Just follow mine, yeah?”

They’ve done this so many times that it’s almost like going through the motions. It’s comforting nonetheless, something to focus on instead of every painful feeling or every terrible thing, so he does just that, focuses on the warmth and the stability, letting it wash over and quiet the buzzing of quite literally everything else that had taken over his mind and body.

“I’m fine,” he says again, sitting forward, hands on the wheel. “I’m fine.”

“Water,” Gladio says, removing his hand so that he can pass the bottle forward.

Prompto drinks, small sips so that his stomach doesn’t rebel once more. He doesn’t want to drive again, isn’t nearly ready to do so, but the sky is getting darker, the sun angling downwards towards the horizon. Giant wasps might be disgusting and awful to fight, but daemons are worse, so, so worse. So, once he’s satisfied that the worst of the shaking has passed, he puts the bottle in the cupholder, closes the car door, and starts the engine once more.

Chapter Text

The drive to Old Lestallum takes just under two hours, and they get there with around an hour to spare before the dark and the daemons arrive. He pulls the Regalia into the parking lot of the town’s only motel, parking as close to the main desk as possible. It takes some convincing to get Noct to open his eyes and move from where he’s practically melted into the seat, and it takes some manoeuvring on Gladio’s part to get Iggy – still unconscious, still having barely even stirred since Prompto knocked him out – out of the car and into his arms once more. They attract attention, of course, mud-splattered and wound covered as they are, and the girl behind the motel’s reception watches them warily as they approach. It’s with great reluctant that she lets them rent a room, and she only relents after Gladio is forced to fork out extra funds for a cleaning fee in advance of the mess they’re inevitably going to make.

In their room, Prompto is immediately overcome with the sudden urge to go face first onto one of the beds; it might be because they’ve been out in the wilderness – sleeping on a rocky haven in the rain and wind with daemons screeching around them at all hours – for two weeks straight, but the beds look like they’re the softest beds in all of Eos. Gladio, though, catches him before either he or Noct, leaning heavily against him, can go for the beds and pulls him in the direction of the bathroom.

“Set him down there,” Gladio says, pointing at the bathtub. Prompto complies, carefully helping Noct into the tub; as soon as he’s arranged as comfortably as possible, his chin hits his chest and he slips back into sleep. Gladio, meanwhile, lowers Iggy to the ground, propped against the tiled wall, before stepping back, leaning heavily against the sink counter, wincing as he moves the weight off his injured leg. When Prompto steps back, he hits the bathroom wall and stumbles a little, almost losing his footing before catching himself against the door frame, blinking blearily and forcing himself to stay on his feet.

After a few moments of silence, the four of them just breathing, Gladio looks down at Prompto, his eyes gaunt and shadowed, more tired than Prompto has seen him be in a long time. “Think you can get food and meds while I clean these two off?”

Not really, Prompto wants to say. He wants to throw up until there’s nothing, not even acid, left in his stomach, if only to get rid of the persistent nausea that’s been tickling the back of his throat since the Thicket, and then pass out in one of the beds for sixteen hours straight. But Iggy still isn’t awake, Noct’s still too pale, Gladio’s leg is still fucked, and his body is crying out for a potion. So instead, rather reluctantly, he nods.

“Food and meds,” Gladio repeats, holding out his wallet. “As much as you can get.” He pauses for a second, and then adds, “Maybe some Ebony, or those caramel chocolates, if they have them.”

He’s looking at Iggy when Prompto looks up again. It takes his sluggish, battered brain a few seconds to catch up; lost in the haze of adrenaline and pain, he hasn’t even given a thought to how terrible Iggy is going to feel once he eventually wakes up, and that only makes the churning of his stomach all the worse. He nods again and goes to move, but Gladio catches him by the wrist and pulls him close. Prompto opens his mouth to protest but he’s met with a face full of Gladio chest, a hand on the back of his head to hold him close.

“Thanks, Prom,” Gladio says, his tone soft, barely above a whisper. “I mean it.”

He stinks of ozone, sweat, and muck, but he’s warm, and his arms have always had a way of making Prompto feel safe, of letting him forget everything awful beyond their confines. He lets his eyes flutter shut, breathes in the smell, savours the warmth and the feel of Gladio’s hand in his filthy hair. He can feel himself listing, leaning further in, his knees threatening to give and his mind fogging over. Before they can, he forces himself to pull away, blinking blearily up at Gladio’s tired but smiling face.

“Food and meds,” he says, voice slightly slurred.

“Food and meds,” Gladio repeats back.

He leaves the room and steps back out onto the street.

Old Lestallum is small, more of a village than a town. Only a handful of streets, a few dozen small homes that are populated mostly by older people. There’s the original Crow’s Nest, a gas station with the town’s only real store, and a handful of street food stalls. The only reason Old Lestallum still has an economy – the only reason it even still exists – is because of the hunters. The town is the nexus point for several vast stretches of wilderness, a perfect staging ground for hunts across Cleigne. There are hunters strewn across the town, sitting at plastic tables outside the bar, staring at him as he limps across the road from the station with two bags – one filled with painkillers and energy drinks, the other with Ignis’ Ebonies – hanging from one of his hands. There’s more of them sitting inside the Crow’s Nest, and they’re all watching him with the same way look the woman at the motel have given them.

Any other time, he’d be self-conscious to a nauseating degree. He’d hurriedly find the nearest mirror or window, would nervously try to fix his matted and flattened hair. He’d brush the dirt off his clothes, he’d try to give gawkers a blindingly bright smile to catch them off guard. Now, he’s just too damn exhausted, too cold and shaky and nauseated, to care at all. He just gives his order and waits, ignoring the stares he’s getting from the other customers. He’s swaying on the spot and leans forward into the counter to stabilise himself once the server turns away, closing his eyes for a few moments, focusing on breathing before he either collapses or throws up.

“You alright there, kid?”

He opens his eyes, tired and confused, and glances to his right. Two hunters sit at the counter, braids in their hair and small arrows and line tattoos dotted across their faces and arms, watching him with concern.

He plasters a smile on his face, entirely fake and unconvincing. “Yeah, I’m good.”

The one sitting closest doesn’t look impressed. They’re both older, grey in their hair and beards, lines on their foreheads and in the corners of their eyes, old and new scars on their arms. Senior hunters, probably thinking he’s some hot shit kid who’s trying to play it off cool. The one sitting further away leans around his partner, concern still in his eyes, and asks, “You’re the kids in the fancy car, right? Looks like you had a rough one.”

Prompto hesitates for a moment, debating trying to brush off their concern, before he remembers there’s still a mandrake tooth stuck in his arm – which the closer of the two hunters is staring at – and admits, with a sigh, “Yeah.”

“Sahagins?” the further one asks. “No offence, kid, but you look like one just dragged you through a river.”

Not too far from the truth, he thinks wryly, before he says, “No, wasps.”

Both hunters’ faces twist in distaste.

“Nasty little fuckers,” the closer one says.

“More like giant pains in the asses,” the further one says.

“Tell me about it,” Prompto mutters. Even before they’d managed to drive Iggy insane, the wasps were a pain in the neck to fight; they move too fast for him to get a good aim, and they fly too high for Gladio and Iggy to reach, leaving Noct doing most of the heavy lifting.

The closer hunter is still watching him. “Here’s a tip, kid: get yourself some noise grenades. Throw one in the middle of a swarm – wasps, imps, whatever the fuck you’re fighting – and it’ll disorient them enough to give you the upper hand.”

“And get some smelling salts from Meldacio,” the further one says. “And face masks.”

“Smelling salts?” Prompto asks with a frown.

“They spray this green shit – some kind of mist,” the closer one says. “If you’re unlucky enough to get caught up in it, it fucks with you something fierce. Hallucinations, adrenaline, that sort of thing. You’ll forget who your friends are and just attack anything in close proximity.”

Prompto blanches. “That, uh – happened to one of my – uh, friends. Today.”

The two hunters’ faces harden. The further one is looking over his injuries. “They do that to you?”

“No,” he says automatically, a bit too sharp. “N-not all of it.” And he still got off a lot easier in comparison to Noct and Gladio. “We’re fine, though. He’s – he’s fine. I knocked him out.”

His tone isn’t convincing, and the hunters are still watching him. His brain, ever hateful of itself, replays the events of the day in vivid technicolour, the dull thud of his gun hitting the top of Iggy’s head reverberating in his ears. He glances over the counter to the chef, who’s boxing up his order. He’s wishing he’d move faster.

He wants his bed so badly.

“He’ll be fine when he wakes up,” the closer one says. “Good knock to the head rattles it back into place.”

“He’ll be disoriented for a while, at least,” the further one says, giving his partner an annoyed look that only makes him shrug in response. With a roll of his eyes, the further one continues, “He probably won’t remember what happened, and he’ll need to take it easy for a few days, but he’ll be fine.”

“Right,” Prompto mumbles, nodding.

“Smelling salts and face masks for next time. Get yourselves up to Meldacio and get some before you go back out there, they sell them cheap enough in the pharmacy. Put the salts in your mask, just a pinch. They’re strong and they’ll sting your nose to shit, but it’ll keep you coherent enough to not shoot your best friend in the back.”

Or stab them in the chest. Or break a bottle of lightning in their face.

“And get yourself a copy of ol’ Ezma’s bestiary,” the closer one says. “It lists all the monsters and daemons you’ll come across, and all the weird things they can do.”

“Right,” Prompto says with another nod, making a mental note to mention it when he gets back to the room. “Right. Got it. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it, kid,” the closer one says. He turns to his partner. “They should be teaching the rookies this shit.”

“Bring it up to Dave next time we see him.”

“He never pays attention to our ideas.”

“Yeah, because someone led an entire hunting party straight into a coeurl pack’s den.”

“We’re still alive, ain’t we?”

The server brings Prompto’s food. The smell is heavenly, and his stomach churns, a mixture of nausea and hunger. He thanks the server, picks up the bag, and turns to leave.

“Later, kid,” the closer hunter says, raising his hand in a wave.

“Smelling salts and face masks,” the further one calls. “Don’t forget!”

“I won’t,” Prompto calls back over his shoulder, waving back. “Thanks!”

The air in the motel room is cool when he gets back, the wooden shutter doors on the back wall flung open to let a breeze in, and the fan in the corner working at full power. The bathroom door is closed, and he can hear the shower running. Three pairs of muddy boots sit on a towel just inside the door, the mud they’d trailed in before wiped up clumsily; he toes off his own boots, his feet crying out in relief, and leaves them with the rest.

Noct is dozing lightly on the bed closest to the door, curled around a pillow like an overgrown black cat. He’s stripped down to his boxers, hair damp and flattened but clean. His eyes flutter open, clouded over with exhaustion and stasis, but he still gives the smallest of smiles when he sees Prompto, unfurling and sitting up slowly.

“Is that food?” he asks, voice croaky.

“Cheeseburgers and fries,” Prompto says, setting the bags down on the end of the bed. Iggy would throw a fit if he was awake, but – well, he isn’t; Prompto can only assume that Gladio is still washing him off in the bathroom. “And energy drinks.” He pushes the bag with the drinks towards Noct. “They didn’t have the better ones.”

“We work with what we got,” Noct says, pulling the bag towards himself with a grimace. Tired as he is, Prompto doesn’t blame him for not wanting to spend what little energy he has left making potions. But Noct approaches the task with the same grim determination he approaches pretty much everything they have to do these days, shouldering through the pain and exhaustion, the liquid in the bottle sizzling and glowing aquamarine as he pools magic into it.

“You first,” Noct says, holding the bottle out and shaking it a little when Prompto doesn’t take it.

“You need it more,” Prompto says and means, because Noct’s face is still too grey for his liking, his limbs still a little too shaky. “You look like shit, dude.”

Noct gives him a flat look.

“Seriously, I feel fine.”

“Tell that to your face.”

“What, is it bad?” He should probably look – there’s a mirror above the dressing table in the room – but he doesn’t really want to see just how bad the damage is when feeling it is enough. His head is still pounding, his right eye is swollen, and there’s a dozen injuries across his body that are crying out for relief. He knows he must look an absolute mess.

Noct’s face pinches as he surveys him, his eyes narrowing slightly when he looks at Prompto’s lacerated arms. “Looks like you went ten rounds with Cor.”

“I reckon Iggy’s left hook could give him a run for his money,” Prompto jokes, if only to try and deflect a little.

Noct’s face crumbles, and he looks away.

A wave of shame hits him, and his cheeks burn.

Probably a bit too soon.

Noct rubs at his chest, at the slowly disappearing scar. In the washed out, yellow lights of the motel room, Prompto can see just how close the scar is to Noct’s heart, only a scant few inches away, and how he still looks weary and pale from the combination of blood loss and stasis, his hands shaking and his eyelids drooping.

It had been way, way too close a call.

He doesn’t want to think about the alternate scenario, where the blade of Iggy’s spear had struck true. He knows it’s at the forefront of Noct’s mind right now, is most definitely haunting Gladio also. Just thinking about it for a few brief moments is enough to make his own nausea intensify tenfold.

He swallows, his mouth feeling drier than the Leiden plains. The air is still awkward, tense, and the walls suddenly feel a bit too close.

He can’t stand it.

Quickly, so quickly he trips over the words, he says, “WeneedtogotoMeldacio.”

Noct frowns and looks up at him. “What?”

Prompto clears his throat, forces himself to take a breath and speak slower. “We need – we should go to Meldacio.”

A pause. “Why?”

“Smelling salts and face masks,” Prompto says, repeating what the hunters had said. Noct’s look of confusion only deepens. “There were some hunters at the diner. They recommended we get those things – for fighting the wasps.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah, apparently the salts prevent whatever happened to Iggy. We still have to go back for your ancestor’s stupid weapon, and it really better be worth it because we’re going to have to take another mud bath and – what?” Noct’s staring up at him with a weird expression, almost thoughtful, and his head is tilted to one side. Prompto’s cheeks heat up again, self-conscious under Noct’s piercing eyes. “What?”

“Nothing,” Noct says with a shrug, but there’s a mischievous half-smile gracing his lips. “It’s just – you’re being helpful for a change.”

Prompto splutters. “What do you mean, for a change?!”

Noct is laughing, that goofy but beautiful laugh of his that sets every neuron in Prompto’s brain alight, and it’s difficult to even feel the slightest bit offended – mock or real – when he sounds so joyful.

