Of Gladiolus

I don't know where you're going but do you got

room for one more troubled soul?

I don't know where I'm going

but I don't think I'm coming home.

And I'll say

I'll check in tomorrow if I don't wake up dead.

This is the road to ruin

and we started at the end.

-"Alone Together" Fall Out Boy

(I'm sorry, it just worked so well for this story! You can just keep finding new parallels.)

Noctis and his brothers had been on the road almost all day, their vacation could only last so long before they came along to a town being attacked by a pack of Coeruls. Luckily, the pack had split up after the attack but that led to the team driving around dispatching a dozen Coeruls that day. By the time they stopped at the Crow's Nest, they exhaustedly dumped themselves into a booth, Ignis included.

They went through their orders quickly, Ignis amending Noctis's slider and a milkshake order to include a side of salad.

Prompto looked at his friends carefully before speaking. "So, are we going back to the saving-the-world gig?"

Ignis looked at him sharply. "Prompto, you know perfectly well the sequence of events that begins in Altissia. Frankly, I'm astonished you'd even say that."

Prompto put his hands out in submission, knowing they were tired and fuses were short. "That's not what I meant. The way I look at it, we were saving the world a long time before we go on that boat."

"You mean fighting Magitek, hunting monsters, and being errand boys," Gladio said.

"Yeah, we made a difference for a lot of people living around here, even if we can't go to Altissia and fix everything that happens there. You know what we never got to? Fighting that zuu in that flaming mountain!"

"Weren't you the one who wanted to avoid that fight?" Noctis pointed out.

"Yeah, but things are different now. In the scheme of things, it seems like less of a big deal than before."

Noctis chuckled tiredly. "Well, you've got a point, Prom. After the Leviathan, Ravus, and Ardyn, the zuu won't seem so hard," he said, thinking about how his pulse beat frantically through his head as they crept around the nested bird just over seven months ago. For him, it was seven months ago, he reminded himself, for the rest of them, it was almost eleven years ago.

The server came by and set plates in front of each person. Noctis barely managed a word of gratitude before digging into his slider. To divert Ignis's rather harassed mood, (not that he blamed him, he'd driven over six hours today) he finished his salad too.

"So, what's after this?" Gladio inquired, sipping his chocolate shake. "We can find a motel around here. I'm not feeling an RV after all this food."

"Best thing you've said all day, Gladio!" Prompto said.

Gladio fixed him a look. "Oh?"

"Best thing you've said so far," Prompto amended.

"Thanks but that's the same thing, idiot."

Noctis was going to agree with finding somewhere for the night, suggest that they go crazy and try to go to an actual hotel this time, but the words got stuck in his throat as a dry, stinging sensation traveled up and down his throat. An unpleasant warmth swelled in his throat and instead of real, dignified words, he came up with "huuhgnn."

His friends' eyes all flicked over to him in varying degrees of bewilderment and confusion. Noct's hands tightened to fists in distress. He remembered the last time something like this had happened. How long ago had it been? Late middle school, when his chef was out sick and the sous chef had forgotten his allergy and Noctis stumbled out of the lunch room, almost passing out in the hallway. Ignis had arrived, seething, ten minutes later with the royal physician—

"Whhhh—" Noctis gulped as he felt the walls of his throat constrict a little further, causing a whistle-like wheeze to punctuate his breath. In a flash, he was up, heart hammering against his ribs, and hurrying to the door, flight-instincts having completely taken over his body. Or more accurately, his father's and tutor's messages that he couldn't show weakness publically ringing in his head.

"It could would look bad for Insomnia if you show this weakness," one retainer had said.

"Moreover, if it has anything to do with your allergy or the injuries you sustained during the attack, it is important that no one knows so they can't target them." Ignis had put in gently.

"Noct?"

"Hey!"

He pushed through the door and stumbled outside toward a bench half occupied by a dumb penguin. He felt his cheeks flushing and all his breaths were coming and going fast, shallow and like a broken squeaky toy. He didn't quite get to the bench and instead crouched near it, gripping the rail like it was an anchor.

Not a second later, he felt a hand on his shoulder. A hand that covered his shoulder, from the collarbone to the top of his shoulder blade.

Not a second after that, "Noct? What's happening?" Prompto asked, sounding small and helpless. Gladio grabbed his other shoulder too, and turned Noct to face them.

Noctis' hair was obscuring some of his vision but he saw the three faces of his best friends.

"Ignis, get over here. Prompto, bring his plate out, now! What the fuck is this?" Gladio turned to Ignis, his voice hard and urgent.

Oh? Does Gladio not know? Noctis wondered vaguely, trying to focus on his breathing. Huh.

Ignis slid by Prompto, who hurried back into the diner. He knelt down by Noctis, pulling off a glove and touching his cheek, then went down to his pulse point, -trying not to think about when he'd been blind and had found Noct on the throne so still- and listened carefully for a few seconds.

"Noctis, can you hear me?" Ignis asked carefully, over the wheezing. Noct nodded, trying to focus on his strained breathing which had stopped worsening. Ignis took his free hand and grabbed Noct's. "Good, if you can't breathe, squeeze my hand. For now, let's just focus on slow breaths. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three…" Ignis turned to Gladiolus. "It appears his throat closed up and he's having a moderate allergic reaction."

"Here's his plate!" Prompto announced, popping into view and shoving the half-eaten food into view. The server had also poked his head out, curious about all the fuss. Ignis scanned over this for a second and located the offending food, grabbing a purple strip of vegetable and popping it into his mouth.

"Careful, Ignis! It could be poisoned!" Prompto yelped, grabbing his arm to try to stop his friend. "They could have known about Noct and tried to—" He shivered, barely able to think about the prospect of an…assassination attempt.

