Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Imperials above us!”

“Noct, over here!”

“Noct!”

Noctis warps, body phasing into fuzzy blue light as his molecules are destroyed. It's not nice and neat like those science fiction shows about space and time. There's no swirling light or bending tunnels. There's just pain, throbbing and sharp as every bone in his body dissolves. He's being strained through the sieve of reality and it's something much too small for his body squeeze through. It takes less than a moment for him to reappear at the other end of the field, but damn being put back together hurts just as bad. His head is dizzy. His insides are twisted. The eggs and bacon from this morning’s breakfast churn like his stomach is a washing machine. Little cramps explode in his guts as his colors invert. The muscles fibers in his arms reform into trembling bundles. There's a cold shiver as his life force is scraped away by his friends summoning their primary weapons. Noctis is barely standing, but they need him. There's no time for his body to stall. He’ll rip apart the laws of physics of he has to.

“Noct!”

Noctis swallows vomit, blinking his bleary eyes as he jerks his head towards the sound. It's Prompto, scurrying around like a panicked rabbit as he dives, rolls and dodges around a hoard of MTs. Prompto is in close quarters with the enemy and he has no choice but to summon his spinning blade. The machinery adds yet another slow bleed to Noctis’s energy.

“I've got you!” Another warp. Another surge of pain. Noctis lands a warp-kill on an MT, just as it closes in on Prompto’s back. Its body falls forward and Noctis falls with it, engine blade embedded into the scales of the armor.

He nearly faints from the collision but he doesn't have time to let health stand in the way. He's in a new fray, enveloped by death and burning diesel fuel. They're surrounded, and Prompto keeps slinging machinery with the desperation of a trapped animal. Prompto’s entire body vibrates with the machine, making it hard to tell who is in control. “Its me!” Noctis yells, but it's like Prompto can't hear him over the noise. The spinning blade pulls Promptos body towards Noctis and Noctis has to warp again to keep from being decapitated.

“Ah my bad!” Prompto calls,

But Noctis doesn't respond. Another warp. Another. Another. He's trying so hard to make a dent in the madness around him. He's blinking in and out of existence before he can even take a full breath. His brain cells are so scrambled that he's not sure he's the same Noctis who started warping. But it doesn't matter. His friends are in danger and his nation is destroyed and fuck these MTs all he wanted was to ride his chocobo and forget his troubles for one fucking minute. So he warps again, and again, and again. Maybe if he warps fast enough he can outrun the physical strain that's inevitably going to come.

Noctis spins, aiming for another group of MT’s that seemed to have formed around Ignis. He's halfway through his warp when things come to a heavy halt. He reappears prematurely in the world, sword nearly taking our Ignis legs.

“That's crossing the line.” Ignis some how manages to retort. His daggers fly, flicking off green tinged droplets of poison that barely miss his own face.

Again Noctis doesn't respond. He can't. He's on his knees, head dangling down over his stomach. He's inverted. Inside out. Upside down. He's opened mouth and panting, bruised and winded. There's shocks of blinding grayscale where his skin should be. His leg screams in agony-- or maybe that's an arm. Gravity isn't matching up with his senses.

Noctis hears heavy footfalls, and when he opens his eyes a monstrously large sword crashes barely inches from his head, lodging itself into the hard dirt. It's Gladio, voice booming in frustration. “Are you even paying attention?”

“....huh?” Noctis doesn't move. He looks dumbly up at Gladio’s right arm as it flexes and bends unnaturally under the weight of his sword.

“Get out of here!”

But he can't. Everything hits suddenly, like a runaway train, like a brick dropped from a tower. His hands flare outward, but nothing happens. There's a pain in his head, and the urge to vomit is so much stronger. He needs to stay quiet if he's going to keep everything down, but nothing's quite. Everything is pulsating. It hurts. It hurts so much. He feels his stomach pushing things around weirdly because it doesn't know what's up and what's down His head throbs, not a normal headache but like cold electricity spiraling up behind his eyes, like brain freeze without the promise of ice cream, like terrible things there are no way to describe.

Daylight is gone, the heat has gone. Noctis is in stasis and the world falls apart.

Chapter Text

The hands on the clock tick ever forward, each second reverberating around the room like cymbals crashing. Prompto paces back and forth by Noctis’s bedside, always in reach in case the Prince stirs. Gladiolus sharpens his sword -- a task he's been meaning to do for months but is somehow urgent now. Ignis simply watches, hunched over with his elbows on his knees and a cup of cold coffee in his shaking hands. No one talks. What is there to say? Platitudes aren’t worth a damn when they can see Noctis’s deterioration in front of their eyes. The effects of this flare show no indication of letting up, and it's left the air is so brittle it could snap.