He still has the potion in his hand, his eyes sparking dangerously when Prompto refuses it once again.

Prompto holds up his arm, shows him the tooth stuck deep within. “I’ll wait. Wouldn’t want to have one whilst this is still stuck in there, huh?”

Noct blinks, and then glares. “Why the hells didn’t you say anything?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Pot, kettle. Now drink.”

He doesn’t look impressed, but Noct finally drinks the potion all the same, sighing with relief as he finishes it. There’s no immediate change to him – the cheaper brands make less effective potions, taking several hours to fix more minor injuries whilst the better ones can stitch skin and bone together in a matter of seconds – but it obviously alleviates the pain and makes him feel a little better, and he turns to the rest of the energy drinks with renewed vigour. Prompto takes the empty bottle and deposits it in the bin; as he does, he hears the shower being turned off, and, a few minutes later, Gladio emerges from the bathroom carrying in his arms, side-stepping through the door to avoid catching Iggy’s head or feet.

“He woke up before,” Gladio says, grunting as he limps to the room’s other bed; he’s removed his ruined clothes, leaving him in only his boxers, showing off the full extent of his horrendous burns and, really, it’s a miracle he’s even still standing with how terrible they are.

Noct looks up at his words, eyes wide. His voice panicked when he asks, “Is he okay?”

Gladio sets Iggy down on the other bed, tucking him under the covers. “I dunno, he was out of it. Barely seemed to know where he is.”

Noct looks worried at that, so Prompto speaks up quickly, “The hunters I talked to, they said he’ll be disoriented for a while.”

Gladio frowns at him. “What hunters?”

“These two guys at the diner – they gave me some tips. One of them said he just needs to rest for a few days, and he’ll be fine.”

Noct is blinking at him again, whilst Gladio smiles at him, grateful and – admiring, maybe?

“Nice work,” Gladio says.

“Also,” Prompto says, holding up the food bag, “food and meds.”

“Thanks, Prom,” Gladio says, limping to his side and ruffling his hair. Prompto swats his hand away, but it’s good natured, the two of them smiling at one another.

“Potions,” Noct says, nudging the bottle towards them.

Prompto takes one but, rather than having it himself, he heads for Iggy. Gladio has cleaned the graze on his head and covered it with a bandage; it’s angry and red but thankfully no longer bleeding when Prompto uncovers it to take a look. Careful as he can, he pours some of the potion onto the cut, listening to it hiss slightly before it starts to slowly close. Satisfied, he props Iggy up on the pillows, pouring some of the potion carefully down his throat.

Just like with Noct, there’s no immediate change; Iggy doesn’t dramatically sit up with a gasp like they do in the movies. Instead, he continues to lie there, eyes closed and breathing evenly, though some of the colour returns to his face and the swollen welt where Prompto had struck him begins to deflate, and that satisfies Prompto, for now. He sets the remainder of the potion on the bedside table for when Iggy awakens.

“C’mon,” Gladio says to him as he turns back to him and Noct, gathering up the rest of the potions. “You need a shower, too.”

“Make sure the idiot has one of those,” Noct says, gesturing to the potions.

“Hey!” Prompto says with mock outrage at the same time that Gladio grins, salutes, and says, “Aye, aye, sir.”

Noct grins back before his eyes settle on the bag of food. “Can I have my burger before you go?”

“No,” Prompto says, but opens the bag and pulls Noct’s food out all the same, tossing the container across the bed towards him, savouring the way his eyes shine as he opens it and inhales the scent of meant and cheese. Noct lifts the burger out and bites into it with a long, loud moan.

“This is so good,” he says, his voice muffled around a mouthful of meat, cheese, and bread. He swallows, looking up with shining eyes. “You even got me one with salad on.”

“Don’t tell Iggy,” Prompto grins.

Noct doesn’t respond, but rather than looking forlorn at the mention of their still unconscious partner, he’s just too absorbed in enjoying his burger, savouring it with some rather egregious moans.

“Are you eating that or trying to make out with it?” Gladio asks with a half-smile, watching the whole display with bemusement. When Noct doesn’t respond – choosing instead to take another bite with another ridiculously loud moan – Gladio rolls his eyes and gives Prompto’s shoulder another poke. “C’mon. Shower.”

The bathroom is humid when they enter, the mirror clouded over with fog and condensation on the tiled walls. Between the toilet and the tub, Noct, Iggy, and Gladio’s clothes are sitting in an unceremonious, muddy pile. Prompto, his movements still stiff and slow, starts stripping as Gladio closes the door behind him. He gets his jacket off easily, but struggles with his vest, pain shooting up his chest like shards of ice when he tries to lift his arm and only succeeds in aggravating his definitely cracked ribs. He lets out a whine, lowering his arm instantly and curling in on himself, his other hand flying to his ribs.

“Prom? Shit,” Gladio says from behind, resting a hand on his back. He’s not expecting the touch, though, and he flinches violently away from it, backing into the wall. A small whine escapes him and his adrenaline spikes again. Gladio hisses from his reaction. “Hey, it’s okay. Easy. It’s just me.”

“Sorry,” Prompto mutters through gritted teeth, trying to get himself under control and stop acting like a wounded animal. “Sorry, sorry…”

“It’s fine,” Gladio says soothingly, gently, cautiously laying a hand on the back of Prompto’s neck. “You’re fine. Here, lemme give you a hand.”

It’s still painful, every movement causing stabbing agony in his chest, but it’s easier to get the vest off with Gladio’s help, with him murmuring encouragement every time the pain escalates and Prompto wants to just stop and curl up in a ball.

Gladio hisses again when they finally get the vest off, eyes hooded as he looks over the damage, pale and freckled skin turned to a canvas of black and purple bruising. “Shit, Prom.”

“I think they’re cracked,” he says hoarsely, licking his lips.

“Looks like,” Gladio murmurs, examining Prompto’s ribs with gentle, warm hands. “Potion’ll sort it out.” His eyes land on the tooth stuck in Prompto’s forearm. “We gotta get that our first.”

Prompto shakes his head. “You needed potions on your burns, like, yesterday.”

“Prom –“

“Don’t ‘Prom’ me, Gladio,” he says, a bit snappy, and it speaks to how thin he’s stretched and how exhausted he is that he barely feels guilty for it. “You look worse than Noct’s cooking so sit down.”

It’s a bit mean, but it seems to work, because Gladio heaves a great sigh and sits down on the edge of the bathtub, gingerly stretching out his leg with a barely suppressed grimace. Prompto feels sick at the sight of the charred topography of his skin, forces himself to swallow down yet another round of acidic bile burning its way up his throat and focus instead on helping. The burns look awful, red and raw and blistered, spiderwebs that crawl around Gladio’s hip and leg, curving around to his back, though Prompto comforts himself with the thought that they’re not nearly half as bad as they’d been back in the Thicket.

He swallows again and reaches for the potions. He kneels down, wincing and whining when his ribs spark with white-hot agony yet again at the movement, almost falling face forward, catching himself at the last second on the edge of the tub, one of Gladio’s hands reaching out to catch his shoulder.

“’m okay,” he mumbles, stretching and gritting his teeth against the pain. “’m okay, ‘m okay…”

“I know,” Gladio says, though he doesn’t sound like he believes either his own words or Prompto’s, definitely doesn’t look it when Prompto glances up at him; instead, his eyes reflect the same agony paralysing Prompto’s chest, hooded and haunted.

Once he’s situated on the floor, he breaks open the cap on the first potion and begins slowly pouring it out over Gladio’s burns. Gladio grunts as the potion sizzles; potions are still energy drinks – despite their weird properties that let them be catalysed by magic, the specifics of which are completely lost on Prompto, despite the lecture Ignis gave on it – and they sting like shit on some injuries, namely: burns. Gladio bears it, though, gritting his teeth as Prompto pours more onto his leg. Prompto takes one of the room’s handtowels and soaks it in the second potion, using it to get to the back of Gladio’s leg, which, thankfully, isn’t as bad as the front, which obviously took the brunt of the lightning.

The cheaper potions aren’t as quick or good at healing as the more expensive ones, but they’re still working; as he works, Gladio’s skin slowly starts repairing itself, harsh red fading into a softer pink, blisters disappearing, and the pained lines on Gladio’s face finally, finally smooth out.

“That’s better,” Gladio says with a sigh after Prompto applies the third potion, able to stretch his leg out more without it causing too much pain. Prompto uncaps the fourth – and next to last – potion, ready to pass to it Gladio for him to drink, but Gladio catches his hand, shaking his head. “You need some, too. C’mon.”

Prompto wants to protest – Gladio definitely needs it more – but he knows he’s going to be fighting an uphill battle with that one, so he screws the cap back on and sets it down on the ground. He braces his hands against the edge of the tub to help pull himself up, but he staggers from the burning agony in his chest from his ribs. He almost collapses again, but Gladio’s arms shoot out, catching him before he falls, hissing as he does.

“Easy,” he murmurs, “I got ya. Here.”

Even though he’s only barely in working order himself, Gladio helps Prompto pull himself up into a perch on the edge of the tub, before shifting, sitting opposite Prompto on the closed lid of the toilet.

“Lemme take a look at that arm,” Gladio says, holding his hand out.

Prompto willingly lets him take his arm, willingly lets him examine the wound, gritting his teeth to prevent himself from wincing or hissing when Gladio prods at it as gently as he can.

“Shit,” Gladio says, gently turning Prompto’s arm this way and that to get a good look at the wound from different angles. “It’s really stuck in there, huh?”

“Can you just please get it out?” Prompto says croakily, refusing to look at it.

“Yessir,” Gladio says, but his tone is serious, and his eyes hard when he looks at Prompto. “Gonna have to use the pliers, though, alright?”

Not alright, he wants to say – wants to scream – but the tooth has to come out if he wants a potion, and, Astrals, he really, really wants a potion right now. So, instead, he nods. Gladio nods back and releases Prompto’s arm, reaching into the armiger for Prompto’s toolbox, the one that Cid had presented to him for the express use of keeping the Regalia moving when they’re too far out from Hammerhead to get a tow. Gladio produces the pliers from the toolbox before dismissing it back to the armiger again; he disinfects the pliers before taking Prompto’s arm again, holding the wound up to the light.

“This is gonna sting,” Gladio murmurs, thumb rubbing across Prompto’s forearm.

“No shit,” he mumbles, trying to steel himself. He clenches his teeth. “Just do it.”

Gladio gives his arm one more squeeze before he moves the pliers towards the tooth. Knowing what’s the come, Prompto swallows thickly and looks away, not wanting to see. A small whimper escapes him when he feels the pliers poking at the edge of the wound, trying to create space between his skin and the tooth, and his arm trembles.

“Easy,” Gladio murmurs, but he doesn’t stop, which is Prompto is glad for, because he’s not sure he could compose himself enough for a second try if he did. “You’re doing great.”

He clenches his fist, grateful that Gladio’s grip keeps his arm stable because he’s completely incapable of doing so when he’s got both a half-inch tooth and a pair of pliers stuck in his skin. He keeps his jaw clenched shut tightly, is afraid to loosen it for a single second lest he throws up or screams as Gladio shifts the pliers, pain radiating up and down his arm.

“Alright,” Gladio says, voice low, “I got it. On three, okay?”

He closes his eyes, nods.

“One, two, three!”

On three, the tooth is yanked loose. Prompto bites back his cry of pain as it slides from his skin, leaving a raw and extremely painful hole behind. He forces himself to breathe in and out, his breaths sounding more like hisses than actual breaths. Eventually, he dares to open his eyes and feels bile in his mouth again at the sight of the brown tooth, coated in his blood, held aloft in the pliers. Gladio sees the look on his face and quickly deposits the tooth on the counter, out of Prompto’s sight, and presses an opened potion into his good hand.

“Drink,” he orders, and Prompto drinks. The potion is bitter and fizzy, and it sloshes around his empty, broiling stomach, but it slowly starts to take the edge off his injuries, and he knows they’ll be scabbed over by the morning, faded to scars and then to nothing within a few days. Gladio pours some of the last potion onto the hole, nods when it begins to slowly stitch itself together again and passes him the remainder when he finishes the first. Once he’s downed them both, Gladio sets the bottle aside and helps him stand again.

“C’mon,” Gladio says, a hand in Prompto’s hair as he presses a gentle kiss to his temple. “Shower.”

Together, the two of them strip off the rest of their clothes – sans his cuff, permanently affixed to his wrist – and step into the shower. Gladio turns on the faucet, and Prompto sighs with relief when the hot water begins to rain down on him. For a few moments, all he can do is stand there, head tilted back and eyes closed, savouring the heat that spread from his head down to his extremities, chasing away the chill that’s been stubbornly sat in his bones since they first waded through the stream. Gladio stands at his back, wrapping his arms around his waist, and he hums, leaning back again Gladio’s chest, smiling when he feels the brush of lips along his shoulder, trailing up the side of his neck.

“Better?” Gladio mumbles, nipping at Prompto’s earlobe, his voice rumbling through his back.

Prompto can only hum in response, enjoying the warmth and the touch, feeling himself listing, his knees giving way.

“Not yet,” Gladio says, pressing a kiss into his neck, keeping Prompto on his feet with his arms. “Your hair’s still full of mud.”

“And whose fault is that?” Prompto grouches, but the effect is voided by the dopey smile on his face, too blissed out to be really annoyed, especially when Gladio’s hands work their way into his hair, gently washing out the grime and the sweat. Prompto feels his eyes slip shut again, a hum in the back of his throat as Gladio’s fingers work into his scalp. He leans on Gladio, letting him use the motel’s citrus-smelling shampoo on his hair and it’s very stereotypically soapy-smelling soap on his skin.

“Mandrakes really did a number on you, huh?” Gladio murmurs as he gently runs the soap down one of Prompto’s arms, face pinched with sympathy when Prompto winces from the sting of soap in open wounds.

“Gave as good as I got,” Prompto says, opening his eyes and looking up with a lopsided grin.

Gladio grins back down at him. “Wouldn’t expect any less.”

Even though he can feel himself drifting – has the strong urge to just give in and left Gladio practically manhandle him like he’s done with Noct and Iggy – he forces himself to stand properly, to turn and takes the soap from Gladio’s hand. He’s a bit too short to reach Gladio’s hair, so Gladio washes his own whilst Prompto scrubs down his back and then his chest.

