Welcome to the last prompt fill of this year's Whumptober! I am never doing this shit again!
I'm only... half serious. It's been lovely getting such great reception, and I am SUPER proud of myself - remember at the start when I was like "yeah we'll see how far I'll get", and man I did not expect to actually come out of this with 31 fics (not to mention the word count, did you see the damn word count of this fic?). But it's also been very exhausting and I definitely underestimated it, so I would be lying if I said I'm not glad the month is over, lmao.
I'll have more to say at the end, but for now, have Noct as my last victim.
Prompts:
No. 31: "I thought that I was getting better."
Emptiness | Setbacks | "Take it easy."
Warnings: Mental health issues, specifically discussion of depression and mention of anxiety as well as some internalised ableism
Noct isn't quite sure how they ended up like this. Prompto's his best friend and arguably the person he feels most comfortable discussing stuff with, but Noct's famously terrible at talking about his feelings in any way, even to Prompto.
But it's nearly two in the morning, they're both tired but unwilling to go to sleep, and their game has been paused for so long that the TV has already turned itself off, but neither of them makes a move to turn it back on and resume the game. At some point, they'd started talking, really talking in a way they don't usually do, and it's stripping away all of Noct's emotional barriers.
It's the sleepover vibes, Prompto explained it a little earlier in his infinite wisdom, and at the time Noct rolled his eyes at him, but now he is starting to think there might be some truth to that.
"It's just hard, y'know," he finds himself admitting. "I'm tired all the time even though I sleep so much, and everything is hard, even things that aren't hard for other people. I mean, who has trouble having a shower or making some cup noodles for lunch?"
"Your magic takes a lot of energy though, doesn't it?" Prompto points out. He's curled into the corner of the couch with Noct's legs across his lap, idly playing with the stretchy part of Noct's socks as they're talking. "Other people don't have to deal with that."
Prompto has a point, but also not. His dad has never had any problems with any of those things, and he's keeping up an entire magic wall above the city, and he's running a country on top of it. Noct has to do none of those things, and he still can't even manage the bare minimum.
He tells Prompto as much and then adds, "Besides, it's not even just, homework and cleaning and stuff. Sometimes I can't even watch a movie or play a game or anything. It's like I feel completely empty and everything's a chore, even things I like doing. It's just all so much effort."
Noct feels himself getting worked up now, and he makes himself breathe deeply a few times. It's a very sore subject, one that has been the cause of many arguments between him and the people he loves - Ignis, Gladio, even Dad - and he's never been able to spell it out quite like this before. He's never bothered trying to explain before - because it's embarrassing and stupid, how can he even begin to explain how the mere thought of picking up the trash in his living room makes him want to curl up and die? But the sleepover vibes are doing something to him, something that makes him want to expose the raw, vulnerable parts of himself in the hopes that someone will soothe them.
Prompto leans his head back against the couch, staring at the ceiling in thought. He's quiet for so long that Noct starts to regret ever saying anything in the first place - Prompto's probably just trying to figure out the nicest way to tell him to stop being a lazy, whiny brat. Except not in those exact words, because he's Prompto and Prompto's not capable of being mean to anyone, not even to his spoiled best friend.
He's just about to pull his legs off Prompto's lap and tell him to forget about it, they can just keep playing their game or go to bed, he's sorry for making it weird, but then Prompto wraps his hand around his ankle, looks at him, and says, "Buddy, no offense but I think you're depressed."
…which is about the last thing Noct expected to come out of his mouth.
"Huh?" he says with all the eloquence he can muster.
Prompto shrugs. "It's possible, isn't it?"
"But I'm not-" Noct starts, cuts himself off, gestures aimlessly, tries again. "I'm not sad. I don't even remember the last time I cried!"
It's not a lie, if he were sad then that'd be easier to understand than the perpetual exhaustion and emptiness inside him. More than once, he's even caught himself wishing he could cry. It might bring him some relief, he thinks, but no matter how awful he feels, no tears will come.
"No, dude, not sad. Depressed. As in the mental health condition," Prompto argues.
Noct stares at him blankly, and Prompto gestures with the hand that isn't on Noct's ankle. "Crying's no requirement. I'm no expert, but your thing sounds a lot like depression to me."
That's not… possible, is it? What does Noct even have to be depressed about? He's a prince, it doesn't get much better than that, does it? Sure, it sucks a lot of the time and he wishes he weren't a prince more often than not, but objectively speaking, there's no one who has less of a right to be depressed than him.
"I don't think…" he says, then trails off. He's not quite sure what to say, he wants to deny it, feels like he should deny it, but something makes his voice catch when he tries to, so he asks instead, "Why do you think that?"
Prompto stares at Noct's leg thoughtfully. "The emptiness thing, mainly? I mean, I'm really no expert, it's all just stuff I heard somewhere at some point, but I think that's one that comes up a lot. That, and fun things suddenly no longer being fun."
That just raises more questions than it answers. For starters, why does Prompto even know so much about that kind of stuff?
When asked, Prompto laughs, a little too high, a little too hysterically before he catches himself. "I'm not depressed if that's what you're wondering. I'm just… a little messed up in the head in other places. Anxiety, mostly, but if you research one thing, you just stumble across others sometimes."
