Been a while since we had a good sickfic or whump chapter, huh?
Enjoy Prompto battling the flu :)
Prompto woke up with a throat so sore he could barely swallow, a body that somehow felt too hot and too cold simultaneously, and the single worst headache he'd ever experienced in his life.
It shouldn't have come as a surprise - half his classmates were sick in bed, and Prompto had always managed to catch a seasonal cold at least once a year, but this was worse than any other cold he'd experienced before.
Moving his arm to grab his phone took all his willpower. He didn't even try to stop the pitiful groan that escaped him when his shaking hand brought the phone to his face and the bright light all but stabbed into his brain.
His alarm hadn't gone off yet, but a squinty-eyed look at the time told him it would soon. Not that it mattered, though. There was no way he was going to school like this, not when he was almost doubting his ability to drag himself to the bathroom.
Instead, he typed out a hopefully somewhat coherent message to his teachers, then a short, way less coherent text to Noct, and then he shoved his phone under his pillow and almost immediately fell back asleep.
When Prompto woke again, he felt no better, but thankfully he didn't feel worse, so he counted that as a win.
It was now light out, but Prompto didn't have it in him to let the bright phone screen assault his poor head again to check the time. Instead, he rolled out of bed and heaved himself to his feet, closing his eyes as a wave of vertigo hit him with no warning.
Thankfully, the white-out was short-lived, and though his head still pounded like crazy, he felt at least stable enough to make his way to the bathroom.
The bathroom, where the medicine cabinet with those blessed painkillers and cold medications were located.
Prompto ripped the cabinet door open and blindly gathered whatever pills he got his hands on. He was starting to feel less stable standing by the second, so the plan was to bring the contents of the medicine cabinet to his bed and then figure out what to take and how much of it once he was horizontal and at less risk of passing out.
Luckily, his brain was functioning enough that he remembered to shuffle by the kitchen to grab himself a bottle of water before he went and crawled back into bed and tried to figure out which pills would make him feel less shitty.
Distantly, as he lay back and hid under his blanket - now, he was just cold - he thought that he should've made himself some tea. Tea would've been nice right now - with honey and lemon to help battle the virus and soothe his throat - but before he could figure out what to do about that, sleep claimed him once more.
Prompto's next transition into the world of the living was perhaps the most brutal yet, not because of his throbbing head or the fact that he couldn't even swallow without wanting to cry, but because the ringing doorbell zapped lightning straight through his brain and made him jerk upright so suddenly he almost tipped sideways and right out of bed.
Before his poor, overcooked brain even processed what was happening, the doorbell rang again, as if that somehow made him more likely to go open it, yeah, no, not a chance.
And then, his phone rang from where he'd stuffed it beneath his pillow early this morning. Coincidence? Maybe, but there weren't a lot of people who usually called him, so he dug the phone out from beneath his head and read-
"Noct?" Prompto winced, both at the way his throat felt as he spoke and at the way his voice absolutely sounded the way it felt. Ugh.
"Hey, I'm outside your door. Can you let me in?" Noct's voice sounded through the speaker. He sounded… something, Weird. Different than usual, but Prompto didn't really feel like figuring out just what Noct sounded like. Better to just let him in, maybe then he'd let him go back to sleep.
"There's, uh. There's a spare key," Prompto managed. "Under the doormat."
A pause, rustling of fabric, and then, "Found it."
Prompto blinked, and suddenly Noct was standing next to his bed, brow furrowed as he stared down at him.
"You didn't reply to any of my texts," Noct explained. I was worried, he didn't say, but it was obvious even to Prompto's fever-fried mind.
Aww.
Still-
"You shouldn't be here," Prompto half-said half-coughed. "You'll catch whatever I have."
Was infecting the Crown Prince of your country with some icky disease a punishable offense? Assassination attempt, perhaps? Prompto certainly felt like he was about to die.
"The flu, probably," Noct said. "Iggy says it's flu season."
"Cool," Prompto said, and then, "You shouldn't be here. You'll catch the flu."
Irritatingly, Noct all but ignored him and instead chose to sit down right on the bed and stick his hand on Prompto's forehead.
His nice, cool hand, on Prompto's too-warm, gross, sweat-sticky forehead… it felt nice. Before he realised what he was doing, Prompto leaned into the touch and found it strangely hard to collect his thoughts.
"Hey," Noct said, and Prompto opened his eyes again - when had he closed them? And when had Noct removed his hand?
Noct stood. "I'll make you some tea. Uh. You got any tea in the house?"
Prompto nodded. "Kitchen cabinet, far left. Herbal," he croaked with some effort.
"Okay. Be right back."
"Put some lemon and honey in it," Prompto tried to call after him, but instead, only a breathy little noise came out. Well. Tea without lemon and honey it was.