It’s as he’s scrubbing down his chest, rubbing the soap into his shoulders and pectorals, that he notices Gladio watching him, his eyes are dark yet also sparking, and Prompto grins as Gladio takes the soap from his hand, setting it down on the shower niche before taking Prompto by the waist, pulling him close. Gladio kisses him deeply, hungrily, a day of frustration and need poured into the kiss, and Prompto feels himself taking a step back, his back hitting the tiled wall, hot water raining down on them both. Gladio’s hands are on his waist, a comforting grip, and Prompto lifts his leg up, hooking his foot around the back of Gladio’s knee. The sudden increase in friction makes Gladio growl, low and guttural, and he breaks away from the kiss with an almost pained expression.

“Not now,” he murmurs, even as he buries his face into Prompto’s neck, kissing and biting at his skin.

“Shame,” Prompto mumbles, gasping as he feels Gladio’s teeth bite at the sensitive skin at the base of his neck, digging his fingernails into Gladio’s back. Gladio stops his ministrations, takes a deep, shuddering breath, and pulls back.

“Not now,” he repeats, and Prompto pouts. Gladio laughs, kissing him again, teeth dragging across his lower lip when he pulls away. “Later. Promise.”

Later can’t come soon enough, really; after the day they’ve had, he wants to pull Gladio apart and be pulled apart in turn, wants him to root out all the leftover hollows of pain and anxiety rooted into his bones, and wants to do the same in turn. Still, though, he acquiesces, and they finish cleaning one another off before stepping out of the shower. They dry themselves off, lest they start something again, and Prompto runs a towel over his dripping hair.

As he pulls the towel off his head, he catches sight of his reflection in the bathroom’s mirror, eyes widening a little bit as he sees the mess that’s been made of his face. The swelling is going down, thankfully, but the bruising is still deep and dark, and he spots bleeding in the white of his eye. There’s a split on his lip, grazing on his forehead, his cheek, his chin – he really is a mess, and that’s without making mention of the bruises and grazes covering the rest of his body.

“Shit,” he mumbles, leaning in close to the mirror, poking at his bruised eye and wincing slightly at the dull ache that follows. He glances over at Gladio. “My eye’s bleeding, is that –“

“C’mere,” Gladio says, holding his hands out. Prompto steps close, and Gladio takes his face gently in his hands, cupping his jaw. He leans in, close enough for Prompto to feel his breath against his skin. He takes one hand and gently opens Prompto’s eye a bit wider, examining the damage and murmuring an apology when Prompto winces. He leans back with a nod, his moving back to rest on Prompto’s jawline. “Just a burst blood vessel. It’ll heal up on its own.” He smirks down at Prompto. “Won’t have to worry about going even more blind than you already are.”

“Har har,” Prompto snarks, and Gladio chuckles before kissing the crown of his head.

“Here,” Gladio says, pulling a roll of bandages from the armiger. “Can you give me a hand? We don’t wanna risk catching an infection or reopening wounds in the night.”

“Sure,” Prompto says. He takes the bandages and kneels down, wrapping the bandages around Gladio’s leg, covering the still healing burns. Once they’re covered, he hands Gladio the roll; Gladio covers Prompto’s lacerated arms and sets the almost depleted roll aside on the counter once they’re done, before producing

“Mandrakes do this, too?” Gladio mumbles, tracing a faint line along Prompto’s chest, about an inch below the gash.

“No,” Prompto mumbles, remembering dodging Iggy’s spear, remembering the way it glinted from the fires. He doesn’t say anything else, nor does he even really need to; Gladio’s eyes harden, and the atmosphere in the bathroom – previously so warm and relaxed – instantly freezes over, and Gladio covers the wound in stoney silence.

Once it’s covered, Gladio dons a fresh pair of boxers and leaves Prompto to dress in privacy, the roll of gauze pointedly left on the counter for him, giving him the chance to remove his soaked and chafing cuff, quickly covering his wrist back up again with another bandage. He doesn’t bother with pyjamas, just boxers and one of Gladio’s Cup Noodle shirts, ridiculously oversized on him but comfortable and warm with the lingering scent of Gladio’s aftershave. For the first time in a while, he decides to remove his contacts and wear his glasses for the rest of the night instead, wrinkling his nose a few times as he tries to get used to the unfamiliar weight of them, and uses his bandana to keep his damp and messy hair back from his face.

“You look like such a dork,” Noct comments when he finally leaves the bathroom. He’s laid on his side on the bed, curled around his pillow again, his now-empty food container left on the bedside table.

“Thanks,” he says wryly, accepting his freshly reheated food from Gladio.

“Is that my shirt?” Gladio asks with narrowed eyes, sitting by Iggy’s feet.

“Yup,” Prompto says cheerily. He sits on Noct’s bed, legs crossed beneath him, barely able to suppress a moan of his own when he bites into his burger. “Fuck, this is so good.”

“Don’t you start,” Gladio growls, tucking into his own food.

“I can’t help it,” Prompto rambles, even though his mouth is full. “This is literally the good of the gods.”

Gladio scoffs at him. Noct shuffles on the bed so that he’s pressed against Prompto’s back, dancing on the edge of consciousness, whilst Prompto has to actively prevent himself from just inhaling his food lest he make himself sick again.

For a few moments, it’s almost silent in the room, the only sounds being the quiet whirring of the fan and the crinkling of paper as Gladio and Prompto eat. And Prompto tries to ignore it, tries to just focus on his food and how much better he feels for having something beyond a pair of potions in his stomach, but that same tense atmosphere that had permeated the bathroom has followed out here, and he can feel it growing more and more oppressive as the seconds go by, like a bubble that keeps growing until it threatens to burst.

And, finally, Gladio, without looking up from the fries he’s picking at rather than eating, asks, “We gonna talk about it?”

“No,” Noct says instantly, his voice stronger than it’s been for hours, voicing Prompto’s own thoughts. “Not now.”

“So, what do we do when he wakes up and starts freaking out?”

Fuck, he hates it when Gladio has a point.

Noct does too, which is why he presses his face into his pillow, determined to ignore Gladio.

“Noct, he’s gonna freak out,” Gladio says.

“I know,” Noct mumbles, voice muffled.

“What would we even say?” Prompto asks, laughing with no real emotion behind it. All the warmth he’d soaked up in the shower has emptied out of him, a cold dread spreading across his chest in its place. “‘Hey, Iggy, thanks for not almost killing us, we know it’s not your fault’?”

“He might not even remember,” Noct says.

“The hunters said it causes hallucinations and memory problems,” Prompto offers.

“There, we just pretend it didn’t happen,” Noct says triumphantly, turning over.

“That’s not a helpful solution and you know it,” Gladio says with a growl.

“Why the fuck not?” Noct growls right back, still turned away.

“When has running from your problems ever helping, Your Majesty?”

Prompto feels Noct tense against his back, and he swallows thickly. “Guys –“

“What’s gonna happen when Iggy wakes up and asks what happened to Prompto’s face?” Gladio says, gesturing in Prompto’s direction even though Noct can’t see. His voice rises in pitch, and the pain in Prompto’s head immediately starts to intensify. “What happens when he asks why you’re still too weak to move by yourself?”

What happens when he asks about your burns? Prompto wants to ask, but he knows Gladio will just wave it off, because he always does, because he doesn’t think it matters when he gets hurt and will probably even brag about adding yet another scar to his ever-growing collection. It’s one of those things that really, genuinely pisses Prompto off to no end. Right now, Gladio isn’t even thinking about himself, about how he too very nearly died today; all he’s thinking about is the rest of them, as if his own life is secondary.

It comes with the territory of being a King’s Shield, but it doesn’t make it any less wrong.

Noct doesn’t reply.

“You wanna lie to him?” Gladio goes on, because he just can’t drop a line of attack once he’s taken it up. “Is that what you want?”

Noct’s silence is agonising.

Prompto looks down at his half-eaten food, feeling his stomach churn uncomfortably. He’s lost his appetite entirely. He closes the container and swallows.

“Noct, we can’t just pretend this didn’t happen,” Gladio says, his voice still firm.

Another beat of silence and, just as there’s a flash of white-hot fury across Gladio’s face, Noct says, in a heartbreakingly small voice, “I know.”

He’s still curled around the pillow, clutching it close to his chest, covering the ugly scar.

It won’t be there come the morning, but Prompto knows the memory is going to cling to them like a parasite for days, weeks, months.

He tries not to think about how things are going to change.

It’s not Iggy’s fault, they all know that. None of them will ever hold it against him, none of them are capable of hating him. Even back in the Thicket, freshly saved from the brink of death, all Noct had been thinking about was if Iggy was okay.

And yet, all Prompto can think about is Iggy’s snarling face, about blood in the mud –

About holding his gun level with the back of Iggy’s head, seconds away from pulling the trigger.

He didn’t think things could get worse after Insomnia, when they’d all been so tense and strung out, having seen the smouldering remains of their home and heard the news that their families were either missing or dead. They’d snapped and snarled at each other for days, wounded animals with no understanding that the others were just trying to help. But, they’d moved past it eventually, because it wasn’t anyone’s fault.

Regis and Clarus died to somebody else’s blade. Insomnia fell because of Niflheim treachery.

They worked past it because that’s what they do. They have their ups and down, piss each other off from time to time, but it always passes by and gets forgotten about.

He doesn’t know how they’re going to fix this.

Noct says nothing more, just continues to lay on his side with the pillow in his hands, his back firmly turned to Prompto, to Gladio, to Iggy. For the first time since it happened, Prompto tries to imagine to agony in Noct’s mind, at trying to sort through the mess that was Iggy – someone he’s been nigh inseparable from for nearly twenty years – almost killing him.

He can’t. It’s not a situation he would’ve ever dreamed they’d be in.

Gladio must be thinking the same thing. The hard, angry shine in his eyes dulls into heavy exhaustion. His fists clench and unclench, body buzzing with unspent energy, unspent fury. Finally, his shoulders sag, the fight leaving him. He stands, dumping the remainder of his food in the trash can, and steps out of the shutter doors to the steps beyond, pulling the doors to behind him. A few moments later, Prompto hears the distant sound of a lighter sparking.

It’s quiet in the room. Noct stays curled around the pillow, his back pressed against Prompto’s. Iggy continues sleeping.

When the quiet gets a bit too much, Prompto stands, wincing when his ribs protest against the movement. He deposits their food containers in the trash can and fetches one of the packets of painkillers from the bags he’d brought back earlier. He pops two into his hand, takes a moment to take stock of his injuries, and pops another two out, swallowing them all down with a bottle of water from the armiger. Noct doesn’t move at all, doesn’t shift or look up, even though Prompto can tell from his tensed muscles that he’s still wide awake. Gladio doesn’t come back into the room, even as the minutes stretch on.

Prompto sits back down on the bed, his and Noct’s backs pressed against one another again, Noct’s taut muscles relaxing at the touch. He’s still too cold for Prompto’s liking, skin still too grey, and there’s a slight tremor to him.

He reaches a hand out, gingerly stretching his fingers towards Noct’s half-dry hair; when Noct doesn’t flinch away from the touch, he sinks his fingers into his hair fully, scratching gently at that one spot behind Noct’s ear that always, without fail, makes him melt like butter. As predicted, Noct’s limbs loosen, a contented sigh escaping him, and Prompto grins.

“You’re like a cat,” Prompto says, unable to keep the teasing lilt out of his voice. “Did I ever tell you that?”

“Every time you do this,” Noct grumbles, lifting his face out of the pillow enough to expose one unimpressed-looking eye. “I’ll stop letting you.”

“More a loss for you than me,” Prompto says in a slight singsong tone.

Noct huffs but doesn’t tell him to stop. After a few moments of this, Prompto retracts his hand, and Noct gives a whine, his eye reappearing again to look reproachfully up at Prompto.

“You’re so needy,” Prompto says with a grin, turning so that he can lay down against Noct’s back, an arm wrapped around his waist.

“Shut up,” Noct mumbles, but Prompto can hear the smile in his voice and smiles in return, his chest against Noct’s back, feeling his heartbeat, working in tandem with Prompto’s own.

He lays there for a while, just feeling that beat, that thrum of life, trying to ignore just how close they came to having that thrum snuffed out completely.

But try as he might, the memory just won’t let go.

Gladio’s right; it’s not something that they can just ignore.

He doesn’t want to say anything right now, not with Noct relaxing in his arms, with his breaths slowly starting to even out, obviously dances on the edges of sleep once more. But he also knows that the longer they leave it the more it’s going to rot and twist.

“You okay?” he finally asks, turning his face out from where it’s been pressed into the back of Noct’s neck.

 “I’m fine,” Noct says, his voice a bit too tight and his reply a bit too quick to be convincing, but he’s just as stubborn as the rest of them, won’t ever readily admit to ‘weakness’, as he would describe it. After a few moments of silence, Prompto hears him give a low growl. “Gladio’s an asshole.”

“He's just worried,” Prompto mumbles.

Noct scoffs. “You always take his side.”

With a roll of his eyes, Prompto pushes himself up onto one elbow, resting his chin on Noct’s shoulder. “I’m not taking his ‘side’, you idiot, I’m just saying, he’s worried, too. You really think he’s not going out of his mind about you, and Iggy?”

Noct’s quiet for a few moments, his eyes obscured by his hair, before he lets out a sigh, turning onto his back; Prompto keeps himself propped up on one elbow, reaching to stroke at Noct’s cheekbone with his other hand.

“I know he is,” Noct mumbles, one of his hands reaching up to tug gently on a stray lock of Prompto’s hair. He huffs. “He doesn’t have to be such a dick about it.”

“He has a point, though,” Prompto says. “We gotta come up with a plan for when Iggy wakes up.”

“I know,” Noct stresses, a furrow working its way between his brows. “It’s just… I don’t want him to blame himself, or get – I dunno, on his duty high horse. Y’know what he’s like.”

