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Noctis wakes to a blanket of snow covering all of Insomnia in white. His phone beeps again with the alert about closed businesses and schools, which roads have been plowed and which haven’t. He scrolls through the list of schools with bleary eyes, squinting at the too bright screen. The sun hasn’t peeked over the horizon yet and whatever weak dawn light has brighten up the sky is hazed over with clouds still letting loose thick, heavy snowflakes.
His school is tenth on the list. It looks like every school in Insomnia has closed down, with a prediction of at least a three-day snow day. His dad has even called for a government shutdown, the roads too horrible to plow properly.
He locks his screen and sets it to the side. Even curled up on his side under his thick duvet, Noct can feel the slow, whispering seep of cold from his apartment. Must’ve not turned on the heat last night, he thinks, thoughts slow and sleep-thick. Without the glow of his phone to distract him, the steady ache that dogs him everyday that he almost usually can ignore, makes itself known deep in his bones and muscles.
Noct squeezes his eyes shut then carefully, carefully shifts his legs, turning and rolling onto his stomach. He gasps loudly in the muffled silence, pain flaring in his back, radiating out through his nerves down over his legs and up through his shoulders and arms. His knee locks, creaking in protest and screaming abuse.
Oh, he thinks dully, it’s that then.
He lays there, suffering in silence except a few gasping breaths he can’t contain. The main question now is, can he fall asleep like this? The idea of moving, venturing out into the cold of his apartment makes his muscles tense in dread, sending more sparks of pain through his spine. But, without moving, the pain may keep him awake. He could grab his meds, turn on the heat, and be back under the covers in, well, not no time because with his shuffling it might take him forever. It’d be a thing, though, that he did, completed. Sooth his own soul and body by suffering not-a-little bit of pain.
Noct sighs, eyeing his phone mournfully. Normally, he’d call Ignis. When the pain got too much or flared up, Ignis was always there to help him. As much as he hated it. He hated the scars and the constant pain and those months in the wheelchair and those times that, even now, he has to rely on the chair to get around. Ignis, his friend, his advisor, the person who was there since day one, would help.
But the cold and the roads...
He groans, pressing his face against his pillow. Ain’t gonna happen.
His phone beeps again, another message. This time it’s Prompto, all caps about the snow day and multiple snowflake and excited emojis. Of course he’s awake, he was probably awake before the alert came through, the disgusting morning person that he is.
Noct shoots back a message of just the sleeping z’s emoji. The response is several exclamation points and a ‘ur awake!...u ok?’
He snorts. Okay, that’s fair. It’s...six in the morning. Noct is not known for being awake until at least seven, and that’s only if he has to with lotsa prodding from Ignis.
His fingers shake from the pain, something that’s been slowly and steadily growing since he turned around, but he tells Prompto that he’s fine, just woke up to the snow alerts, and he plans on going back to bed in the next few seconds. Prompto just laughs at him, sends an emoji sticking out its tongue and a green heart.
Noctis drags his phone under the covers, his hands freezing. Definitely kept them out in the cold of his apartment for too long, they feel like ice cubes, thick and ridiculous from the cold. He closes his eyes, breathing deep through his nose then out through his mouth. He counts backwards from ten in his head, then forwards in Old Lucian out loud, trying to drag his mind off his back.
He has to sing that stupid song they teach everyone in junior high when they take the one year of required Old Lucian, he always forgets the order of the numbers when he doesn’t sing them, even now after being one of the most fluent people in Insomnia in Old Lucian due to his position as the Crown Prince.
Thinking about his annoyance with the stupid song is enough to make it seem like the pain is just a background white noise. His hands are warmer now, when he shifts the duvet to curl over his face a bit his nose starts to warm up too. He’s drifting, eyes going from tightly shut to something softer, and his shoulders losing their tension.
But then his leg spasms and his whole body lights up in pain. He yelps out loud, whimpering as he holds his body as still as possible to ride out the pain.
