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Just entering the Citadel had felt insurmountable—starting, of course, with the ridiculous number of stairs he had to climb, followed immediately by a security checkpoint that made him break out into a cold sweat—but everything had gone shockingly smoothly.
The Crownsguard at the door recognized him, though he was of course required to produce his ID regardless. She didn’t scoff at the sight of him or demand to know what a pleb thought he was doing there; only gave him a furtive smile and a shiny gold pin embossed with his full name (yeesh, paper name tags weren’t good enough for nobles, apparently) before waving him forward into the ballroom.
Inside, the massive expanse of the venue was filled with statue-still guards in full ceremonial gear, round tables draped with ornate lace tablecloths, and old people milling about with fancy drinks in their hands and clothes stitched with gold on their backs. Just the sight of them made Prompto freeze in the doorway, hand flying uncertainly to the polyester sleeve of his rented tux.
But—it was fine. He was fine. He’d sent, like, seventeen pics to Ignis last night, double-checking that every individual part of his outfit was acceptable for this event, and Ignis had patiently reassured him every time. There was no one on the staff checking each guest’s outfit to make sure they’d spent enough money on it. White shirt, black suit, blue tie; he was good.
Not like he was actually doing anything which would require him to look the part. Noct and Ignis were supposed to spend most of the night schmoozing and socializing, trying to get all this old money in the mood to donate. They were drumming up relief funds, Prompto thought, although he didn’t really know enough about outer Lucis to know which war-torn city these particular funds would be relieving.
Either way, Noct was gonna have a long night—and Prompto couldn’t help with the work, but he could at least be here for moral support.
Even if that meant renting the world’s least comfortable clothes and nervously sidling into the gala while trying to convince himself that no one was going to storm over here and drag him out again.
If anyone did have that intention, they wouldn’t get a chance, anyway. He’d scarcely shuffled a few hesitant steps in before his eyes landed on Noct in the crowd—and, as if yanked by a magnet, Noct’s eyes snapped over to him.
Maybe it was just Prompto’s wishful thinking, but he felt like Noct perked up at the sight of him. He certainly felt some of his own tension melt away. Still his little wave was stiff, and his smile was stretching his face all wrong.
After a moment of hesitation, and a brief sweep of his eyes across the ballroom, Noct excused himself from his current conversation with a gaggle of graying socialites and made a beeline for Prompto, who lingered at the outskirts of the room.
“Hey,” he said as he approached, matching Prompto’s wooden smile with one of his own. “You, uh, you made it.”
“‘Course I did!” Prompto said, maybe a little squeakily.
Noct shifted his weight awkwardly from foot to foot, though his suit was so expensive and well-fitted that it almost made the motion look classy anyway. “You wanna… chat for a minute?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Prompto feigned hesitation, leaning dramatically back with a hand over his mouth. “I’m sure so many of these lovely people have something to say to the Crown Prince. I’d hate to monopolize His Highness’s time.”
Noct groaned. “Don’t even start, dude.”
Just like that, the moment of awkwardness popped like a soap bubble, and Prompto’s smile melted into something more natural as he bumped their shoulders together like it was any other day. That got Noct smiling, too—not that broad, fake thing from a second ago, but a tiny, real one.
“Didn’t have any trouble getting here?” Noct checked as they drifted away from the door and towards somewhere a little more private.
With a little laugh, Prompto darted a look around the room. “Only thing that gave me trouble was my own brain, dude.”
Noct hummed sympathetically. “Nervous?”
“A little.” Prompto glanced at him. “I guess that seems pretty silly to you, huh?”
“Nah, it makes sense. It’s normal for me, but new to you.” A beat after this moment of uncharacteristic profundity, Noct expounded: “S’how I felt about taking the bus the first time.”
He couldn’t help it—Prompto barked a laugh. “What a pair we make, huh, buddy?”
Noct’s little smile grew. “You said it.”
Just like that, they fell right back into their usual chatter. What did you have for breakfast this morning; did you pull the new character in King’s Knight yet; have you even touched the chemistry homework yet; haha, me neither—on and on it went. Prompto could practically feel the stress sloughing off his own shoulders with every passing minute, and he liked to think Noct was standing a little taller now, too. That was his whole purpose for being here, after all; no good if the emotional support peasant was the only one getting any emotional support.
Mid-conversation, from the corner of his eye, Prompto caught sight of a dark figure approaching them at a clip. Instantly, he felt himself break out in a cold sweat. He could already imagine the impossibly important foreign dignitary who was about to step in, and the impossibly snide look on their face as they demanded to know why their Prince was wasting his time yapping with some random pleb.
