It didn't take as long to find Prompto and Gladio as Noctis had thought it might. This was because they had clearly been running frantically from port to port, looking for literally any boat that would take them to the altar, and it was mere minutes after they'd pulled in that the two of them came racing around a corner.
"Iggy! Noct!" cried Gladio, as he caught sight of both of them. "We've been looking everywhere for a boat, how are you?" He came rushing up to them, with Prompto hot on his heels.
Noctis noticed the way Gladio's gaze immediately turned to Ignis first, and Noctis could tell what he was looking for: any sign he might have been blinded during the struggle. When it became clear Ignis was fine, he let out a hefty sigh and clapped him on the shoulder. Ignis just looked bemused.
"You're okay," breathed Gladio. "Gave us the shock of a lifetime getting separated from us like that."
"Yeah, Gladio was tearing his hair out afterwards," said Prompto, with a nervous laugh. "Good to see you can see!"
"Indeed, I was fortunate in that respect," said Ignis, running a hand through his still very wet hair. Both he and Noctis were soaked to the bone from dealing with Leviathan and the rain that came after. "Unfortunately, Noct did not manage to escape undamaged."
"You make it sound as though I'm on the brink of death," said Noctis, heaving himself onto a nearby crate to take some of the pressure off his legs. "I'm fine, Luna's fine, hell even Ravus is fine. I'd call this a success."
"Lady Lunafreya's alright?" asked Prompto, looking at him with wide, expectant eyes.
"Last I saw her."
"That's a relief," he breathed.
He really needed to ask Prompto where he knew Luna from because the two were clearly close. Wait, didn't he know that? Yes, yes, they had been pen-pals, he thought. Though the memory he'd learnt that from was still buried somewhere deep inside. Ugh, he felt dizzy.
"Ardyn give the scene a miss then?" asked Gladio, raising his eyebrows.
Noctis scowled reflexively, anger already bubbling to the surface as visions of blood floated before his eyes. "No. He showed up during the ritual just like last time, but he got taken out by Leviathan before he could do anything. Then..."
What had happened then? He wasn't sure. He'd never let it happen like this again since last time. Ardyn had come back, obviously, but how?
"I'm not sure how he showed up again, but he did. Then he tried to kill me or something. I'm not sure, it wasn't very clear." He very much doubted that Ardyn would have actually killed him, but they didn't need to know that. Not yet.
"He tried to kill you?" hissed Gladio, and Prompto's expression went as dark as a thundercloud.
"That's what it looked like, yes," said Ignis. His face had gone very pale. "Were you conscious for all that, Noct?"
"No, I woke up just before Ravus knocked the dagger out of his hands. At least, I assume that's what happened. I did have my eyes shut and everything."
"No, that's right," said Ignis, a strange expression passing over his face. "I didn't expect him to help, but he did."
"Well he did have Luna to worry about this time," said Noctis, musing over the fact Ravus had been on the other side of the altar when he woke up. Why wasn't he next to Luna like Ignis was next to him? "I'd say that's probably motivation enough. Also I think he hates Ardyn almost as much as we do, so…"
"What's that on your arm, Noct?" asked Prompto, who'd been staring at it for a while. Noctis glanced down at his arm. All across the back of his forearm there was vivid purple bruising. Well, that explained why it hurt so much then.
"Looks pretty bad, doesn't it?" he asked with a nervous laugh that sent his ribs spasming again. "I don't think it's broken but I've got a few cuts and bruises. I don't know how much you saw of my fight with Leviathan, but I got tossed onto very hard stone from very high up on several occasions, so, yeah."
Gladio sucked the air in through his teeth.
"I'd say you can't go one minute without getting beaten up by something, but honestly considering you were up against a God I'm gonna let you off."
"Thank you," said Noctis, dryly.
Just then, an electrical, crackling sensation went pulsing through his body, making him draw in his breath through his teeth sharply. There was that odd pulling sensation again, something was tugging at him, where the centre of his magic was, trying to drag it outwards. It was immensely uncomfortable.
"Noct?" It was Ignis, gently taking him by the shoulder. "Are you alright?"
His head still felt like it had been put on backwards and twisted around, but he wasn't sure whether or he should admit to that.
"A bit light-headed," he said, trying to focus on the port, and as a result noticing Gladio and Prompto exchange glances as he said it. "I'm kind of...dazed, I guess."
Ignis was frowning slightly, having heard this deflection before. Noctis wondered whether or not he was going to call him out on it. He tilted Noctis's head upwards and turned his head from side to side, looking intently in his eyes.
"You may have a concussion," he said, finally releasing Noctis's head. "You should rest. Your injuries on top of the fact you haven't fully recovered from the Starscourge can't be helping matters."
"I am tired," he sighed, though that barely covered the sheer depth of his exhaustion.
"Let's get you back to the hotel, then," said Gladio, reaching over to help him jump down from the crate. "We'll probably have to walk there, sorry."