It lessens, just barely, after who knows how long.
Noct breathes harshly through his mouth, panting as tears trickle down his cheeks. Oh, this is bad. This is so, so bad. He needs something for the relief. He won’t be able to handle this.
He lays there for a few more minutes, bracing himself for the pain that’s going to come. Then, haltingly, he heaves himself up into a sitting position, legs dangling over the edge of his bed and duvet wrapped around his shoulders. He breathes carefully, deliberately, unable to stop the tears of pain from escaping. Maybe he should start keeping his pills in his bedside table? That foresight would’ve made this a lot easier.
His phone beeps again. Ignis, confirming any meetings and appointments he had after school are officially cancelled along the same timeline as the government shut down. A message from Gladio follows up a few seconds later reminding him to stretch since they’re not meeting for training.
Neither of them expect answers this early in the morning, and Noctis’ energy is focused solely on not passing out from the pain and the cold, so he lets the messages go unanswered in favor of standing on wobbly legs.
He clutches the duvet tighter around himself and shuffles out of the bedroom. He has to lean against the doorframe to catch his breath, eyes squeezed shut, his breaths hitching. His legs shake even more, but he pushes on, limping severely into the kitchen, whining when he has to reach over his head for the kitchen cabinet that holds his meds and various cold-fighters.
His hands are trembling as he fumbles with the correct bottle. The godsdamn childproof cap thwarting his weak attempts to twist it off. He sobs sharply, chest and shoulders heaving. He loses control of the bottle. It flies out of his hands to clatter into the sink, rolling on its side, mocking him.
Noctis presses his clammy face against the freezing stainless steel of his fridge, trying to smother another sob, but it just rips from him, cracking through his throat so hard it hurts. He reaches for the bottle and tries one more time to open it, but he can’t get enough force or leverage to press the cap down hard enough and then twist it at the same time.
He lets it drop from his grip again to clatter onto the floor and braces himself against the counter, crying openly with huge gasping sobs, hitching breaths, tears dripping from his chin. It hurts so much and there isn’t a damn thing he can do about it.
With that miserable thought, he turns back around and limps so slowly back to his room. Then suddenly, with the dark and his limp and the duvet dragging on the ground, he trips, crashing to the ground with a scream. Pain shocks through him without relief, fire in his nerves and bile building in the back of his throat.
For some reason, though, the only thought that echoes through his head before he passes out is: I should’ve turned on the heat first.
Galdio’s disturbed from his latest book by his phone ringing. Iris shushes him from where she’s glued to her laptop screen, playing some sort of MMORPG. He ruffles her hair with a chuckle, ignoring her half-hearted attempts to swat him away, and takes the call into the next room. Ignis’ name flashes at him, the picture a slightly blurry one taken by Prompto when Noct shoved an oversized cat sweater on the other man and knocked his glasses lopsided.
“What’s up?”
“Have you heard from Noctis?” Ignis asks immediately.
Gladio frowns, hand on his hip. “No,” he replies. “I texted him about stretching this morning, but I never got a reply back. Figured he’d been sleeping.” He shrugs. “Figured that’s what he’d be doing all day: catching up on his beauty sleep.”
But now that Ignis mentions it, it’s noon. He should have some sort of half-awake reply that’s more typos and emojis than actual words.
“Do you have your snow tires installed yet?” Ignis asks next, a rustling sounding from his end of the line. “How comfortable do you feel driving on those roads?”
“What for?” Which is a stupid question, Gladio already knows. Hell, he’s already reaching for his boots and layers.
“I’ve texted him multiple times and I have received no answer.” His voice goes distant as he pulls the phone away from his face for a second, then comes back. “I don’t have my winter tires yet. Would you be willing—?”
Gladio wraps his scarf around his neck a few times, tucking the ends into the jacket he zips over his sweatshirt. “You don’t have to actually ask, Iggy. I’m on my way. Hold tight.”