Prompto does, and the root of his anxiety over this entire situation is founded in Iggy’s almost fanatical devotion. He can already predict that Iggy is going to argue tooth and nail that he’s too dangerous to be around Noct, or to take the entire situation as a sign that he’s not good enough to be at Noct’s side, or some other ridiculous, convoluted excuse borne from duty and nobility and all the other upper-class bullshit that Prompto’s too low down to really understand. It’s the same bullshit that’s currently rotting Gladio’s mind, amongst other things, and Prompto hates it, because it sometimes overrules the fact that the four of them are supposed to be a team, are supposed to be together.

Habits take a long time to break, though, and current events are reinforcing them rather than weakening.

But he also remembers the promise the four of them made to each other, the promise that he made them all make, two years ago – a lifetime ago, back when his daily worries were finishing his assignments on time and being a good boyfriend. They promised then to not let shit just like this tear them apart, to talk it out, to look for a solution, because that’s what you do when you love someone.

He drops his hand down onto Noct’s chest, scrutinising him. “You’re not gonna get rid of Iggy, are you?”

Noct scowls. “Obviously not! What kind of question –“

“So what’s the issue?”

Noct’s eyes narrow slightly before he sighs and glances sideways, looking around Prompto’s arm at Iggy’s still unconscious form. His expression is forlorn, bordering on despairing. “I just – I know he’s gonna blame himself for this, and you know what he’s like when he thinks himself into one of those ruts…”

“Then we’ll just pull him out of it,” Prompto says with a shrug. “Gladio, too, because he’s stuck in one right now.”

“You sound confident about that,” Noct says, a bit of incredulity in his tone.

“It happens, from time to time,” Prompto says with a grin, and Noct gives a huffy laugh in return. “But, seriously, you don’t blame Iggy, do you?”

“No,” Noct says firmly, shaking his head. “No. I mean…” He sighs, looks away from Prompto’s eyes, his cheeks colouring slightly. “I-I’ve never seen him like that. It – It freaked the hell out of me.”

Prompto nods, swallowing thickly.

“But you know I love him,” Noct says quietly, his eyes soft and despairing. “I hope you and Gladio know I love you guys, too.”

“We do,” Prompto murmurs, his fingers tracing along Noct’s collarbone.

“I’m not gonna let him walk away,” Noct says, his voice taking on a rare firm and authoritative tone. “Or blame himself for this. And I’m not gonna let Gladio blame himself, either. It wasn’t their fault.”

“Good,” Prompto says, before he grins teasingly. “Almost sounded like a king for a second there, Your Majesty.”

“Shut up,” Noct grouches, but Prompto laughs and that makes Noct smile in return. They sober after a few seconds, and Noct glances towards the shutter doors, eyes pained. “Is Gladio okay?”

“I’ll check on him,” Prompto promises, before pressing a kiss to Noct’s temple and bracing a hand against the mattress, ready to try sitting up. “You should get some rest. Under the covers, idiot. You’re shivering.”

Noct grumbles, obviously not wanting to move from the groove he’s carved for himself in the mattress, but Prompto is right: he’s shivering, and he still looks very grey and sickly. Prompto sits up, thankfully with minimal wincing and hissing, painkillers and potions working together to fix his ribs. Despite his grumbles, Noct lets Prompto mandhandle him – as gently as he can, mind – under the covers, and it’s obvious that he feels relieved for it, melting into the mattress anew with a blissed-out expression. Prompto, because he can’t resist when Noct looks so beautiful, takes Noct’s face in his hands, pressing a kiss to his lips and then another to his cheek, savouring the smile that spreads across Noct’s lips and the warm look in his eyes when he leans back.

“Sleep,” he orders, pressing a final kiss to his forehead.

“Yessir,” Noct mumbles, already halfway to sleep again before his head hits the pillow, and Prompto can only grin at that, turning off the lamp to bathe Noct’s half of the room in darkness.

He’s exhausted, ready to drop, and, when he looks at Noct, quickly succumbing to sleep, he’s tempted to crawl under the covers with him and finally get the rest he thinks he’s owed. Instead, though, he forces himself to take a breath, and makes his way to the shutter doors.

Chapter Text

When he steps out of the shutter doors, it’s to the deep black of night. There’s a concrete step just beyond the doors that leads down to a stretch of grass, and several metres ahead is the perimeter fence, chain-links and barbed wire separating Old Lestallum from the wilds, bright lights shining out to deter the daemons. Distantly, he hears music, voice laughing and shouting, the squawking of chocobos at the local stable and the neighing of a distant herd of spiracorns in the wilds. There’s fireflies in the air just above the treetops and the grass, moths dancing off the yellow string lights lining the edge of the motel’s roof, and a breeze, cool and soothing against his skin.

The wider world just keeps on moving.

Gladio is sitting on the step, his back to the doors, and he doesn’t look around as Prompto approaches; likely, he knows it’s Prompto. There’s three already smoked and stubbed out cigarette butts on the stone step, and a fourth lit between his fingers, smoke curling up into the sky.

“Hey,” Prompto says quietly, sitting down on the step beside Gladio, close enough that their shoulders and arms brush together, Gladio’s lava-hot skin chasing away the goosebumps already raised across Prompto’s.

“Hey,” Gladio says, giving Prompto a small smile. He takes another drag before holing the half-burnt cigarette out to Prompto, blowing out grey smoke as he watches the darkened horizon. Prompto takes the cigarette, and Gladio slings his arm around Prompto’s back, pulling him into the little crevice at his side that’s tailor-made for Prompto to fit. Prompto takes a drag of the cigarette, revelling in both the acrid taste that floods his mouth and the warmth that radiates through him from Gladio, closing his eyes as nicotine floods his bloodstream with a sense of relief.

It’s brief, though; as he breathes out, he finds himself keenly missing the way Iggy would rattle on about the side effects of smoking on one’s health whenever he caught Gladio and Prompto sharing one, how Noct would practically throw chewing gum or mints at the two of them before they were allowed to put their mouths anywhere near him.

The room behind them is silent.

Iggy is still unconscious. Noct is asleep.

The air feels too heavy again.

He focuses on the cigarette between his fingers, on the ashy taste on his tongue, on Gladio by his side, strong and solid and warm. Grounding.

“What a fuckin’ mess of a day,” Gladio murmurs.

Prompto can only hum in response.

Gladio doesn’t ask for the cigarette back, so Prompto finishes it and stubs it out on the stone ground.

His mouth tastes awful. He wishes Noct would throw mints at him. He wishes Iggy would lecture them.

There’s a pang of pain in his heart and a sting in his eyes.

He wants to stop thinking, wants to stop being upset.

He leans into Gladio and closes his eyes once more.

He doesn’t know how long they sit there; it might be minutes, it might be hours. He feels himself dozing again, slumping further and further into Gladio, his breaths evening out and his brain fogging over with exhaustion. Eventually, though, Gladio’s hand shifts upwards from where it’s been resting at his waist, moving up towards his ribs. He thinks Gladio intends to pull him closer, but his fingers brush over the still raw and healing bruising spiderwebbed there, and Prompto is roughly dragged back to full consciousness from the sudden spark of pain, unable to stop himself from hissing and trying to shy away from the touch, curling in on himself and pulling away from Gladio.

“Sorry,” Gladio murmurs, hands hovering, as Prompto sits up properly, wincing as he jostles the injury again, an arm wrapped around his chest to cradle his ribs.

“It’s fine,” he says, voice strained. He tries for a smile as he looks up at Gladio, but it doesn’t work. Gladio looks weary as his eyes rove over Prompto’s face, lingering far too long on the bruising around his eye. He looks away eventually, taking his cigarettes and his lighter – a cheap, plastic thing that’s yellow and covered in chocobos, one of half a dozen Prompto bought him to replace his fancy, engraved one from Insomnia that ran out of fuel – back out of the armiger, sparking up another. Prompto shifts so he’s pressed at his side again, the two of them shoulder to shoulder, but Gladio doesn’t put his arm around him again; instead, he just smokes in silence, lost in the twisting mess that is his head.

Prompto hates night like these. He still remembers the first time he saw Gladio like this, just a few days after the bar fight that resulted in his most prominent scar. He’d gotten a phone call in the middle of the night, Gladio drunk beyond comprehension on the other end, sitting on a street corner alone, unwilling to go home and have another row with his dad, unwilling to go to Noct’s and face him and Iggy in the state he was in. Prompto found him on that street corner and dragged him back to his house, let Gladio sit on his bed and pour his heart out about his dad, about the explosive argument they’d had about the fight and Gladio’s new scar, about how Gladio had left an idiot with a bottle take him down and Iggy had to be the one to step in and keep them safe. Gladio had been tired – exhausted – and strung out, his face permanently scarred from the effort he’d put into keeping Noct safe, and, somehow, it still hadn’t been enough, and his shoulders had been shattering under the weight of his responsibility with no one to help him bear it.

He’d cried, tiredly, and Prompto had let him press those tears into his shoulder, had left Gladio sleep in his bed and hide out in his house for a few days so he could avoid his dad, could avoid Noct and Iggy, because he knew all too well how it felt to feel worthless, how it felt to be alone, and he couldn’t bear the thought of anyone, especially not Gladio, feeling that way.

Prompto wishes that first time had been the last time he’d seen Gladio break like that, the last time he’d hear him think of himself as a failure when he was far from it, but these kinds of nights are becoming more and more frequent the longer their journey drags on. It happened the night after their encounter with Ravus, when Gladio’s body and pride were bruises in equal measure, when he’d had to be protected by Noct instead of the natural reverse. It happened after Lestallum, when Jared had been killed and Iris had been taken and Talcott’s little face had been bruised and streaked with tears; Gladio had gone near mad with panic then, and they only just managed to stop him from charging headfirst into Fort Vaullerey, lest he got himself or Iris killed. It happened when Prompto had his stomach ripped open by a tonberry’s blade and they all got a good look at his intestines, and when Iggy was hit with the flat side of an iron giant’s blade so hard they’d had to break a phoenix down over him, and when a bite Noct received from a voretooth turned out to be venomous and he’d spent three days vomiting it out of his system, and on and on and on, a mess of failures that Gladio just won’t forgive himself for, even when they aren’t his fault at all.

He knows all too well – because of nights like these, the two of them sat together well out of earshot of Noct and Iggy – that Gladio struggles with the role forced onto him, that he has a martyr complex bigger than Titan, one that he swears up and down he doesn’t have whenever Prompto tries to probe at it. He knows that the ghost of Clarus Amicitia is hanging over Gladio’s head every waking moment of every day, the blade of a guillotine that never lets him relax, never lets him forget that his every failure – whether he’s failing Noct, or Iggy or Prompto, or Iris or anyone – is now, in his eyes, a slight on his father’s legacy, on House Amicitia – the responsibility and future of which sits on his shoulders now – entirely.

Maybe Prompto is just too far down the social chain, maybe he’s just a bit too boots on the ground to really understand what happens in the highest towers of the Citadel, but he can’t help but hate the Kings of Yore, hate the magic and the prophecies and the gods. Gladio is as human as he is, and so are Noct and Iggy. The weights being forced onto their shoulders are breaking bone and tearing muscle, wearing them down and chipping away at their resolve day by day, and he’s terrified there’ll be nothing left of them at the end of it.

He doesn’t voice this, not ever. They each have their sore spots, things the others are not meant to prod, and this is one of them, more so for himself than the others. Gladio would argue to the six hells and back that the blame for everything that happened today – that the blame for every injury, minor or near fatal – would rest solely on his shoulders, and the last thing he needs tonight is to also incite Gladio to try and explain why Noct needs a Shield, why Gladio needs to constantly offer himself up as some sort of sacrificial lamb in Noct’s stead, because the explanations only ever serve to piss him off and make him hate the old kings even more.

“Noct okay?” Gladio eventually asks; when Prompto glances upwards at him, he can see that Gladio’s eyes are gaunt and shadowed, watching the fireflies with a bone-deep tiredness.

“Sleeping,” Prompto says, watching him carefully.

Gladio nods. “Good. That’s good…”

Prompto feels himself holding his breath, aware of that guillotine blade hanging over them, waiting for it to fall.

Seconds pass and, finally, it does:

“Some Shield I’m turning out to be,” Gladio mutters, so quiet that Prompto almost doesn’t hear him.

“It’s not your fault,” he says. It’s a reflex at this point, but he means it. It’s no one’s fault, least of all Gladio’s. In his humble opinion, Gladio is just doing his best, like they all are in this shit situation they’ve found themselves in. But Gladio is hard on himself, perhaps the most of all of them – which is saying something with Prompto around – and his perceived failures today are going to haunt him for a long time to come.

Gladio sighs through his nose. “Iggy could’ve killed him. He was gonna kill him, and I just – I just stood there. I didn’t know what to do – I didn’t want to hurt him, I couldn’t –“

Gladio cuts himself off, covers his face with his free hand, and takes a deep, shuddering breath. Shame and anguish roll off of him in waves. Ignoring the twinge of his ribs, Prompto wraps his arms around Gladio’s waist, face pressed into his shoulder.

“I couldn’t hurt him, Prom,” Gladio chokes out, and Prompto’s own eyes sting from the wetness of Gladio’s voice. “I couldn’t, I couldn’t…”

“It’s okay,” Prompto murmurs, because it is. “You would’ve felt worse if you had.”

When he closes his eyes, all he can see is Iggy’s blood-soaked face.

Gladio’s arm shifts, passing over Prompto’s head and wrapping around him again, his fingers threading into Prompto’s hair, and his voice is soft and thankfully much drier when he speaks. “You did what you had to.”

Prompto can feel himself shaking as he thinks about levelling his gun at the back of Iggy’s head, thinks about the split-second realisation before he’d pulled the trigger, before he’d killed him, and the next breath he takes is wet and choking.

“Hey,” Gladio murmurs, twisting a little so that he can hold Prompto against his chest proper, and Prompto chokes a little again at the thrum of Gladio’s heartbeat beneath his ear. “Hey, it’s okay, it’s alright…”

He’s had enough of being upset. He’s had enough of crying.

He’s had enough of thinking about what he almost did.

“I’m okay,” he mumbles, pulling away a little to wipe at his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Yeah, you’re okay,” Gladio says, keeping one hand on the back of his neck. When Prompto’s dried his eyes, Gladio presses a kiss to his forehead and pulls him close again, rocking him slightly, comforting and well-needed, eliciting a sigh from Prompto as he slumps against his chest. “We’re okay. We’re all okay…”

They’re not okay, not in the slightest, and might not be for a while, but it’s obvious from his tone that Gladio is trying to convince himself more than he’s trying to convince Prompto.

