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There’s nothing like driving through the pitch dark to buy elixers. Nothing as bad as it, Prompto thinks. He can kind of rank all the awfulness in his life, if he puts his mind to it. And he does put his mind to it, that’s kind of how his mind works. There’s a light in the dark coming on--headlights gleam on the wet asphalt in the other lane. They whirr past a van, and Prompto turns his head to see red tail lights vanishing around the bend.
Gladio has his hands clenched on the wheel--they’re not talking. That’s how this is going. It feels worse than the two empty seats at the dining room table. It feels worse than brushing his hand over cold sheets in his parents bedroom. It feels worse than choking on nothing in the middle of the night, being absolutely unable to shake the sensation of drowning.
He brushes a hand over his nose and it’s stopped bleeding, which means the cut across his ribs has probably stopped too. His shirt feels a little sticky when he leans forward experimentally. There’s bandages in his vest pockets. They have bigger fish to fry.
He should stay silent like Gladio. Stoic. Solid. Instead he feels like he’s made of water, and he has to shake and dissolve and resolve--like that’s his natural state, not changing it.
“I thought he had it. I didn’t realize--” he starts, but Gladio clears his throat to cut him off.
“Just ‘cause Noct says he has it doesn’t mean he has it. You should have been watching more carefully.” Of course he should have. They’re the guards. Prompto , of all people, is part of the crownsguard. He should be able to think three steps ahead of any enemy. Instead he found himself barreling into the MT with his whole body. When there’s not ammo in your gun throw your gun. If you can’t throw your gun, throw yourself. And it would have--should have been okay. He didn’t realize the other MT was still functional. He thought Noct had taken it down.
“He’s gonna be okay, right?” Prom worried his lower lip with his teeth.
“That’s what we’re doing. Making sure he’s okay.” Gladio always talked with so much confidence. He was so sure, but his hands were tight on the wheel, so tight it almost looked like it hurt. Prompto wanted to slump down in his seat, but instead he straightened up. He tried to imagine Ignis’ perfect posture and match it. When he did his shirt peeled away from the wound almost audibly. He bit down harder.
[#]
Gladio killed the engine at the gas station and paused for a second, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“Five minutes,” he said, popping open the gas cap and stepping out. Prompto bounded out of the car--how did he somehow have energy?
“Five, got it.”
Gladio turned his attention to the pumps. Prompto was back right as he was stepping back into the car. He looked pale under the blue-white LEDs of the gas station. He turned his bright eyes on Gladio, expression intent and haunted.
“We going?”
“Yeah, get in,” Gladio said. He hated this, but he had to acknowledge, they got the better deal. It was much better to drive out into the night to retrieve curatives for your friend than be stuck waiting, watching injuries tensely to be sure they weren't getting worse.
On the way back he put on the radio, drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Prompto sat straight-backed, staring straight ahead like some impression of a soldier. Gladio almost wanted to relent, tell him it wasn’t such a bad screw-up, that Noctis would be fine. But they didn’t know that, not yet. So he didn’t say anything.
[#]
When they arrived back, Noctis was sitting up talking softly with Ingis. He seemed to be flagging, half-asleep, but Ignis had been keeping him up. One exliver later the wound was just a small mark on his shoulder and his eyes were bright.
“Prom… you should wash your face,” he mumbled, and Gladio barked a laugh when Prompto’s hand flew to his upper lip, still crusted in blood.
“Aw jeez, I didn’t even realize.” Prom cracked a grin and Ignis half-chuckled at that.
[#]
Prompto wakes up in the early hours of the morning--5:15 when he checks his phone in the bathroom. He changes the bandages. Peeling them off causes the wound to start bleeding again, and it feels like tearing open his skin. He bites his lip open, but he doesn’t make a sound. There’s one elixir in their motel room (a motel room they can’t afford) and someone is going to need to more than him. Soon, the way things are going. He already screwed up once, and he’ll be damned if he puts his prince in jeopardy again.
Three steps ahead. Think that far forward, move that far forward. He takes a deep breath and pushes his hair out of his eye. The him in the mirror looks a color photo printed in black and white: washed out, hollow.
They spend the day on the road but don’t take a hunt. They camp for the night. The sun’s gone down and left the world brutally cold. Prompto shakes in his sleeping bag--he feels like he’s shaking apart. He dreams about an empty house with an empty yard and an empty master bedroom. He dreams about touching the bristles of a dry toothbrush and feeling both at once a hundred feet tall and two inches, and either way teetering on the precipice of something. When he wakes up it’s early morning again, and he tries to think what it was he was on the edge of. Adulthood? Some other identity? Some imagined boundary that never mattered?
Gladio stirs in the sleeping bag beside him--always an early riser--and he wriggles free, not wanting to be the last one up (although that’s not counting Noctis, who will obviously be last). His whole side feels hot and thick, like a chunk of him was scored out and replaced with melted plastic. That mental image makes him so ill he doesn’t eat breakfast, insisting instead he’s not hungry and needs to clean his gun.
