ffxv_kinkmeme | Prompt Post Round Five

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Prompt Post Round Five

Welcome to Round Five of the FFXV Kink Meme!

Closed for prompts | OPEN for fills

Please have a look at the extended rules here.

The important rules in short:

Post anonymously.
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One prompt per comment. Warnings for common triggers and squicks are encouraged, but not required.
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Prompt, write, draw, comment, and most importantly have fun!

(You can also check out our Pinboard for Filled or Unfilled prompts)

If you'd like to advertise a fill, head on over to the fills post! This is, of course, entirely optional.
New Prompts are Closed for this round. Please wait until 11/13/2017 for Round Six.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

One morning, they all come down sick. They all, independently, decide that they're going to hide it from everyone else. Gladio is embarrassed by the failure of his immune system. Ignis knows these idiots can't manage without him. Prompto's terrified he's going to be left behind if he's weak. And Noctis is so emotionally exhausted that it feels like it would be more work to put up with people worrying about him than to just work on through it.

So now we have four wobbly, feverish bros who are too out of it to notice that everyone else is out of it, trying to get through an ordinary day, until one of them Just Can't anymore and collapses. This cascades into everyone admitting they feel like shit, cue laugh track.

+the one that collapses is Gladio
++even after all this mess someone still has to convince Ignis that no, he should also be in bed, for fuck's sake it's not like his fever's any lower than anyone else
+++relieved crying when everything comes out, probably from Prompto

Yes these dumbs they would do this bless them

Oh, no.

---

- GLADIO -

Gladio woke up first, which was the first indication that something was wrong.

Gladio stared at the canvas tent above him in the darkness. To his left, Noct was snoring away, and Prompto was a pile of gold fluff poking out of the sleeping bag just beyond. Ignis was nothing but a dark shadow lying at the other end of the tent.

Gladio wasn't a heavy sleeper by any means, but he never woke up first. Ignis always had his alarm set at some ungodly hour, and Ignis was always already awake by the time it went off -- so he really did it just to torture them, Noct had concluded -- but Ignis wasn't up, and the alarm hadn't gone off, and he couldn't hear any monsters outside, and the Imperial airfleet didn't seem to have found them in the middle of the night, so what was Gladio doing awake?

Gladio tried to figure it out and couldn't. His head was pounding with the effort of it. He frowned.

Other than restlessness brought on by stress or adrenaline, the last time he'd been unable to sleep through to morning had been years ago, when he'd been seventeen, and he'd spent three nights up because Iris had the flu and he was up with her bathroom at all hours while the poor girl had miserably puked her guts out. And then when she got better, he still couldn't sleep properly, and it hadn't really bothered him until someone threw him through the mats and into the next room at the Crownsguard training hall half a week later, and Cor had been so alarmed that he'd sent him to the infirmary, where the doctors had explained with utmost patience that...

Fuck.

Gladio pressed a hand to his forehead.

Okay, so maybe he was warm. That's all a fever was, right? Being warm never stopped him from doing his job. Hell, he was warm all the time, that's why he hadn't bothered packing a sweater on this trip (or more than one shirt, really). It'd be fine.

He rolled over and went back to sleep.

- IGNIS -

Ignis woke up wanting to set his own face on fire.

He woke when his alarm went off, which was, he reflected dimly, alarming in its own right. He never woke up with his alarm. He always set it slightly later, for a pleasant gradual awakening. This morning, his awakening was not pleasant.

He sat up. Everybody else was still asleep, which was to be expected; Prompto was starting to twitch, but still buried inside his sleeping bag, and Noct was, of course, dead asleep. Gladio at the other end of the tent had an arm thrown over his eyes.

Ignis rubbed his temples, and then his throat. It felt like he'd swallowed a swarm of killer bees. His skin was tight, his muscles stiff.

With all that had been going on lately, it wasn't entirely unexpected. Frankly, he was shocked none of them had come down with any significant illnesses thus far. It was about time. He just hadn't expected it to be him.

He considered his options. They had been hoping to take on a couple hunts today to fund the acquisition of supplies for the next leg of their travels. This was Imperial-occupied territory, so they didn't have the time to linger for very long, if they hoped to remain undiscovered. Due to their lack of resources, and their hopes of staying unnoticed as they went, they had taken to camping rather than staying in outpost motels -- which meant that everybody had to pull their weight.

