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English
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Promnis Week 2018
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Published:
2018-03-31
Completed:
2018-03-31
Words:
1,732
Chapters:
2/2
Comments:
24
Kudos:
33
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3
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466

When Your Enemy is Sleep

Summary:

It's a gamble: If he sleeps, Noctis might still be with him. Or something far worse might happen.

Notes:

The second chapter was written for the Promnis Week prompt "Ignis comforts Prompto from reoccurring nightmares". The first chapter, I'd written some time before but took a long time to decide if it should be the first chapter of another work, its own work or something else entirely. I decided to combine them. Please note that any future chapters will be added and the work reordered to fall in chronological order.

I wrote the early part with Prompto and Noctis as best friends in mind, but I think it could be interpreted as romantic too.

Chapter 1: To Scream At The Sun

Summary:

He wants to scream at the sun. Its light isn’t wanted if it means their king has been stolen away.

Chapter Text

It’s been hours. Only hours. That feel like months, years...and at the same time, seconds. The dawn has returned. But what does it matter? Its come at a cost much too high. Could they have not found another way? Could they have not tried?

But they didn't. They'd watched as Noct, their king, ascended, willingly, unquestioningly, like a dark lion to the slaughter. In that moment, they could only turn and fight, hold off the surge long enough to ensure his passage.

They had won. But the price was dire, the price was permanent and now...what now?

Standing on the war-torn steps of the Citadel, staring blearily at the daytime sky, Prompto’s mind is blank. Corpses of monsters, giant debris, have yet to be cleared. And it's not. The return of the sun is supposed to be a joyous occasion. But there is no joy for him. None, he knows, for Gladio or Ignis either but in this moment, he doesn't care, the sun is returned at the moon and stars’ expense.

Noct is...gone. Prompto's lost. Ten years in the crystal was bad, but Noct was always coming back. Then he came back. Now he isn't.

He's hungry. He thinks. Maybe not, not sure. He's kinda shaky but is it for lack of food or is it something else? When did he last eat anything? Who cares?

He's tired. Exhausted. But wired. Wants to sleep for a year, and go shoot something. Maybe at the same time. Can he do that? Gladio and Ignis are just steps away. He wants them to go away and never leave him again.

He wraps Noct's old hoodie tighter around him. Sleep seems like the best option right now. Sleep doesn't guarantee escape, but maybe...

But where? He doesn't want to go to his place, isn't sure he wants to try Noct's old place, but wants to at the same time. Before he has a chance to think much about it, though his knees buckle under him and he's sitting, hard, on the step behind him. What can he do but let his head fall on his knees and break, just break. Astrals could just shatter him now, or have they already maybe? Who knows, who cares? He’d give the world to hear Noct complain about vegetables just one more time.

A hand lies heavily on his back, a massive form descends beside him. “Come on, not good for you to sit out here like this.”

But where to go? He doesn't want to be alone. He doesn't want to be around anyone else.

Too weak to fight, easier to just let Gladio haul him up, moves his feet in the direction he's being dragged. “Where are you taking me?” He barely forms the words. No answer comes, he don't have the strength to ask again.

Later, he has no idea where he is. All he knows is that he’s been put in a bed like a helpless child. Someone took his boots off but all of his clothes are still on. He pulls the hoodie tighter around him, closes his eyes and slips away into the past.

Noct is here, alive. They’re playing video games in his apartment. Ignis is making dinner, Noct is complaining about vegetables. They’re fishing. He’s in the tent, standing over Noct, bleary-eyed as he’s shaking him awake so they an break camp. Noct swats him away again. He laughs as the slap makes contact with his leg. Seeing the blue eyes try to slip back into sleep is a blessing from the Six because it means he’s going to wake up and they’ll all be in the car and back on the road soon. He laughs and sends a silent thanks to the gods.

Prompto wakes up again. Reality slams him in the gut, hard enough to make him sick. There is no more road trip in the Regalia, they’re not in the tent. Noct isn’t in the tent. He’s gonna be sick. He doesn’t have the strength to throw up. He cries without tears- he’s pretty sure he’s used up all he can cry for the rest of his life.

Sleep pulls him back. They’re in school. They’re in the Citadel. They’re asleep, arms and legs thrown over each other, Noct’s head on his shoulder, resisting Ignis and Gladio’s call to wake up and get going. A few more minutes of sleep is all he needs. No, a few more minutes of holding onto Noct. Just a few more minutes. The road won’t go anywhere. But Noct isn’t going anywhere either so he’s not sure why he feels the compulsion to cling so desperately.