Iris glances up when Gladio stomps by, her eyes wide in worry. “Is everything okay?”
“I hope so,” he grunts. “Iggy and I are going to Noct’s place, make sure Prince Charmless is handling a day of being alone without his usual flailings.” There’s no bite to the insults and he knows Iris can see that.
“Call me?” she asks softly. “Good or bad. Let me know, yeah?”
He ruffles her hair again, this time without protest, and agrees. Then he heads out to the garage, thanking the Astrals he doesn’t have to dig his truck out of the piles of snow, and grins when he sees the driveway mostly plowed. Perks of living in this part of the city, in a Lord’s mansion.
The truck has to take a few minutes to warm up, but it’s not long before he’s pulling up in front of Ignis’ place, texting him to let him know he’s there. Ignis comes out just as bundled up, a brown bag in hand. When he gets in the truck, his glasses fog up and he sighs in relief of the heated seats.
“I hope I’m just being paranoid,” Ignis says quietly, breaking the silence that falls as Gladio maneuvers the slick, mostly unplowed roads. The still falling snow hasn’t kept everyone in doors, despite that most stores probably aren’t even open, and the tire tracks the others have made are now frozen over. “But I cannot help this feeling something's wrong.”
“I’ve learned to trust your gut, Iggy,” Gladio says. “If it’s saying something’s wrong, something’s wrong.” He glances at him out of the corner of his eye. “But, I doubt it’s as bad as you think. You always overthink.”
Ignis sighs, leaning back in his seat. “Gods, I hope so.”
It takes them less time to get to Noct’s than he thought it would. He parks in the underground lot, and by the time Gladio gets out of the truck and makes it around, Ignis already called the elevator.
As the elevator ascends, the silence gets heavier and heavier, the tension growing. Ignis is still and as poised as ever, but even he’s holding tension in his shoulders, his eyes tracking the floor numbers as they tick up.
Ignis knocks on Noct’s door, ear close to the wood. “Noctis, it’s me. Are you there?”
There’s no answer.
Ignis turns the key in the lock and they both enter. The apartment is dark, no lights on, curtains pulled halfway over the glass doors of the balcony, and the clouds keeping the afternoon light from entering. That’s the second thing they noticed. The first thing they noticed is:
“Holy shit, it’s freezing,” Gladio grunts. He checks the thermostat as Ignis kicks off his shoes, setting the bag down, calling Noct’s name, and he swears when he sees the numbers as seven degrees, colder than what the thermostat is set as because the heats not even set up.
He dials the number higher to twenty-three. The heat struggles for a moment, but then kicks on, the vent near the door blasting cold air first, then slowly it warms up until Gladio’s sweating in his layers. He unlaces his boots, kicking them off just as Ignis shouts and swears, a small thud sounding.
“Noct!”
Gladio comes running only to find Ignis kneeling on the ground, hands hovering over an unconscious Noctis. The prince is curled up on the floor against the couch, resting his head on the seat cushions, duvet abandoned closer to the kitchen. Ignis touches his face, hissing.
“He’s freezing.”
Noctis’ face is pale, his lips almost blue, and he’s shaking, small, tiny shakes, but there. Tear tracks are dried on his skin and dry sweat crusts his hairline. Gladio kneels on his other side, resting a heavy hand on Noct’s head.
“We have to get him warmed up,” Ignis says. Gladio stretches, snagging the duvet to tuck it around Noct. Under his feet, around his shoulders. “I’ll run a hot bath. Can you see if you can wake him up?”
Gladio waves a hand at him. “Go. Go.” Ignis scrambles to his feet with less grace than usual. He curls himself around Noctis, using his higher body temperature to his advantage. He shifts him around, pressing his face against Gladio’s chest, running his fingers through his cold hair.