Outside of their place in Caem Cottage, it's nearing dawn. That means Noctis has been been in a near coma for 68 of the last 72 hours. Ignis knows because been awake for nearly as long, helplessly watching as sickness and rot overtake his Prince. Ignis has read every book, asked every question, and yet there's little science and medicine can do in the face of divine plan. There’s not even a word for the spell that befalls the prince other than perhaps “cruelty”. All Ignis can do is provide a sort of comfort while Noctis’s body systematically shuts down. He keeps their room burning warm on request, and supplies Noctis will the softest blankets to cradle his aching body. He cooks homemade pudding and clear broth when his gag reflexes and swallowing become harder to control. Ignis does everything he knows to do but it never seems to make a dent in Noctis’s condition.

Ignis has taken every toss, turn and whimper onto himself, and now he looks as gray and corpse-like as Noctis. He’s running on loyalty and caffeine and his body is starting to protest. His stomach gurgles desperately for some kind of nutrients but it only gets a thickened black sludge of Ebony. He feels himself burn from the inside out despite the fact the coffee was cold. Ulcers probably. H. pylori allowed to flourish because of the stress and acidity. He tries to negate the damage by nibbling on a few saltine crackers, but the nausea doesn’t always grant him that luxury. There’s a persistent small burn at the bottom of his sternum, but he’s not sure if it's the self-neglect or helplessness burning him alive.

Every subsequent occurrence of stasis brings with it a harder hit, a longer coma, a more potent loss of control. The flare should be breaking by now, but Noctis’s cheeks are hollowing day by day. Gladio and Prompto are looking to Ignis for advice and stability, but he just doesn’t know what to do anymore. For hours Ignis has had no emotion, only an urge to keep moving, but now there's a flame of desperate grief roaring through his bones. It’s not even sadness, not in the sense of crying sloppy tears into his dress shirt. It’s much more subtle, a hollowness as deep, far, and wide as any cavern. It’s a stifling black void where space and time doesn't exist. When Noctis sleeps, It's like living in constant twilight. If Noctis is gone, Ignis has no purpose.

Ignis drains the mug of its contents, the black sludge of liquid sloshing around his stomach like angry ocean waves. When he speaks he has to consciously slow his words. “I'm going to whip up some breakfast. Noctis tends to have a moment of lucidity around this time. We’ll need to feed him to make sure he keeps up his strength.” He moves to set the cup down, but his self control is weakened by emotion and fatigue and so it hits the table table with a heavy, forceful clunk. The rim of the cup chips off and flakes on the floor, but it doesn’t matter in the long run. The clock continues ticking, sounding like a broken faucet that Ignis can’t fix even though it’s his royal duty to keep them all afloat.

No one gives an indication that they've heard Ignis, so he assumes no one cares that he slips away downstairs. This is where he belongs anyways, in the kitchen, serving his own life and limb on a platter for his Prince. As a child, Ignis hadn’t been keen on cooking, but that personal distaste was conditioned away when he was enlisted as the Prince’s retainer. The kitchen was where Ignis was most useful, and he took to it well. He’d managed to sneak vegetables into Noctis’s diet by pureeing them, and he limited the Prince’s trigger foods despite the complaints it caused. Though as Ignis takes in the tea stained counters and battered cabinets, doubt crawls slowly on. Was this all for naught? If Noctis’s slow deterioration is fated, was it really worth denying his normal teenage palate for pizza and French fries?

Noctis hadn’t even been allowed the comfort of enduring this illness in his own bed so it seems only proper that Ignis should try to make something that would remind the group of happier times. As children growing up in the Crown City, all of them held a special place in their hearts for Quillhorn Soup. It was that warm comforting type of broth that every grandmother made for their grandchild on cold winter mornings. Though the four were far removed from the people they had been back in Insomnia, Ignis imagines a taste of home would do them all some good.

As he begins to prep stock, Ignis hears Iris’s small footsteps behind him. He doesn’t turn to face her but he can't tell from the noise that she's digging around the noisy freezer, most likely for an icepack for Gladio’s damaged muscles. He understands her even though they rarely speak; excessive self sacrifice has depleted both of them of their words. Any love or intimacy she has ever experienced has been in the context of someone else's distress, and her subsequent “rescuing”. He sees a bit of himself in her and while he thinks Iris would understand, he waits until he hears her creep up the crooked staircase before hesitantly slipping off his gloves. His lingering vanity makes him ashamed of what the state of perpetual war has done to his skin.

He’d once been quite vain of his hands, but when their bachelor party derailed, he was quick to learn that even that small bit of selfishishness had to be terminated. In order to protect the prince he'd learned to use his culinary expertise to concoct a poison for his weapon. It had taken several tries to get it right but eventually he'd created a brew that would burn with acidic ferocity. It was inevitable that the liquid would drip. He tried to be careful but perpetual battles make for hasty applications. Where drops of poison fell the skin took on the appearance of melted wax that had re-hardened in pits and ridges that eventually slid into wrinkled folds around his fingertips. Where there had been well moisturized skin and groomed nails, he can nearly see the bones of his knuckles through the mottled scarring. The contracture scar tissue around his knuckles make it hard for him to tighten his grip around his chef’s knife, but Noctis needs his veggies more than Ignis needs comfort.

