Chapter Text
The last time Prompto got sick he was eight years old and had some kind of chest infection. His mom stayed up late changing his sweaty pyjamas and reading to him. His dad made him soup the next day.
That was kind of his special talent after that. He never got sick. Noctis got wiped out three times by colds that went around school. He got food poisoning twice in the time Prompto knew him. He was apparently one of those people who just got sick. Prompto would come visit him and lie on the couch and help Ignis clean up dirty tissues. He never caught anything. He started to get this sense that maybe he was immune to illness, which is, in retrospect, probably not a great thing to be convinced of.
xXx
It was raining gently, but Prompto hunched deeper into Gladio’s jacket, and the longer he spent outside, the more he felt like the chill faded. Still, he felt sorry that the soup he was making (well, heating up) would be muddied with rainwater--but there wasn’t much he could do about that. A small noise from the tent caught his attention, and he quickly covered the pot and ducked through the open flap.
Gladio and Ignis were still dead to the world--no, uh, not that metaphor. They were still sleeping. But Noct was stirring, face scrunched up pitifully. Prompto crept over to him, careful not to disturb the other two.
“Noct? Hey buddy, how you feeling?” he asked softly. Noctis cracked open one eye.
“Mm cold. Urgh.”
This statement, based on a quick feel of his forehead, was factually inaccurate. Big time. But Prompto nodded.
“I know, don’t worry, I’m bringing you some soup soon.”
“Mmmrgh. No trick vegetables Iggy. M’serious this time.” Noctis already had his eyes shut again. Prompto brushed back the sweaty hair on his forehead.
“You got it, Noct.”
The air was bracing when he slipped back out of the tent, but at least the rain was letting up. He spooned soup into three bowls and carefully balanced them on a tray. Back inside the tent, Gladio was kicking off his blankets and Ignis was mumbling something about needing to “have a quick look at the map.” Prompto rearranged the blankets and carefully coaxed Gladio into drinking some soup, offering him sips of water.
When enough of the bowl was empty he moved onto the others, first Noct since he seemed momentarily more lucid (or at least compliant) and then Ignis. He was just backing up the bowls when he heard the familiar low rumble of a dropship passing overhead. Just passing, maybe. Headed with a destination in mind maybe. He shut his eyes and prayed to all the Astrals. The sound only got closer.
Time to quit wasting time. He shrugged off the jacket and exited the tent. The dropship was over the Southest treeline, but it was swinging back around--no doubt about it, they’d spotted the camp and were coming in. Prompto jogged out away from the haven before summoning his gun and chucking a grenade idly towards the trees. The sound and light from the explosion had the desired effect: it drew all the MTs to his location. Which was great, mission accomplished but then...he had to actually dispatch those MTs. He fired off three perfect headshots before one of them clocked him in the side of the head, and he had to turn a fall into a roll to escape being cleaved in two.
He had to fire three times to take out the nearest MT before it could swing its sword again, and there were more coming. It dawned on Prompto that there would be no Ignis shouting out which to target next, no Gladio taking out three enemies in one swing of his sword, and no Noctis warping across the battlefield to sheathe his knife into the chest of an MT before it had the chance to cut Prompto’s head off.
And that scared him a little, or a lot, but when he was in battle he was pretty much always operating on peak scared, so it was easy enough to shelve that fear into the back parts of his brain where it belonged, along with all the other muck he actively did not think about.
He focussed. Skidded and ducked and at moments ran for his life, working desperately to put enough difference between him and his enemies so he’s have time to take aim. He shot one of the MT’s point blank and felt metal shards dig into his cheek.
But there were two left now, so he shut one eye and fired, and then there was a single MT, charing at him. He fired four times. The recoil from this many successive shots felt like it was tearing his shoulder apart. Empty armor hit the ground.
Okay. The rest was easy. He trudged back to the haven, slapped a few bandages over the sluggishly bleeding cuts on his face and arms--he didn’t even remember getting most of them. Pulling the metal shards out of his face wasn’t particularly fun, and he thought of fishing a potion out of the trunk. But they could be ambushed again, and the others were much more likely to get hurt in there state. It was too much to risk over some small cuts and bruises.
He checked on the three again, pressed a damp cloth to Ignis’ face to try to bring his fever down. He fixed Noct’s blankets.
It was spitting outside, but not raining. Prompto tucked his legs up to his chest. The sleeping bag kept out most of the chill from the ground, and Gladio’s jacket was big enough that he could hide his hands in the sleeves easily.