“Hey, kid,” he murmurs. “You gotta wake up. You’re giving Iggy a heart attack.” No response. He pinches his earlobe, digging his nails into the soft flesh. Noct groans, expression twisting. “That’s right,” he says in relief. “Don’t wanna hurt you, but if it’s the only way to get up, I gotta.”
Noctis groans again, eyes fluttering, greeting Gladio with those pretty blues watering with pain. He whimpers, pressing his face harder against his chest.
“C’mon, there’s a bath being run for you. You’ll do anything to get pampered.” Gladio’s wraps his arm under his knees and begins to move his arm behind his back, but Noctis all but screams, whining high in the back of his throat, fresh tears trickling down his cheeks. “Whoa! What the hell?”
“What’s happening?” Ignis demands, running in from the bathrooms.
“I don’t know!” He pulls away from the prince, hands up defensively, eyes wide and heart hammering in his rib cage. “I got him to open his eyes, but when I went to carry him to the tub, he started screaming.”
Ignis moves towards, then stops, glancing over at the kitchen. Gladio follows his gaze, seeing the cabinet near the fridge half open. He swears again, rushing over, throwing the cabinet door open further. It smacks against the side of the fridge as Ignis rummages through it. He looks down suddenly, then bends to scoop something up.
“It’s his back,” Ignis says finally, coming back with long, loping strides. Clutched in his hands is a familiar pharmacy bottle, knuckles paling white as he grips it tight. The bottom of Gladio’s stomach drops out. “And probably his leg.” He swears again, quietly, in frustration. “Damnit. I should have known. It always acts up in the cold, and he told me it has been getting worse these last few days.”
He falls to his knees on the other side of Noct’s side, brushing Noctis’ bangs from his eyes, resting his hand flat over his forehead. “Noct,” he says gently. Noctis blinks sluggishly, his unfocused gaze drifting in Ingis’ vague direction. “Noct, did you take anything?”
His tongue darts out, wetting his cracked lips. His eyes flutter and he shifts, wincing. “N-No,” he slurs out, voice light and weak. “Couldn’t...Couldn’t get it open. C-Cold.” He blinks, tears dripping free. “H-Hurts,” he whispers, looking up at them in pain and fear. Tears cling to his eyelashes, his eyes wide and wet, his chin trembling.
He looks like a kitten left in the snow. Hell, he looks like the kitten Noct rescued during last year’s snowfall. Tiny, black, big blue eyes that had him and Prompto melting. He won’t admit it, but Noct was in tears when the roads finally cleared enough he couldn’t use them as an excuse, and he had to take the kitten to the local shelter. They were lucky enough to be updated when she was adopted, even got a picture of her fully grown months and months later, attacking a stuffed rat.
Gladio cups his face as Ignis threads his fingers through his hair. “Aw, kid,” he says. “Why didn’t you call us?”
Ignis shakes his head. “No, don’t answer that. Not yet. Let us get you in a warm bath first. All right.” He tilts Noct’s head to face him just a little. His eyes are still unfocused, but the tears have slowed and he seems to keep Ignis in his sights a little better. “Gladio’s going to carry you to the bathroom. It is going to hurt, but only for a little bit, then it will get better. Do you understand?”
Noct’s expression twists in panic, but he nods, closing his eyes.
Ignis levels Gladio with a stern look. “Wait a moment,” he says. “I’ll add salts and peppermint to the water. There is no way to get around hurting him. Go slow.”
He nods solemnly. He crowds closer to the prince, desperate to get him warm sooner than later. Ignis goes back to the bathroom, leaving them there. Noctis’ shivers have slowed, barely a tremble to his arms now. His fingers are still freezing, even under the now sweltering heat under the duvet.
Gladio repositions his arms, not quite touching his back. “Are you ready for me to pick you up?” he asks. Noct squeezes his eyes shut tighter, hesitating. Then he nods slowly. “Can I pick you up?” He’s careful in asking for permission, knowing that just doing things will just throw him into a panic, especially now.