Ignis has been having nightmares about what's going to happen if they don’t make it to Altissia soon. His irrational fear shows him burning himself deeper and deeper over time, until the skin is burnt off down to the muscle. He vividly sees himself with no skin at all, just raw tendons wavering like guitar strings over bones that are yellow tinged in plasma. He keeps his gloves on as much as possible now, partly to keep up the morale, partly so he won’t have to look the physical reminder that their adventure is spinning out of control.

There's more small footsteps behind him, hesitant and slow. “Hey Ignis? Is the food ready? Noct is… sort of awake again.” Prompto spoke softly, but oddly so, as if he was consciously forcing himself to control his volume.

“Ah, just a moment. Can you fetch a tray for me?” Ignis quickly hid his hands under the guise of wiping them on a crumpled towel as he turned towards Prompto.

“Just a sec.” Prompto’s body and face don’t agree on what emotion to show. He bounces lightly from leg to leg like he’s excited but his eyebrows are knotted with concern. He refuses eye contact, clenching and unclenching his hands into fists before shoving them into his pants pockets. He doesn’t move toward the tray, nor does he offer to gather the dinnerware as he normally does. “Aren't you eating?”

Logically, Ignis knows he has to care for himself before he can care for the others, but logic isn’t the name of the game when his charge -- no his friend -- is languishing under the weight of divinity. No, the name of the game is sacrifice, and Ignis is a star player. “Later. Noctis comes first.”

Chapter Text

“Noctis comes first.”

For the past three weeks, Prompto has had to ask others to repeat themselves, but even with his deteriorating hearing he feels the impact of those words. Noctis comes first. Its transcendental, and he feels it down in his tremoring bones. It almost seems like a taunt, like Ignis knows the truth of the matter. Prompto wouldn’t be surprised if he did. Ignis knows everything, and it wouldn’t be hard from him or anyone else to follow the trail of breadcrumbs to the true reason behind Noctis’s stasis. If anyone bothered to look at the root cause, they’d find Prompto deaf and trembling, siphoning off Noctis’s powers in the form of potions for relief he doesn’t deserve.

Prompto really fucked up this time.

A cluster of sparks ignite in his stomach, as he tries to tense against the constant shaking of his limbs. It’s useless, but it's instinct clawing at his brain. Be still. Be small. Noctis is suffering, not him. It’d started with small tokens of selfishness, just enough to nibble at Noctis’s health rather than drain it completely. He pestered Noctis for another round of King’s Knight, until “just one more round” turned into all-night raiding. When morning came, Prompto could shrug off the sleepless nights by dancing around to music on his phone while he brushed his teeth, but Noctis could never quiet shake the fatigue. Ignoring Gladio’s warnings about health and “trigger foods” -- what the hell was that anyways? -- Prompto pushed them into another dingy roadside diner for the standard fare of greasy bacon and fried eggs.They’d even stole some of Ignis’s cooking wine so Noctis could chill for a few hours after the hell that had happened. But that hadn’t been the worst of Prompto’s sins.

The worst of the selfishness came after Aracheole stronghold. Up until they had engaged the empire, Prompto had been popping off bullets like fireworks. All the raw power of Ramuh reverberated less than six inches from his ears every time he fired his gun. The circular saw roared in his hands, growling like a lion caged behind his ribs. It was draining, sure, but he could bounce back after pain like sunlight after the storm. That’s what he was good for. His purpose was to be their sharp shooter. Their sunshine child. Their upbeat and bouncing long-range type that could stay out of trouble and stay out of their hair. If he followed that role, they would keep him around, despite not being anything special.

But for whatever reason, after Noctis destroyed that Magitek generator his resiliency disappeared. When the circular saw powered down, his hands still vibrated as if the machine had become a part of him. With every bullet, with every angry whirr of machinery, the rest of the world faded away. It hadn’t been so bad at first. A single potion worked well enough. But then the longer battles, the more intense weaponry, the constant gripping of his guns -- his hands began to blanch. When his grip became so weak he started missing shots, dread locked his gut. In that frozen state, his mind would only allow him to rehash the same scenario. What if he became dead weight? What if they left him behind?

“Prompto! The tray!”

“Oh, huh? I’m sorry.” He wonders how many times Ignis has called to him, and if the tone is as hateful as he interpreted from the mouth movements. He picks up the tray, hoping the weight will calm the shaking. That's what you do right? You weigh down things that move. The soup sloshes a bit under Prompto’s unsteady grip. Though at this point he’s not sure if it’s the nerve damage or withdrawal. Can you get addicted to potions? Cause god he sure feels like he is. He’d asked Noctis for so many potions, and the Prince obliged. One before bed so he could sleep. One in the morning so he could hold his juice glass without dropping it. Each one enchanted with a little bit more of Noctis’s life force. He tried to say no, but he needed it. His brain protested as if his actions became separated from his thoughts. He created reasoning that would make it alright. “Just one more, I’ll do better tomorrow, I deserve it because…” He should have shut up his internal monologue as soon as he realized it was happening. He wasn’t worth so much of Noctis’s power. He wasn’t worth the drain that had given Stasis such a hold.