Noctis drags his chair over to the folding table and drops down across from Prompto.
“You’re not hungry? There’s toast if you don’t want eggs.”
Prompto’s not hungry. He’s hollow. He flashes Noctis a smile he hopes is reassuring, and Noctis seems reassured by it.
“Already had a protein bar. I just wanna get this done before we get on the road.”
“The hunt never ends,” Noctis says, with a hint of wistfulness. It’s wish and an expression of burden and a simple statement of fact all in one, Prompto thinks. His fingers are clumsy on the pieces of the gun as he slips them back together. There’s sweat in his eyes despite the heat of the sun refusing to penetrate this morning or their campsite, and it feels as if he is operating someone else’s body, giving order to a set of hands in a video game, delayed by the time it takes for the console to receive his controller’s input.
“We should depart in ten minutes,” Ignis says, tossing a handful of dirt over their dwindling fire. Prompto banishes his gun back to the armiger and watches Noct peel off his overshirt.
“We couldn’t have got a car with AC,” he groans.
“It’s your car,” Gladio says, slapping him on the shoulder. And there’s a beat there where Prompto thinks it was his turn to say something. He thinks this because Noctis’ eyes slide to him almost questioningly; like he’s waiting.
“S’not all that hot,” Prompto says, because he thinks they’re laying it on a little heavy.
[#]
Ignis doesn’t think about much when he’s driving. Normally his mind buzzes at what seems like about a hundred miles per hour. But when he’s driving, he lets the budget and all other worries slide into the back of his mind. They fade down into white noise like the highway sounds; the roar of tires burning on asphalt.
From time to time though, he checks out of the haze to observe the passengers in the Regalia. The heat is baking today; the sun has been beating down on the car without even the reprieve of a single cloud.
Gladio is reading in the back, and Noct is awake for once: playing on his phone. Prompto is asleep in the front seat, his knees tucked up to his chest and his head leaned on the door, arms hanging out the side of the car.
With his neck like that, he’s liable to get so sore he won’t even be able to shoot straight. Ignis looks over to tell him as much when his eyes are drawn down. There’s a flash of white peeking out from the bottom of Prompto’s shirt.
“What on Eos?” he murmurs.
“Iggy, what’s wrong?” Noct asks, leaning forward in the gap between the front seats as Ignis pulls onto the shoulder. Rather than responding, Ignis twitches Prompto’s shirt up. For how intimate this is, Prompto doesn’t appear to notice. Ignis can feel the heat coming off of him--they’re in the sun, sure, but this is like touching a lightbulb. Under his shirt his back and chest is wrapped in bandages stained with a rusty yellow--plasma soaking through, Ignis guesses.
“What’s up?” Gladio asks, pulling Noct back with one hand. His body language is clear: talk to me.
“He’s hurt,” Ignis says simply. He’s aware that his tone is clipped. He feels clipped in every definition; cut short, pared to the edge, swindled.
“What do you mean, he’s hurt?” Gladio’s voice is rough. He’s leaning forward now as Ignis is pulling back onto the road. Through this, Prompto does not wake. Ignis pulls an ill-advised u-turn, heading back the way they came. They passed a motel, what? Thirty minutes ago? He pushes the speed limit--bends it and then breaks it.
When they pull into the parking lot he kills the engine instantly, but he hesitates before waking Prompto.
“I’ll go get us a room,” Noctis says, and bounds out of the car. Gladio remains in the back seat. Ignis shakes Prompto’s shoulder, at first gently, and when he doesn’t respond; harder.
“Nnn-huh?” Prompto cracks one eye open, and then, seeing they’re stopped, lurches forward in his seat. “We there already?”
“No. We're stopping to rest. Since we have injuries to treat.”
“What? Gladdy--you okay? Where’s N-noct?” he’s so fever-ridden he’s shaking, and still his eyes are searching for Noctis. There’s sweat rolling down his forehead, and Ignis feels rage rising up in him like bile. It’s directionless rage--steam trapped under a pot lid. How do you miss a thing like this? He sighs, running a hand through his hair.
“I meant you, Prompto.”
“H-what?” His startled expression would almost be adorable if it didn’t make Ignis feel like his heart was crawling up his throat.
“Come on. Noctis probably has those keys by now,” Gladio growls, stepping out. Prompto fumbles with his door, enough that Gladio leans over and pops it open for him. Watching him unfold himself from his curled position is painful.
“Do you need help?” Gladio asks, and his tone is softer than usual. Prompto shakes his head, but he’s hunched in on himself, and he’s shivering like the last leaf in autumn, and Gladio wraps a hand around his chest, straightening him up. Noctis meets them at the door and they climb the short flight of stairs. It’s not much, but it seems to echats Prompto. Inside, he makes a beeline for the bathroom, but Ignis follows him in.