Noctis nods again, tensing, then whimpering when it hurts. Gladio oh-so-carefully lifts him. He yelps, whining, eyes flying open in some sort of surprise. Maybe at how much it hurts. He closes his eyes again, sobbing sharply as Gladio carries him into the bathroom, duvet and all.
Ignis is sitting on the edge of the tub, sweater folded up to his forearms and hand dipped into the water. The mirror and his glasses are fogged from the curling heat, the smell of peppermint stinging his senses, but fulfilling and comfortable. Despite the fact the apartment is warmer now, there’s something comfortable about the air inside, like being wrapped in a thick blanket from head to toe.
Gladio kneels on the ground, cradling Noct close to his chest. Ignis shifts from the tub to the closed toilet.
“Noct.” Ignis brushes his knuckles against his cheek, jerking the prince back from wherever he drifted to escape the pain. “I do not want to put you in the water fully clothed, it won’t help at all. May we—?”
Noctis manages to look annoyed by the question, somehow. “Y-yeah, go ahead,” he says, clumsy and halting.
Together they manage to move Noctis with minimal pain as they strip him bare. His shivers increase without that extra layer, looking pathetic against the tile and pale walls. Gladio can’t lift him then lower him into the tub, the distance is too much and he wouldn’t be able to keep his grip on him if he kneeled with the side of the tub between them.
Instead, they both work on either side of their prince to help him stand on buckling knees. Ignis helps him lift a leg into the water, steadies him as he helps lift the other one. There’s a grimace stuck in Noct’s expression as he’s forced to twist his hips with his upper body facing them and his legs more towards the faucet. Ignis steadies himself with a knee on the edge of the tub, leaning as far as he dared to make it easier on him. They lower him down into the water, and Noct sighs in relief, shoulders losing their tension when they let him go to sink a little into the water up to his chin.
The water is cloudy, the lines of off-white swirl when Ignis drags his fingers absently through the surface layer. It looks like it’s already helping, Noct has a blissed out look on his face, a smile tugging on the corners of his lips. Ignis still looks concerned, but it’s tempered now with Noctis feeling even a little better, the wrinkles in his forehead smoothing out, but the downward curl of his own lips tell a different story.
“Stay here,” Ignis says, voice low. “Keep an eye on him.”
“You know it,” Gladio replies.
He pulls off his sweatshirt as Ignis leaves, then his long sleeved shirt, leaving him in a tank top. He slides an arm behind Noct’s head, acting as a pillow. Gladio doesn’t even have to say anything before Noctis is sinking lower, leaning his head back against the crook of his arm, sighing a big heaving sigh that moves his shoulders and expands his chest.
Ignis comes back seconds later, a water bottle in hand and two white pills in the other. Gladio nudges his shoulder to get Noct to open his eyes just a crack. His hand shakes as he takes the pills and throws them back, the water splashes in the bottle when he takes it from Ignis. The bottle is already uncapped, he downs half of it in two breaths before giving it back with a quiet and sincere “thank you.”
Ignis hesitates before he exits the bathroom again, hand on the doorway. “When did you wake up, Noct?” he asks as if he doesn’t actually want to hear the answer.
Noct blinks slowly, sleepily this time. “Five-thirty?” he replies. Ignis looks dismayed by that, Gladio’s heart clenches. His voice sounds a little stronger now even if it’s a bit faint like he’s drifting off. “Forgot...Forgot to turn the h-heat on last night. Got cold.”
Gladio curls his arm to cradle his head in the crook of his elbow even more, bend his wrist to tangle his fingers in Noct’s hair. “Why didn’t you call one of us?”
He lolls his head to glance up at the Shield. “The roads were bad,” he murmurs. “Didn’t w-want you to get h-hurt.” He takes a deep breath. “Th-Thought I could handle it. But it was so cold and...and it hurt so much.” A tear tracks down his cheek and he closes his eyes. “I just w-wanted to go back to bed. But I t-tripped...I tripped. I think I passed out?” He sounds so unsure about that last part, but considering where they found him, Gladio’s inclined to believe his memory..