Ignis's expression changed from controlled desperation to anger and defeat. "Carrots."

"Why's he eating carrots? He's allergic!" Prompto shot back, looking at the softly gasping Noctis, head slumped in exhaustion as Gladio rubbed circles into his back.

"You, server, what, exactly is this?" Ignis stood to full height, presenting the vegetable to the server.

"Um, that's a carrot, they're magically modified to be purple."

"And why wasn't it listed in the ingredients?"

"It's seasonal, we can't change the menu every time we switch ingredients!" the server said, quickly becoming on edge.

Gladio grabbed Prompto's sleeve and pulled him toward Noct. "Keep him taking deep breaths, talk to him." Then he approached the server with all the fury of a bodyguard that felt as if he'd failed.

"What kind of restaurant doesn't list the ingredients to avoid this exact situation from happening?" Gladio snarled.

The server, a lanky guy with scruffy brown hair didn't seem that troubled. "I don't know, a twenty-four hour diner?"

Gladio's face went blank for a moment before furrowing up in rage. He grabbed a handful of his shirt and hauled him up close enough that their noses were almost touching. "I swear, if anything-"

"Gladio, understand how you're feeling right now, but you must let him go. This was just a very unfortunate, completely preventable, misunderstanding." Ignis said from Noctis' side, before adressing the server. "You can let your boss know, I will be lodging a formal complaint to the Eos Food Registry as soon as possible," he said, helping Gladio heft a now-less pale Noctis up.

Three hours later, after Noctis had taken a nap and a shower, Noctis and Gladio were reclining at the table outside of their rented RV. Ignis, after he had finished fretting over Noctis, had gotten into a mood. He seemed to be blaming himself, though Noctis had insisted there was no way anyone could have known except for himself, who hadn't had carrots in so long, he'd forgotten what they tasted like. Ignis had thanked him for the sentiment but continued to brood. Prompto, exhausted, had headed off to bed early.

The night was dark and moths flew above their heads, attracted to the light above them. Noctis played on his phone while Gladio sipped a beer. Noct knew Gladio had moved on from any feeling of guilt he'd had in the moment, so he felt at peace not mentioning it. For a long time, since he'd found out that he'd lied to him and the king about how Iris left the castle, there had been a kind of unspoken connection between the two, forged within long hours training, traveling, laughing, bleeding for their cause. Even with what happened earlier that day, Noctis wasn't sure he needed a bodyguard anymore. He wasn't a prince traveling for marriage anymore, he was a honed fighter. They could defeat the zuu on the mountain if they tried, maybe someday the adamantoise. He could summon gods. They hadn't won like they had hoped, the end; but they'd still defeated Arydn.

Shit, Noctis thought as he lost his duel against some punk with the username trueprince420. How tacky is that? Properly done with the app for the night, he tucked his phone away and looked at his companion.

"You ever think we're not doing the right thing by staying here instead of going to Altissa?" Noctis asked out of the blue. He thinks about all the things that they would have to deal with again, Iggy going blind, Luna's death, Prompto's disappearance, ten years of darkness, culminating in his own sacrifice and that of his friends.

Gladio looked at him, suddenly serious. Then he smirked slightly and ran a hand through his hair. It was a self-conscious gesture that Noctis wasn't used to seeing on his guardian. "That depends."

Noct leaned forward a little. "Depends? Depends on what?"

"If you're still the same kid who had no other choice but to give up his life to save his kingdom," Gladio replied, now grave weight sparkling in his amber eyes, even in the fluorescent light.

Noct gave a frustrated sigh as he palmed away the beginning of a headache. "I don't know what you talking about. It was my destiny, Gladio. Even my father knew it was coming and had accepted it."
"So you will, too? Blindly?" Gladio pressed.

The king frowned. "You're trying to tell me that my father-and the prophecy-was wrong. Or-or at least not completely right. But if there was another way...well, I realized today that I'd have regrets if I left this world how it is now. Leaving things unfinished."

"Our 'fate' was the easiest course to take, but I won't accept that it's the only one. Your father moved forward, accepting the consequences and not looking back, but that doesn't have to be you."

The king smiled at the Amacita, one of his best friends, who had proven himself in every way imaginable. It felt strange, having this conversation, about the fate of his kingdom, and deciding whether or not to go into battle, again, outside a rusty RV under one, flickering yellow bulb as moths flew around them. But, he supposed, in their adventures, the quietest moments had most often been the most important. Gladio was pushing him to learn and grow now, just as he had for years before this journey had even started. Finally, the king's resolve steeled. The zuu and the adamantoise could wait. "Things are going to be different this time," he said.

...

And everything changes. Noctis accepts the stone after Altissa, in order to heal Ignis' eyes, his friends continue on, waiting loyally again until he meets them at Hammerhead. They walk tall together, with Ravus. And Ignis, Prompto, and Gladio bow to him on his coronation day. In the darkness of the corner of the room, Umbra appears. As the True King sits in his Throne, wearing his royal armaments, Umbra smiles. It's not what you hoped for, Luna. But it's what the world needed.

A new dawn in Insomnia blooms like a Sylflower, and under Noctis Lucis Caelum XIV, they are stronger than ever.

Wow. Thank you all so much for reading. Seriously. This ended up going a different direction than I originally planned, but I realized that it would be doing Noct's arc of accepting responsibility a disservice to have him avoid the issue of the kingdom, so their stay in this strange, paused world was more of a temptation before they proved themselves once again. And the alternate ending offered a perfect canon-ish way of ending things. Also, let's talk about how the other two's chapters, Noctis kind of helped his friends off with their burdens and troubles, and when it came to Gladio, he still pushed and helped Noct find his path, like a true Amicitia. Thanks again!