But, when he stopped catastrophizing and actually used his eyes, the figure resolved into not a noble, but a uniformed guard. Which would usually be just as nerve-wracking, but, given the circumstances, it was instead a welcome surprise.
Tapping Noct’s shoulder politely, the guard held out one of the two glasses in his hands—an elegant crystal champagne flute which probably cost more than Prompto’s parents’ house, filled with a tastefully tiny swallow of orange juice. “Complements of Minister Dirunitus,” he recited dutifully, “who hopes His Highness is having a pleasant evening.”
“‘Complements of'? They're being handed out for free,” Noct grumbled as he plucked the flute from the guard’s hand. Scandalized, Prompto kicked his ankle sharply, only to then remember where they were and why he couldn’t do that right now. Luckily, the guard present didn’t draw his weapon and kill Prompto dead for attacking royalty; he only stifled a smile.
Rolling his eyes at both of them, Noct twisted around, scanned the room until he made eye contact with someone in the distance, and lifted the flute in silent thanks with an Ignis-approved (if stilted) diplomatic smile. Even as he pantomimed politeness, though, he muttered under his breath, “Thanks for sending somebody else to bring me a drink that was already free, Minister.”
“And thank you for bringing it,” Prompto said to the guard, shooting Noct a pointed glance which went ignored.
Much to his surprise, the guard responded by pressing a second, equally fancy flute of orange juice into his hand. “Didn’t want you to feel left out,” he explained, his stony facade breaking to shoot Prompto a genial smile. “Don’t worry—it’s virgin.”
With that, he retreated to his post, leaving Prompto frozen, woodenly holding a very fragile piece of glassware which might actually condemn him to a life of indentured servitude if he were to drop it. All he could think to say, after a few moments of silence and utter terror, was, “Do I seriously seem that clueless? Do people look at me and think, ‘That guy probably thinks orange juice is alcoholic’?”
“No, dumbass, he was telling you that it’s just orange juice, not champagne,” Noct replied. From the look on his face, he was well aware of how little Prompto wanted to be holding this glass, and it was amusing him way too much. He tipped his own flute carelessly just to show off. “Us adults are having mimosas.”
“Oh, yeah, real adult there, Mr. ‘My dad’s friend bought me this drink’.”
Noctis sniffed indignantly. “I’ll have you know that my dad actually bought all these drinks, and his coworker just decided to pick one out for me.”
“Wow, and he thought you could only handle some weird orange juice drink? Telling.”
Noct elbowed Prompto in the side, which wouldn’t have bothered him in any other scenario, but Prompto nearly had a heart attack when his flinch sent the liquid in his fancy flute splashing around. “Mimosas are a perfectly respectable drink,” Noct said firmly as Prompto steadied the glass with his other hand, then gripped it tightly in both. “Just because they don’t taste like lighter fluid doesn’t mean they’re not adult.”
“Uh,” Prompto said, both his eyes glued to the crystal flute now. “I’ll take your word for it, man.”
“What, no opinion? Or, wait—I guess you wouldn’t have had a mimosa before, would you?”
“I mean, obviously. Do you think my parents just leave fancy champagne sitting around at home?”
In response, Noct slanted Prompto a smirk, then surreptitiously offered him the flute in his own hand. “Wanna switch?”
Though he still couldn’t quite bring himself to move the rest of his body while still cradling the crystal flute, Prompto did twist his head to shoot Noct an incredulous look. “Dude. I’m not drinking underage at a public event. In a room full of Crownsguard.”
“We’re at a charity gala. It’s allowed here.”
“That is not a real rule.”
Still, Noct persisted, pressing the flute forward until it nudged Prompto’s knuckles, laughing when Prompto scooted away. “Plenty of people are just drinking orange juice. Who can say whether this specific glass has alcohol in it or not?”
“Uh, the guy who just handed it to you? Who is also a Crownsguard?”
“I keep telling you, man, the Crownsguard and the Kingsglaive are two separate things.” Finally taking pity on him, Noct gently pried the fancy-as-sin glass of orange juice from his hand, and Prompto let his tense fingers go slack with an exaggerated sigh of relief. “And Nyx is cool. He won’t snitch on you for having, what, an ounce of champagne? Relax.”
“See, you can say that so confidently because you're his prince,” Prompto said. “No one in this room would care if you started drinking, like, whiskey or something.”
“Are you kidding, man? Ignis.”
“Oh, true.”