Prompto makes his way up the rickety stairs of Caem Cottage with Noctis’s soup in hand. He has to keep his neck and shoulders stiff to keep everything from spilling. It doesn't hurt as much as feels humiliation. He hates losing control of his own body. He can only imagine how it feels for Noctis.

No, he has to stop comparing his suffering to Noct’s.

In the bedroom, nothing's changed. He doesn’t know why he thought it would. The group is in tatters. Ignis refuses to look at him. Gladio and Iris judgmentally stare at him. Noctis is nearly dead. His only hope is that everything will be better when they hit Altissia, but for now everyone's ungodly ragged and tired. All because Prompto was weak and selfish.

Without the background noise, he's stuck with his own thoughts and that's terrifying. It isn’t perfectly silent like he imagines a truly deaf person would experience, but rather all his senses turned inward. Air pumps rapid and shallow through his shaking ribcage. There's a pressure in the center of his skull filled with sound of scraping insect legs. His heart only beats because Noctis has gave his energy to make it so.

His unsteady knees press into Noctis’s bedside, but at this close of a distance he can’t hear Noctis’s breathing. He holds his own breath until his lungs ache, but still there's nothing. The quietness gnaws at his insides as he tries to tense against the new and constant shaking in his arms. His hearing has been deteriorating for weeks now, but the silence has never been so stark and telling. What if Noct has stopped breathing and no one's noticed? Is that something that can happen in stasis?

Visually, any movements of Noctis’s chest are hidden by cocoon of blankets, leaving Prompto even more isolated from his friend’s well being. He’s going to have to pull back the covers from Noctis’s face, but he can’t make himself do it. The last three days, he’s barely seen Noctis at all. It doesn’t feel like there's even a person is still under there. Instead it feels like the idea of him -- a thing that could be alive an peacefully sleeping or burning up into stasis. Right now, with Prompto’s numb fingers curled around the tattered hem of the blankets, Noctis exists in limbo. Here, he's alive, but also dead, like that damn Schrödinger's cat. But that’s his Prince, his friend, that's Noct -- not a stray flea-bag cat.

Prompto gingerly places the tray at the nightstand table, and sits next to the lump on the bed. With shaking fingers he tugs away the blankets from a Noctis’s face. It's still the Prince-- or what's left of him. The Six be damned, he's scary to look at. His body is a morbid palette on the backdrop of corpse gray. Flat, red pimples have flourished in the three days worth of grime caked on his oily face. They ooze and crust over as a result of the friction from the now stained pillow. Deep purple and blue rings build upon one another until they envelop his sunken eyes, until they almost look blackened as if by a punch, but the only thing he’s been fighting is his own death. The only solace is that Prompto can see his cracked lips move as he breathes.

He’s alive, but damn is that really a victory? Stasis is eating him from the inside out.Noctis’s skin hangs like a wet towel over his cheekbones, sunken from losing the weight he didn’t have in the first place. Gingerly, Prompto places his hand on Noctis’s back, but he can’t tell if the erratic jerking is Noctis’s jagged breathing or his own tremors. He can feel every rib, and he knows from personal experience how painful uncushioned bones can be.

Noctis groggily stirs from the touch. He moves his mouth like a fish out of water, but Prompto can only catch the first few words. Noctis doesn't talk much when he’s in Stasis, and even when he’s awake it’s mostly just him talking out of his head. He mixes up things that happened years ago with wild fantasies: he speaks to Bahamut, while having berry cakes with Luna. He vividly describes the heat of Ifrit’s hellfire on his skin, but can’t remember that their home was destroyed. “Mm time?” He murmurs

“It's -- ah --” Prompto fishes for his phone. At least he’s not calling for his father again. This is a question that Prompto knows how to answer. “Its 6:23 in the morning. Friday.” Prompto speaks, slowly and precise. He can still hear himself, so he knows the words don't sound garbled, but he hasn’t figured out how to control his own volume just yet.

“Thirsty?”

“You want a drink?”

“Thursday” Noctis repeats the same sound, only this time with clearer mouth movements.

“You slept through Thursday, Noct.”

“Mmmm” Noctis tries to sit up, his bedcovers flowing around him. He should be adorned in the mantle of his royal raiments, not the tattered blankets of his deathbed. Sitting in the rickety remains of old Caem, he truly looks his role. He is the Prince of a dead kingdom, with nothing better to do than wait for the gods or wait for death. But really, is there a difference at this point? The prince of the once great Insomnia hunches his skeletal shoulders forward as he reaches for the food with unsteady hands.

“Whoa, Noct, lemme help-” White-hot electricity shoots down the inside of his arm as he tries to grip the spoon. His muscles are trembling, furiously contracting and loosening in on themselves. Even his thumb disobeys his commands. But now is not the time. He has to summon strength from nothing. He needs to care for Noct. The broth sloshes around the spoon, but he manages to get most of it up to Noctis’s mouth.