He just keeps his eyes squeezed shut and tries to stop thinking about the woods.

After a moment, he hears Gladio sigh again. “I don’t know what the fuck to do here, Prom.”

A desperate, hysterical giggle escapes him. “Me neither. Didn’t really train us for this, did they?”

Gladio snorts, self-deprecating and completely devoid of cheer. “No. Guess not.”

Gladio’s arm shifts, and Prompto sits back, watching as Gladio wipes at his eyes. He can count on one hand the number of times he’s seen Gladio cry in the years they’ve known one another, and it never fails to shake him down to his core.

“’m sorry, by the way,” Gladio mumbles as he lowers his hand, unable to meet Prompto’s eyes.

Prompto frowns. “For what?”

Gladio gives a one-shoulder shrug. “Bein’ a dick.”

Prompto rolls his eyes, presses himself closer to Gladio’s side. “You weren’t. You’re just… worried.”

“And bein’ a dick about it,” Gladio says. He rubs at his eyes again. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Prompto insists.

“We still need a plan for when he wakes up, though,” Gladio says, taking another drag of his cigarette.

Iggy. He’s still unconscious.

It hopefully won’t be long before he finally awakens but, paradoxically, Prompto finds himself dreading when that moment arrives, even as he worries for him and misses the sound of his voice.

“He’ll hate himself for this,” Gladio murmurs. He gives another mirthless snort. “He’ll probably try to walk away.”

“Noct won’t let him,” Prompto says, firm. “He said so.”

Gladio blinks down at him, before a small, genuine smile flits across his lips, appreciation in his eyes. “Good. That’s what I want to hear.” He frowns then, looking back out at the wilderness. “Iggy’s stubborn, though. He’s gonna argue tooth and nail –“

“We’ll just argue right back with him,” Prompto says, sounding more confident than he feels; really, he’s dreading that conversation, dreading the fierce effort they’re going to have to put into making Iggy not blame himself, but it’s something they absolutely have to do.

None of them will let him blame himself for this. None of them will let him walk away because of this.

“We aren’t doing anything,” Gladio suddenly says, his voice taking that sharp, commanding tone it does when a fight starts going south, when he needs to take charge of the field before something bad happens to someone, and Prompto meets his frown with one of his own. “I’ll stay up and talk to him. You should get some rest.”

Something angry suddenly lodges itself in Prompto’s chest with the force and speed of a bullet. He leans back, away from Gladio’s touch, his frown turning into a true glare. “What?”

“Go to bed,” Gladio says, still commanding. “I’m gonna stay up, I’ll –“

“I’ll do it.”

“No.”

In all honesty, Prompto wants to follow Gladio’s order and go to bed. His head is sluggish, his ribs are aching distantly, and he’s so drained he’s certain he’ll pass out for a full day once his head hits the pillow, but Gladio looks just as exhausted and he took a terrible hit today. He deserves the rest more.

Besides, Prompto is the reason Iggy has been unconscious for hours now. He almost shot him.

He should be the one to stay up.

“I’ll do it,” he says resolutely.

Gladio shakes his head. “Prom, you look like shit.”

He wishes they would stop saying that to him.

“You need to rest,” Gladio insists.

“So do you.”

“I’m –“

“No, you’re not!” Prompto snaps, sitting up properly and glaring as dangerously as he can. He knows he must look about as menacing as a chocobo chick, but Gladio still leans back, mouth open ever-so-slightly in the wake of Prompto’s anger. “You got hit – in the face! – with a bottle of lightning, Gladio! That is the furthest from fucking okay that you can be!”

His voice cracks and his eyes are sore. He swallows and looks away.

Gladio’s voice is unbearably soft. “Prom –“

“I can stay up,” he insists. “I’ll be fine. You and Noct need the sleep more than I do.”

He can’t look at Gladio, he can’t.

He can smell ozone again.

He can hear screaming again.

Gladio is silent for a few moments, before he sighs in concession. “Alright. Fine. But if he doesn’t wake up by midnight, we’ll swap, okay?”

Prompto nods, still refusing to look at him. “Sure.”

It’s a lie. He’s got no intention of letting Gladio, or Noct, get out of bed until they look somewhat healthy again.

There’s another beat of silence before Gladio’s free hand is on the back of his neck again, thumb rubbing in circles. He closes his eyes, involuntarily lets out a little huff of air, too small to be a sigh. Gladio presses another kiss to the top of his head and holds out the half-smoked cigarette, which Prompto takes, before he stands and heads back into the room. Prompto risks a look back, watches as Gladio manoeuvres Noct around under the covers, speaking in low, barely audible tones as he does. It’s a testament to how exhausted Noct is that he lets Gladio climb in and pull him close without grumbling about the smell of smoke lingering on him. Gladio turns off the bedside lamp, casts their half of the room in the darkness, and turns his back on Prompto.

Prompto waits, sitting on the step, listening to the crickets and spiracorns, watching fireflies hovering over the bushes as he finishes off the cigarette. He stays there even after he finishes it off and stubs it out on the step next to the first one, waiting until he hears Gladio finally begin to snore softly before he stands.

The room is quiet and thankfully cool with both of the doors open and the fan working. The clock on the wall above the beds says it’s just a little past half eight.

Midnight is hours away, and he feels exhausted.

His most overwhelming desire right now is to go face first onto a bed, but that’s absolutely not an option. He could get himself comfortable in one of the armchairs in the room, but he quickly rules that out too since it’s more than likely he’ll get too comfortable and pass out.

He needs something to keep him busy, to keep him moving, despite how much he wants to just stop moving and thinking and just being conscious altogether.

There’s a tonne of little tasks they need to do – or, rather, Iggy had been planning to do once they returned to civilisation and he had the means to properly catalogue their supplies when they weren’t surrounded on all sides by monsters, daemons, and mud. Housekeeping, Iggy calls it: counting their gil, their supplies; doing the laundy and the dishes, clearing out the Regalia and the armiger, and a half-dozen more little yet important and tedious tasks that need to be done. He’d hate for Iggy to wake up after all this and still feel obliged to run around after the three of them, so he might as well get it done whilst he waits.

He is exhausted, though. His limbs and eyelids feel like lead, and his mind feels like a muddy pond, wading through muck just to find coherent thoughts.

He wants an energy drink. A real one, not one of the magic-ified – or whatever ridiculously complicated Solheim word Iggy would use to describe it – potions, the kind he used to consume daily back in Insomnia because he worked two jobs and attended university and was constantly exhausted.

That was the good kind of exhausted, though he didn’t realise it at the time; it was the kind that could be chased away with a decent nap or a night in the same bed as his partners. This exhausted settled itself into the marrow of his bones since the day Insomnia fell and refuses to be chased away, just ebbing and flowing in severity from day to day, and he doubts he’ll ever be able to properly chase it off again because their lives are now filled with danger and death every day, and they never get to fully, truly rest anymore.

He shakes his head. If he thinks to hard about their old lives, he’ll be sick again.

He focuses on the here and now.

Energy drinks. He needs them.

He looks at Iggy’s Ebonies but puts that thought out of his mind almost instantly. He doesn’t particularly want to take another trip to the gas station store, doesn’t particularly want to leave the room – his mind is screaming at him that it’s not a good idea, that Iggy might wake up whilst he’s out getting something as dumb as energy drinks – but he also doesn’t want to touch the Ebonies, not just because they taste awful but because they’re for Iggy, and it feels wrong to even think about taking one.

So, instead, he pulls on his spare trousers and his boots and – despite how ridiculous and battered he looks – he makes his way back to the store.

The clerk is definitely giving him a weird – read: worried – look when he enters the store for second time tonight for another round of energy drinks, but he barely finds the energy to care, especially when he returns to the room, cracks one open, and takes a sip, the acidic taste burning in his mouth with the familiarity of an old friend. It obviously doesn’t work immediately – it’s just a cheap energy drink, no magical healing properties or any of the good stuff that made Insomnia’s energy drinks magical in their own right – but it should hopefully be enough of a kick to keep him going for at least a few more hours.

He does the little things first: fishes their phones and their chargers from the armiger and spreads them across the room, using every spare socket he has to plug them in; he takes the garbage out of the armiger next – wrappers, empty water bottles, other small bits of litter that they refused to just throw out into the wilderness to rot – and fills up the room’s trash can with it. He fetches his and Gladio’s cheap, tourist garbage ashtray he’d bought them from Wiz’s at the same time he got the lighters and cleans up their mess of cigarette butts, even brushing the ashy into it, because he feels terrible about just leaving them on the step for someone else to clean. With those little chores done, he turns to their supplies.

Thankfully for them all, Iggy has the good sense to keep his notebook in the armiger these days. There was an unfortunate incident during their initial foray into the Slough wherein Iggy’s original notebook – a cherished gift from Noct that he kept with him almost always – got completely waterlogged and destroyed. It had been a rough day, and Iggy had been very short-tempered for a few days afterwards. When they’d finally made their way to Lestallum, Noct, Prompto, and Gladio spent an afternoon scouring the town for a good enough replacement whilst Iris and Talcott ran distraction on Iggy. The black, faux-leather bound notebook they’d bought at a small stationary shop off the main thoroughfare hadn’t been comparable to the custom-made one Noct had originally gifted Iggy, nor were the ballpoint pens they bought him comparable to his uncle’s fountain pen that was threatening to soon run out of ink, but he treasured them all the same. He’d spent the following days rewriting his recipes, his supply lists, finance calculations, and his personal notes, and, to prevent it from happening a second time, he kept his notebook in the armiger from then on.

Prompto fishes it out, smiles a little when he opens it. Perfectly present and proper Iggy might outwardly be, his notebook is the exact opposite. The elastic band holding it closed is already starting to wear from constant use, and the book is bulging with scraps Iggy’s added to it – receipts, photos, post-it notes with little reminders and other such messages. There are basic structures to each recipe – ingredients, amounts, cooking times – but then they’re all amended a half dozen times over each, sometimes in notes so small or scrawling that Prompto can barely decipher them. The recipe for that Tenebraean pastry he’s been trying so hard to recreate for Noct has been crossed out and annotated so many times that it’s completely incomprehensible to him, small notes and additional paper scraps stapled to it with amendments, and Prompto doesn’t know where Iggy got a stapler but he also doesn’t doubt for a second that he made sure he left Insomnia with one, just in case, and that thought almost pulls a delirious laugh from him.

The good thing about the notebook is that, despite how messy it might look at a first glance, it is still organised since it belongs to Iggy. There’s a dozen little tabs – all varying shades of purple, another one of those hidden Iggy things that never fails to make him smile – denoting the important pages, the different sections, and it makes it easy for Prompto to find the pages Iggy has designated for keeping track of their supplies.

Almost instantly, he gets a headache, and understands why Iggy always seems to be a little short-tempered when he’s in the process of organising the armiger these days. He’s sorted their supplies into various categories to make it easier to keep track of everything, but it looks like they’ve been running dangerously low on practically everything since the entire Titan fiasco, and their group fund is starting to look… well, abysmal is how Iggy would describe it. Prompto thinks it’s more panic attack inducing, the kind he would have when he was ten or eleven years old and grocery shopping by himself, too terrified to call his parents and tell them he’s failed at budgeting despite all their warnings and teachings. From the looks of things, they’ll only be able to afford this room for two days if they also want to restock their basic supplies, after which they’ll need a couple of decent bounties under their belt or risk being completely flat broke again, and that’s without even accounting for the fact that they need fuel.

Just for the pure and simple fact that Iggy is the one who keeps track of it all by choice, he hasn’t realised until now just how many things they need to keep a decent stock of day to day, little things like threats and needles, soap and detergent, batteries for lanterns when they make camp, even spare tent pegs and fishing lures. Most of what they’re running low on can be resupplied here in town, but some bits – like the new tarp they need for the tent after it got sliced by a particularly brave sahagin that snuck up on them a few nights ago – can only be procured at Lestallum or up at Meldacio.

The thought makes him blink, and he suddenly remembers the two hunters from the diner. He reaches into the armiger blindly, searching for the post-in notes that he’s never used, never seen being used, but absolutely knows exist in there. He grins when his fingers find them and pull them – lilac coloured, a shade close to Prompto’s own eyes – out. He makes a quick note – and his handwriting, blocky and clinical, looks completely wrong beside Iggy’s flowing, cursive script – and sticks it to the top of the supplies page, a reminder that they absolutely need to go to Meldacio for masks and smelling salts before they even consider going up against the wasps again.

He’d really rather not fight the wasps ever again as long as he lives, but it feels like an inevitability.

They still need to get that dumb weapon.

He doesn’t want to think about it. It’ll make him sick again.

He focuses on the notebook. He crosses out their meagre potion supply entirely, begins making a short list on another post-it note, grateful that Iggy picked up his habit of keeping receipts from every store since they left Insomnia, letting him budget properly. It’s an achingly familiar task, something he did weekly back in Insomnia, sometimes multiple times if he was struggling. Albeit, his shopping list this time is a teensy bit different; there’s familiar items – rice and water and fresh veggies – but then the things that are indicative of the lives they now lead – bandages and painkillers and antiseptic. Still, it’s quite grounding, to sit down and focus on the numbers and supplies, to tally things up and check the receipts three times over to make sure his calculations are right, tricking himself – at least for a while – into thinking it’s just another day at home, another budget he needs to figure out, like nothing terrible had happened in the day beyond a long commute or a dickhead customer at work.

That thought makes him nostalgic, and sad. Three months ago, he never would’ve thought he’d miss the Insomnia subway, but life is strange like that.

Years of budgeting means it doesn’t take him long to put together a short list of the essentials, and he’s proud of himself for managing to make sure he’s accounted for two more nights in the motel and a small safety buffer on the off chance they might need some emergency items, or he’s missed something in his exhausted, concussed state. A frown crosses his face, though, when he sits back and realises it’s only managed to burn just over an hour, and it’s still a ways away from midnight.

As soon as his brain is given the chance to slow down again, tiredness starts to cling at him, trying to drag him down into the murky waters of unconsciousness.

He needs to do something.