Noct provided the magic, and occasionally the fish. Gladio took point on the hunts, and Prompto provided support. Ignis provided the strategy. And he liaised with their outpost contacts. And he organized and stocked their supplies, and he kept up with the news. He mended their gear, and he prepared their meals... and he drove on most days. And honestly, he kept the other three from killing themselves on a daily basis.

So, his options were: to push through, or to let this whole journey fall apart, the last hope of Lucis to be found dead in a ditch by the side of the road a couple weeks after he left his bride-to-be stranded at the altar.

Ignis sighed and picked up his glasses.

- PROMPTO -

Prompto had been awake the entire night.

He'd felt the tickle in the back of his throat around dinnertime last night. Oh, no, he'd thought. He recognized that tickle.

If he'd been at home, he'd have gone to the store right then, bought a jar of honey, a bag of ginger, a box of tea, a tub of ice cream and a few litres of soda, ordered three boxes of takeout, put an entire pot of noodle soup on the stove, crammed himself into a corner of the couch and curled up under a blanket for like. Three days. The best cure. The only cure. The Prompto cure.

But here they were in the middle of nowhere, not a gil to their names, no roof and no hot shower, not even any extra socks, and Prompto felt the panic settling in.

It settled in his stomach during dinner along with the excellent curry Ignis had made them, and it sat there throughout the evening, and it stayed there when he'd yawned and gotten into his sleeping bag and zipped himself up cheerfully, and it churned there throughout the next six hours, as he'd huddled in a ball between a snoring Noct and Ignis, pretending to sleep and trying his utmost not to cough.

He was mortified. He was a Crownsguard! He was Noct's Crownsguard! Crownsguards didn't get sick! They got bravely felled in heated battle, or sacrificed to protect King and country, or maimed and left to linger on the brink of death until their weeping comrades brought them before the King to be saved at the last moment with tears and magic. Or something. They didn't get brought down by the common cold.

He dreaded the morning. What Ignis and Gladio got up, and they saw Prompto with his sniffling, runny nose and watery red-rimmed eyes, and realized that they'd made a mistake? What if they dropped him off at the next outpost with a gentle, sorry, kid, you couldn't cut it? Prompto liked to think Noct would stop them from leaving him on a mountainside to die, like in that book about the roaming people that led their old and weak into the wilderness to live out the rest of their days in solitude when they began to slow down the tribe, but Prompto had been taking an awful lot of photos of Noct falling off his chocobo recently.

It was clear, Prompto thought grimly. There was only one thing he could do.

When Ignis' alarm went off, Prompto exhaled, stretched with an exaggerated yawn like he hadn't been stewing in worry instead of fast asleep for the last twelve hours or so, popped out of his sleeping bag brightly, and knocked the lump that was Noct on the shoulder.

"Rise and shine, buddy!"

- NOCT -

Noct groaned.

He couldn't tell whether everything hurt because the weather was just shitty, because of the wyvern hunt they'd been on yesterday, because of that huge-ass fish he'd spent all afternoon trying to pull out of the nearby lake, because he'd fallen asleep funny in the car on their way back, or because Prompto insisted on being this fucking chipper at five in the morning and Noct's muscles were protesting out of sheer spite.

Or maybe it was because he was sick with something. Whatever.

"C'mon, dude, sun's waiting!"

For a minute, Noct considered pulling the I'm sick card.

Prompto would hover helplessly, he knew, and then suggest like twelve ideas for making Noct feel better that would undoubtedly just make him feel worse. Gladio would probably think he was faking it to get a few more hours of sleep, which was unfair, because he hadn't done that for at least a week now, and then once it became clear that Noct wasn't faking it, Gladio would act all guilty and fuck off to kill about a thousand monsters to get gil for a stay in town and probably get his ass kicked by a behemoth out in the valley by himself.

Ignis would try to feed him vegetables.

Noct shuddered.

"Noct?"

Realizing he couldn't put it off any longer, Noct resigned himself to his fate, and did what any healthy, hale, well-rested twenty-year-old king would do upon being roused on a shining new day.

