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The third time Prompto excused himself into the cover of the trees and threw up, he thought it would probably be smart to say something. He thought that as he was walking back, feeling absent and less than three-dimensional, and then he arrived on the scene of Gladio and Noctis at each other’s throats about setting up the tent.
It felt like the longer they spent on the road, the more stretched and frayed the ligaments of their collective friendship. Prompto darted forward, ignoring the way it made pain press further out, up towards his chest and snaking for his thighs.
“Hey, come on, this tent hasn’t beat us yet,” he chided, elbowing Noct playfully in the ribs. He got a tired scowl in return, but forged ahead as if he hadn’t seen it.
“His princeliness conveniently forgets how to do simple tasks whenever he doesn’t feel like it.” Gladio looked ready to put his fist through something. Big smile, Prompto thought, hoping he was conjuring a convincing one. The thing is, he usually was. He used to think people were hard. His parents were hard. They were like the final level on a game. But then again, the games he used to think were hard, he now found laughably easy.
“I have a headache. I didn’t want to fucking camp in the first place,” Noct ground out. Before Gladio could say anything, Prompto grabbed the tent peg out of Noctis’ unresisting hand.
“Compromise alert! Why don’t you go help Iggy with dinner like I was gonna, and Gladdy and I can handle the tent. Right, big guy?”
“Ignis isn’t going to make him do shit,” Gladio grumbled. Noct shrugged.
“Yeah, thanks Prom.”
Gladio said nothing, reaching for a tent-peg. Prompto found that when he crouched down, the pain eased up a little. They got the tent set up in no time (Gladio honestly could have done it himself faster) and some of the tension seemed to bleed from the campsite. Gladio offered Prompto a hand, which he gratefully accepted. Until Gladio yanked him to his feet and the pain came back what felt like tenfold. He almost doubled over. He almost gagged.
“Astrals, I didn’t even pull hard. You gotta spend more time on your arms.” Gladio moved to turn, and Prompto almost said something then. He almost said: haha, I’ve been throwing up a lot and now it feels like you just tore my torso free from my legs. But Gladio snorted.
“Surprised you can even handle the kick on your puny pistol.”
“Hey, Prom’s tougher than he looks,” Noctis piped up, from where he was slumped in a chair watching Ignis cook.
“Indeed, I’d say Prompto had surprised us a fair few times,” Ignis said, nodding thoughtfully. And that just tore it. It wasn’t like he had ever heard Gladio complaining about a stomach bug. Grin and bear it, or scowl if you have to, but bear it. Even Noctis was handling his headaches without complaining, and Noct loved to complain. Prompto knew, he’d been beating him at video games for years.
“Dinner is served,” Ignis said, ladling out four bowlfuls of soup that smelled more like the notion of home-cooking than any actual cooking Prompto had had at home.
He stared down at the bowl in his lap, the perfectly balanced, well-spiced dish, and tried to imagine wanting to eat it. He felt like the minute it touched his lips he’d disintegrate. He could almost picture the viscera in the dirt.
“Dude, are you still on Eos?” Noctis snapped his fingers in the vicinity of Prompto’s ear.
“Wuh? Yeah, sorry.” He shook his head as if clearing it. Gladio had one eyebrow raised. Ignis had paused with his spoon halfway to his lips, looking calculating. How weak would he look if he said something? He grinned. “Just totally zoned out, my bad. You ask me something?” He took a generous spoonful and tried to swallow it without tasting or thinking. It was good, theoretically. It went down like a mouthful of grated wet napkins.
As the sun set, small moths flitted around the fire. Sparks popped in the falling dark.
“M’goin to bed.”
“I must confess, I’m also rather tired. But there’s the washing-up to do…” Ignis glanced at the table of cookware. Prompto, half-full bowl heavy on his lap, jumped to his feet (and regretted it almost instantly).
“I’ll do it!” he managed to wheeze out.
“Buttering up Iggy doesn’t mean he’s gonna let you drive again,” Noctis mumbled. He’d slid most of the way down in his seat, and he already had his eyes shut.
