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The spread of stars out here in the wilds is unmatched. Insomnia never had views like this; though the lights in the city were a marvel of their own, they drowned out all the stars. They’re beautiful, flecks of light sprinkled across the dark canvas of the sky.
Noctis is just a bit sick of looking at them in the middle of every night.
He’s sitting out by the fire, burned down to little embers. He’s in one of the camp chairs, feet resting on another, head tilted up to the sky. It’s a familiar place, grown only more familiar as the weeks out here drag on, only a vague end to their journey in the distance.
It’s not the first time he’s had this issue. After the Marilith, and Tenebrae, and all the mess of things that followed, he was haunted at night. But over time, with the care of his father and Luna and Ignis, he came back to himself and his nights became peaceful again.
Then the stress of school and royal responsibilities and his father’s fate hanging over him, mocking him, and his nights were taken up with hours of frustration, staring at the ceiling, waiting for a reprieve from it all. Any rest he was able to get came with a price. He remembers the dreams he had, running down hallways to chase after his father, only for the corridors to stretch and stretch and his dad to leave him behind.
The guys noticed, after a while, and started spending evenings with him, trying to ease the burden. It helped. A few conversations with his dad, real conversations, helped too, until he was able to find an uneasy balance between his beloved daytime naps and the few hours spent in the dark waiting to be claimed by dreamless sleep.
And now…now it’s just a consequence of his life, he supposes. The running and the fighting, chased by an empire, trying so hard to make a difference in a world that’s filled with evil things. Trying to find the right way forward, to do what his duty demands, even though he’s not sure he ever really wanted to. Watching his friends take hits, hits meant for him, while he offers as much of himself as he can to try and keep them alive and safe.
He sees them in his dreams now. Falling too far out of his reach, broken and crumbling away into nothing as he desperately tries to reach them. He spends his dreams walking on invisible tightropes only to fall, again and again. He sees Insomnia, not the way it’s preserved in his mind, but as the wreckage he imagines, the city in flames and overwhelmed by daemons that rip through the streets to devour his people.
He sees his dad die. Over and over and over again.
It’s not like he’s purposefully avoiding sleep. He tries, he really does. But every night lately has been interrupted with a sharp jolt back to wakefulness, images burned behind his eyes, as he tries not to scream to wake his companions.
And so he ends up here. Away from them, trying to give them some measure of peace while he sorts through his own tortured thoughts. He hasn’t slept at all, these past few nights.
Gods, he’s tired.
He pulls the blanket a bit tighter around himself, and keeps his eyes trained on the sky above him, waiting for the dawn.
~~~~~
They have a hunt waiting for them in Duscae, a herd of Spiracorns who’ve gone after too many civilians. As they make their way over, Noctis manages to burrow into a small comforting corner of the Regalia and lets the memories of his childhood in this car lull him into something like sleep.
He’s jostled out of it by a slap of a shirt, right to his face. “The hell?” he grouses, pulling the offending garment off.
Gladio smirks at him. “Up and attem, we’re nearly there.”
Noctis grumbles as he sits up. “Coulda waited a few more minutes.”
“Aw, come on,” Prompto says. “Gotta be on top of your game, right? No drowsy prince allowed on the battlefield.”
Prompto gets a glare in response. Sure enough, a minute later Ignis is pulling up to the lot where they’ll make their moves. Noctis rubs his eyes, takes a deep breath, and pulls himself out of the car.
Thankfully it doesn’t take long to reach the site of the hunt. Noctis lags a bit behind the others, feeling every inch of uneven ground beneath his feet. He shuffles along to the edge of the trees as they spot the herd. The animals are riled up already, tossing their heads and they pound their hooves pounding into the dirt. Black scourge traces lines around their legs, their horns.
“Here we go again," Prompto says. His tone is low, quiet. No matter how many times they see it, the scourge-based corruption of the creatures around them is still a kick in the gut.
“Poor critters,” Gladio replies. “Let’s end it, huh?”
“As quickly as we can. Prompto, take your post over there.” Ignis points to a gap in the trees, good cover that still provides clear line of sight to the beasts. “You’ll have to keep your eye trained on the ones who will try to flank us.” Prompto nods, quietly shifting over to the spot.
“Gladio, you and I should corral them. Noctis, a good warp strike ought to knock them over long enough for us to take them down. Are we ready?” Noctis stares forward blankly until he realizes they’re looking at him. He fumbles for a second, then nods.
“Are you alright, Noct?”
Noct quickly summons his engine blade, ducks around his advisor’s gaze, and takes up his post. “Yup, let’s do this.”
His companions get moving, and they spring upon the spiracorns. Noct’s own head is heavy and full of fog, and he shakes it as he tries to bring his focus onto the battlefield. There are quite a few of them to keep track of, and he needs to time his warps well.
It’s a difficult fight, trying to synch up his movements with the others, to land the hits where he needs to. The animals are rabid, charging without abandon, and don’t leave much time to get out of the way.
It only takes a moment to get it wrong. Noctis doesn’t keep up with their movements well enough. He warps left instead of right. He winds up right in a spiracorn’s path, just in time for it to twist and fling its legs towards him. The hooves collide hard with his torso, sending him tumbling back, reeling from the impact.