There’s the laundry, he knows, and the Regalia, both of which are completely caked with mud and will likely take a while to clean out. The Regalia might not be such a good idea; he’s not certain he’s even mentally capable of getting back behind the wheel again so soon, even if the power washer is quite literally a ten second move away and he wouldn’t even need to shift out of first gear. Besides, he doubts the town’s residents would appreciate the sound of a power washer and a vacuum so late in the evening.

The laundry is easier. Sure, it’s tedious, and it’s gonna suck to be bent over the bathtub with his ribs still aching, but at least he’ll be in the room and causing an inconvenience for no one but himself, so he goes with that instead.

Once again, it’s a familiar routine, albeit one that’s grown used to doing in a nearby stream of pond rather than a motel bathtub. The days where they’d been forced to cross Duscae either on foot or by chocobo – the Regalia sitting in the Empire’s hands the entire time – had been the first since leaving Insomnia where they’d spend so long camping that they’d actually begun to run out of fresh laundry. Iggy was prepared for that, of course, with buckets and detergent and brushes, but it had been Prompto who’d taken the lead when it actually came to the washing.

“Stop scrubbing so much,” he’d said to Noct, who’d seemed more determined to rip a hole into the t-shirt he’d been washing than he had been to get the mud out of it. When Noct had looked up at him with a frown, Prompto had taken the shirt from his hand, used a smidge of detergent on the stain, and rubbed it in gently with his fingers. “Like that, see? Keep scratching at it like you were and you’ll rip it.”

“Huh,” Noct had said, watching him with that weird expression they all get when he does something unexpected. He’d taken the shirt back and resumed washing it, following Prompto’s technique, blinking when the mud lifted easier. “Hey, thanks.”

Prompto had smiled at him.

“How are you so good at this?” Noct had asked with a frown, watching Prompto get through his clothes with an ease the rest of them – even Iggy – lacked.

“Funny story, actually,” Prompto said with a grin, lifting his now clean shirt from the water and ringing it out. “I think I was like – I dunno, eleven? Parents weren’t home and the washing machine broke when I was at school, flooded the kitchen. I was scared shitless of ringing dad and telling him I broke the machine so I handwashed my clothes for, like, two months? Maybe longer?” Prompto snorted as he set the shirt aside, reaching for the next. “Spent hours watching videos on how to do and dry them properly.”

“That’s not funny,” Noct had said icily, and, when Prompto had looked up, there had been stoney expressions on all of their faces, and he’d felt his cheeks colour in response. They hate his parents, and he hates that they hate them, but also hates that he can’t find it in him to be mad at them, because he understands – to an extent – why they dislike them so much, even if he spends hours explaining that it’s fine.

His parents are dead now, anyway; he never got the confirmation that Noct, Gladio, and Iggy did about their families, but his message to his mom is still unread, his phone calls still unanswered. They’ve never let him go so long without a response, and his mom has his phone number memorised; even if she broke her phone and had to get a new one, she’d call him. She would.

She hasn’t.

So: she’s dead, and dad’s dead too because he’d be the same.

He’d felt hollow and sick the day he realised, and has spent every day since trying to forget about it.

The others lost their families and keep going. He has to do the same.

They still had stoney looks on their faces, still watched Prompto carefully. He’d shrugged, avoided their eyes, hadn’t wanted that argument, wished he’d just kept his mouth shut and played it off as something else. “I thought it was.”

He didn’t tell them the rest of the story, where he’d been terrified of water damage and mould in the kitchen so he’d stayed up all night on a school night, carefully peeling back the linoleum and mopping up the water that had soaked through it, and then replacing it just as painstakingly, because he didn’t want his parents to come home to a completely wrecked kitchen that they’d have to fork out thousands of yen to fix. He’d kept the back door and the kitchen windows open all night – even though it had been the dead of winter and so cold the pavements had iced over, and he didn’t have enough money on the gas to pay to keep the heating on all night – because he was terrified of a mouldy smell settling into the room. He’d even tried to fix the machine himself before he’d given up on it as a fruitless endeavour. He’d considered a laundromat at first, but then realised he’d have to do several days of missed meals in a row just to afford it with the allowance he had, which ultimately pushed him to handwashing in the kitchen sink.

He definitely didn’t tell them the repeat incidents of handwashing his clothes over the years, borne through his inability to budget properly, through times when energy prices in the city began to soar and the money his parents sent hadn’t been enough to keep the electricity running long enough for him to clothes, and he’d been too scared to ask for me. That was a lot less funny, even to himself, and the others always swing straight to anger whenever his parents are involved.

He didn’t tell them the rest. They’d just get mad, and he’d get mad right back.

They’d done the rest of their laundry in complete silence, and he’d been grateful that Iggy had already know the best way to get bloodstains out of clothes so that he wouldn’t have to share that anecdote.

In the present, he’s paused in his task, lost in his thoughts, and he forces himself back into the chore.

If he thinks about his parents for too long, that hollow feeling returns.

He’s had enough of being upset today.

It takes a while, and the bathroom quickly grows humid from the hot water, especially as he needs to empty out and refill the tub after every other article of clothing, all of them caked with so much mud, blood, and sweat that it turns the water a disgusting black colour within moments. His ribs ache distantly from stretching, and his back hurts from being bent over the tub, making him wince whenever he stretches out or reaches for another article of clothing. The routine is a welcome one, though; it requires his full attention, lets him drown out his thoughts, lets him stop thinking all together for the few hours it takes to get everything clean. He keeps the bathroom door slightly ajar as he works, poking his head out every so often to check on the others, making sure they’re okay.

There’s a precarious moment, close to eleven, when Iggy awakens slightly. Prompto’s heart leaps into his throat when he rounds the corner and sees Iggy struggling to sit up, his brow furrowed and his eyes completely unfocused, still clouded with sleep and confusion. Prompto races to his side, heart hammering, bile in the back of his mouth, not ready to talk, not ready for this conversation at all, and he feels a sick sense of relief when he realises that Iggy still isn’t fully articulate, still isn’t capable of speech or of even sitting up unaided.

He’s awake long enough to have a few sips of water and to blink blearily at Prompto – as if he’s seeing him for the first time – before his eyelids and his head droop, and Prompto lowers him back down against the pillows as gently as his shaking hands can manage.

Satisfied that Iggy’s asleep again, he returns to his task, desperately swallowing the acid that keeps gargling in his throat.

When he’s done, he sets their now sparkling boots down by the door and positions the maiden Iggy had forced them to bring along – something that Noct had mocked him for when they’d been packing, but Prompto is always grateful for whenever they have to wash their clothes in the wilds – just outside one of the shutter doors. And, because he feels terrible for the motel’s staff, he washes the towels they’d used and properly mops up the mud they’d trailed in and the water he’s splashed across the bathroom, giving the tub a once over before he’s finally satisfied that he’s cleaned up their mess.

When he finally leaves the bathroom, there’s a sheen of moisture on his skin from the humidity, and some strands of hair have come loose from the bandana, tickling his forehead. He glances at the clock and sighs a little when he sees it’s just a few minutes after midnight.

He looks over the others. Iggy is still unconscious on the further bed, having shifted slightly in his sleep to lay on tilted on his right side, his chest rising and falling evenly, his face pinched slightly in his sleep. On the other bed, Gladio and Noct are entangled around one another; Gladio is snoring, much more softly that his usual foghorn snore that they’ve grown used to, and his face is tired even in sleep. As for Noct, if it weren’t for the steady rise and fall of his chest then Prompto would think he was dead, sleeping deep, still, and silent.

He's exhausted. He wants to climb into the near non-existent space between Gladio and Noct and pass out for two days straight. He wants to press himself against Iggy’s back and wrap his limbs around him and let the steady thrum of his heartbeat lull him into sleep.

He doesn’t do either of those things. He doesn’t want to dislodge Gladio and Noct from one another, doesn’t want to potentially wake them up. He doesn’t want to disturb Iggy.

He’s exhausted, but they need the rest more.

He needs to stay awake.

He cracks open another energy drink – his third, because he finished the first, opened the second and finished it whilst doing the laundry, and he’s thankful now that he’d had the sense to buy more than one – and settles in to wait.

Close to one in the morning, Iggy finally wakes up.

Prompto isn’t in the room at the time. Instead, he’s sitting on the step again, cross legged with his phone in his hands as he plays King’s Knight – not making any progress, because Noct would kill him if he completed the next dungeon solo, but just harvesting his zell tree again – and a cigarette held precariously between his fingers, savouring the nighttime chill after spending hours in a hot and humid bathroom. He hears the shifting of sheets behind him, thinks nothing of it at first, since Gladio has a tendency to shift a lot in his sleep and has been doing every so often, so he just assumes it’s him at first.

It's not until he hears a slight groan made by a voice that is distinctly not Gladio or Noct that he realises.

He glances over his shoulder and feels his heart both leap and freeze at the sight of Iggy moving groggily beneath the sheets.

For a few seconds, he’s completely frozen, cigarette burning down, game playing it’s low, cheerful jingle, blinking at the moving form of Iggy on the bed, his brain short-circuiting. But then Iggy gives another groan, shifts as if he’s about to push himself upright, and the ice that’s frozen Prompto into place unthaws. He quickly stubs his cigarette out in the ashtray and leaves his phone on the step beside the ashtray. He rushes back into the room, rounding the bed to be beside Iggy.

“Iggy,” he says, keeping his voice low enough to not disturb Gladio or Noct but hopefully loud and level enough – despite the hammering beat of his heart, the churning of his stomach, the constant burn of his throat – to calm Iggy. “Iggy, hey.”

Iggy looks up at him, eyes still unfocused and dazed but definitely clearer than they had been earlier, and he manages to prop himself up on his elbow, one of his hands reaching for Prompto. “Prompto – what –“

“Hey, Iggy,” Prompto says quietly, a slight tremble to his voice. He reaches out gingerly, carefully laying his hands on Iggy, some of the apprehension bleeding out of him when Iggy doesn’t even flinch from his touch, doesn’t protest at all, but instead clings to his arm.

Prompto flinches, though, because his stupid brain has flipped a switch and is back into panic mode, and the last time Iggy laid a hand on him he’d punched him so hard his brain is still rattling, dislodged, hours later.

His stomach churns uncomfortably.

He swallows and forces himself to focus.

That wasn’t Iggy.

Iggy is right here in front of him, and he needs him.

Iggy needs him. Iggy needs him.

The shaking of his hands lessens, and he swallows again.

“Prompto,” Iggy mumbles, blinking owlishly at him before frowning and shaking his head a little. His eyes focus somewhat after a few exaggerated blinks, but his face has taken an unhealthy pallor since sitting up. He glances around, his frown deepening at the unfamiliar surroundings, decidedly not the fog-filled, damp woods of the Thicket he likely remembers. “Where – what –“

“We’re in Old Lestallum,” Prompto says soothingly, keeping his hands on Iggy’s shoulders, not liking how unsteady he feels even though he’s only sitting upright. “I-In a motel. Y-You – you –“ He stops, swallows. He can’t afford to keep trembling, to keep hesitating. “You took a hit to the head. You’ve been out for a few hours.”

Iggy blinks at him, that frown still on his face, as if he’s not fully comprehending Prompto’s words. He reaches up with one hand, shaking with effort, towards Prompto’s face. “Your eye – what –“

“Took a hit,” Prompto says quickly, trying to not think too hard about Iggy waking up and immediately worrying about him, about the wound he inflicted, lest he vomit again. “D-Don’t worry about me.”

“But – I remember –“ Iggy cuts himself off, frowning, screwing his eyes closed. “There was an explosion – and, blood –“

Prompto feels the cold hand of Shiva wrap around his heart and squeeze, freezing it solid, turning his blood to ice in his veins.

Iggy’s eyes go wide, and he glances around Prompto, begins struggling to stand. “Gladio – Noct –!”

“They’re okay,” Prompto says soothingly, keeping his hands on Iggy, making him stay sat. “T-They’re asleep, they’re okay. Look, see?”

He moves to one side, letting Iggy see the other bed, Gladio and Noct still fast asleep. The panic that had obviously welled up in Iggy seeps out in an instant.

“Right,” Iggy mumbles, still blinking slowly, nodding to himself. “Right… They’re… they’re alright…”

“Yeah,” Prompto says, hoping his voice sounds soothing, even though his heart is hammering – from a mixture of too many energy drinks and the panic of Iggy finally being awake and coherent – so hard he thinks it might burst from his chest. “Yeah, they’re okay.”

“Right,” Iggy mumbles again, before going silent again, still blinking in that owlish way of his, still feel unsteady beneath Prompto’s hands. Then, his face changes, and he begins struggling to get out of the bed again.

“Iggy, wait,” Prompto says, trying to keep him in the bed. “You need to –“

“Apologies,” Iggy mumbles, his voice thick, his skin taking a green tint. “I require the bathroom.”

It takes his brain a second to put two and two together, but he finally comes to realisation and, instead of trying to keep Iggy from getting up and hurting himself, he wraps an arm around his waist to help him stand. They’re not graceful in their movements, or particularly quiet, nor do they care, for as soon as they reach the bathroom, Iggy falls to his knees before the toilet and begins violently vomiting.

“Shit,” Prompto mumbles. He spares a quick glance back into the room, satisfied that neither Gladio or Noct have been awoken by the commotion, before heading back into the bathroom and closing the door behind him. He pulls a bottle of water from the armiger, hovers. He’s never seen Iggy be sick before, doesn’t know if he even wants Prompto there with him.

He stays, regardless. He won’t leave Iggy alone.

It takes a while for Iggy’s stomach to settle again; he throws up until there’s nothing left but acid in his stomach, and then keep intermittently retching. He accepts small sips of water but then immediately throws it back up when his stomach disagrees. He stays by the toilet basin, unwilling – and probably unable – to move whilst he’s in this state, and Prompto stays in the bathroom with him, alternating between kneeling beside him to help him sip water and sitting against the sink counter whilst he retches.

“Ugh,” Iggy eventually mutters, pushing his sweat-slick hair back from his face and wiping at his eyes. “I believe it’s stopped. For now, at least.”

“You okay?” Prompto asks in a small voice, crouching down, gingerly helping Iggy move backwards across the floor and lean against the side of the bathtub.

“Quite,” Iggy says, his voice tight, but then he closes his eyes and swallows thickly, a furrow forming between his brows. “Actually, I still feel rather… off.”