“Pfft, doesn’t hurt to try, right?” Prompto said, quickly burying his dish in the stack of dirty ones.
“Well, it’s nice to you to do that Prompto. Although Noctis is right, it’s unlikely to change my mind.”
Gladio and Ignis retreated into the tent. Prompto washed the dishes and put the cooking supplies away. He kicked the sole of Noctis’ boot lightly, and then a bit hard.
“Mzzwhat? I’m sleepin’.”
“You’re gonna destroy your back. Go into the tent so I don’t have to drag you,” Prompto said. Noctis flipped him off before rising and kicking his boots off outside the tent.
Prompto took a breath of the still night air. Something daemonic was in the near distance, killing something else daemonic. The moon was watery, lost in the thin clouds. He didn’t feel tired. Or he did, but not the way he was used to. Instead, he felt absent, like he was floating somewhere up above his body, tethered only by the steady pain.
He crawled into his sleeping bag and curled up. Sleep didn’t come. It didn’t reach tantalizingly close and flit away, like it had on their first nights sleeping in the middle of nowhere. It didn’t melt into thick nightmares the way it used to when he was a kid. It just didn’t exist. It was less than a concept.
He rolled onto his back, trying to find even a comfortable position to wait out the morning. There was a moth inside the tent, beating its wings on the thin nylon ceiling. It was less than millimeters from the night air, and totally trapped. Prompto wanted to shut his eyes, but instead he watched it bouncing from one wall to the other. He wanted it to land. He half-wanted it to die. Something hot rose up behind his eyes and he swallowed. The moth fluttered into the shadows by Ignis, where he couldn’t track its movements any more.
Eventually, at some hour, light began to bleed through the thin wall. The tent was bathed in blue. Prompto shut his eyes and a second later someone was nudging his leg with their foot.
“Hey, wake up, you’ve been in here for ages,” Gladio’s rough voice said. Prompto’s eyes snapped open.
“What time is it?” He sat bolt upright and then curled over his legs. Mistake .
“Past ten already. You missed breakfast. Ignis is pretty antsy to get going.”
“S’fine. I’m not hungry.”
“Most important meal, y’know.”
“Whatever. Not taking advice on being a normal human from a guy who looks like a demi-god.”
“It’s just hard work, ya know.”
“Nope. I work hard. You got a lot of genetics going on.” Prompto gestured at Gladio in general. He snorted and left the tent, which gave Prompto the opportunity to clench his fingers tight in his sleeping bag and suck a breath through his teeth. How was this getting worse? And better yet, he already felt like he wanted to puke. It was ten in the morning!
Through their hunt, which turned out to be a total disappointment (one coeurl instead of the expected six) Prompto was snappy and irritable. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to lie down in the dirt and perhaps also be buried under it. He also knew he was being an asshole, which was only making him more frustrated.
Noctis bumped his shoulder as they were heading back. Each step basically sent a wave of pain running through his body. Prompto’s jaw was starting to ache from how tight he had it clenched; the new pain was almost a welcome distraction.
“So…who pissed in your cereal this morning?”
“Didn’t have any.”
“You want a power bar? I got one in one of my pockets.”
“Uh, no, I don’t want your flattened pants-food,” Prompto snapped.
“It’s still good! You don’t have to bite my head off.” But Noctis was laughing, and he was wearing an easy smile. That was the thing unforgivably lovable about him. He had this incredible power to let things roll of his shoulders. He was such a grudge-holder when he wanted to be, and then he could flip it around just like that. Prompto envied him. He felt like he was a well of resentment, a sucking abscess of ugly notions.
“Sorry, I’m just tired. And also good. On the power bar front.”
“Hey, in a few hours we’re gonna be in a place with actual showers.”
“You have no idea how excited I am for that,” Prompto said, without a hint of exaggeration.
“And don’t be bummed Ignis isn’t gonna let you drive--more time for napping.” Noctis slapped Prompto on the shoulder and jogged up to the regalia, where Gladio and Ignis were waiting. Prompto rode out the wave of pain with gritted teeth, plastered a smile back on his face and joined them.