He groaned, hid his head in his sleeping bag, and stuck his middle finger up in the air.

"Fuck off."

I literally just wriggled in excitement reading this. So good! Poor everyone, I cannot wait for more :D

Oh dear, these poor souls. This is great (every single sentence of Noct's part is especially glorious)

OP here. This is even more amazing than I imagined. Everyone is perfect. A fever is just being warm right? NO GLADIO NO IT IS NOT

These poor dumb boys C: thank you author anon

Last line is pure perfection.

- GLADIO -

Gladio scowled.

After going down to the river to freshen up by dunking his entire head into the freezing water until he couldn't feel the tiny imps zapping the inside of his skull anymore, he'd come back up to the campsite to pack up, check his mobile for news (nothing except the usual foreign op-eds about the Fall of Insomnia, a response to his check-in with Cor, and a short update from Iris), and then join an energetic Prompto and a moody Noct for breakfast.

Ignis had outdone himself. Fried spiced garula patties, dualhorn sausage, soft-cooked birdbeast egg on toast, and fried Leiden sweet potato hash, all glistening on plates under the sun. Steam still rose lightly from the sear on the meat. It looked magnificent. Delicious.

Gladio sniffed at a forkful and tried not to hurl.

The fuck was this? Why wasn't he hungry? He'd eaten on time, every time, day-in-and-day out in the Crownsguard mess, no matter what slop landed on his plate. This was good food! It was hard-earned. They'd hunted down the ingredients themselves. And it wasn't as if there was much selection out here; he couldn't afford to get picky now.

Six. What he'd give for a pack of Cup Noodles.

He tried another forkful and managed to force it down without his eyes watering too badly. He swallowed and looked across the way. Prompto and Noct were shoveling their breakfast down, and Ignis was watching him curiously over a mug of coffee, as if trying to figure out if something was wrong.

Gladio gave Ignis a pained smile. "Good stuff," he managed. Ignis nodded his thanks, looking pleased.

Gladio looked down at the plate. How many more forkfuls was this? Maybe nine? Ten? He could do this.

Gladio reached for the pepper.

- PROMPTO -

Prompto pushed the food around his plate and tried not to panic.

The food was good. It was always good. Ignis was the best cook who'd ever lived, and Prompto would eat his breakfast three meals a day, every day, for the rest of his life, if it didn't mean he couldn't have Ignis's lunches or dinners.

But he just didn't feel like eating today. And he always felt like eating Iggy's cooking.

That was the problem. If he left anything on his plate, they'd notice. And they'd ask if anything was up, and he'd have to say he didn't have an appetite, and they would immediately assume that he was either sick or an impostor, or maybe that he was moping about Cindy again, which, fine, he always was, but who wouldn't? Still, lying on the ground for a while going through his photographs and then rolling over with a sigh wouldn't cure it today, and then they'd know something was definitely wrong with him.

Prompto nibbled at his toast and tried not to gag. He grabbed his orange juice and took a swing to wash it down.

If he just... held his breath... it wasn't so bad. Slowly. That was the key.

Prompto glanced around. Gladio was eating grimly and resolutely. Ignis seemed to have finished and was sipping his coffee; Prompto sometimes wondered if Ignis was actually some sort of coffee-fuelled cyborg who couldn't ingest real food properly, and thus cooked for others in search of a sort of vicarious joy, but that was beside the point if Prompto was just trying to get away with dialling it back right now.

Noct was eating, too. Prompto eyed him hopefully. Sometimes he requested seconds and Prompto would give him his leftovers, but Noct was still working happily on his first plate. Might have something to do with the marked lack of vegetables in the meal.

Prompto sighed.

Prompto chewed. Prompto gulped.

- NOCT -

Noct tried desperately to find something in his food that would justify him picking at it and eventually shoving the whole thing onto Gladio's plate, but there was nothing. Nada. No carrots, spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes, lettuce, peppers. It wasn't even mushy. The meat was cooked just right.

Noct frowned sourly. Why did Ignis have to be nice to him sometimes? What'd he done to deserve it on this, of all days?

Whatever. Shiva. Maybe he could pretend he'd developed an aversion to dualhorn. And eggs. And bread.