Speaking of Ignis, he would probably be able to convince Noct not to peer pressure his best friend into public alcoholism, right? Prompto twisted to gaze past Noct into the crowds, searching for a familiar pair of glasses. Ignis wasn’t hard to spot; he was right in the midst of the throng, surrounded by the wealthy. Taking all the heat, it seemed, in Noct’s absence.
Inevitably, Prompto felt the first twinges of guilt.
“Look, I can’t just hold onto these all night.” Noct gestured impatiently with his double-fisted orange flutes, as if anyone had forced him to take Prompto’s in the first place. “If you’re so worried about dropping the glass, chug it quick and go give it to a waiter.”
Well—okay, yeah, that was a pretty good idea. The less time it spent in his hands, the less the chance of it falling from them, right? And Noct really couldn’t just hold onto them all night—making the Prince act like a waiter was probably, like, a misdemeanor or something. Not to mention, it’d force Ignis to brave the crowds alone for even longer.
With a determined nod, Prompto snatched the orange juice from Noct’s grasp and threw back its paltry contents in one quick gulp.
HOLY CRAP.
Sputtering despite his valiant efforts not to, Prompto choked down his mouthful and then yanked the flute away from his mouth to cough. “Your guard lied to me,” he accused in a rasp. “That was not virgin.” And it wasn’t just an ounce of champagne, either—that had to have, like, whiskey or vodka or some equally intimidating liquor in it. Orange juice and fizzy wine couldn’t possibly combine into something that bitter.
“I think you grabbed the wrong glass, man,” Noct snickered, ignoring the baleful look Prompto shot him. “Geez, what are you making that face for? It’s just a mimosa.”
“It’s freaking gross, is what it is!” The thick, vile taste pervading every single one of his taste buds was too overpowering for Prompto to even care about the embarrassing whine in his voice. He shuddered theatrically, playing it up to try to mask how genuinely nauseated he felt. “Do you seriously drink that stuff willingly?”
The insufferable smirk already spreading across Noct’s face betrayed his next words before he could even speak them. “You’ll understand when you’re older, kid.”
“Dude, we’re two months apart!”
“Yeah, you’re basically an infant.”
“Says the guy who still won’t eat chicken fried rice because there’s ‘too much carrot’ in it,” Prompto volleyed, and he was rewarded with a scowl. “I dunno why you’re bragging about being able to handle an orange drink when an orange vegetable sends you running every time.”
Noct pushed his shoulder. “Says the guy who can’t even—”
Someone screamed.
After all that fanfare, Prompto almost dropped the newly-emptied glass out of sheer shock. Whirling around, he cast about for the source of the scream, but all he could see was the same crowd of people as before, most of them also looking around in alarm.
Beside him, Noct had gone very tense. “What was—?”
“Noct!”
Gladio’s voice echoed through the ballroom like a gunshot.
As if that had broken everyone out of some spell, a wave of finely-clothed party-goers poured towards the doors. They didn’t make it far; within instants, the guards posted at every exit had leaped into the doors to prevent anyone from leaving. This, predictably, only caused the crowd’s murmurs to escalate into panicked shouts.
Prompto could relate. He felt like there was a fist-sized stone lodged in his throat as Ignis and Gladio shouldered their way through the throng of people and thundered towards Noct.
Something was wrong. And, whatever it was, it would probably put Noct in the most danger.
While he stood frozen, Noct turned sharply and made a beeline for his retainers. Brain still lagging, but unwilling to be left behind, Prompto hastily blinked away the panic and stumbled after Noct, unsure what else to do. He probably didn’t have the security clearance for whatever conversation was about to take place, but—he had to hear. Had to know Noct was going to be okay.
By the time Noct, Ignis, and Gladio met in the middle, the Crownsguard had mobilized enough to begin ushering all the gala guests into the far corner, leaving their half of the ballroom suddenly very empty. Ignis practically slid into Noct, seizing him by both shoulders as if he might fall out of reach.
“Thank the Six,” he breathed, barely audible from where Prompto had stumbled to a halt several paces away, unwilling to intrude. “You haven’t touched it.”
“Touched what?” Noct demanded, but Gladio was already throwing an arm around him, ushering him firmly towards the exit, and Ignis extracted the flute of orange juice from his hand as gingerly as a loaded gun. “Specs, what’s going—?”
“We gotta move,” Gladio cut in, dragging Noct a little further away.
“Minister Dirunitus has collapsed,” Ignis explained, almost in unison, and Prompto’s heart plummeted into his stomach. “It looks to be poison.”