He drifted in the car, but he didn’t sleep. It was a long drive. It took into night fall. The road was as empty as ever, so Prompto watched the trees whip past until it started to make him sick; and instead he fixed his eyes on the rearview mirror, where the road was forever vanishing behind them. He wondered if the moth floated free when Ignis emerged in the morning to get breakfast started and chug ebony like the world was ending. He wondered if it was crushed in the fabric when Gladio packed up the tent, wings shattered like brittle paper.
“How is it still hot if it’s night already?” he wondered aloud. Ignis glanced over at him curiously.
“I was finding it cool myself. I wonder if you got sunburned. It would certainly be easy, considering your complexion.”
Prompto almost wondered too. He prodded the skin on his arm. It wasn’t burnt. He knew what burnt felt like. This was different from that crawling, tight pain. This felt like his whole body was flushed, like embarrassment that covered every inch of him.
It hurt bad enough that even staying still was torture. He fixed his eyes on the disappearing road, squeezed them shut ever time they hit a bump on the pavement.
“A bed to sleep in will be a welcome change, I think,” Ignis said softly. Prompto hummed in agreement. It was the only sound he could manage.
The hotel had one room left, thank literally every Astral. Noctis flopped onto the bed furthest from the door immediately. It had the most pillows.
“Dibs this one. And dibs Prompto,” he announced.
“Whatever,” Gladio said, dropping into a chair and pulling out his book.
“I’m going to turn in, I think. Or at least… take a nap.” Ignis looked absolutely exhausted.
“You’d be less tired if you let someone else drive for once,” Noctis mumbled, although he didn’t really sound like he cared.
Ignis sighed heavily.
“Perhaps, but we might also be less alive, so I think I made the right decision.”
“You could compete internationally at overthinking,” Gladio scoffed. It looked like Ignis flashed him a rude gesture, but he did it too quickly for anyone to call him out on it.
“Uh, I’m gonna take a shower if no one wants the bathroom first?” Prompto bit down on the inside of his cheek until he tasted a hint of blood.
“Nah,” Noctis said, waving him off.
“All yours.” Gladio didn’t look up from his book. Prompto ducked into the bathroom and shut the door. No lock. Okay, fine. He stripped down, intending to get into the shower but… but standing felt too hard for the moment, so instead he filled the tub.
He sat half submerged in the hot water, with his knees pulled up to his chest and his head bent. It almost felt better. The fan whirred softly. The faucet dripped, just slightly. Outside, he could hear Gladio and Noctis chatting idly about types of cup noodles. It felt like he was gutted. It felt like there were fish hooks inside his intestines.
Tears flooded his eyes and then overflowed, dripped softly onto his knees and ran down his legs to mingle with the cooling bathwater. He tried to stifle a groan as another wave of pain washed over him.
None of the others would be this weak. If they knew… if they saw, they would call it the final straw. He was clumsy and annoying but just a day ago Noctis and Ignis were defending him. He could shoot. He was useful. He held up his end of the deal. Don’t be a burden. Don’t fuck it up. He’d done enough fucking up for two lifetimes, it felt like. He’d watched two people peel away from him; extricate themselves from his life like a lizard sheds its tail to escape capture.
Even if he was clinging on shamelessly. Even if he was unneeded. He could at least be useful. Or if not even that, he could keep from being a burden. Eventually these thoughts melted away. The pain took over the rest of his ability to think, and he just cried into the bathwater as it grew cold, hands wrapped tight around his stomach and head hung low.
The knock at the door, when it came, was less a knock and more Gladio slamming his fist into it.
“Hey, you’ve been in there half an hour. You better not be jacking off.” There was some muffled conversation Prompto couldn’t decipher. He gripped the edge of the tub.
“If you don’t want me coming in you better say something now.”
Fuck. Get out of the tub, he managed to process. He got about halfway to standing, and then his legs decided to take a quick vacation, and he went toppling forward.