But he liked garula, damn it. And sweet potato was just about the only thing with leaves that he could stand. What if Iggy stopped making this stuff?

Noct grimaced.

Well. Better put in an effort.

- IGNIS -

Thank all the gods, Ignis thought with relief, as the other three scarfed down their meals with hearty determination, that nobody seemed to have noticed that he'd burned everything to a crisp and thrown out his own portion.

He wouldn't have been able to force it down, anyway.

OP here:

OMG

IGNIS SECTION

OMG

These poor boys, omg. Gladio and Prom and Noct not even registering that the food is burnt because they MUST EAT IT. Gladio remaining in resolute denial that there is a serious problem here. Prompto still in complete panic mode "if he just... held his breath..." Noct considering claiming he doesn't like these foods now just to get out of eating and then realizing that Ignis was nice and might actually cut it from the menu for real. These poor boys.

ilu author anon

Ohhhh poor sickly babies, I wanna cuddle them better!

OP here again (sorry?) because I just reread this part and got the giggles all over again. Everyone having their own little pieces of the puzzle and not putting anything together. The food smells bad because it's burnt, Gladio, that's not steam, that's smoke. And Prompto sees that Ignis isn't eating. And Noctis... well, he's kind of oblivious, but I wonder if Ignis didn't do anything with vegetables because he didn't trust himself not to fuck that up in a glaringly obvious way? And then Ignis. "Hearty determination." Yeah that sounds like the reaction you want from people out of your meals.

idk this is just everything I ever wanted and ilu

Re: FILL 2/?: gen chocobros, ridiculous sickfic

(Anonymous) - 2017-08-17 03:23 (UTC) - Expand

ahahahaha ignis i'm dying. poor prompto with his anxiety >.

- LESTALLUM. -

They made it into town just before noon.

Ignis had dutifully taken the wheel, Noct having designated him as the driver in hopes of napping off whatever was wrong with him in the back. Noct hadn't managed to get any sleep anyway. The roads were rougher than he'd remembered, and he spent the whole trip clutching the side of the Regalia and trying not to lean over it to hurl. Thankfully, Prompto seemed to be in one of his more thoughtful moods, and had zoned out staring out the window instead of trying to get Noct to talk. Gladio seemed happy to doze, too, only waking briefly when someone apparently cut Ignis off on the road and caused him to curse softly (this made Noct jump, too, or maybe it was that wide swerve that nearly knocked his stomach out of his body; he couldn't be sure).

By the time they pulled into parking, Noct felt like he'd been put through a blender and poured back into his boots. Ignis looked a little apologetic when he dropped the keys back into Noct's hands, but thankfully didn't comment on how frazzled he looked.

"Meet back here in half an hour?" Noct had suggested.

"Sure thing," Prompto had nodded eagerly, and Ignis and Gladio had hummed their assent, and so now Noct was by himself in a corner of the sweltering marketplace, trying not to bump into anyone and blinking up at the tipster he'd managed to track down.

The man looked at him curiously. Noct tried to focus on what he was saying. He seemed to be waiting for an answer.

The man seemed concerned. "I said: are you all right, boy?" he repeated.

Noct blinked. "Yeah, we're firn. I'm fern. Fine. Is there like a. How many gil for the -- for the megaloclaws?"

"Four K, maybe five?" the tipster said. "Might've gone up since last night, since nobody's taken it."

"And..." Noct rubbed his temple. That ringing noise was killing him. "How many do we have to get rid of?"

"Five."

Shit, he was having enough trouble seeing one of this guy. "What was the other one?" Saberclaws? "How many saberclaws?"

"Nine."

Astrals. "Do you got any that's just like, one? One monster?"

The tipster frowned and flipped through his notepad. "Nah, nope. Not seeing... gaiatoad? People are only reporting that one for rainy days, though... malboro? Grootslang? Grootslang?" He grimaced. "Don't even know what that is..."

Noct dropped his hand and winced. "How much?"

The tipster squinted and let out a whistle. "26 K."

"You're sure? For one?"

"Think so."

Noct sighed. "How far is it from here?"