Noct reeled, too. “What? But I just saw—”
“It’s unclear whether he was the target,” Ignis continued, taking up position on Noct’s other side as he and Gladio frog-marched him towards the innermost door. More and more towering figures in black uniforms broke off from the crowd and jogged up beside them, forming a massive protective cloud around Noctis. “I know he sent you this drink, so we’re operating under the assumption that—”
Neither Ignis nor Gladio was expecting Noct to suddenly plant his feet and go utterly rigid, gluing himself in place like a statue. They couldn’t drag him another inch. “Noct,” Gladio said sharply, trying to tug harder on Noct’s arm, but he was unmoved.
“No,” Noct said, his voice almost robotic. “This isn’t—a guard gave me this drink—we swapped; I gave the one from Dirunitus to—”
Cutting himself off, Noct jerked around so fast he must’ve gotten whiplash, suddenly looking just as freaked out as Prompto felt. It took Prompto a second to realize that Noct was staring at him—and it wasn’t just Noct. Ignis, Gladio, the guards (or were they glaives?); every spare eye seemed to have found its way to him.
Then his brain caught up with the rest of them, and, belatedly, his own eyes fell to the crystal flute in his hands.
The empty crystal flute in his hands.
“Uh-oh,” he said.
That was all he managed. Next thing he knew, as if a dam had burst, the crowd gathered around Noct suddenly flooded in towards Prompto. On instinct, he jerked aside to let them pass, but they very much did not pass; strong hands clutched his shoulders and pushed inexorably towards the ground and whoa okay I guess we’re going down—
His butt hit the tile, owch, and someone, he wasn’t sure who, wrenched the champagne flute from his slack fingers. Then a gloved hand gripped the nape of his neck and pushed, sending him lurching forward onto his hands and knees.
For a split second, he half-expected the hand on his neck to make way for a sword. Breaking news: Prince Noctis claims local Kingsglaive is “cool” and “won’t snitch”; dumbass who believed him beheaded for underaged day-drinking.
Then Ignis dropped hard to his knees at Prompto’s side, his face visible for only an instant before his hand found the back of Prompto’s head and forced it down. “Spit.”
His tone brooked no argument. Without consciously deciding to obey, Prompto spat a glob of orange-tinged saliva onto the ground between his hands. It left a frothy technicolor dot on the polished marble tile. Which made him feel no less like he was about to be executed for profaning this pristine place, but—that was Ignis' hand on his head, and Ignis wouldn't behead him.
Would he?
Before Prompto could muster an apology, the lip of a plastic water bottle jammed against his lip. “Rinse your mouth,” Ignis barked. Prompto just sputtered. The plastic rattled insistently against his front teeth. “Quickly!”
Prompto took the bottle in clumsy fingers, tipping it back if only to escape from Ignis’s sudden, inexplicable scolding, but Ignis didn’t let go. Probably for the best; he would’ve dropped it. Their combined might kept the bottle steady as Prompto awkwardly tossed back a mouthful, swished it around as if he was getting the toothpaste off his gums, and—much to his relief—spat it back out into a tiny trash can that someone thrust in front of him, rather than onto the floor.
“Don’t we have an antidote?” Noct demanded from somewhere nearby, his voice thick with fear in a way that made Prompto’s chest go tight.
“Medics are coming with it,” Gladio replied tersely. “Now come on, Noct, you know we have to—”
“Let go. I’m not leaving him!”
“Uh,” Prompto tried, his voice starting to shake a little from sheer adrenaline. “G-guys—”
“Get over yourself, Noct! You’ll only distract the medics!”
“Focusing on the person who’s hurt is their job!” Noct snapped.
Hurt? No one was hurt. Were they? Prompto wasn’t hurt, except for his butt, which felt kind of sore from how heavily he’d been shoved down onto it, and if Noct was hurt, surely no one would be sparing him a second glance, so—
“Ten minute ETA on the medics,” one of the Guards—no, he was pretty sure that was a Glaive—reported. Her hand was pressed to some sort of high-tech radio comm nestled in her ear, which would normally make Prompto feel like he was on the set of an action movie, but, right now, it kind of made him feel like there were even more people staring at him currently.
The combined scrutiny of Ignis and Gladio and Noct and a half-dozen strangers was more than enough to make his throat start to feel a little tight.
Even if Gladio and Noct were more absorbed in their own argument than in Prompto’s little sideshow down here. “We can’t just stick around at the site of an assassination attempt,” Gladio was snarling now, and Noct more or less growled in response.
“Or what? Someone might push past you and pour a mimosa down my throat?”
“You know damn well—!”