Noctis cuts his eyes over to the spoon. His body is weak but he has enough clarity to be embarrassed. His cheeks go pink, and Prompto tries to not look at the single tear rolling down his cheek. He take the bite grudgingly. “I look like a loser.” He laments.

“It’s just for a little while longer.” Prompto goes back for another spoonful, trying not to think about the fact that he’s having to feed Noctis like an infant. He’s such a terrible person, but seeing Noctis waste away hurts. But he doesn’t have a right to be hurting when it's Noctis that’s suffering. So Prompto keeps smiling, keeps his voice calm and wears the mask of denial. The twenty-year-old normal kid Noctis is in there somewhere, underneath the layers of depression and pre-destined martyrdom. “It’ll all get better when we get to Altissia.”

“-not going to-” Prompto misses some of the words, but he knows the tone. King Noctis gives a grim declaration to his tattered populace even as his voice quivers like Prompto’s hands “-not getting better.”

Prompto heard the words. Sadness tangles behind his rib cage as he hopes to the Six he has heard them wrong. The unspoken words have been given a voice, and he can’t even make a decent response. A moment lapses in his head. “Noct-"

“One day I’m not going to wake up.” Noctis's voice quivers. The words fade into the brittle air. He hangs his head like he’s at a funeral, just turning over the grief in his soul. This is the loss of his future, the theft of invested time. It’s not a tangible, physical loss, but an internal shipwreck. Any kind of life he’d ever planned is dying with an imperceptible emotional shriek.

Yet, the only words that Prompto can think of are pointless and trite platitudes. He clamps his mouth shut, afraid that anything that comes out is going to sound like a motivational poster cliche. What the hell is there to say? All he can do is ride the river of denial longer, and hope the current carries them away from this flare of stasis. “No.” He demands, like this one word can change destiny. "No."

“Will you just listen to me for once?” Noctis goes from grief to anger, but there's little physical evidence because of his weakened muscles. It shows in his voice, that little pathetic growling from the back of his throat. It's all he can manage.

“No, not if it's about that, no!” Prompto’s forgets to control the loudness of his voice. He clenches and unclenches his fist just to to give his muscles something to focus on other than trembling to their own death. “You’re going to eat this soup. You’re going to break out of Stasis. We’re going to go to Altissia and everything’s gonna be better.”

Prompto grips the spoon. His muscles convulse. A current of nerve pain tears through his arm. He jerks away like he's been burned, sending broth splattering on the bed sheets. The spoon falls like a guillotine, like the Citadel, like their lives. For every inch it falls, it’s another inch Noctis slips away.

Letting go of that spoon has been the hardest thing he’s done for the last three days. When it lands, it clatters so loudly that Prompto can actually hear it. It sounds like broken dreams -- all jolting shocks and deep reverberation. It shatters the tenseness of the air as if it's glass, and its base pieces of regret, sadness and loss lie broken amongst the broth.

Tears join the mess on the floor. Prompto can’t be bothered to clean up the shattered remains. This is all that’s left of them anyways.

Chapter Text

Gladiolus is not dumb. He's been around military men and war vets his entire life. The others are going through some serious shit. He may not call it out, but he sees it. Ignis tries to take on the motherly role, suffering through every whimper. Prompto’s always been a mess, though the kid is trying. But even the best intentions ain’t going nowhere against the ominous certainty of impending suffering. Death approaches with the steady, heavy-spirited drumroll of a soldier's march.

The fatal battalion progresses swiftly, and none are spared. Even Iris looks far older than her fourteen years -- wait, no she's fifteen.God, it's been years since he’s just sat and talked with her. She’s become a silhouette, a gunshot - a violent flash of fire and smoke that's faded out to just ringing in his ears. He searches her face for the echo of that bratty kid with juice stains around her mouth, but instead only sees the hollow features of a child left behind. Even before this hellish road trip, his life had been centered around answering royalty’s call. Like his father before him,he's missed most of her life.

But that’s the way things are. War happens. Disasters happen. And sometimes people get lost in the fray. This time, it was her. It’s a deep regret, but he can’t stop to get teary-eyed about it. Don’t think about it. Keep moving. That's the way of the Shield.

Gladio ignores the thoughts of potential reconnection with her. He’s good at ignoring pain; he’s a survivor after all.

“You could use a smaller sword, you know,” Iris says matter-of-factly as she tends to the torn muscles in his shoulder. Her eyebrows are knotted, her lips tight. She nurses the broken spirits around her with weak smiles and half-melted ice packs, barely a twisted memory of his blooming little Iris.

Gladio huffs. His rotator cuff burns as he breathes, but physically, he’s got it easier than the rest of them. His damage is manageable, and expected. Carrying the weight of his forefathers swords is physically demanding, but it's his purpose. The pain, the inflammation -- it's a sign that he's doing it right. He’s following the path laid out before him. “This is what Dad used."

It's a solid explanation, but one Iris doesn't accept. “I doubt Dad would care,” she shoots back, her words bitter around the edges.

