—

Fighting alongside Aranea was beyond what Ignis had imagined. Her lance work was unparalleled, and their fighting styles complimented each other splendidly, even without the years of practice together like he had with Noct and Gladio and Prompto.

Completing the hunts they selected was smooth sailing from start to finish.

"Someone's been practicing the last few years," Aranea called to him as he drove his lance downwards through the joints of the armor on the dualhorn he'd been fighting.

Pride flared within him. "I could say the same for you." And it was true. He hadn't seen her in open combat much before, but he had seen enough to know her confidence was well earned, and she seemed to have only gotten more deadly over time.

She leaped high into the air, and he flipped back out of range as she landed with a blast of red power, killing their last foe.

Bloody hell was she a sight to behold. Quick, powerful, beautifu–

This was not relevant. This was not the reason he was here.

"Well, Specs, I'd say we've some decent chemistry here."

…Fighting. She was talking about their level of synchronization in fighting.

Ignis cleared his throat. "Quite so. I suspect the MTs will be our greatest concern, should we get the drop on Loqi." If he knew they were coming, he'd likely take to another of those larger Magitek armors like he did back at the base, but if they were cautious, they might be able to avoid facing another of those. Granted, he and Aranea would likely be able to handle one of those as well. She may not have been as experienced as the Marshal, but her fighting style suited that kind of foe well.

"Yeah, probably." Her lance disappeared from her hand. "All we need now is for my contacts to get back to me–"

Buzzz, chirp chirp chirp chirp.

"Well, speak of Ifrit." Aranea pulled her phone out of her pocket and answered it. "What have you got for me?" Her expression twisted in surprise. "Whoa, whoa, what? Biggs? What's going on? What– slow down! Is Wedge okay? Good… You want me to come there? Now? Okay, fine, yeah, I'll be there. Okay… Sure. Gimme a few hours." She hung up the phone, frowning.

"Is something wrong?" Ignis asked as soon as she was done. She'd just told him they had set meeting places – Biggs asking her to meet spur of the moment didn't bode well.

Aranea shook her head. "No idea, but Biggs was pretty set on my meeting up with him as soon as possible, so it must be pretty important." She paused, looking up at him. "Look… I still gotta wait on that info from my contacts regardless. You can tag along with me to meet with them, or you can wait at the hotel. Your call."

Ignis arched an eyebrow at her. She couldn't honestly expect him to take that second option, could she?

She grinned. "Hey, just checking. Come on, then. Let's go."

"Dammit!" Noctis hissed, dropping his knife and yanking his hand back as the blade nicked his thumb. The knife hit the cutting board off balance and flipped off it and onto the ground, barely missing his foot by an inch.

Noctis growled, grasping his bleeding hand with the one that was still uninjured as he glared at the cutting board. Damn cucumber. He didn't even like cucumbers, why did he have to injure himself cutting one up? Why couldn't it have been, like, at least a banana or something? Bananas were good. But no, he had to cut himself because of a stupid vegetable.

Screw vegetables, screw cooking, screw camping, screw traveling, screw the Empire, and – above all else – screw Loqi. He was so tired of this shit–

"Whoa, Noct, are you okay?" Prompto nearly dropped his pan as he hastily set it aside and darted over to him.

"It's fine," Noct grumbled, turning away from him.

"But you're bleeding–"

"I'm fine, Prompto!" Noctis snapped, sending a dirty look over his shoulder.

…Oh, Six. That look on Prompto's face. He felt like he'd just tortured a small animal. Great. Now he felt like an ass. Probably because he was being one. Well, so was Prompto, really. Seriously? A vegetable dish for his first meal for them all? Was he trying to make Noctis more miserable than he already was, forcing him to help make something he didn't want to eat in the first place?

"I just wanted to be sure you were okay…" Prompto half crossed his arms, looking… sad and pathetic, honestly.

"Well, I'm fantastic, so you can go back to cooking your stupid salad-in-a-frying-pan thing, all right?" Wow. That was great. Why not make it worse and make everyone feel like total crap?

"Hey!" Gladio scowled, stalking closer to the cooking station from where he'd just finished setting up the tent. He zeroed in on Noctis with… disappointment in his eyes.

…Six, if that didn't feel worse than being on the receiving end of Gladio's anger. Usually it was because he'd slacked off in training or something and it wasn't that big of a deal, but this was different.

"You wanna knock it off?" Gladio stared down at him. "Look, I ain't sayin' you don't have a right to be pissed right now, but you don't get to take it out on him."

"It's okay, Gladio," Prompto said softly.

Noctis wanted to grab Prompto's shoulder and yell at him to stand up for himself, but he knew he wouldn't. Astrals knew why, but Prompto would take Noctis' bitching all day and still show up the next with a smile on his face. And Noctis was treating him like this in return.

Noctis slumped. "No… It isn't. I'm sorry."

Prompto perked up a bit. "Hey, it's all right, buddy."

Noctis shook his head. "I'm… gonna turn in." He headed for the tent, not caring that it wasn't even dark yet. He wasn't hungry for dinner anyway. Surprisingly, Gladio didn't even protest.

Normally, Noctis could sleep over twelve hours if he wasn't forced to get up, but tonight was not normal. It wasn't even close to normal, and he couldn't get to sleep to save his life.

Where was Ignis going to sleep? What was he going to do for food and supplies? He could have pulled from the Armiger, but he hadn't – Noctis had checked and everything was still there. Ignis was probably being stupid and not using their supplies in case they needed them. But what if he needed a potion and didn't use one because of that?