He wakes up again. He mustn’t have held tightly enough, or long enough. Because Noct is gone. Gone. It’s so final.

He sits up, and he screams. Then he’s buckling under a heavy arm, falling blindly against a chest, pounding his fists blindly in rage.

Arms close around him, he’s being rocked like a baby. He wants to keep raging. He doesn’t want to give in.

He is weakness right now. And he’s sure it’s forever. Because that’s how long Noct is gone. He wants to scream at the sun. Its light isn’t wanted if it means their king has been stolen away.

Gone.

 

Chapter 2: To Scream At The Sun

Chapter Text

It’s been months since one of the dreams came, he should have known it would again but they are so infrequent now. And perhaps, for their infrequency, so much harder to bear.

Noct is now as many years gone as he’d spent in the crystal. They carry on in his memory, rebuild to ensure his sacrifice doesn’t end up for naught. They live. The world is still reemerging though more slowly. It was all a rapid onslaught when the dawn first came, a hairpin turn. It will be a while till it stops, till everything just is, but they have been starting to get the picture of things for a while now.

And yet, the dreams still come. They are a predator lying in wait, not to strike for months. It was nearly a year before the last one. This one not quite so long.

And it is devastating. It always is, ancient grief turned new like the soil plowed over in an abandoned field reclaimed. They weren’t there in that fateful pre-dawn to witness their King’s final act, but the aftermath was clear enough. Each time he has one of these dreams, it plays out a little differently. Always violent and agonizing, how could it not be after the way they had discovered him, skewered to the throne. Sometimes in dreams, he has a chance to stop it, but finds himself rooted on the spot, his tongue paralyzed. These are the worst, they leave him with unspeakable guilt: they are without their king for his failure to act. He could have prevented this. This was one of those.

Noct was dead again and he was the reason. His boots cemented to the steps, his mouth held shut like a vice. His paralysis gone as soon as Noct was out of view.

And then they were fighting for Their King’s life. No, death.

This time, this has been one of the worst. They make it to Noct in just time to witness him being slammed through by the Trident of the Oracle. It moves by an unseen force, ghastly, three tips piercing, one protruding. Grisly.

He sits on the edge of the bed and all he can do is let it fall out: wordless sounds from his lips and hot tears from his eyes as he trembles.

A click, the soft scrape of footsteps across the room. A careful weight next to him on the bed. a hand takes his, threads his fingers through the handle of a cup, hot and steaming. A soft voice “It’s been a while.”

“Not as long as last time.”

Ignis always knows. He never seems to be asleep when the nightmares happen. It might be coincidence, Ignis is often out of bed at odd hours, his sleep cycles not quite lining up with the world, not even really lining up with each other. Sometimes he goes to bed at four in the afternoon for a week straight, only to, one day, find himself awake for thirty-six hours, overtired and overstimulated. Other times he goes to sleep an hour later each day than the last for weeks on end.But when Prompto has these dreams, he’s always there. Sometimes Ignis wakes up before he does, and catches him as he falls out of turbulent sleep devoid of rest. Sometimes Ignis enters the room just as he opens his tear-burned eyes.

“Did I wake you?” He sips some of the tea.

“No, I was restless and didn't want to disturb you so I got up about an hour ago. And then I had a feeling I should make some tea.”

Sometimes, Prompto would swear it’s like he’s been given a psychic gift in trade for his sight.

“Mmmmh,” is his only acknowledgment. He's still shaking. An arm finds its way around him, lips press gently into his hair. He wants, desperately, to lean into the body beside him, let its warmth soak into him, enough to truly feel it but he won't allow himself this weakness- he doesn't deserve comfort after all, he let Noct die again. He let their King die. Again.

He knows. Somewhere, he knows. But right now, his mind is ravaged by its own violent conjurings. Later, in a day, a week, he’ll know- on the surface, not just somewhere deep and unreachable in his mind but there, on the surface, where he can recall it even if he never quite fully believes it. But now he is incapable of understanding.

Ignis always knows what he's thinking in these moments, takes the tea from his trembling hands and sets it on the floor before it spills, pulls him more closely. Prompto knows he should resist, but he’s too weak to launch the most token of protests. “It’s not your fault. It never was.” Ignis tries to reach him, he can't stop shaking, starts to sob again. “Oh Love, I wish you could stop blaming yourself, stop bearing this guilt for your nightmares. If only I could find a way to help you remember that.”

Some things, even Ignis can’t do.