“I’m fine,” he hisses, and she falls silent. Great. Now she’s giving him the silent treatment. It's like they're all just watching for his mistakes. He can still hear that white-haired prick laughing -- a weak shield protects naught -- and Gladio’s left feeling weaker than ever. His sins and his inadequacies are laid bare. The injuries from the Trial of Gilgamesh are just now beginning to heal over, but he wants them open and raw like a brand. They are a badge of shame, a warning -- they aren’t ready for this.

It’s a horrible thing to say, but they need to speak the truth. That’s his friend, his brother, his Prince -- but Noctis can’t handle basic functions. Gladiolus would take take the pain for him if he could. If Noctis can’t think, he thinks for him. If Noctis can’t walk, he carries him to the top. That’s what a Shield does. A Shield serves a King, but what kind of King has to have his friends wake him up to go to the bathroom? King Regis used his power every single day to keep the people safe. His Majesty had obviously felt the drain, as evidenced by his limp and earlier graying, but Noctis -- the kid’s laid up after one fight. What the hell is going to happen to them if Noctis keeps flirting with death like this?

'Then, the most pressing question: what happens if their hierarchy crumbles? Gladio has never been to war, but he’s felt the effects from the family line. Everything is so standardized in the military that he can function without thinking. It’s not a bad thing -- people need structure. It feels good to know his place, to know exactly what he’s contributing. But where does he fit in now? He’s not caring like Ignis. He’s not bright and peppy like Prompto. He’s not self-sufficient like Iris. The lines are blurred, and isolation creeps in. It’s hard to know where he fits without a proper king.

Don’t think about it. Keep moving. That's the way of the Shield.

Gladio unknowingly clenches his knuckles until they blanch. He’s drowning in poisonous thoughts. They aren’t going to make it. They’re all going to die. He can see it happen, clear as day. They’re sitting ducks here. Bodies fall in time with Prompto’s heavy footsteps on the stairwell. Every step he takes is louder than the one before, and they pound in Gladio’s head like a drum. Why is everyone pretending like this is okay?

Prompto doesn’t even apologize when he clears the landing. He’s loud as hell and walking pigeon toed like a toddler. Slowly, carefully, Prompto sets down his tray and begins to rouse Noctis for feeding. Animosity emanates from Gladiolus’s tensed muscles, and any sadness is soon replaced by acidic anger. What kind of King has to be fed?. Prompto’s every child-like movement is a reminder of the destruction of the children they had once been and the infantile king that’s going to drag Insomnia down with his deteriorating health. Gladio’s burning; his face is flushed as if his veins are filled with kerosene. When Iris places another hand on his shoulder, he snaps.

“Noct’s not getting better, is he?” Iris pushes the knife further with her questioning.

Despite summoning every ounce of willpower, he can only see her words as a taunt. There's a door opening, revealing a truth he doesn't know how to handle. This is against the rules, and it's rules that keep military men functioning. He's losing control. He's that five year old child again, realizing his own life is just another domino in a fatalist family legacy, training day and night until he faints in an attempt to postpone the inevitable. “No.” He growls as if the force of his voice would keep the door shut. “We’ll keep moving. Even if I have to carry him.”

“And what if he doesn't want to be carried?”

Metal clinks against the floor. Ceramic bursts. There's a crash from the other side of the room as everything falls apart. When Gladiolus and Iris turn towards the commotion they see Prompto weakly standing over a broken bowl. Several cups’ worth of broth and vegetables swim around his feet. Prompto’s legs twitch like a nervous rabbit. “I'm sorry!”

“What the hell are you doing?!” Gladio jumps to his feet. Iris nearly falls backwards from the momentum. He marches through a boiling hot puddle. It's a threat, and he only knows one way to deal with that.

“It was an accident! Noct -” Prompto casts his eyes over to Noctis, to the floor, to Iris -- anywhere but Gladio.

“Don't bring him into this. You dropped it! How the hell do you fuck up something so simple?” Gladio slaps a heavy hand on Prompto’s shoulder, pushing him back. He doesn't know why he's shoving the kid. It's instinct. It’s fight or flight. But Gladio had his wings clipped early.

“Gladdy! Stop!” Iris snakes between the two, spreading her small arms protectively in front of Prompto. “I’ll clean it up! Just stop! Just leave!” Gladio can see Iris’ tears as they fall down her cheeks, but her voice is strong. Her stance is is that of a warrior who has held her own since childhood. How many times has she stood between shouting men?

Gladio hesitates, just watching as the world goes still. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. The entire time his family lineage was being pounded into his head he never thought it would play out like this. He's here to kill bad guys. But what if… what if Gladio is the bad guy of this story?

Don’t think about it. Keep moving. That's the way of the Shield.

Gladiolus kicks through the broken glass. He leaves the room, slamming the door behind him. Prompto goes to comfort Iris. Noctis falls deeper into stasis. All of them -- they're good kids. And if kids like that are allowed to suffer, what right does Gladio have to be alive?

Chapter Text

While Noctis’s body is locked in Stasis, Carbuncle gives him dreams.

