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“But y’wanna know what really sucks?” Prompto slurred, waving the arm Noct wasn’t holding up with a shoulder under his armpit. Noct gripped him a little tighter as they walked. With their luck, Prompto would slip, bust his face open, and need a potion they couldn’t spare. “Marma . . . Mama . . . wait, whassit? Mama-lam?”
“This is a disaster,” Gladio muttered from behind them, stomping through the tall grass of Malmalam Thicket. They were all miserably damp from the unrelenting sprinkle of rain, but Gladio had also fallen flat on his ass into the swampy ground during the fight and was caked in mud from the waist down.
“I don’t know that we’re in any shape to retrieve a Royal Arm,” Ignis agreed, and his tone was the only dry thing anywhere for miles around.
“—MALLOMAR!” Prompto bellowed, gesturing so violently that he almost splashed into the muck as Noct fumbled to keep him upright. Then, he deflated back against Noct’s side. “Nooo, tha’s somethin’ else.”
“Don’t let him fall, Noct,” Ignis reprimanded over his shoulder.
“Why am I stuck with him?” Noct whined as Prompto muttered on, oblivious. “Why not Gladio?”
“You’re the right height, Princess.”
“I’m taller than him,” Noct pouted.
“Quite right, Your Highness.” Ignis was amused, the asshole. “But by an inch, rather than a foot.”
“—Mammogram Thicket sucks,” Prompto continued on, oblivious. “And my socks are wet. And it’s squishy. And my head hurts. And you’re all wasps.” He stopped and jerked back from Noct, eyes widening with paranoia. “Oh shit, oh shit, why are you all wasps?”
“Smelling salts are wearing off,” Noct warned the others. He leaned away as much as he could without letting go and held a grabby hand towards Ignis.
Prompto stared at Noct’s face in growing horror. Who knew what kind of unholy Noct-wasp hybrid he was hallucinating?
(The Soldier Wasps had done a number on them all, but it really hadn’t gone wrong until they’d started targeting Prompto, hitting him so hard with so many rounds of Confusion that a single round of smelling salts couldn’t snap him out of it. And Confused Prompto was the worst. You couldn’t just get away from a guy with a gun; Noct had the recently elixir-ed shoulder to prove it.)
Ignis thrust the little bag of salts into Noct’s hand just as the pistol materialized in Prompto’s. Noct smashed the salts into Prompto’s face with a yelp, and Prompto toppled straight into the muddy stream, pulling Noct down on top of him.
“Get OFF, get OFF ME,” Prompto spluttered, thrashing as Noct tried to get his footing in the shallow water.
“It’s me,” he begged. “It’s Noct, shit, Prompto, please don’t shoot me again—”
“—I know it’s you, you’re—ach, you’re drowning me, get off me—”
Gladio yanked them up to their feet by the backs of their collars, both dripping and gasping for air.
“Th-th-thanks, Big Guy,” Prompto croaked once he could breathe. Then, he turned a guilty gaze towards Noct. “Uh, don’t shoot you . . . again?”
“Let’s just keep going,” Noct said firmly. No time for guilt trips. “You still need a hand?”
“Nah, I think the f-freezing cold gross water was j-just the thing,” Prompto chattered out, then stopped. He tilted his head. “Is that . . . b-buzzing?”
They all stood very still to listen.
And that’s when the first Soldier Wasp in a new swarm dive-bombed them from behind a tree.
“TACTICAL RETREAT,” Ignis roared, sprinting ahead through the swampy water; Noct phased out of the Wasp’s way just in time and ran to follow. They weren’t in any shape to deal with another round.
“Haven!” Gladio yelled above the splashing and buzzing. “There’s a haven up ahead!”
Noct strained his eyes, searching frantically—and yep, there it was, the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen, and that included the monstrous Cygillan Grouper he’d reeled from the depths of Galdin Bay. Blue, crystalline magic wafted off of rune-drenched stones, and they waded straight through the stream to safety.