“R-Right,” Prompto says, because it’s obvious to anyone with eyes that Iggy obviously isn’t okay still. He holds out the water. “Here. Keep taking small sips, okay?”

“Right,” Iggy mumbles, reaching for the water. Prompto unscrews the cap, and keeps a hand on it even as Iggy takes a hold of it, not liking how violently his hands are trembling. “Thank you, Prompto.”

Prompto just nods, helps him take a few small sips. When Iggy lowers the bottle, some strength has returned to his hands, and Prompto is glad to see that some colour is slowly returning to his cheeks. He replaces the cap back onto the bottle, and Iggy leans his head back against the edge of the tub again.

“Can I – can I do anything?” Prompto asks, a little desperately, because he wants to help and he doesn’t know how, and he curses his stupid, dumb head for not being fixed yet, for not letting him help Iggy like he normally would if it wasn’t clouded by concussion. “Can I get you anything?”

“Some fresh air, perhaps?” Iggy gasps out after a couple of seconds, looking up at Prompto with hollow, tired eyes, though they’re a lot more focused now than they have been for hours. He swallows thickly, his throat bobbing, and there’s sweat dripping down his neck.

“Y-Yeah,” Prompto says. “Sure.” He blinks, and then frowns. “Just – just gimme a sec.”

Iggy nods, and Prompto presses the bottle of water into his hands.

“Keep sipping,” he instructs, and it feels weird to be giving Iggy orders like this, used to being the one who’s being cared for instead of doing the caring. Iggy nods again, unscrewing the cap to take a sip, and Prompto is glad to see he’s able to do it by himself this time, the shaking subsiding to more manageable levels. Prompto slips out of the bathroom and towards the shutter doors, grateful that Gladio and Noct are sleeping so deeply that they haven’t been disturbed at all this entire time. Outside, he summons two of their folding camp chairs and sets them up in the grass just beyond the step, not wanting Iggy – ill and weak as he is – to sit on the cold stone.

When he returns to the bathroom, he finds that Iggy has already managed to pull himself to his feet, albeit quite shakily. He doesn’t protest when Prompto surges forward, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling one of Iggy’s own across his shoulders, and the two of them shamble together – as quietly as possible, to avoid waking Gladio and Noct – across the room towards the shutter doors.

Iggy settles into his chair with a sigh, slouching down in it, legs stretched out before him with his ankles crossed and his hands in his lap, water bottle held loosely between them. He tilts his head back, closes his eyes, and breaths slowly, evenly, the tight, pinched expression that had settled on his face back in the bathroom eventually evening out as he breathes in the cool, nighttime air.

“Feeling a bit better?” Prompto dares to ask, watching Iggy carefully.

“Yes,” Iggy says, opening his eyes and looking over with a small smile. “In fact, I’m starting to feel somewhat hungry.”

“I could get you a Cup Noodle,” Prompto offers, “or some of that leftover soup from the other day? Something simple for your stomach since, y’know…”

“Yes, that sounds… that sounds rather heavenly right now,” Iggy says with a sigh.

“Okay,” Prompto says with a nod. “I’ll just be a minute.”

Using the microwave is a dangerous game to play, running the risk of waking either Noct or Gladio up, but he plays it anyway, standing directly by the door and watching the timer tick down, yanking the door open as quickly and quietly as he can before it has the chance to beep.

“Thank you,” Iggy says with a small, appreciative smile as Prompto hands him the reheated mug of soup. His eyes narrow slightly, though, when he sees that Prompto’s other hand is empty. “And for yourself?”

“Not hungry,” Prompto says quickly, his tone a little clipped. Truth be told, he had been starting to feel a little hungry before, but then Iggy had woken up and nausea had strengthened its grip on him and he’s lost his appetite completely, and the smell of the soup is starting to turn his stomach a little. Iggy’s eyes narrow, though, so he adds, “We ate earlier.”

Iggy doesn’t look like he fully believes him, and, honestly, even though it’s the truth, Prompto can’t even be mad about that. Iggy knows him better than he knows himself at this point, and knows about his tendency to skip meals, sometimes for days at a time under the excuse of not feeling hungry, and sometimes the thing that pushes him to actually eat even when he doesn’t particularly want to is the thought of Iggy’s disappointment.

This time, thankfully, Iggy is obviously too tired and ill to properly argue back, so he simply sighs through his nose – his way of showing displeasure without actually voicing it – and turns to his cup of soup. He takes small, tentative sips at first, likely due to both the heat and the desire to avoid overloading his stomach after his bout of vomiting, but, once it’s obvious his stomach can handle it, he practically gulps it down.

“Want some more?” Prompto asks, if only to be helpful, like a repayment of all the times Iggy’s helped him.

“Best not, at least for now,” Iggy says, reaching behind him to set the now empty mug down on the stone step. He gives a sigh, settling deeper into the chair. “I feel… a lot better now.” His brow furrows a little. “Though my head still hurts quite a lot.”

Prompto’s stomach churns, and he looks away, one hand picking at the skin around the nails on the other. “Sorry…”

Iggy blinks at him. “For whatever reason? It’s hardly your fault.”

Iggy’s earnest, kind words, his completely blameless eyes – it’s too much for Prompto to stomach, and he feels the back of his throat burn. He swallows thickly, wills himself to not be sick, and keeps his eyes focused on the grass.

If he looks at Iggy, he thinks he might burst into tears.

“Right,” he mumbles, voice thick and slightly wet. “Yeah. S-Sorry, it’s just… it’s been a really long day…”

Iggy is quiet for a few moments, and Prompto can tell he’s starting to put two and two together, starting to figure out that something has happened, and it’s being kept from him, because Iggy has always been the smartest of them all and it doesn’t take him long to work things out.

“Indeed,” Iggy mumbles, and he turns his eyes to the dark horizon, falling quiet.

Prompto knows it’s not over. He’s had enough uncomfortable but necessary conversations with Iggy over the years to know Iggy doesn’t give up a line of attack so easily.

“I must admit,” Iggy says after a few moments, looking over to Prompto, who has to utilise all his self-control to not sag in his seat, “I am surprised we are in Old Lestallum. From what I can remember, I know there was an explosion, but I didn’t expect things to have gone so badly as to warrant us abandoning the venture altogether.”

Prompto feels his stomach twist slightly, knowing where the conversation is heading but being unable to stop it, the feeling akin to being tied to a track with a freight train heading directly towards him. He shivers a little, draws his feet up on the chair and wraps his arms around his knees, chin resting on his forearms, avoiding Iggy’s eyes in favour of watching the fireflies. “Y-Yeah, it – it kinda went FUBAR and then some. We needed to… we just needed to leave.”

“I don’t remember,” Iggy says, frustration in his voice. He tuts a little, sounding more annoyed with himself than with Prompto. “Perhaps you could fill in the blanks…?”

“S-Sure,” Prompto says, his voice small and high-pitched, his throat acidic. He swallows, licks his lips. “I-I mean, what I can remember because I got hit in the head, too –“

By you. The words catch in his throat like a shard of glass, and it takes every ounce of strength he has to not choke, unable to tell if it’s blood, bile, or phlegm pooling at the back of his mouth.

“It’s alright,” Iggy says soothingly, and Prompto hates that, hates that Iggy is the one being good to him, as if he’s the one who needs comfort and not the inverse. “You needn’t –“

“No, it’s okay,” Prompto says, even though it’s not okay in the slightest. After a few moments of hesitation, he takes the cigarettes back out of the armiger and sparks up another.

Iggy sighs through his nose again, and there’s a disapproving glint in his eyes as he watches Prompto take a drag from the cigarette. “You and Gladio smoke far too much these days.”

The comment drags a hysterical giggle from him, because it’s such a stupid dose of normalcy – the kind he’s been craving these past few hours – and it’s like they’re sitting on the edge of a haven, having a nighttime conversation over a hot drink whilst Noct and Gladio sleep in the tent behind them. It’s just the end of a normal day in Iggy’s mind, whilst Prompto knows the truth, knows that they both came close to killing one another today, knows that Iggy came close to killing all of them and he’s still completely, blissfully unaware.

Prompto doesn’t want to change that, but the alternative idea of lying feels disgusting and awful.

“S-So,” Prompto says, his voice squeaky. He clears his throat and takes another drag of the cigarette before he continues. “What d-do you remember?”

“Not much,” Iggy admits, absentmindedly turning the bottle of water over in his hands. “I remember the Firaga –“

Iggy tuts beneath his breath disapprovingly, probably already preparing a lecture to deliver to Noct about the importance of spell safety and battlefield awareness, and that almost pulls another hysterical giggle from Prompto if he weren’t losing himself in the memories of the day’s events.

“– I don’t remember much beyond that,” Iggy admits, frowning to himself, clearly frustrated. “Just snippets – blood and shouting –“

Screams ring in his ears, and it takes everything to keep himself in the here and now, to keep himself from having another panic attack.

“Apologies,” Iggy says, even though he’s done nothing wrong, “I must have hit my head, I can’t remember –“

“You didn’t hit your head,” Prompto says quickly, and immediately takes another long, drawn out drag of his cigarette to keep himself to from talking any more. And then, just to stall a bit more, he stands and fetches the ashtray from the stone step, Iggy watching him with a frown the whole time.

“If I didn’t hit my head,” Iggy says slowly, “then –?”

“It was those wasps,” Prompto murmurs. “Fuckin’ wasps.”

“The wasps?” From Iggy’s flat tone, it sounds almost as if he doesn’t believe a word Prompto is saying.

“Yeah. They sprayed this – I don’t know what to call it, mist?” Prompto frowns, flicks ash into the ashtray. “Gladio called it wasp piss.”

Iggy sighs. “Of course he did.”

“Whatever it was,” Prompto says, stubbing his cigarette out in the ashtray because it’s clear he’s not going to finish it off now, “i-it – I dunno how to describe it, dude, but it made you, like – I dunno, angry?”

Iggy blinks at him. “‘Angry’?”

“You weren’t yourself,” Prompto explains. “You were – youjustattackedus.”

He can’t look at Iggy, not now that he’s said it.

There’s a pause, a long, horrible pause as Iggy is obviously trying to process his words, before he says, “Beg pardon?”

“You – you attacked us. You weren’t yourself,” he adds again hurriedly. He spares a glance at Iggy, looks away again quickly; he doesn’t like the blank look on Iggy’s face, doesn’t like the shadow that’s fallen over his eyes.

“You attacked us,” he repeats, slower this time.

He doesn’t want to keep talking.

He doesn’t like how quiet Iggy is.

Still, he swallows, steels himself as best he can.

“Y-You… you stabbed Noct,” Prompto says shakily, not able to look at Iggy at all as he does. He rips the skin from around his left thumbnail, a prick of blood appearing where he’s picked too deeply. “In the chest. A-And used lightning on Gladio w-when he tried to stop you. I – I had to –“

He stammers to a stop as he thinks about fog and water, about his gun, heavy in his hands and levelled at the back of Iggy’s head, a moment of madness, an almost that was way, way too close.

“I had to knock you out,” he says quickly, glossing over that bit, and he feels awful for it but he also thinks he might actually be sick if he tries to say it aloud. “S-Sorry, but I – I had to. Your head must be killing you, huh?”

It’s such a weak, pathetic attempt at humour that he’s not surprised it doesn’t work at all. He winces as he looks over at Iggy, sees that he’s staring at the ground with dead, unreadable eyes, his face completely blank.

“Sorry,” Prompto mumbles again, continuing to pick furiously at his nails. “Bad joke.”

Iggy says nothing.

“Anyway,” Prompto says, his voice louder but still shaky, “we had to get out of there. No potions, and there were monsters everywhere. Better to get back here and regroup, right?”

Iggy stays silent.

“We got back here just before it got dark,” Prompto says, avoiding the bit where he drove the Regalia and had a panic attack behind the wheel, because he doesn’t like how quiet Iggy is, doesn’t like how completely unreadable he is. “Gladio cleaned you up. Y-You woke up a couple of times – probably don’t remember it, huh?”

He tries to keep his voice light, but it’s forced even to his own ears.

Iggy stays silent.

“You weren’t really coherent,” Prompto stammers, and he doesn’t know why he’s telling him all these bits, but he can’t stand the awful, oppressive silence whenever he waits for a response Iggy is just not willing to give right now, so he tries to fill it as best he can. “S-Sorry. It’s my fault, f-for –“

For nearly killing you.

“– for hitting you so hard.” The skin around his nails is picked raw. He crosses his arms, tucks them under his armpits.

He doesn’t know what else to say. He doesn’t know if there is anything else to say.

Iggy continues to sit and stare at the grass.

He can’t stand the silence.

“Say something,” he says pleadingly, feeling his eyes well up as he watches Iggy just sit there, eyes dead, posture frozen. “Iggy, please say something.”

But Iggy just continues sitting there in silence, and, just when it becomes too much for Prompto to bear anymore:

“You should have left me,” Iggy murmurs.

For a second, he’s not entirely sure he’s heard correctly, wondering if his concussion is messing with his ears the same way it’s messed with his eyes and his brain. He blinks at Iggy, seconds passing, before his brain catches up and confirms that yes, Iggy did indeed just say that, and the realisation stuns him down to the marrow of his bones and makes him feel very, very sick.

“What did you say?” he asks, voice cracking.

“You should have left me,” Iggy repeats, his tone dull, his eyes still focused on the grass.

Prompto blinks, and then, just as quickly and harshly as shock had, anger slams into him, and he feels his face being pulled into a glare. “What the fuck, Iggy?!”

His voice is sharp and loud, a bit too loud, as Iggy winces and, in the room behind them, Gladio suddenly gives a loud snort in his sleep. Prompto and Iggy freeze, glancing over their shoulders into the darkness of the room, where Gladio is shifting on the bed. The movement makes Noct give a small moan of protest as he’s obviously disturbed, the kind of moan that would normally punch Prompto right in the groin. Thankfully, the two of them settle back down again quickly enough, and Prompto finds himself letting out a breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding.

He really doesn’t want them to wake up, not when Iggy’s thinking like… like this.

It’ll cause an argument, and their arguments are never anything but loud and destructive, good for nothing but creating more problems.