“Let me take a look,” he says. He has his hands on his hips, and absently he thinks: when did it become like this; me as mother and everyone else as the fools I care about--but there’s barely time for that, because Prompto sags in the doorframe and gives in too easily. Ignis sits him down on the edge of the tub and takes his own seat on the lid of the toilet, and it’s there that he peels away the damp bandage.
There’s plasma and pus leaking underneath, a soft yellow like the color of daffodils. Sick, putrid. The smell wrinkles Ignis’ nose, and he’s glad he already sent Gladio out for curatives, but he’s horrified it’s come to this, and it’s always him with his hands in the blood while he waits for someone to arrive with the medicine he’s ordered. But it was always going to be him, wasn’t it? He signed up to be the one who gets his hands dirty long before he could comprehend what that would entail.
“I have to clean this,” he says coldly, and Prompto just dips his head, as if it’s nothing to him, as if they’re talking about someone else. Once he starts scrubbing through, tears start rolling down Prompto’s cheeks. He’s not really crying, there are no sobs. But Ignis can see tears hitting his lap and he pauses with the cloth. Suddenly the air in the room feels thick--feels as poisoned as the thick fluid leaking from Prompto’s wound.
“Oh, please,” is on his lips but he doesn’t say it, and thank every god, Noctis reaches out and takes Prompto’s hand. Noct leans in a little, in an almost conspiratorial manner.
“Why didn’t you say something?” he whispers. Ignis pushes Prom’s shirt up a little more so he can lay a steadying hand on his back while he is scrubbing the wound out. He finds scar there. Thick and long--it’s a knife wound. And when he pushes up a little further, there’s a few points like a voretooth bite. And then suddenly, he feels intrusive. He knows he’s seen too much; and at the same time he’s furious he didn’t see it before.
“We have one elixir left,” he says through gritted teeth--hoping Noctis will not choose this as a moment to be dense. He doesn’t. His eyes flick over Prompto’s face, scrunched up against the pain.
“Aw, Prom,” he says, so softly. Prompto opens one eye; tear-filled, blue and brimming over.
“Next time it would be more prudent to tell us,” Ignis says.
“We needed--ah!” Prompto hisses as Ignis digs deeper, trying to scrub all the pus from his infected flesh. “We needed to save the Gil.”
Noctis coughs at this--he’s actually astounded.
“What the fuck, Prom.”
Prompto looks up, searching Noct’s face, utterly bewildered. Noctis take his face in his hand, cups his jaw and runs a thumb under his lower lip. It’s split open, blood welled up under a thin scab.
“Fuck, Prom,” he whispers, and Ignis wishes he knew what to say, but he doesn’t, he can’t figure how to respond to this. Lucky for him, Noct wraps Prom up in his arms, plants a hand firmly in his hair and pulls him in close. Ignis clears his throat.
“You don’t have to prove anything to us, Prompto. We already know you’re worth keeping around,” he says, and Noct grins at him from Prompto’s shoulder. It’s a wounded grin, a half-happy grin, but all the same, it’s something.
“Sorry,” Prompto mumbles.
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” Ignis says brusquely, stripping off the vinyl gloves and tossing them in the direction of the wastepaper basket. But he locks eyes with Noctis, and he hopes his point comes across. We’ve got to be more careful with him, he means to say with the look. He’ll die for what he believes in: and he believes in Noctis. Noctis nods to Ignis. Like a king, he bears that burden.
They help Prom back from the bathroom, lay him down in a bed. He’s already flagging; half asleep. Noctis cards a hand through his hair. When he looks up to Ignis, Ignis is almost shocked by his expression; it’s hard, stern.
“What’s he think he’s worth?” Noctis whispers. Ignis bites the inside of his cheek. He wishes he could be like Gladio for a moment and respond with just a shrug.
“I dare not think,” he says evenly, and he knows that crushes Noctis a little. He sees it break against his shoulders like a blow.
[#]
Prompto wakes up at some hour in the early morning. Noctis doesn’t know what time it is; he knows if he checks his phone it’ll just make him more tired.
“Hey,” he whispers, and Prom whispers it back. His eyes are half gummed together with sleep. Noctis brushes his hair out of his eyes; his forehead is cooler now.
“You know it’d kill me if anything ever happened to you?” he whispers. Ignis and Gladio are asleep in the next bed. Like this, he and Prom are facing one another. They’s so close they could touch one another’s faces if they just barely moved.
“Oh,” Prompto says, and he’s so stunned it makes Noctis laugh, and it makes his eyes burn and his throat hurt. “I didn’t,” he says, and Noctis doesn’t know if it means he didn’t know or he didn’t die or what, but either way he presses his forehead to Prom’s, and he tries not to shake at all. And Prompto takes a big handful of Noct’s shirt and he just holds on. And it feels like he won’t let go forever. That’s a wistful thought and it’s a burden, and it’s a wish.