The confession leaves Noct speechless. Guilt coils in his stomach, and something else, something uglier - betrayal? No, he has no right to feel betrayed, Prompto isn't obligated to disclose anything to him and now he's told him about it, so there's really no reason for him to get upset over it.
He shoves the feeling down and locks it up in a little box then throws the key into a metaphorical lake. Prompto doesn't deserve to be on the wrong end of a hissy fit right now, not when he's listening to Noct more than anyone's ever listened to him before. "I'm sorry. I never knew."
"I never told you," Prompto shrugs. "It's not really a secret, but there's never been any reason to talk about it. I've got it handled, mostly. I have meds and ways to cope and it doesn't bother me much anymore."
That… makes sense, and Noct is glad for it, both because it means that Prompto didn't think he couldn't trust him with it and because he wants Prompto to be okay and the thought of him suffering makes his insides twist with sorrow.
"I'm glad you're okay," he says honestly, and then because Prompto has offered him an explanation for why he's feeling so awful all the time and he can't just let it go, "You really think I'm… depressed?"
"I can't diagnose you or anything, I'm just some guy who spent a little too much time online," Prompto hurries to say. "But… I think it might be a good idea to talk to someone about it? A professional, I mean. Who knows, maybe something will come of it."
Noct rolls the idea around in his head, ponders it for a while, and finds he can't easily dismiss it. He's been sent to a therapist as a kid, after his accident, but he's never been particularly cooperative in those sessions and eventually, when he no longer woke up screaming at night, they deemed his recovery as complete as it would get without him actively working towards getting better.
"Okay," he finally says. "Okay, I… I might. I'll consider it."
The idea is both daunting and tempting. He feels stupid walking into a psychiatrist's office and declaring himself depressed, please fix it, and he's worried they'd just tell him nothing's wrong with him, he just sucks at life. It's messed up, to hope that he's actually clinically depressed, but there mere idea of being told that nothing is wrong with him after all makes him want to cry now that Prompto's planted the idea in his head. But on the off chance that this could actually be a solution, a way to make everything less hard, to fill him back up with emotions good and bad… he wants that, and he wants it badly enough that he thinks he might be maybe willing to take the risk.
Prompto squeezes his ankle and grins at him. His eyes are drooping and his smile is slightly lopsided - they're both overdue for some sleep, probably - but his expression is open and sincere as he pats Noct's leg and says, "Considering it is a good place to start."
It's a little strange, hearing so much wisdom from Prompto in one night, but his words have opened something in Noct, something tentative and hopeful, and he doesn't have the heart to try and lighten the mood with a jab at Prompto for it.
"Think we should sleep," he says instead. It's a bit of an abrupt end to their conversation, but Noct doesn't think he has the emotional capacity to say anything more to Prompto's face about his maybe-depression right now. He feels raw and exposed and suddenly, he just wants to sleep.
They head to bed, conveniently ignoring their toothbrushes in the bathroom, and then they curl up in Noct's bed for some much-needed sleep.
Sleep doesn't come for Noct just yet, though, and after a while, when Prompto's breathing has evened out in something that Noct knows to be his almost-asleep state, he whispers into the dark, "Hey Prompto?"
"Mmmm?" Prompto responds sleepily, and he sounds dazed enough that Noct feels safe to continue.
"Thanks," he says quietly. "For… the advice. And for trusting me with your thing."
He's not sure how much of it actually reaches Prompto's brain - he doesn't get much more of a response than the first time - but it soothes his own mind enough that he can fall asleep as well
Bit of a personal one this time. Forever grateful to FFXV for giving us a canonically depressed main character. (Not that they call it by what it is but especially in the Brotherhood anime it's rather obvious, isn't it?). Anyway, I hope you enjoyed!
And there you have it! 31 Whumptober fics, completed! It has been a ride y'all, and I'm super, super grateful to you who have embarked with me! OldschoolSfuff and Lucency, you two are the real ones and your continued support really means more to me than I can say! I don't know if you're aware, but the stats feature on this website have been broken for a while now, so any fic will show zero views and zero visitors, which means I have no way of knowing how many people actually followed along. So I've been even more grateful for your kind words that showed me that I wasn't doing a terrible job and that there are people out there who like it. Thank you so much for that!
If you liked the Vibes™ of this series, then you might be interested in my main project, 100 Ways to Say I Love You (the fic is called if something comes one the way (we face it as one) and I unfortunately can't link to it, but it can be found on my profile) with the Chocobros (all platonic, no shippy). It's like this series but with less whump (still some, because I love whump, but it's also got a lot of other stuff. Though I imagine most people who read this one came from there in the first place, but if you haven't I'd be thrilled if you gave it a shot!
Also lastly, I've made up my mind regarding that day 22 fic (Vehicular Accident), I definitely want to add another chapter to that one (I'll probably add it as a bonus chapter here, so I'm not setting the fic to complete yet), though I can't make any promises on when that'll be - right now, I need to stuff my brain with video games because I've not been able to play much this month due to writing, lol. But yeah, just so you know not to unsubscribe just yet.
Take care, and I hope to see you around! :3