His chest blooms with pain, seizing up his lungs. It crawls up to his throat, down his back as he arches to try and escape it. His muscles scream at the points of contact, broken bones grinding against themselves.
He thinks he blacks out for a second, because one moment he’s on the ground, writhing in pain, and the next, he’s upright, being hauled back away from the fight.
“Hang tight, Noct, I gotcha.” He barely has his feet under him, Gladio’s moving so fast, hands under his own arms as he drags him back. Noctis lets himself be pulled along, even as it pulls at broken ribs and split skin.
They make it to some sort of cover and Gladio sets him down, his legs folding underneath him as he sprawls into a heap. Bands of pain lock themselves around his torso, and he wheezes, lungs caught up in them. He reaches out blindly for Gladio, trying to find some sort of purchase.
Gladio traces his hands quickly down Noct’s torso, feeling the broken ribs, the tackiness of his blood as it seeps from the edges of the impact marks. From there, he hurriedly cracks a hi-potion over Noct’s chest, and the pain starts to ease. Noct gasps, trying to make up for his lost breaths, and winces with as his lungs fail to expand fully. Gladio checks him over, then grabs one more potion, propping Noct up and putting the glass to his lips.
The second one does the trick, wounds fresh enough that they can be fixed more readily. Still, without the pain to anchor it, the adrenaline bleeds right out of him as he heals, and he slumps back, head dipping down. Gladio claps a hand on his shoulder, and the weight of it makes him list to one side.
“You with me?”
Noctis nods, head lolling a bit, taking too long to focus his gaze. Gladio eyes him strangely.
He’s fine. He shouldn’t take a break now. He can’t, not really, there’s still a battle to be had. He shakes his head, tries to push himself upright, but doesn’t quite make it.
“Noct?”
“Yeah, I’m good. I’m…let’s go.” Finally he manages to get his trembling arms to support him, and shoves up with enough strength to pull his legs in and rise. He sways, and tries not to stumble into Gladio, who eyes him with poorly veiled concern.
“Maybe just hang tight for a minute.”
Noctis shakes his head, even though it causes dark spots to flash in front of his vision. “No. No. I got it, we gotta…let’s go.” He starts to move, shuffling forward and summoning his sword, hoping that Gladio follows.
He does, and they make their way back. Prompto and Ignis have made good work against their foes, and only three remain. Gladio charges right back in, going for the closest one as he lunges forward with his greatsword. Noctis aims at another, set into place by Ignis, and starts to warp strike.
He doesn’t quite make it into the full phase, though. The world stutters around him and his attempt to run through the aether falls short, and he just reappears right back where he started. That’s…not right. That hasn’t happened since he started warp training. It’s as natural to him as breathing now, moving along the trails that the crystal lays out for him as he phases. He’s not in stasis, but right now, he calls out to the crystal and gets only a fraction answering back.
He stands, dumbfounded, until another spiracorn makes its way towards him and he’s forced to vault back. At least his sword can do the work, and he manages to stumble his way through the fight, parrying a few hits from its horns until he sees an opening and takes it, launching his sword into its chest, bringing it down.
The force of his own blow sends him tumbling to the ground after it, and he whacks his chin hard into the dirt. Blood spills down it as he bites through his lip, and the impact has him stunned, arms and legs splaying out and then going limp.
A second later the pain catches up with him, and he curls up, forehead to the earth. The sounds of battle echo around him, fading out to a thin, sharp pitched whine in his ears.
He needs to get up, he knows that. Needs to get back to it, to help his friends.
But when he digs within himself for that energy it’s just not there, scooped out of him by all those restless nights.
His vision warps, shadows dancing at the edges, the scene in front of him blurred to a smattering of colors. He moans into the ground, tries to get his vision to settle.
Instead, Noctis Lucis Caelum checks out, and goes lax against the ground.
~~~~~
There are a few things that terrify Gladio, though he’d never admit them out loud. One such thing crops up time and again, and it’s just as heart-stopping every time.
His charge going down while in battle—twice, gods, what a mess—is pretty high up the list. Though this time, it seems to be less injury and more…something else.
Gladio hadn’t seen the failed warp strike, but Ignis did, and called out a warning to him. It still wasn’t enough for him to get to Noctis, to stop him from dropping like a brick to the ground, and not getting back up again.
So now, Noct is cradled in Gladio’s arms, Ignis scanning over each part of him in search of some other kind of injury that they missed. They give him a potion to heal up the bite to his lip, and it takes care of the other small scrapes and bruises. His pulse feels normal, he’s a little warm but no real fever, his pupils are the same size. But he’s like a ragdoll in Gladio’s arms.
It’s like he’s asleep, just passed out in the middle of the battlefield.
With nothing to be gained from sitting in the dirt, they make their way back to the car. Noct stays out the entire time as they load him into the car, and Gladio keeps him close, one arm wrapped around him, pulling him in to rest tucked in towards his side. Prompto steals nervous glances as they make their way to the Coernix Station, sun starting to dip below the horizon.