“Small mercies,” Ignis gasped as they flung themselves onto the protective runes.
Noct dragged air into his lungs and flopped backwards onto the cool rocks. “Kinda seems like a big mercy right now, Specs.”
The wasps darted angrily around the edge of the haven as the four of them dripped and panted on the stone; eventually, they gave up and buzzed off.
It was Gladio who stumbled to his feet first, to start setting up the tent. That was Ignis’s cue to begin peeling layers of ruined clothing off for washing—first off himself, then off Noct, who winced at the bullet hole in his favorite black T-shirt. But Ignis had brought it back from worse.
He turned to see Prompto watching with guilty eyes; his friend swung an arm behind his head when they made eye contact. “Uhm, I’m really sorry about that.”
“Not your fault,” Noct said firmly as he pulled a spare shirt over his head. “Wasps probably figured out you were the only one who could reach them.”
Prompto’s mouth twitched into a frown, but he nodded and stood to help Ignis with the washing up so he could focus on dinner.
Noct flopped back down onto the rocks with a sigh. The elixir had done the trick on his wounds, but every part of him was sore, right down to his bones; he could probably fall asleep right on the ground.
Gladio kicked his side a moment later, of course. “No sleeping on the job ‘til we’re set up.”
Noct stuck his tongue out, but he also rolled to his feet and got started on the fire.
They’d gotten to the haven just in time, and in more ways than one. The sun was already setting, taking away muggy heat and leaving damp chill in its wake. Noct jump-started the fire with magic; otherwise, the damp wood would smoke too much, and he wanted them to be able to linger around the fire tonight.
Eventually, they’d all changed into dry clothing, the fire was roaring, the tent was up, and the chairs were out. Ignis ladled soup into bowls and they collapsed into the camp chairs.
They ate silently at first, bruised and aching beneath it all, but finally clean and safe and filling the gnawing hunger in their stomachs with Ignis’s good cooking.
“We gotta figure out how to deal with those damn Wasps,” Gladio said when his spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl.
Ignis hummed. “Perhaps there’s a way to ward off the disorienting effects of their venom?”
“I still can’t believe I shot Noct,” Prompto said, burying his face in his hands.
“Hey, everyone’s done it,” Noct said. “Remember when Gladio thought I was a hundlegs? That was way worse.”
“Hell yeah it was!” Gladio bragged. “Took two hi-elixirs to put you back together.”
“Please do not remind me,” Ignis said, clearly re-living the experience in his mind’s eye.
“Just sayin’, one little bullet ain’t so bad.”
“Unless I’d shot him in the face.”
“But you didn’t,” Ignis reminded him. “And really, we should all be thankful it wasn’t Noct who was Confused.”
“Why, ‘cause I’d toast you all with my awesome magic?”
“You do that anyway,” Prompto murmured, smiling a little despite himself.
“Hey! My aim has gotten loads better—”
“No, because you get stupid,” Gladio supplied, then fell into a trilling imitation. “‘C’mere, L’il Malbuddy! Who’s a good marlboro?’ You tried to fucking hug it.”
“It looked really cute in my messed-up brain,” Noct said defensively. “Hey, what if, instead of ganging up on me, we played King’s Knight?”
Gladio rolled his eyes. “Save your battery. We’ve still gotta get that Royal Arm tomorrow.”
“Charades?” Prompto suggested hopefully.
“No,” everyone else said in unison.
“Poker?” Noct threw out. “Mafia?”
“You can’t play Mafia with four people,” Ignis pointed out. “We tried, if you’ll recall. You immediately murdered me four games in a row.”
“Never Have I Ever?” Gladio pulled a beer out of the armiger and waggled an eyebrow.
“You just wanna drink,” Noct accused, then considered. Huh. Not a bad idea. “Let’s do it.”