“He could die!”
Noct’s voice broke. A pained noise erupted from the back of Prompto’s throat at the sound of it.
“You’re hardly helping matters,” Ignis snapped, and Prompto flinched. He knew he wasn’t helping; it wasn’t like he was trying to make Noct upset, and he wished he could say as much—but then Ignis’s hand was pressing against his chest, and his voice came again, low and urgent: “Prompto, what are your symptoms?”
“I don't,” Prompto tried. “I—I don't? Have?”
“Disorientation,” said one of the people whose names he didn’t know. “Tell the medics.”
“I—no,” Prompto said, though it was no longer true; the cacophony of voices echoing down to him from every angle was very disorienting. “I—I’m just like this.”
The conversation above him continued, unhindered by his protests. He couldn’t even get a word in; every question asked was answered by someone else. How much had he taken? At least fifty milliliters, apparently. How much did he weigh? Sixty to seventy kilos, someone guessed after looking at Prompto hard enough to make his stomach roll. Did he have any allergies? No, he didn’t, but he didn’t even get a chance to say it before Ignis did. All he could do was open and close his mouth like a fish flopping around on the deck.
The unexpected press of Ignis’s fingers against his throat almost made him choke. Only when he felt his own heartbeat hammering against the pressure did he realize Ignis was checking his pulse, like in the movies.
“Tachycardia,” Ignis reported grimly, and the Glaive echoed that into her radio. Prompto, mortified, felt his heart rate spike even further. When he tried to calm it with a deep breath, it only succeeded in making Ignis then say, “Difficulty breathing.”
Prompto closed his eyes. Right. Okay. This was—this was all just some big misunderstanding. Whatever had been in that poor Minister’s drink, for safety reasons, they had to assume that it had been in Noct’s drink, too. He got it. If anything, it was—heartwarming, that they cared so much about his health.
But he was fine. The guy who actually had been poisoned had already collapsed, at least a couple minutes ago now; if Prompto had also taken the poison, then, surely, he’d be feeling the effects by now. Yet all he felt was a mounting anxiety and a squirming sort of shame as the people who ought to be looking after Noctis right now wasted their time with him instead.
He just had to let them know. Or, hell, they’d realize it themselves any second now; when he didn’t dramatically faint, they’d have to put the pieces together. Honestly, he wasn’t sure how they hadn’t yet.
It’d be at least fifty times more embarrassing if he let them come to the conclusion on their own, though, so Prompto cleared his throat. “Um, sorry,” he said, his tongue somehow clumsy on the words even though that was probably his number one most commonly spoken sentence of all time. “I don’ thing… I mean, I… don’… don’t thing… thing-ck…”
Oh, gods, was now really the time his stupid speech impediment that he’d gone through therapy for in kindergarten was going to come back to haunt him? Forget embarrassing—this was dangerous. They were going to end up giving him medical treatment he didn’t need, and Noct was going to prevent his guards from protecting him, all in the name of treating a poison that Prompto hadn’t been given, and it was all his fault—
As the first maddening sting of tears rose to his eyes, Noct suddenly lurched into view, reaching out despite Gladio’s vocal protests and clapping a hand firmly onto Prompto’s shoulder.
“It’s okay,” he said, eyes wide and pained, face pale and drawn, voice thick with emotion. “Don’t—don’t try to talk.”
No, he had to talk—but Prompto tried not to panic. Noct was right here, much to everyone’s dismay, and he knew Prompto better than anyone; surely, even with his stupid reemerging stutter, he would be able to articulate something to his best friend, of all people—
The way Gladio's arms closed in on Noct from behind reminded Prompto, incongruously, of how he imagined it must feel to be a prize in a claw machine. One moment, Noct was hovering over him; the next, something snapped shut around him and yanked him inexorably away, like a hundred-yen plushie about to finally be won by some middle school kid with too many tokens on their hands.
Though a hundred-yen plushie wouldn't curse so explosively, nor thrash so violently, as it was being lifted to safety.
“Ignis, quick,” Gladio shouted over Noct’s ruckus, and Ignis made a frustrated noise, but he gave Prompto’s shoulder a squeeze and withdrew.
“Let go of me!” Noct snarled, and Prompto’s chest clenched. He wanted, more than anything, to reassure him, but if he couldn’t get even a few words out, he definitely wasn’t capable of saying anything that would calm Noct at this point.
Useless.
Worse than useless—because he’d caused this.
Over his head, he heard Ignis say, “Stay with him,” oddly pleading for a guy who always just told people what they were going to do rather than asking.