“Why the fuck would we ever leave you?” Prompto asks once he’s certain the other two have settled down again, voice and body shaking with barely repressed anger. “Iggy, that’s – that’s so fucked, dude. We’re supposed to be a team, we’re supposed –“

We’re supposed to love each other, he wants to say, but if Iggy dares to say anything to the contrary it might just shatter what little resolve Prompto has left, so he forces himself to swallow it down instead.

“We wouldn’t leave you,” Prompto insists, shaking his head. “Never ever.” His face twists into a glare. “I can’t believe you’d even suggest that, dude, what the fuck?”

“My – my feelings for all of you notwithstanding,” Iggy says, voice trembling, refusing to meet Prompto’s eyes, “I endangered all of you. I came close to killing Noct and Gladio. I hurt you. You should’ve left me behind.”

The entire idea, the mere thought of leaving Iggy behind in that hellhole of a forest, leaving him face first in the mud, unconscious and concussed, for a monster or a daemon to find – it makes him feel so terribly sick it’s a miracle he doesn’t throw up all over himself here and now.

And the fact that Iggy thinks this is preferable, that they should’ve left him…

He barely knows where to go with that, doesn’t have the slightest clue what to do.

It takes some thinking, a few minutes of floundering through his murky brain to finally come up with an idea. A bit of a dumb one, but – it’s an idea, nonetheless.

“Iggy,” Prompto says, managing to keep his voice calm, and Iggy gives the barest inclination of his head to demonstrate that he’s listening. “A thought exercise, if you will.”

Iggy’s face twists into a frown before he even looks back up. “Beg pardon?”

“A thought exercise,” Prompto repeats. It’s Iggy’s own words, Iggy’s own tactics, something he’s used against Prompto – and Gladio and Noct – a dozen times over whenever they get stuck in mental ruts.

Iggy tilts his head, his eyes turning wary as he looks Prompto over, before giving a nod. “Alright, proceed.”

Prompto pauses, licking his lips, thinking about how to phrase his thoughts, hoping – praying – that it will go the way he hopes it will, hoping he knows Iggy as well as he thinks he does. “So, i-if – if –“ he takes a breath “– if it had been me today who’d – who’d nearly killed Noct –“

And that’s a thought in and of itself, a horrible, disgusting thought that makes him feel so sick it’s a miracle he doesn’t either pass out or vomit immediately, because Iggy had been lethal with a spear but Prompto has a gun.

If it had been him, they could’ve been dead within moments, and he would’ve been none the wiser for who knows how long.

He can’t think about that, though. He can’t.

“If it had been me,” he repeats, voice trembling, hands trembling, “would you have left me?”

“No,” Iggy says instantly, before Prompto has even fully finished his question, and his eyes are hard, his frown transformed into a glare, his resolve so strong it makes Prompto feel stabilised again after a day of being cut loose, lost in a maelstrom with no hope of reaching the shore.

He licks his lips again. “Why?”

Iggy blinks, and his glare turns downright lethal, and it’s a battle for Prompto to keep his face straight, to not crumple beneath the sight of that awful look. “What in the Hells do you mean by that?”

“If it had been me and not you,” Prompto says slowly, thinking about each and every word before he says it, hoping he’s clever enough to trap Iggy the way he always traps Prompto with these hypotheticals they play, “w-what’s the difference? I still would’ve almost killed Noct, the King of Lucis, when I’m supposed to protect him –“

“You would not have been acting consciously,” Iggy says harshly, cutting him off. “The decision to hurt him would not have been your own.”

“Neither was yours,” Prompto points out.

“I am a fully trained member of the Crownsguard, sworn to protect Noct,” Iggy says. “You are competent, Prompto, adaptable, and very clever, but you only received eight weeks of partial training before you were sent on this journey with us. This isn’t a situation you have trained for, nor would we blame you for any misfortune that would occur if it had been you. Rather, the blame would fall upon mine or Gladio’s shoulders for not keeping you safe.”

“Okay,” Prompto says, even though it sounds like more self-deprecation bullshit in his mind, and he knows he’d hate and blame himself as much as Iggy does if it had been him. “S-So… what about if it had been Gladio? Would you leave him behind?”

Iggy’s eyes are thunderous, and it’s almost painful to look at him. “No. Of course not.”

Bingo. There’s a spark of hope in his chest. “Why not?”

“Because he would not have been acting consciously,” Iggy repeats, a little self-righteous in his answer, as if he’s winning the argument when he’s actually being backed into a corner and is completely unaware of it. Prompto can’t help but feel the smallest bit elated at that, knowing, for once, that he isn’t the one being cornered like this. “Gladio would never hurt Noct, never, and I would not blame him for what happened in those woods.”

“But he’s a trained Crownsguard, like you,” Prompto points out, and Iggy blinks at him, realising the corner he’s wedged himself into, and Prompto keeps on pressing. “He’s Noct’s Shield. It’d be worse if it had been him, right? Because he’s trained and he’s sworn to protect Noct? S-So what’s the difference between him and you?”

“Prompto,” Iggy says, and his voice is uneven, struggling to get his footing again, “Prompto, you – you don’t understand –“

It’s likely because he’s tired and frustrated and so, so sore, but he immediately feels his veins spark with anger. “What, is it because I’m not actually a Crownsguard?”

His voice is loud, and Gladio and Noct shift on the bed again. They both freeze, waiting for them to settle down once more, and, once they have, Prompto stands and closes the shutter doors.

“Go on, then,” Prompto says, a little bit too angrily, as he sits back down again, turning his chair to face Iggy. “Why don’t I understand?”

“It’s – it’s not because of your training,” Iggy says, still trying to wrangle back control of the conversation, “or your upbringing, or anything like that –“

“So, what is it?” Prompto says, still angry, still biting. “It literally makes no sense why we should’ve left you but not Gladio if it had been him, Iggy.”

Iggy shakes his head. “There is, Prompto, I –“

“There isn’t!” Prompto snaps, his voice climbing in pitch, and he lets out a frustrated groan. “Gods, you and Gladio piss me off so much sometimes! You’re both so determined to be martyrs and I fucking hate it!”

“I am not trying to be a martyr,” Iggy says, his voice harsh and his brows pulled into a frown.

“Then what are you trying to do?” Prompto demands, glaring back just as fiercely. “Because that’s what it sounds like from where I’m sat.” When Iggy doesn’t respond, obviously floundering, Prompto presses on, “You come up with these excuses for us but not for yourself!”

“Unlike these hypotheticals you keep throwing at me, I almost killed Noct today,” Iggy says. “That’s not a hypothetical, that’s a fact. I almost killed Noct and Gladio, and I hurt you. I shouldn’t be here with you all –“

“I almost killed you,” Prompto says, and his voice shakes and his eyes water, and Iggy is blinking at him in shock, but the words just keep tumbling out of his mouth now that he’s started, completely unable to stop them. “I was ready to shoot you point-blank in the back of the head, Iggy. I could’ve killed you, but the others didn’t even think about leaving me.” He pauses, and then adds, “Would you have left me?”

“No,” Iggy says, resolute.

“So what’s the difference?” he asks, desperate to help, desperate to do something.

“I almost killed him, Prompto,” Iggy murmurs, voice dripping with guilt and loathing, and Prompto hates this, hates this day and hates this night and hates this conversation, hates that Iggy hates himself, hates that he can’t break him out of this mindset, hates that this weight is hanging over them and he wants nothing more than to cut it down and toss it over a pier to be lost in the sea forever. “I almost killed him. I almost killed you all. I shouldn’t be here with you all, I shouldn’t, I –“

He can’t take it anymore.

It’s probably not the smartest idea – it could piss him off, could make him even more upset, could have the exact opposite effect – but it’s the only one he has.

He takes Iggy’s face in his hands, forces him to look at him. There’s a split second where he sees Iggy’s expression – lips parted, green eyes bright and alive and shining with unspent grief, bracing for something – before he dives in to kiss him.

It’s not the best of kisses. In his eagerness – his desperation, his need – he clacks their teeth and hits their noses harshly together, and he’s leaning dangerously over one side of his chair, threatening to spill out of it. His mouth tastes like ash and energy drinks, an unpleasant combination, and he feels guilty for subjecting Iggy to that. Iggy tenses beneath his hands, and Prompto braces to be pushed away, braces for the adverse reaction he’d feared, has his eyes screwed shut so he wouldn’t have to see the twist of Iggy’s expression, wouldn’t have to see his hands reaching up to push him away –

But, instead of any of that, he feels the fight leave Iggy’s body, feels his hands snake around the back of Prompto’s neck and his fingers threading into his hair, feels his lips part and their breaths mingle, the kiss turning from something desperate and messy to soft and loving as Iggy takes charge. The relief that washes over him is a tidal wave, and tears prick at the corners of his eyes as Iggy tilts his head to kiss him more deeply.

He’s the one who pulls away in the end, though, because he still has a point to prove, still has an argument to make, and he desperately wants to make sure he’s got it across. And he thinks, going by the slightly dazed look on Iggy’s face, that he might have succeeded.

“No one blames you but you, dummy,” he says softly, their faces still inches away from one another, his hands resting on the side of Iggy’s neck, thumbs tracing the defined edge of his jaw. “There’s no way we were leaving you.” A frown works its way onto his face again, and he feels the slightest amount of satisfaction when Iggy winces at the sight of it. “And I’m really pissed at you for thinking that we would, or should have.”

“I’m sorry,” Iggy murmurs, looking up from where his eyes had settled on Prompto’s lips, meeting Prompto’s red, raw eyes with his own tired, hollow ones. “I’m sorry, Prompto. I –“

“Was being an idiot?” Prompto finishes for him with the smallest of smiles.

Iggy gives a small, huffy laugh. “Indeed.”

“Sorry, Iggy,” Prompto says before leaning in again, resting his head in the crook of Iggy’s neck, arms snaking around his waist to cling to him with every ounce of strength his battered, exhausted body can manage. It’s an awkward angle, what with him hanging half out of his chair and the arms of both pressing into his abdomen, but he doesn’t care much for his discomfort, just seeks the feel of Iggy’s skin against his. “You’re stuck with us.”

Iggy gives another small laugh and clings back, a little too hard, but Prompto won’t complain, won’t ever complain about it, because it’s better than the alternative that they came way too close to today. “Contrary to what you may be thinking, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

It’s exactly the words Prompto wants to hear after today, exactly what he needs to hear, and a hysterical, wet giggle escapes him, tears leaking out of his eyes again, and they and his head hurt from how much he’s already cried today but he doesn’t care, not this time.

Iggy tuts as Prompto shudders against him, one of his hands working its way into Prompto’s hair again. “You must be exhausted, Prompto. Have you had any rest at all?”

Prompto gives a noncommittal shrug; Gladio will likely drop him in the shit tomorrow once they’re all compos mentis again, so he decides to hold off on that lecture for a while. “Wanted to stay up. For you.”

Iggy sighs, though his mouth this time, and Prompto smiles into his chest at the sound. “Come on. I believe some sleep would both do us good.”

Prompto hums in agreement and pulls away, wiping at his eyes, and he has a ridiculous sense of relief when Iggy takes him by the hand and leads him to the bed instead of it being the reverse.

He’s tired. He’s very, very tired.

He sighs as he climbs into the bed. It’s just a shitty motel bed, complete with uncomfortable lumps and scratchy feeling sheets, but, after today and after two full weeks of sleeping on a haven, it’s heavenly. Tension melts out from his bones and muscles, seeping into the mattress, and he sinks deeper into the bed, half of his face pressed into the pillow, and he hears Iggy give a small laugh at the sight of him, all but melting into the sheets.

Iggy is the one to turn the lamp off, bathing their room in darkness. For a few seconds, there’s a carefully calculated distance between them, one that Prompto is too scared to breach at first.

Iggy turns over, though, facing Prompto, a hand reaching out to cup his face, and Prompto seizes that invitation by the horns, crossing the distance and slotting himself up against Iggy’s chest, arms wrapped tightly around him, clinging to him and feeling his heartbeat, his pulse, indicators that he’s alive, he’s alive and he’s okay, they’re both okay and together.

He’s crying a little bit again, but he doesn’t care much this time, not with Iggy’s arms around him, not with his lips pressed to Prompto’s head, and finally, finally, he lets himself drop down into unconsciousness.

Iggy shifting and speaking – something inaudible and garbled to his still sleeping brain – is what rouses him in the morning, drawing a small groan from his lips.

Noct jumping on the pair of them is what drags him sharply back into consciousness.

A shout escapes him as Noct lands on top of him, catching his still healing ribs and digging his bony elbows and knees in as he tries to push his way between Iggy and Prompto. His eyes fly open, and he gets a split-second view of Iggy’s alarmed but smiling face before Noct’s pale skin and black, bed-mussed hair fills his vision, and he starts scrambling backwards away from the weight and the elbows and the noise.

“Watch it, Noct!” he hears Gladio say from just behind him, and he doesn’t even get the chance to look back before there’s a pair of hands scooping him up from under his arms, yanking him loose from the tangle of sheets and limbs that Noct and Iggy have made. Gladio wraps an arm around his waist to keep him steady, and Prompto grins up at him before looking over at Iggy and Noct, his grin turning into a fond smile when he sees the two of them clinging to one another fiercely, Noct shaking slightly as he buries his face into Iggy’s neck, Iggy’s own turned into Noct’s hair and whispering soothing words that the other two can’t hear.

“Hey,” Gladio says, his rumbling voice vibrating through Prompto’s back. Prompto glances up at him again, and Gladio takes the chance to kiss his forehead. Prompto smiles, closing his eyes at the soft touch; when he opens them again, Gladio’s eyes – turned honey brown from the morning sunlight streaming through the open shutter doors – are filled with love and warmth.

“Everything go okay?” Gladio asks quietly.

Not really, Prompto wants to say, because they’ll need to take apart and piece back together that entire conversation as a group, argue it out, shout until they lose their voices and make it up to each other slowly over the coming days.

But that’s something for later.

Right now, he doesn’t want to break the peace, doesn’t want to break the warm, syrupy atmosphere that’s settled over the room.

Right now, he wants to sleep.

“Yup,” he says, humming and closing his eyes when Gladio kisses his forehead again, letting Gladio pull him into the other bed without and envelope him in his arms and the warm sheets without a word of protest.

Things aren’t fixed, and they won’t be for a while.

For now, though, he can rest easier, knowing they’re okay, they’re together, and they’re not letting this – or anything else – rip them apart.