Noctis' stomach rumbled and he growled in frustration, shoving off his sleeping bag covers and making his way outside the tent. He nicked a protein bar from their supplies and plopped near the edge of the haven, letting his feet dangle off the side.

The world felt like a blanket on a summer afternoon – stifling, miserable… laying over him with a hot, life-sucking weight. To think that just a couple days ago his biggest worry was that he'd make a fool of himself when he finally met Luna again. Now he'd managed to lose one of his closest friends and be an ass to the two he had left.

Noctis tore the wrapper off his protein bar, sinking his teeth into it viciously. Gah, these things were nasty. Cardboard and sawdust flavoring with the texture of wet paper. Bleh. He should have taken the vegetables Prompto fixed.

Behind him, he heard the tent rustle.

Probably Gladio. Great. Another lecture he didn't need.

But Gladio didn't come over to him right away – he was fiddling with something over by the kitchen station, which had been covered, but left out for the morning.

Gladio took his time, messing with something over there as Noct stared at the stars.

It was a nice clear night. Why couldn't it have been a night like this before? Then Ignis would have been fine.

Gladio gave a deep sigh, slowly settling down by him. Something white was shoved into his chest. Noctis blinked at the Cup Noodles in Gladio's hand.

He glanced at Gladio fully, confused.

Gladio prodded him with it again. "Those protein bars are garbage."

Noctis accepted the peace offering. "Yeah… they are." He chuckled faintly. "Cup Noodles past midnight – Specs would be thrilled."

Gladio snorted. There was a pause before he spoke. "Hey, Noct?"

"Hm?" Noctis picked up the fork in the cup, stirring the noodles around.

"I know you and Specs have been really close the last few years, but you do know you can rely on me and Prompto too, right?"

Noctis paused his stirring. "I… of course I do. What kind of question is that?"

Gladio gave him a dry look.

"Oh, come on, Gladio." The smell of the food was making his already growling stomach growl more, but the food itself was almost forgotten. "Just because Iggy and I were keeping this crap from you guys doesn't mean I was totally cutting the two of you out."

Gladio shook his head. "It may not have seemed that way to you, Noct, but to us… Look, we worked our asses off the last couple of years after what happened, especially Prompto. There were a couple of times I had to force him to go home because he'd worn himself out so much. It was like he applied Ignis' workaholic ethic to training. He did that for you, and not because you're a Prince either. We may have a duty to you, but we're also your friends. So let us be there for you, huh? If you think we can't see how much you're bottling crap up right now…"

Noctis slumped, closing his eyes for a few seconds. "You're right. I… haven't been fair to you guys. Ignis and I… He was my first friend. He's like my actual big brother. And… things are just different with him, especially the last couple of years. I never meant to cut you two out, there was just so much we had to deal with."

Gladio huffed. "Yeah, I'm getting that now. Can't believe I didn't notice anything sooner."

Noctis let out a humorless laugh. "Yeah, well, don't be too tough on yourself. It's Ignis. You know how good he is at playing stoic, and he managed to keep things under wraps really well. Even I didn't pick up on some stuff until he told me about it."

"He may be Iggy, but I'm me. I just can't believe that he – that both of you – were struggling while we thought everything was fine. I… I thought I knew you guys better than that." Gladio's eyes spoke of his anger, but Noct knew that anger wasn't directed at him. Gladio was mad at himself.

"We didn't want you to know. We didn't want anyone to know…" That was the point. Why couldn't Gladio see that?

Gladio slowly looked at him, the light from the haven's runes lighting up his face but leaving him with a shadowy and serious stare. "Noct… is there anything about you I should know?"

Noctis opened his mouth to dismiss those concerns with a joke when… he realized he couldn't. He'd been living with his nightmares for so long he'd almost forgotten Gladio didn't know about his latest ones. He didn't even bring those up with Ignis after the fact. Maybe a phone call right after it happened in the middle of the night, but that was it. He preferred not to talk about them after that, and Iggy had respected that.

"I… um." Noctis swallowed. "It doesn't happen much, but sometimes I wake up screaming too."

Gladio's eyes widened, alarm and frustration showing in equal measure. "Noct."

"It's really not that bad anymore." Noctis looked down at his noodles again, stirring more. "Nothing… serious like Iggy. I just get nightmares some nights."

That didn't seem to reassure Gladio much, if at all. "I thought those stopped years back?"

"Those did." Noctis gritted his teeth. The last thing he wanted to think about now was the marilith. "These are different." Really different. His other ones had been about him being helpless as monsters closed in on him and people he loved – usually Luna and his dad. After the Loqi stuff, though… they'd taken to being more about him stabbing someone and their blood soaking his hands. Most of the time it was Drautos – his face as clear as it had been that night. On really bad nights it was someone else.

"Does anything help with them?"

Despite Prompto's voice being soft, Noctis nearly dropped his Cup Noodles.

Damn his stupid hearing.

"How long have you been back there?" Noctis asked with a sigh.

"Ehhh, a while?" Prompto plopped down on the side not taken by Gladio. "Gladio's right, you know, though." Prompto punched Noctis' shoulder lightly. "We're here for you, buddy. And, uh, I'm sorry about dinner earlier. I thought it would make Iggy happy when we see him again if I told him I fixed healthy food."

Noctis spluttered out a laugh. "Right." He wanted to keep laughing. He didn't want to think about all the possible scenarios that might happen where they'd never see Ignis again.

"So, Princess, out with it," Gladio said. "Tell us what we can do to help."