A voice that Prompto felt like he should recognize replied, “I got him,” and then a figure in black—Glaive, he thought, but what did he know—took Ignis’s place at his side.
“Medics in five,” the Glaive from before said.
“Tell them to hurry up,” a third person snapped.
Nausea twisted in Prompto’s gut. Six, they were wasting time and resources on him instead of keeping their focus on the actual target, and he wasn’t even sick. How many guards—Guards or Glaives, they were at least lowercase-g guards—how many of them were occupied with Prompto rather than their Prince? When they realized that he’d just sat there silently and let them administer medicine he couldn’t afford and didn’t even need, underage drinking would be the least of his concerns.
Did ingesting poison intended for the Prince somehow constitute treason? Did not ingesting poison because it had never really been intended for the Prince somehow constitute even more treason?
Treason or not, it was—ridiculous. He was being ridiculous, letting this go on for so long. They would be right to be upset with him when the truth came out. He needed to tell them—he had to let someone know—that he wasn't even sick; that it was all a false alarm—before they—before—
Prompto lurched forward and puked all over several people's shoes.
With a hissed curse, the Glaive who’d taken Iggy’s place lunged to catch him before he could fall on his face. "Gotcha," he said, hands coming to brace Prompto on both sides. "Easy, kid, I got—Ramuh.” His oath was echoed by several other people at the sight. Prompto heard several mutters of Ramuh, a few of Shiva, and one of Titan.
Gods, he was pathetic—this wasn't the first time he'd vomited from sheer anxiety, but it was the first time in a while, and now was the absolute worst occasion for this particular symptom to rear its ugly head. Now he was just making things worse for himself—making everyone even more convinced that he'd been poisoned, even though he was fine, he was fine, he was fine—
“He’s vomiting blood,” the Glaive snapped into her radio. “Where the hell is medical?!”
Blood? How—how had she gotten that idea into her head? Was she lying to get the medics here faster? Was—was he going to be on the hook for that? Prompto waited anxiously for someone to correct her—Ignis hadn’t completely gone yet, had he? No, he couldn’t have; Prompto could still hear Noct hollering at Gladio, just from slightly farther away. Ignis would see. He saw everything. He would surely notice her mistake and correct her—
Faintly, he heard Ignis’s voice mutter, “Oh, Astrals.” He sounded a bit nauseous himself. Did—did Ignis have emetophobia? If he did, it must be distracting him, because he didn’t seem to have noticed the Glaive’s mistake; at least, he didn’t bother to correct it.
Why would he? He thought Prompto really was dying of poison. No wonder he wouldn’t bother quibbling over details.
Oh, no, no no no—if this kept up, he wouldn't just be on the hook for misleading them accidentally; they might think he was actively lying, trying to curry favor or sympathy or—or—or involved in the attempt on Noct—maybe they’d think he was trying to draw the medics' attention by feigning illness so that when Noct drank the real poison—
Wait—oh gods—could that actually be happening—? Some sort of plot to poison someone else—Minister Dirunitus, not Prompto, because Prompto wasn’t poisoned, but—either way, it could be meant to throw Noct off his guard for the real attempt—and Gladio wasn’t able to get him to safety because of Prompto—
Where was Noct?
Prompto tried to rise, but he stood no chance. Too many people had their hands on him—steadying hands on his back, on his shoulders, trying to keep him from faceplanting into the mess he’d made with his own stupid overactive brain—but now they were restraining him, too, and he didn’t know how to tell them to stop. "Noct," he croaked frantically, pawing at the nearest sleeve, which turned out to be a guard’s. A Glaive’s? "Noc—ghck—"
“You’re fine, kid,” the Glaive said, and the hands on his shoulders squeezed, which should’ve been reassuring, but he only whined in the back of his throat. “Don’t worry—”
No, didn’t they understand? They had to—they should be with— “Noct,” Prompto said, thick with tears, trembling with exertion.
Nearby, there was a solid impact, flesh hitting flesh, and Gladio wheezed in pain, and then there was a popping sound that made Prompto’s ears ring, and then—
“I'm here,” Noct said, and his hand closed around Prompto’s. “I’m here. Nyx—budge up. I’m right here, Prompto.”
The dense knot of people clogging the space around Prompto loosened just enough for Noct to wedge himself in, pressing fully against Prompto’s side and placing his hands over Prompto’s where they were braced against the floor.
That—was wrong somehow, Prompto knew, but it was hard to hold onto the thought. Suddenly, he felt freezing cold, and Noct was warm, and his voice and face and hands were familiar, and the feeling of being surrounded by strangers all grabbing onto him lessened just slightly.