“Six hours,” Ignis says, pained. “You have been in the cold and in pain for six hours. Oh, Astrals. You should have called.”
“Didn't want either of you to get hurt,” Noct mumbles again, words slurring together, almost incomprehensible, eyes half-lidded and drooping lower every second. “Not because of me. My phone’s…” He sighs, growing heavier on Gladio’s arm. “Phone’s ‘n...my room…”
And...he’s gone, asleep. It’s only by Gladio moving his hand to grip his shoulder instead that he doesn’t sink low enough for the water to go over his head.
Gladio face-palms with his free hand, sighing heavily. “He’s going to be the death of us,” he says before looking up at Ignis. He looks both fond and frustrated, matching pretty well with what Gladio feels. “One day he’ll learn we’re supposed to serve him, not the other way around.”
Ignis makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat, sounding almost like a laugh. “Perhaps the stories when we were kids about the citizens being more important than their kings, and royalty’s servitude to their people is the lesson they should all learn, stuck a little more permanently than I thought it would.”
“You should work on that,” Gladio says, finally smiling. The relief of Noct on his way to being a hundred percent—or, at least, as a hundred percent Noct can be considering this is a flare up of a chronic problem—makes him feel light headed. “I don’t want this to be a problem when he’s actually king.”
“Yes, well.” Ignis adjusts his glasses primly. “I doubt he’ll listen to me. Have you seen him in the refugee districts? I can’t imagine the nightmare it will be when he has actual control over it.”
They share a short, fond laugh over it as their prince lies sleeping in slowly cooling water. Gladio plucks at the switch plugging the drain and lets the water level lower a bit before turning on the hot water at half-pressure so Noct doesn’t wake at the noise. Not that it’s a huge possibility, the teen sleeps like the dead when he can—which is less often than Noct would personally like, he knows.
“Another hour or so, he shouldn’t stay in for long,” Ignis says. He snags the duvet, folding it over his arms several times. “I’ll put on a slow cooker of soup and a hot drink. Can you add more salt and peppermint?”
“Iggy, hand them to me and then go,” Gladio says. He takes the offered bottles, grinning at Ignis’ frown. “Take a moment to breathe, you’re panicking.”
It’s subtle. Considering Ignis’ normal facade is unruffled and poised, his slow freak out and panic is hidden in the concerned lines around his mouth, making him look years older.. Noct is better at reading him than Gladio is, though Gladio isn’t too far behind. The hovering and excessive fretting are dead giveaways.
Ignis nods sharply then leaves again. Gladio can hear the sounds of a paper bag crinkling and a cabinet thumping shut. He turns off the water after bit and adds more oil and salt to the sounds of a slow cooker clicking on and the fridge opening and closing.
Gladio leans more against the tub, resting the elbow of his free arm on the rim, cradling his chin in the palm of his hand, watching Noct as he sleeps soundly and without pain. His eyelashes flutter with dreams, a healthy flush to his face, water and a good sweat beading along his hairline.
“You’re a work out, kid,” Gladio murmurs fondly.
Noctis’ lips move in soundless words, shifting with only a small wince, and he smiles faintly. Gladio drags his thumb up and down his shoulder, soothing him further into sleep. He doesn’t have to wake up now, and when he does it’s going to be to a thick sweater, hot food and drink, and a bed made with the heat on.
Iggy will be ready to give him any pain relief he needs and terrible puns to make him laugh, and Gladio will grudgingly watch stupid movies with him all he wants but not-so-secretly enjoy them. Prompto will probably force his way through the snow by tomorrow, antsy and worried about his friend, and they’ll all camp out in the living room with Noct half-asleep and surrounded by loved ones.
The best kind of way to finish up a snow day.