True to his word - or maybe untrue, Prompto didn't actually know how long Noct was gone, given that he had fallen asleep again - Noct reappeared by his bedside with a steaming cup of tea.
"Careful, it's hot," Noct warned, setting the tea on the nightstand in order to help Prompto into a more upright position.
And hot it was, but the heat soothed Prompto's raw throat even though it burnt his tongue, and gods, there was honey and lemon in it, Prompto wanted to cry.
Instead, he sipped the tea slowly and tried to focus on Noct, who was telling him what he'd missed in class.
By the time the tea was gone, so was Prompto's energy, and he found himself already nodding off again.
Plucking the cup out of Prompto's hands, Noct stood, hovering awkwardly for a moment.
"You don't have to stick around, you know," Prompto said. He'd be fine with a few days of rest, he had his medicine, he'd had something to drink, and once he felt a little better, he could make some broth or something so that he wouldn't starve.
"No, it's fine. I'll wait," Noct said, determined.
"Wait? For what?"
"'Til your parents come home. You shouldn't be alone, so I'll stay."
"My… parents?" All Prompto could do was blink at Noct as he processed the words. "Gonna be a long wait."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"They're not coming home tonight, or anytime this week. They're on a work trip," Prompto said, wishing Noct stopped saying stuff he had to verbally reply to. Yes-or-no questions only, please. Gods, his throat hurt so bad.
Several emotions flashed across Noct's face in rapid succession, but the only one Prompto really managed to pinpoint was anger.
"Okay. Okay. I can't just stay here for the night, it's, uh, it's a safety thing, against protocol, whatever. So you'll come with me. I'll call Ignis, we'll go to my place, you stay with me 'til you're better."
Before Prompto had a chance to argue, Noct was already calling Ignis, who, as always, picked up almost immediately.
Prompto zoned out for a bit, not quite by choice, and only zoned back in when Noct's hand landed yet again on his forehead.
"Specs is picking us up, alright? You should sleep until he gets here. I'll wake you."
"Didn't have to…" Prompto muttered, eyelids heavy as lead, but he drifted off before he could hear Noct's answer.
The trip to Noct's apartment was a blur. Prompto vaguely remembered Noct helping him down to the waiting car - in his pyjamas, Six, hopefully, no neighbours had seen that -, and the next thing he knew, he woke in a bed that was not his own.
From his left, also on the bed, soft music was playing. A bit belatedly, Prompto recognized it as the King's Knight battle theme.
The noise's source soon noticed he was awake, uncurled himself, and paused the game in favour of feeling Prompto's forehead yet again.
Really, Prompto thought, that couldn't be a reliable way to get someone's temperature.
"Should probably use a thermometer for that," he croaked.
Noct frowned. "How're you feeling? You look…" he trailed off.
"Less foggy," Prompto told him truthfully. He still felt like absolute shit, but at least he was more or less lucid and didn't feel like he was going to immediately fall back asleep.
"You think you can eat? Specs made you some soup. I can get you a bowl."
Prompto considered the offer and decided that yes, actually, soup sounded pretty good right now. Especially Iggy's soup.
He told Noct as much, and soon, he held in his hands a bowl full of the most delicious broth he had ever tasted. Figures. Only Ignis could make something as simple as chickatrice soup taste like a gourmet meal.
When the bowl was empty, Prompto had enough energy left for exactly two rounds of King's Knight, after which his character died tragically as his eyelids began to close on their own once again.
Noct plucked his phone from his hands and set it on the nightstand for him.
"You should sleep."
"Hmm…" Prompto agreed.
Distantly, he registered Noct turning off the bedside lamp and closing the door behind him.
If Prompto had had enough time to worry about forcing the Crown Prince of the kingdom to go sleep on the couch in favour of leaving the bed to his peasant friend, he would have protested. As it was, he only burrowed deeper into the blessedly soft pillows before his eyes shut and he fell into a more peaceful sleep than he'd had all day.
Me myself: How many times do you want to end a scene by making Prompto fall asleep?
Myself: Yes
So idk what happened but in the past two months I've written more than in the entire last year. I'm sure not complaining, but the boys are back to living rent-free in my brain. Not that they'd moved out before, but they were nice and quiet, truly agreeable young boys, but lately they've started vacuuming and banging pots together at 2am again. So, yknow, not to jinx myself but I've got the next chapter written (just needs editing), as well as a couple future chapters whose turn it isn't quite yet, so I'll be sitting on those for a while still.
But yeah, I'm really happy the words are flowing again, so I hope you enjoyed, and as always, thank you so much for sticking with me and this project, that really means a whole lot to me 3
Take care!