“Noct,” he said raggedly.
“Right here.”
A hand grabbed at Noct’s jacket—but the hands on his shoulders vanished for a second, and the hand was pried off of Noct before it could pull him out of Prompto’s arms.
“Ulric, what the hell?!”
“Shiva’s sake, man, have a heart.”
“I need to—”
“The medics are almost here,” the other Glaive said. “Everybody clear a path! Nyx, can we get him up?”
Noct’s hands squeezed his. “You hear that, Prompto? They’re almost here. You’re gonna be just fine.”
Prompto wanted to answer. He opened his mouth. But. His throat was full of rocks. His tongue was coated in iron. Everything felt awful.
“Prompto?” Noct said. The hands gripping his tightened. “Prompto?”
He had to answer. He had to pull in a breath, so that he could answer.
He—
couldn’t breathe.
Voices ringing in his ears. Hands clutching at his cold skin. Terrified blue eyes swimming in his vision.
Noct, he wanted to say, it’s fine. It’s okay. I’m not sick. I wasn’t poisoned.
I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine.
He passed out before he could manage another breath.
The ceiling was white.
Prompto looked at it. Everything was kind of fuzzy. And also a little—sharp. Sharp and fuzzy. Like a cat.
His hand stroked the cat. What a good cat. A comforting weight on his leg.
“I can move him, if you need,” someone said.
Prompto blinked. Why would he want the cat moved? It was a good cat. No, he opened his mouth to say, but what came out was more like the whine of a puppy begging for someone to throw its ball.
“Hush, Prompto.” A gloved hand came to rest atop his. “Don’t try to speak.”
Ignis?
Prompto opened his eyes, with difficulty.
Yeah. Ignis.
One mystery solved, Prompto then let his eyes meander down to the cat beneath his hand (which was beneath Ignis’s hand).
Oh. That was Noct’s head.
He was in a little chair by Prompto’s weird all-white bed that he didn’t remember owning, slumped over asleep, with his head on Prompto’s leg.
As good as a cat?
Maybe.
Prompto stroked his hair a little bit again, since no one seemed to mind the first time.
“I did try to keep him out of your personal space,” Ignis said, but he was smiling. So he must know that Prompto didn’t mind. That he was happy, actually.
Kind of happy. A little happy. Also very confused.
“Wh'happen?” he slurred.
Ignis's hand gave his a little squeeze. “You were poisoned.”
Oh. Oh? Oh, yeah. He remembered. It was all coming back to him.
“No,” Prompto reassured him.
Ignis blinked. “No?”
“Wasn’…” Prompto shook his head groggily, grasping at his words. “Wasn’ poisoned.”
“You bled massively into your stomach, lungs, and gods know where else, then vomited that blood and choked on it until losing consciousness,” Ignis said.
“Did that on my own,” Prompto informed him.
“I see.”
Okay. Good. He’d finally—he’d finally been able to tell someone. Now they’d know. And no one would have to be scared. Or—mad at him.
Except—Noct was sleeping. And Prompto didn’t want to wake him. And Noct—Noct had been really scared. And mad. He remembered that.
Prompto tried to open his eyes again. Found that he couldn’t. Everything was too dark and heavy and also floaty.
“Tell Noct?” he croaked urgently in his last few moments of dogged consciousness.
“I'll see that he's informed,” Ignis promised, and Prompto felt a swell of gratitude that would've brought tears to his eyes, except that, just then, everything went kind of far away, and he forgot to bring the tears with him.
“And you’re sure you don’t have any twos?”
“Dude, yes, I’m sure. Are you gonna go fish, or what?”
“Don’t mind the princess,” Gladio said from the other side of the bed, smirking down at his own hand. “He’s a sore loser. Even when he’s playing with a hospitalized guy.”
“I was just checking,” Noct said sharply, and he reluctantly drew a card.
“Yeah, sure. And you were just checking all the other times, too?”
“Gladio?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
For once in his life, Prompto was a little too tired to join in on the banter, but he did look up over Noct and Gladio’s squabbling heads and roll his eyes at Nyx, who rolled his own right back.
These two always tended to bicker, but, when you were trapped in a hospital room with them, the problem seemed so much worse. Especially when card games got involved.
Ideally, Prompto would get them working on something cooperative instead. A phone game or something. King’s Knight had a co-op mode. But, every time he tried to focus his eyes on the glowing screen for more than a couple of minutes, his head began to pound, and his vision got a little blurry, and his rapid blinking set off Noct’s paranoia again. And Prompto was a little sick of watching helplessly as Noct lunged for the call button over a trivial stutter in Prompto’s breathing or something.