"Yeah, the gondoliers are kind of jumpy right now," said Prompto. "You can't really blame 'em though."
"No," said Noctis, though it was a struggle to stay focused on the conversation.
Now the exhaustion was hitting him full force he was fighting a desperate battle not to let the emotional weight of all that had happened settle over him quite yet. He needed to stay distracted, but even as he thought that, he was suddenly overcome by the urge to just break down sobbing.
He managed to head off the worst of it by sniffing, but he still couldn't quite hold back the tears in his eyes. If his companions noticed his distress they didn't say anything, but Prompto, who was walking beside him, squeezed his shoulder very tightly. He just needed to get to the hotel.
By the time it came into sight, the lavish interior visible from all the way up the street, Noctis had the feeling of being run over several times by a train. When they got inside and Ignis started negotiating their room price, he was desperate to just sit down, if only for a while, but he knew if he relaxed for even a moment down here he was going to go out like a light.
He just about managed to trudge all the way up the stairs, get into the room, kick off his shoes and then collapse onto the bed. The world was practically spinning by that point, and the moment he closed his eyes, he was gone.
Ignis sighed as he realised Noct was asleep and not just resting his eyes. Not that he could blame him after all that, of course—he was more than slightly exhausted himself.
"I'm going to get changed into something slightly drier," he said, looking at his deeply unconscious charge. "Could someone please get a hairdryer on him so he doesn't make the bed completely uninhabitable?"
"Sure thing, Iggy," said Gladio, as he fished around in one of their suitcases.
Ignis stepped into the bathroom to get changed out of his sodden clothes. He was freezing because of all the water, and got through about four towels before he felt even close to dry again. It was only when he put his glasses on to restore some semblance of normalcy that he noticed he'd obtained a few cuts on his face. They were minor, to be sure, but they ought to be treated. He got out some antiseptic almost without thinking, and was in the midst of applying it when he heard a hairdryer turn on in the opposite room, and his thoughts turned back to Noctis.
He wasn't sure if it was mere paranoia after finding out he'd been hiding so much from them for so long, but Noct seemed...different. Of course, he was probably overreacting—Noct had gone through a lot in the past few hours and also almost certainly had a concussion, which would make him act differently anyway, but the thought still nagged at the back of his brain. And then there was the brief second all of them had vanished, and Noct and Luna had returned laughing, which was strange in itself.
He had hoped, after the confession, that they might be able to get back to something approaching normal after all this, but Noct was just as driven and self-destructive as ever. It helped that he knew why now, and he wasn't mystified as to why Noct insisted on moving forward even in spite of his mental and physical state, but it still hurt somewhere inside to know how...careless he was now. He seemed so intent on throwing his life away, on dying to the prophecy, regardless of the cost... And given he was supposed to be one of the people keeping him alive, it hurt more than he could say.
He wished there was some way out of this, some little exception they could find that would mean Noct didn't have to die. He couldn't stand the idea, the idea that the person he'd devoted so much of his time, so much of his life to would just...die. Because that was his destiny. It didn't seem fair—Noct had done nothing, barely even gotten to live his life, and now he was having it snatched away from him in the name of a greater power. Surely there was more to it than that?
He left the bathroom not quite able to conceal the melancholy he was feeling. Prompto was the one who noticed him first, bounding over to him while Gladio was still busy with the hairdryer. Noctis hadn't stirred even a little.
"Yeah, he's under pretty deep," said Prompto, clearly noticing Ignis's concern. "Can't blame him after all that though, yeesh! Are those plasters you've got there?"
Ignis was indeed holding a first aid box, which meant he had plenty of plasters.
"Take as many as you need," he said, looking over a few scrapes on Prompto's arm. Prompto eagerly grabbed a handful. "And remember to disinfect those wounds first."
Prompto nodded solemnly, before sitting cross-legged on the bed and beginning to patch himself up. Ignis moved over to Gladio, who finally turned the hairdryer off.
"That's as dry as he's gonna get," he said, setting the hairdryer down on the table. "I get the feeling he's not gonna wake up anytime soon."
Ignis looked down at Noctis. He was still bearing the signs of his illness, even four days after he'd been cured. His skin was deathly pale, and his face still had a sunken, hollow look to it that made Ignis want to shudder. The shadows under his eyes betrayed his sleeping troubles for all the world to see. Then there was the odd webbed pattern of scars all along his face and neck, from whatever power he'd exhibited in front of the Quetzalcoatl. Now on top of all that there was the horrible bruising on his arm and several cuts along his face and legs.
He was a shadow of his former self. Noct had never been happy in Insomnia, Ignis knew that, but he'd at least been eating and sleeping somewhere close to healthily, and he'd only very occasionally been injured like this. Now he looked like a ghost, someone so thoroughly damaged it was a miracle they were still going, and Ignis found himself watching closely as Noctis's chest rose and fell, reassuring himself that he really was still alive. He looked far too much like a corpse for Ignis's liking.