~~~~~
Noct wakes up to the silence of a missing engine, car having eased to a stop. The world is greyed out around him, and all he can focus on is the feel of leather on his skin and the ache behind his eyes.
After a moment, he realizes he’s pressed up against something warm, rumbling next to him. “Noct?” the voice says softly.
“What’s goin’ on?” Noctis mumbles, slowly raising his head, though it feels like lifting a sack of potatoes atop his shoulders.
Ignis comes into his field of view, twisting around from his usual spot in the front seat. There’s something etched behind his eyes that Noctis is usually so good at reading, but he’s too tired now to puzzle it out. “We’re stopping here for the evening.”
‘Here’ is a service station, nighttime lights just starting to fire up. Noctis doesn’t quite understand why they’d stop here. He doesn’t understand much of anything at the moment, head stuffed full of cotton wool, it feels like.
The presence at his side—Gladio, he realizes—shifts around him a bit. He tries to push himself more upright, arms buckling underneath him with so little strength in them.
“What…”
“Take it easy, Noct.” Gladio does the work for him, pulling him up. He’s hauled out of the car, standing on wobbly legs. Gladio slings his arm over his shoulders and they make their way into the caravan. He’s settled onto one of the beds, sinking down into the pillows to gaze blearily up at the ceiling.
The silence is smothering. Prompto and Gladio stay for a moment, uncertain of what to do, until Ignis gives them a look, a silent instruction. Prom squeezes Noct’s ankle before heading out, Gladio right behind. Ignis takes his wrist, feeling for his pulse, and Noct twists his hand to take hold of Ignis’ own.
“Iggy. What is it?”
Ignis sighs, tracing small circles on Noct’s skin with his thumb. “You collapsed, Noct. In the middle of the hunt. Do you remember?”
…Oh. He has a vague recollection of a fight, falling down and failing to get back up again. It’s fuzzy, caught underneath the fog of exhaustion that clouds his thoughts. He must have terrified his friends. The thought of that makes him try to rise, to offer some sense of comfort and assurance that they haven’t done anything wrong.
Ignis stops his struggles and pulls him up to lean against the headboard.
“Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t mean to worry you.”
“There’s no need to be sorry.” Ignis takes his hand again, imparting warmth into Noct’s cold fingers. “Do you know why? Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
Noctis rubs at his eyes with his free hand, trying to soothe the ache behind them. He doesn’t want to talk about this, not now. “Nothing, it’s…I’m okay.”
“Clearly not,” Ignis says, raising an eyebrow. He waits for the response, knowing Noct won’t be able to stay quiet under his patented stare for very long.
Noct sighs, still trying to duck around it. “I’m fine, Iggy, everything’s fine. Just got caught off guard.”
Ignis regards him a moment more. He searches, finds the mark, and hits it, as always.
“When’s the last time you slept?”
“Iggy—”
“Noct, please. Just be honest with me,” Ignis says, a note of pleading in his voice.
The astounding ability of his advisor to seek out the issue surrounding him is both endearing and annoying. Noct caves, as usual. “It’s…been a bit.”
Ignis nods, dropping his head. “So it’s back, then?” he asks.
“Never really left. Just got worse after all this.” He can’t be blamed for it, after all. Their time on the road has been far from easy, for any of them. Whether it’s the MTs or the daemons, following up on countless dead ends for the Royal Arms, or just trying to make enough money to have a place to sleep. And beyond all that, having the ghosts of their fallen city follow them as they push on, their future uncertain.
Of course it’s exhausting.
“Why didn’t you say something?” Ignis asks.
Noct shakes his head, pressing the heel of his hand into his eyes. “What was I supposed to say, huh? There’s too much else, Iggy, too much going on, for all of us. I can’t, fuck, I—” he cuts himself off, words lost in frustration.
“Alright,” Ignis relents. “It’s alright, we don’t have to talk about this now. But you need to sleep, Noct.”
“I can’t. I try, I do, but I just can’t.”
“Very well, then. If your old methods don’t work, we shall find new ones.” He makes it sound so simple, a problem to be so easily solved.
Noctis sighs, and tries to pull his hand away, but Ignis holds firm. “That’s not…I don’t want you to worry about this. ”
“Put aside the fact that I am your advisor, will you? Put aside all of the trials you have before you. The important part of all this is that I am your friend, Noct. I can’t stand to see you in such discomfort. Please, let me help. Let us help.”
“Iggy, you…” He’s lost for words, again. Sometimes it hurts, how good Ignis is to him. Noctis looks at him to see only concern and love looking back. “…Okay.”
Ignis smiles then, keeps tracing lines along the hand still held within his grasp. “Thank you.”
The four of them spend the night awake, trading stories, tossing jokes, trying to see who can come up with the most eye-rolling pun. Ignis is divinely ordained to spit out the ultimate dad joke at the opportune time, but Prompto manages to surprise them all with a few of his own.
It helps, just like it used to, making Noctis feel just a little less alone. And as the day starts to peek through the curtains, their own activities winding down, the four of them fall into their beds, accepting that the duties of the next day can wait a little while longer. Noctis dreams, then, not of fire or fear, but of home.