-+-+-+-
Gladio glanced over at Noctis, who just rolled his eyes.
“He probably forgot how to take his contacts out again.”
“That’s happened before?”
“More often than you think.”
“Well either way, I wanna shower.” Gladio reached for the knob. Sure, he liked to make sure his hair was looking right and his beard was trimmed, but there’s a limit to how much bathroom time you can be allowed when you’re sharing with three other people.
“If you end up seeing his dick, that’s on you,” Noctis said. He had his arms folded and an impossibly smug look on his face. Gladio was gonna throw the door open just to prove he wasn’t afraid of seeing anyone’s dick, but from inside there was a crash as something heavy hit the tile and a half-second later a metallic clang, so he slammed the door open so hard it bounced off the back wall.
“Fuck, Prompto!”
Prompto was sprawled out on his front, one hand pressed to his abdomen, naked as the day he was born. The shower curtain was torn down, half draped over his shivering form.
“What the hell?” Noctis was in the doorway, but a second later he was at Prompto’s side. Gladio had already crouched beside him, put a careful hand on his back.
“Hey, what happened? You slip? Anything broken?” Gladio murmured. Prompto only groaned, eyes squeezed shut and teeth gritted.
“You feel that? He’s hot,” Noctis said.
“Huh?”
“His face, his face is hot as shit.”
“Well yeah, he was just in the bath,” Gladio said.
“For half an hour?” Noctis thrust a hand into the water. “It’s stone cold.”
“Hey, buddy?” Glado asked, keeping his voice even. “What hurts? Can you talk to me?”
But in response, Prompto just curled tighter in on himself. There were tears leaking from his tightly closed eyelids.
“Ignis!” Noctis yelled. There was an irritated groan from the bedroom. “Ignis, seriously!” Noct called again. Prompto whimpered. Gladio pushed his hair out of his eyes. He did feel hot--like wax off a melting candle, or the glass in a lantern just snuffed out.
Ignis appeared in the doorway a second later with his eyes half shut and his expression irate.
“Someone better be dying,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. A horrible silence flooded the room. Ignis blinked.
“Poor choice of words, perhaps,” he said very softly.
They put Prompto in one of Gladio’s shirts and a pair of Noct’s boxers (the easiest clothes to manipulate him into) and Gladio carried him down to the car. He whimpered every step of the way, which was horrible to witness, but on the drive there he passed out, and Gladio had to lift his utterly limp, dead looking form from the back seat to carry through the sliding hospital doors, which was way worse, leagues and leagues worse.
They took his temperature and then rolled him through into a partitioned-off area almost immediately. But there he waited in limbo, woke up on the bed and curled onto his side and clung onto the hand Gladio offered nearly hard enough to break his fingers. Ignis paced the small space they were enclosed in. Noctis sat on the end of the gurney looking like a TV tuned to a dead channel. Gladio carded his fingers through Prompto’s hair.
What felt like a hundred years later (but Ignis would inform them was in fact, exactly seventeen minutes) a doctor came in a brusquely examined Prompto.
“Yeah, that’s appendicitis. Or ruptured appendix, but either way he’s going up to surgery. We’re gonna do a scan first but this looks pretty clear cut to me.”
“Ruptured?” Noctis wheezed. His voice almost cracked on the word, which would have been funny if their friend wasn’t a shade of grey and largely unresponsive.
“So then… he’s been sick for a while,” Ignis said slowly, looking at the doctor and not any of them (certainly not Prompto).
“Was he complaining at all about pain?” The doctor asked, running a hand through her hair.
“No. He quit eating though,” Noctis said, without any detectable emotion. Of course, from experience, Gladio knew that was what Noctis was like went he was absolutely overwhelmed.
“Well, shit, that’s a tough friend you got there. Maybe not the brightest,” she said. And then a porter arrived and she told them they had to take him.
It was four hours before they even got an update (appendix was ruptured, surgery tentatively called successful). It was seven hours total from the time they were split up to when they got to see him. Noctis slept through half of it and then took off on a rage-filled walk through the hospital that he insisted no one follow him for. He returned a half-hour later with a round chocobo plushie and the same furious look on his face.