Noctis is in another world, bare feet dangling off the pier in Galdin Quay with fishing pole in hand. The cool, blue waters stretch out for infinity, their meandering currents ripe with fish. He has all the time in the world to enjoy this lazy solitude. He’s someone else, someone better -- a complete man with no illness nor destiny. His mother and father are home safe, and the Citadel is standing proudly over the horizon. He is not Noctis, therefore life is good.

But a cruel whirlwind of pain forces Noctis back into the waking world. Carbuncle is only trying to help lessen the misery but inadvertently brings more torment with his false hope of impossible dreams. Reality hits harsher after his extended time in his dream-world. There’s no peaceful fishing, no promise of home in the distance. Instead, the bitter reminder of Noctis’s inescapable fate floods him all at once in a cavalcade of sickness and rot. Stasis. Its slimy, parasitic threads wrap around his lifeforce, and it strangles him in a toxic embrace.

Gladio says Noctis is sick, but it's so much more than that. Stasis is a slow systematic shut down that pins him down and strips away his dignity. It's the worst of every layman’s illness cooked into the most potent poison -- nausea, delirium, coma, pain. Gods, there's so much pain. What should have been the natural ebb and flow of the Crystal’s power under his skin instead pulsates in jarring, fiery bursts down his every nerve. His bones have turn into molten lead, pinning him into the bed as they burn their way through his torn muscles. He's become a prisoner in his own body, unable to twist away from the constant torture. It's sharpest in his stomach, warm and throbbing as his guts twist. it's as if his body has folded in on itself, breaking bones and muscles to make room for more agony. He can only tense against the pain and breathe, breathe deep and slow. He grits his teeth and waits for relief. If it comes by death, then so be it.

When the pain doesn’t ebb, Noctis’s breaths are replaced by whimpers. “Please don't hurt me,” he whispers up to the uncaring heavens, but the pain is coming from inside himself and it's never going to end. It’s the will of gods, after all. He bitterly recounts every time he was taught that The Crystal and its abilities are gifts. He’s read the scriptures -- “suffering builds character” and “all great saints have their afflictions.”. Being bedfast and unable to move are therefore bitter blessings. But death is only martyrdom if it's chosen. Noctis is infected by his genetics, pre-destined to suffer because of some thousand year old pact between his ancestors and the Gods.

And God are quick to abandon their chosen, it seems.

The Gods apparently don't care that he’d like to take a piss by himself either, because The Crystal has drained him to the point that he's not sure he can make it to the bathroom unassisted. His bladder feels unsupported in his distended abdomen. He really needs the toilet but he refuses to call his friends for help with that. Noctis is a twenty year old man, and he's already being saddled with the geriatric indignity of being denied his bodily autonomy.

Noctis grinds his teeth, having to gather his mental and physical fortitude just to push himself upright and away from his sickbed. He manages, but the exertion leaves him panting, foaming at the mouth with bitterness. Once out of his cave of blankets he simply sits in the darkness, head lolling against the headboard. The sky outside of the circular window is an inky black, but outside of that Noctis has no concept of the time that has passed. It’s silent except for his own labored breathing.

Is he alone? The bit of logic left in his brain tells him that Ignis is probably downstairs, and if he listens closely he can hear Gladio snoring from the chair. But logic is muted by delirium. His friends are past the point of weariness with him and his Stasis. He’s killing himself for them -- charging their phones, enchanting potions, warping to the point of throwing up to keep them safe -- but it's never enough to keep their friendship. Prompto’s eyes glaze over when Noctis complains about his heat intolerance (again) and how Lestallum makes him sick (again). Ignis grits his teeth when he discovers a new recipe that can't be used because of Noctis’s rapidly changing food issues. Gladio pushes him to go on morning runs, and passes off the Prince’s inability to stand as laziness. Loneliness eats a bigger hole in his soul. They’ll stay by his side as his retainers, but not as his friends. The friend portion of their relationship dissolved when he had to be fed like an infant. He's so alone. No friends, no family, just him half rotting and nearly dead in a refugee base far away from the ruins of his home. He’d cry, but it would take too much energy. He needs to ration out his energy to make it to the bathroom.

Instead of standing, Noctis snakes off the bed. Bad idea. He lands on his ass with a small thump, but his tailbone cries out like he’s been dropped from an airship. The heads of his hipbone reverberate in his sockets, kicking up a cloud of dull pain that fogs his mind. He throws his head against the wall. Tangled, neglected hair falls into his face as he hisses through his teeth. He holds his hands over his stomach, holding himself to keep the pain in. More heavy breathing, more grimacing. He’s got to keep it in. The others can’t take much more.

Noctis’s eyesight is blurred from pain. Slowly, he tries to unfold himself, but his flexors seize up and he’s forced to retract back into a ball. His joints click deep in their sockets, grinding like gears with nowhere to go. Each failed movement sends a jolt of electric pain behind his eyes. The deterioration of his body is natural after being in a near coma for days -- weeks? There's no time in his addled brain, only a desperate need to do something for himself. Noctis makes deliberate motions to push himself on to all fours. He stretches out his limbs slowly, steadily, grimacing against the pain with every new degree of motion he unlocks. His body is made of rubber bands already stretched at their limit, and they snap and tear as he tries to rise to all fours. He’ll crawl on his knees if he has to. His dignity has already been stripped. Why shouldn't this failure of a king be made to crawl?