Night had fallen by that point, and the thicket was dark beneath a moonless sky. The fire lit up their semi-circle of chairs with a flickering orange glow that was sunset and sunrise all in one. Their backs were to the night, to the dangers of the thicket and the world at large. No daemons could reach them here, in this circle of protection.
And so all that mattered was the four of them, illuminated, isolated, cut off from the world they knew. But together.
A single safe place in a world of danger.
“Never have I ever eaten caviar,” Prompto was saying. The rest of them groaned and took a swig. It was a cheap shot with him, but no one really minded, not when all they had in the armiger was a single bottle of beer each and it was just an excuse for another mouthful.
Ignis was next. “Never have I ever caught an Alastor Bass.”
“Damn right you haven’t,” Noct grinned, holding his bottle up in cheers before tipping back a swig. Gladio rolled his eyes and drank, too. He’d been the one to teach Noct how to fish, after all.
As the most sheltered of their band of four, Noct really should have been the best at the game. But his friends all knew him too well. They also each knew him better than they knew one another, though that gap shrank daily.
Gladio thought for a moment, rubbing the beer bottle between flattened palms. He was clearly angling for a knock-out. That was hard for Gladio, who seemed to have done everything (or at least, it had always felt that way to Noct).
“Never have I ever . . . driven Noct’s car,” Gladio said; Ignis and Noct tipped back. Gladio made an indignant noise towards Noct. “What, you really never let Prompto drive your car? What kind of asshole best friend are you?”
“Not even once, buddy,” Prompto said to Gladio, grinning. “Come on, guys, I’m thirsty here.”
“Not our fault you’re a sheltered little snowflake,” Gladio said, clearly smarting.
Noct snorted at the suggestion that Prompto was sheltered. “Never have I ever taken a taxi.”
Prompto drank, then looked around in disbelief. “What, never? None of you?! Not even once?”
“—or had a city transit pass, or been to a laundromat, or paid a gas bill—”
“Alright, Noct, you’ve made your point admirably,” Ignis cut in with a smirk.
“Aww, Noct, defending my honor? I’ll drink to all of those.” Prompto grinned and tipped his bottle back to finish it off.
Gladio raised his own bottle to concede defeat, then drained the rest too; it put the smile back on his face.
Noct let his bottle dangle between his fingers. The sky wasn’t completely clear, but the stars were out between the clouds, and it was beautiful. It was always beautiful, really, the wilderness of his country. Maybe not when he was up to his armpits in mud and the wildlife was actively trying to kill him, yeah. But from the safe haven of their campsite, in the circle of protection offered by ancient magic, with his friends . . .
For a moment, full of that warm glow, it felt like the right time to say something. To try to put into words some small bit of what it meant to him that they stayed. He knew he didn’t deserve any of them: not Ignis’s confidence and competence, not Gladio’s strength and support, not Prompto’s camaraderie and cheer.
Before he could—not that he was ever going to—Gladio got up to his feet, rolling his shoulders. “Should get to bed.”
“To ‘bed,’ he says.” Prompto stood and stretched. “I remember beds.”
Noct lingered, listening to his friends joke and laugh as they got ready to sleep, finding happiness in this snatched bit of solace.
They should have been miserable.
They should have hated him. They should have curled up in sleeping bags to get some rest while they could, to prepare themselves to wake up another day and follow their uninspiring prince through another day of danger and pain grown monotonous by this point. The magic of Astrals and kings was few and far between; much more common were blisters and growling stomachs.
But they didn’t. They set up camp, took care of each other, and dared to laugh in the night.
He wished he could tell them what that meant to him . . . but even imagining putting it into words stole his voice. To say what, thanks? Thanks for following him to the ends of Eos, for helping him figure out what the hell to do next, for making sure they didn’t all die?
To say, you’re the best? That he couldn’t do any of this without them?
None of it could put a dent in what he owed them. He couldn’t even bring himself to say a single syllable.
Maybe someday.