“When we see him, don’t strangle him or anything,” Gladio said.
“I’m not gonna strangle him,” Noctis said, unconvincingly. Gladio rolled his eyes. “Okay. Sure.” They’d abandoned Ignis (dead to the world) in the waiting room to follow a nurse up to Prompto’s room. Noctis glared at the gentle beige linoleum.
“Why didn’t he say something?”
“That’s something Ignis is probably gonna ask him during the three hour lecture he has planned.”
“You think?”
“I actually know. I heard him rehearsing part of it in the bathroom.”
Noctis snorted with laughter, but he schooled his expression back into some mix of sympathy and anger when the nurse let them into Prompto’s room.
“He’s pretty high right now. Don’t tire him out,” she said, and then headed back towards the nurses’ station. Prompto was awake, eyes glassy and bright, hair absolutely disgusting with sweat, face gently flushed. The hospital bracelet was loose around his bony wrist.
Gladio folded his arms. Noctis gripped the stuffed chocobo so hard it looked like it should have been crying out for help. No one said anything for a minute.
Prompto raised a hand in a weak wave. He was smiling faintly. His gaze didn’t focus properly on either of them.
“Sup guys? They took one of my organs.”
“What the fuck Prompto?” Noctis said. It came out probably higher pitched than he was intending.
“Don’t wave at me, punk. You nearly died.” Gladio felt no qualms about whipping out the tone he used to use on crownsguard trainees. It always got them snapping to attention and shutting up. Of course, on high-off-his-mind and down-one-organ Prompto, it had the effect of making his lower lip wobble and his eyes go watery. He was still trying to hold a smile on place.
“Ahh… I think I fucked up, huh?”
“Oops, no, stop that, stop immediately,” Noctis said, dropping the plushie onto the bed and hovering his hands like he didn’t know where to touch. He patted Prompto’s hair. Then he leaned in and gave him a sort of light hug where he only touched his shoulders. Prompto bit back a sob. Gladio felt like he should just about chuck himself out the window. Instead, he put his hand on Prompto’s head, and one on Noctis’ shoulder.
“No one’s mad. Well, we are, and you’re gonna get a talking-to, believe me, I think Ignis is making cue cards.”
“Thanks for not, fucking dying ! If you ever die, I’m gonna kill you, and I can do that, because I’m a prince.” Noctis ran both hands through his hair and huffed out a breath that was furious and saturated in shaky relief.
“Okay, um, noted,” Prompto said.
“Good.”
They all stood (or lay, in Prompto’s case) in silence for a minute. The machines beeped gently, except for one of the ones in the hall, that was screaming. God, Gladio hated hospitals.
“I asked if I could see my appendix but they said they incinerated it.”
“That’s bullshit man,” Noctis said, without any hesitation.
“What if that’s my only chance to see my own organs? I don’t have any more that are extra.”
“How about we focus on anything but that?” Gladio said. He sagged into the single, brutally uncomfortable chair in Prompto’s room.
“Thanks for not leaving me,” Prompto said. His eyes were half shut, and he was still wearing that dopey smile. Gladio pressed his mouth into a flat line and said absolutely nothing. Noctis swooped in and pressed a kiss to Prompto’s forehead.
“You’re a fucking idiot, and I love you, and I wasn’t kidding when I said I would kill you if you died.”
“Oh, shit. And you’re a prince so you can do that.”
“Exactly. I can do that.”
Prompto laughed, and then winced. There were still tears in his eyes that had yet to spill over. When he blinked sleepily they leaked out and rolled away into his hair. The sun was rising outside. Movement in the window caught Gladio’s eye, as Prompto and Noct lapsed easily into a soft conversation.
There was a moth beating its wings against the glass. Gladio investigated the latch for a moment, and then pulled the window open from the top down. It only went a little ways before the safety stop, but the moth fluttered up and out into the open air, grey wings shimmering for a moment in the morning sun.