Something came back to him then, something Noct had said on the way there.
"Gladio, can you help me pull up his shirt?" he asked, glancing over at him. "He said on the way here he thought he'd sprained a muscle in his chest, but I want to make sure it isn't a broken rib."
"Sure thing," said Gladio, and together they rolled up Noctis's shirt to check for bruising similar to that on his arm.
There was no visible sign of his injury, but Ignis still found himself shuddering at what he saw. Noctis had always been slender, but the obviousness of his ribcage under his skin was painful to look at. He had been eating regularly, Ignis had seen to that after their episode in Lestallum, but he'd been losing weight all the same. Logic told him it was probably part of the immense stress Noctis had been under for a matter of months now. Instinct told him he was a bad person and hadn't been taking care of him as he should be.
Gladio winced sympathetically at the expression on his face.
"Yeah, he's looking pretty grim, isn't he?" he said, glancing at Noctis's expressionless face.
"Indeed," said Ignis, as he rolled Noctis's shirt back down. He couldn't look at that for much longer. "At least there's no visible sign of injury, that means he probably has just sprained something rather than anything more serious."
"Shouldn't people with broken ribs sleep upright?" asked Prompto, chiming in from just behind him and taking Ignis by surprise. "I mean, I just remember reading that somewhere. I think it might have been in biology…"
"No, you're right, even if he's fine it would be best if we could manoeuvre him into an upright position. We don't want to take any chances until we get a doctor to look at him."
Gladio was able to do this easily enough, carefully pushing Noctis upright and putting a pillow behind his head in the hope he wouldn't get neck cramp. Ignis reached to get the disinfectant almost unconsciously, and began to tend to his wounds in the vain hope it would distract him from the state Noctis was in. Unsurprisingly, it didn't work especially well.
"Poor Noct," sighed Prompto, perching on the edge of the bed. "He really banged himself up this time."
"Yeah," grunted Gladio, looking him over. "I think some of those cuts are gonna need potions, Iggy."
"Indeed," said Ignis, examining a particularly nasty one on Noctis's leg. "It's a shame he couldn't stay awake long enough to get changed, but at least he won't get infected now."
"He probably needs the rest," said Gladio, his eyes flicking to Noctis's eyebags.
"Let's hope he manages to go without having a nightmare this time," said Ignis, though he didn't really believe it. "We'll need to get some sort of doctor to look him over before we're sure he's fine."
"Might be hard to find one with the city like this."
"You make a good point."
"We could always ask that First Secretary lady, right?" asked Prompto, jerking his head away from Noctis at last. "She probably knows somebody who'll keep quiet. If there's anyone like that left in the city, that is."
"Good idea, Prompto," said Ignis, as he carefully broke a potion over some of Noctis's nastier injuries. "We should commence our search sometime tomorrow though, it's getting dark out."
The clouds overhead had steadily been becoming more and more grey all the way back, and soon they would need a light in the room.
"Good point," said Gladio, moving to draw the curtains. "And I think we could all use a rest after today."
A point suddenly came back to Ignis.
"You should probably know," he said, drawing their attention to him, "when they left us at the altar, Ravus and Luna said they would endeavour to meet us tomorrow to discuss our plans going forward."
"What, both of them?" asked Gladio cocking his eyebrow. "I thought Ravus was still a bit iffy on us."
"Yeah," said Prompto, though he seemed more excited than alarmed. "And aren't they like...free to go now? Why would they stick around to help us?"
"Noct did try to explain as much, but Lady Lunafreya insisted on accompanying him to the Crystal," said Ignis, shaking his head at the memory. Truly the two of them were as bad as each other. "And as far as I know Ravus desires to go back to Tenebrae to defend it from the invading daemons."
"So they're going to coordinate all that with us tomorrow, basically," said Gladio.
"That's the impression I got," said Ignis, with a nod.
"Well, personally, I find all of this planning exhausting," said Prompto, kicking off his shoes and lying flat all the way across the other bed. "I'm gonna call it a night."
"What, you go to bed early?" snorted Gladio. "I'll believe it when I see it."
"Hey, I'm serious!" said Prompto, launching himself upright. "Last one to get changed is a chocobo butt!"
Ignis shook his head as the other two dived for their suitcases. He turned his attention back to Noctis, who was sitting completely still, showing no sign of stirring. It tugged at his heart that the only time his expression seemed to be completely peaceful was when he was unconscious.
"Sleep well, Noct," he whispered as he rose, and began getting ready for bed.
And finally, we come to the end of the wind-down, and what has probably been the longest day of Noct's life so far. He's going to need a lot of sleep before he manages to fully process what just happened to him—hopefully not another ten years, but who knows with him? The bros are also finally back together! Fortunately, they're all more or less alright (barring poor Noct's situation). I thought it was about time we got some insight into what they thought of things! I hope you enjoyed the chapter and thank you to everyone still reading!