It was certainly warm inside the tent with three fevered bodies sleeping in there. But his added body heat was just one of the reasons he couldn’t risk sleeping inside. Someone had to be on watch. And if he got sick too, what use would he be? Their whole party would be defenseless.
xXx
Prompto drifted off while the moon was setting and woke up before the sun rose. The sky was the boldest blue he’d ever seen, an ethereal color that made him feel infinitely small. He crawled back into the tent quickly to check on the others. Noct and Gladio were fast asleep but Ignis was tossing and turning again. Prompto retrieved his cold water from outside and replaced the bowl he was using for damp cloths. Ignis opened his eyes while Prompto was dabbing his forehead and cheeks, and there was recognition there which stilled Prompto’s pounding heart and quieted some of the terror thrumming in the back of his mind.
He made soup again, this time from scratch. It probably tasted nothing close to Iggy’s recipe, but it was at least hot. The rain had finally let up, hopefully for good. He ladelled out three bowls with stiff fingers, but the sun was warming up the haven. He stifled a yawn for the third time. The bandages itched where the adhesive clung to his skin, but changing them seemed like too much of a hassle. Instead, he retreated into the comfort of the tent to make sure his friends were fed and comfortable.
xXx
Ignis opened his eyes to the ceiling of the tent. There were water droplets clinging to it, as if a soft rain had fallen, but he didn’t hear anything besides Noctis and Gladio’s breathing. He squinted at the ceiling for a minute before rolling onto his stomach to pat around for his glasses. Once he’d located them, and felt steady, he exited the tent, hoping to find out where Prompto was. For the last… however long, he’d been drifting in a thick haze, drowned in heat or chilled to the bone, and his throat was raw and his head packed with cotton. But the cool air hit his face and he felt instantly cleaner, more open, ready to stretch and clear his throat and move.
He found Prompto immediately. He was sitting outside the tent with his knees to his chest, drowning in Gladio’s jacket. Ignis put a hand on his shoulder, still working to blink sleep from his eyes.
“Prompto,” he said hoarsly.
“Iggy! You’re up!” Even through the blur, Ignis could see a wide grin spread over Prompto’s face. That wasn’t all Prompto was wearing though. Ignis cupped his jaw and tilted his head so he could get a better look.
“What happened?”
“Oh! You wouldn’t believe--a dropship came down so I chucked this grenade right into the woods, and it was like: blaaaamf , and then I was like, come get me, suckers!” Prompto launched into a slightly meandering recount of what happened, but the gist of it (rather distressingly) seemed to be that he took on a whole dropship of MTs and then marched back up to the haven without even using any curatives.
“Why didn’t you use a potion?” Ignis asked, getting up to see what the food stores were like, and whether he felt up to cooking or not. Prompto just shrugged easily.
“One of you guys might have needed it.”
Ignis surveyed the mess of the folding table. He frowned.
“Prompto, what is this?”
“Oh, shit, sorry about the dishes. I was gonna do them, but since the sun came up I thought I would nap for a bit.”
Ignis fixed him with what he hoped was a stern no-nonsense look (hoped, because he was guessing his hair was pretty greasy and he couldn’t bear to think of the state his ensemble was in).
“No, I was--why are there only three bowls?”
Prompto actually looked bewildered for a second, like Ignis had spoken another language. He blinked.
“Because there’s--oh!” He let out a half-laugh and rubbed the back of his head like he was embarrassed. “I totally forgot to eat.”
Ignis looked down at the bowls, and then spared a glance back at the tent, where he could see Gladio and Noct stumbling through the open flap. Prompto nudged him almost painfully gently in the ribs.
“Probably tasted like crap, haha. I wouldn’t wanna eat my cooking anyways. Lucky for you guys you weren’t exactly lucid.”
“Hey, Specs, you feeling better?” Noctis called, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his palm.
“Very much. If you’re up to packing up camp, I’d propose breakfast, and then we can finally turn in this hunt and perhaps splurge on a hotel room for the night.”
“Uh, yeah, sleeping in a bed for humans sounds very good,” Noct said.
“I second that,” Prompto put in.
“Normally I’d say you two aren't enjoying camping, which builds character, but I honestly need a shower.”
“Uh, yeah you do, big guy,” Noctis scoffed. Gladio grabbed him in a lazy headlock and when he squawked Ignis had to turn away to disguise his laugh.
Prompto dropped into a chair by the dwindling fire, looking flushed and satisfied. Noctis came over to ruffle his hair.
“Hope we weren’t too much hassle for you,” he said, as Prompto was batting him away.
“What? Naaah, I had it totally under control.”
Ignis glanced his way out of the corner of his eye, but didn’t say anything. It was true, anyways. Prompto had performed more than admirably. It was possible that they had underestimated him, what felt like a thousand years ago, when Noctis first proposed he join the crownsguard.
The regalia hummed along the road and Ignis hummed gently along to the song quietly drifting from the speakers. Noctis was asleep in the back last he checked, and Gladio was reading. Prompto was curled up against the door with his head pillowed on his arms. He didn’t stir once the whole ride into town.