Noctis’s arms tremble underneath his shoulders and everything gives way. The weight of divinity pushes him onto his stomach, the change in position forcing him to swallow blood clots and mucus deeper into his body, igniting nausea once again. He’s forced to drag his body forward by his elbows, forced to keep his head into the dust and grit trapped between the rough floorboards.The wide, jagged grooves in between the planks catch his shirt, pulling it up towards his armpits. With nothing between him and the raw wood, splinters now drive deep into his stomach with every infantile movement forward. Blood wells up like beads on a thin, red string and the dry flooring drinks it up greedily. At least this pain is external and therefore believable. Unlike the crystal’s drain to his soul, people will respect the blood welling on his stomach.

There's a flush across his cheeks, from fever or shame he's not sure. Noctis finally makes it across the threshold to the bathroom, and he just sits, letting the cold tiles draw away the swell of heat from his skin. He wants his mom. He wants his dad. He wants his bed. His addled brain can only think in simple, childishly desperate phrases as he sits locked into his fetal position. His stomach hurts, but he can’t push himself up to the toilet. His stomach feels constricted, like a band is pushing his insides up into his throat. He has to tense his sore muscles to keep everything down and even then he feels the bile riding up his esophagus. He just feels the tears well up, beading up and falling one right after the other. He's hurting. He's tired. Please help me.

Noctis is dying. It's plain as day, but no one will take him seriously He wants to talk about it but he’s not sure why. There's nothing left to process. He's going to die, if not in this round of stasis, then in some episode of it in the future. Things won’t change, they won’t get better, there won’t be a miracle, and there won’t be a happily ever after. He’s not sure if he feels bitter about it -- he’s not sure he would have the right to be. Babies die. Teenagers get cancer. What is he but a another tally in the body count? Everyone is going to die. Every person has that hourglass, that clock, that calendar of days left. He doesn’t have a right to be afraid, but it’s scary and brutal and unfair.

The vomit comes, swift and forceful. His head hurls forward. His skull cracks against the porcelain. With a heaving lurch of his stomach, he clings to the rim of the toilet as if it were a life raft. His lips dribble out a mouthful of soup he doesn’t remember eating as his brain resorts to a safe mode. Carbuncle’s soft, gentle weight curls around Noctis’s legs, and all the good things in his life are projected in a series of snapshots in his mind. He cries against the images, and he sees the same three constants in every stage of his life. Ignis. Prompto. Gladio. His little fox companion is helping in the only way it can, but Noctis is never had the chance to process his life fully. Carbuncle only exists to feed the monster known as hope and thus Noctis is kept in the emotional avoidance like a child. Noctis tries to push Carbuncle away but it only chitters out motivational one-liners that do damn all for the muscles that are trembling away to their deaths.

“It’ll be okay.” How do you know that?

“It’s the will of the Six.” To suffer this much? Why?

“It could’ve been worse.” But isn’t it already bad enough?

So in a moment of frustration Noctis tries to keep the vomit in his throat, to choke and die and just end the torment. His gag reflexes have wasted away with the rest of him, so his body takes the command easily. Noctis starts to choke. The demon known a depression wants this fate, but the primal parts of his body starts going into panic mode. He feels the hot, rancid streams lingering inside him, while his weakened muscles try to squeeze out the blockage. It's not like the movies -- there’s no wheezing, no coughing, just desperate flailing as his hands look for something to clutch to. What a way to go. Prince of Lucis, Chosen King, dying on his own vomit while alone in a refugee shack.

Carbuncle squeaks and whines. It headbutts its face into Noctis’s side, pressing the crystal of its head into his spasming muscles until there's a soft wave of ruby light. It's small, and it pulses gently, expanding its reach in a gentle ebb and flow. It’s soft and warm, like a fragrant blanket fresh out of the drier. It doesn't take away the pain but it brings him comfort, a type of high that comes from being loved and protected. Noctis is still in pain, still choking, but somehow he's at peace. Carbuncle all but stabs him with its head crystal and Noctis slumps back to the floor, gasping for breath.

It didn’t work. He's still alive and its so damn frustrating he starts to cry again. If life is so hard, shouldn’t dying be easy? Drug addicts die from choking on their vomit, so why won’t this work for him? He's failing at everything, even his own suicide. But then the raw truth of the situation washes over him: the realization that he's once again not allowed to chose his own destiny. The Astrals won't let him die. He's not allowed to choke on his own vomit, but he's not allowed to live a healthy life either. His death and life are not his own. He's a pawn, a victim.

This is a gift. Noctis reminds himself, as he lays bloodied and half-strangled on the bathroom floor. This is a gift from the crystal.