If he was sick of it, then he could only imagine how Nyx felt, since he was actually awake to witness this behavior for longer than a handful of hours at a time. Somehow, Prompto doubted it was any better when he was out cold.
And Nyx didn’t seem like he was willing to give up his post on the door any time soon, no matter how many times Prompto told him he didn’t have anything to feel bad about, so who knew how much of this he was being subjected to.
There would be more of it in the future, too. Prompto was going to be held for another day, at least, while they monitored the situation in his stomach and lungs. He’d argued against it tooth and nail, right up until the moment when Ignis leaned over and quietly told him that, given how he’d been poisoned at a Crown-sponsored event, all of his hospital bills were going to be covered.
Also, the guard posted at the door was going to remain there. Yes, even though they knew Prompto had not been the target of the attack. And, also also, he may or may not be getting some sort of royal medal for his “valor” in “defending the Crown”. Yes, even though all he actually did was steal Noct’s drink.
Almost dying at a Crown event was kind of a big deal, it turned out.
It also turned out that Prompto had, in fact, chugged a mimosa made of mostly poison.
Now that he was fully cognizant, he no longer understood how he’d ever thought otherwise. Privately, he was glad that he hadn’t successfully expressed those thoughts to anyone, or else he would be getting the teasing of his life right now.
Well. He hadn’t told that to almost anyone.
With a mild knock against the doorframe, and a polite pause on the threshold to let Nyx glance over and wave him through, Ignis stepped inside, thermos in hand. “I’ve good news,” he said as he approached the bed, “and bad.”
“Good news first,” Prompto said immediately, throwing his cards down onto the bedspread and ignoring Noct’s indignant squawk of, “You did have a two!”
Indulgently, Ignis stepped closer and set his thermos down on Prompto’s bedside table. “You’re cleared for liquids again, though nothing too hearty. And you must take breaks between swallows.”
Prompto’s wide eyes dropped to the thermos. “You mean…?!”
“I’ve taken the liberty of whipping up some simple broth for you,” Ignis confirmed, and Prompto threw his arms into the air with a hoarse cheer. He was rewarded with a twitch of Ignis’s lips. “It’s a simple vegetable bouillon.”
“I could kiss you, Iggy.”
“Maybe wait until you get a chance to brush your teeth a little more thoroughly,” Gladio said amusedly.
“The world isn’t ready for our love.”
Ignis shook his head. “If you two are quite done?” They were, so Ignis reached into his briefcase and withdrew a folded-up newspaper. “I’m afraid the bad news can’t wait indefinitely. Prompto, this was printed in most all the papers this morning.”
He held up the paper. The headline emblazoned along the top read, “PRINCE’S CLASSMATE TAKES METAPHORICAL BULLET”. A school headshot of Prompto was tucked into the thick blocks of text beneath.
“Noooo!” Prompto cried, flopping dramatically back against his pillows.
“I apologize.” Ignis’s voice had an unmistakable tinge of laughter to it which he did not appreciate. “I know you were quite adamant that your identity stay out of the news, but I’m afraid there were too many witnesses at the gala. We couldn’t manage it.”
“At least your school photo is decent,” Noct offered unsympathetically.
Prompto buried his head in his hands. “Now everybody knows I’m a wuss,” he groaned.
With a huff of laughter, Gladio gently punched his shoulder. “I dunno, kid. You were pretty damn brave. I’ve never seen somebody who knows they drank poison keep it together so long.”
Prompto shot Ignis a nervous glance.
Surreptitiously, Ignis met his eye, raised a hand to his lips, and mimed zipping them shut.
Prompto’s shoulders relaxed.
“Now, are you gonna gimme your two,” Noct said snidely, “or am I gonna have to have Nyx apprehend you for cheating against the Crown Prince?”
“I don’t see any twos, Highness,” Nyx said immediately from the doorway.
“Oh, like hell.”
“I’m sick of playing, anyway,” Prompto cut in, sweeping up the cards and slipping his back into the deck. “I need all my brain power to appreciate Ignis’s soup.”
“Much obliged,” Ignis said dryly.
“Bunch of bullshit,” Noct grumbled.
“I was gonna win that one,” Gladio complained.
But they packed the cards away, and Ignis handed over the thermos, and Noct stayed exactly where he’d been for the past thirty hours—parked in the chair at Prompto’s bedside—while Prompto painstakingly made his way through a half a liter of warm soup.