By the time Noct made it back to the car thirty-four minutes later with the bounty sheet stuffed in his pocket, Ignis was waiting, arms folded, leaning up against the side of the Regalia.

Noct's steps slowed as he got near. He craned his neck and looked around curiously. No sign of Gladio or Prompto. "Where's everybody?"

Ignis unfolded his arms, looking tired.

Gladio, it turned out, was straight-up drinking three cartons of cup noodles like beer over at the Cup Noodle Stand. He wasn't even using chopsticks, or a fork, or anything. The vendor was watching him with a sort of morbid fascination.

"Gladio, what," Noct protested. Gladio held up a hand in the 'done in two' signal.

Ignis, taking pity on the vendor, dropped a coin in her tip jar. Noct rolled his eyes and gave up in favor of searching for the other missing member of their party.

Prompto turned out to be the next street down, where he was kneeling, sniffling, and petting a big fluffy dog. The dog was chewing determinedly at his boot, and didn't appear to have an owner. Noct looked around, hoping someone would appear to rescue the dog from Prompto so they could be on their way.

"Prom, you don't even know where it's been," Noct said. A man and a woman, giggling and slightly drunk, stumbled past. They took a look at the dog and steered clear. Noct shifted his weight.

Prompto let out a coo. "Noct, look at him! He's fine, he's friendly! Aww, who's a good boy? Who's a fluffy boy?" He scratched behind its ear. The dog gnawed, growling slightly. "You want a tummy rub? 'Course you do..."

"Prompto -- "

"Noct, he's so soft, he's like a soft -- "

"Fleas, Prom, we're leaving -- "

"Don't listen to him," Prompto cried, flattening the dog's ears. It let out a howl.

Noct marched back out to the parking lot. Ignis had moved in the intervening time, and was now standing near a picnic table, fixedly watching a woman eat a bowl of soup. Noct squinted between Ignis and the woman, who thankfully hadn't seemed to notice him. Either that, or she was trying very hard to pretend she hadn't.

"Specs?" Noct mouthed.

Ignis didn't answer, eyes somewhat glassy. "Must be cumin," he mumbled over the woman's shoulder. "Lard. Lentils. That's it. I -- "

Gladio let out a muffled yell behind them as Prompto's dog mauled his grocery bag full of cup noodles. There were the sounds of a brief struggle, followed by Prompto's horrified cry.

"Sorry," Ignis said, snapping out of his reverie. "Are we driving? Noct?" He glanced back at the dish.

Noct considered driving, and fleas, and cup noodle seasoning, and the way Ignis looked like three Ignises when he tilted his head slightly to the left. Ignis continued to stare at the food.

Noct pocketed his keys. "Chocobos," he said tiredly.

---

next time: not a hunt that goes very well, I can tell you that much

Oh gods these poor ridiculous babies! Gladio, you're gonna start regretting all those noodles the second your Chocobo breaks into a gallop!

someone would appear to rescue the dog from Prompto
ahahahahahahah

OP here: OMG WHAT A TREAT TO WAKE UP TO EEEEEEE (please don't feel pressured to write really fast just because it's been awhile if that's what happened though like. it's okay. do it in your own time. I know how fills go.)

OMG these poor dumb boys.

Ignis, I'm pretty sure it was not safe for you to be driving. And I'm pretty sure you knew it, too. For shame. C:

And then Noctis can't even talk straight trying to pick up a bounty and then OH NO that's one monster and it's worth how much again and what was that thing OH NO IT'S THAT THING NOCTIS BABY NO.

Gladio why. Why are you drinking Cup Noodles? What. This seems like a 100% Gladio thing to do in this situation but also what the fuck Gladio what are you doing you are going to have so many regrets.

And Prompto. Sunshine boy. He might even start fussing over the dog like that when at 100%. Or be irrationally afraid of it, you know, either way. But Prompto darling let the dog be.

And Ignis buddy oh no. Just. Oh no. You need, like, six naps. Oh no.

BUT HEY Noctis has the honor of having the first even kind of good idea of anyone in this fanfic, having decided we're not using the car, because christ on a cracker not one of you is fit to drive. (Though I have the feeling none of these poor dumb boys are going to enjoy the chocobos very much, either...)

Holy shit this is just. Eeeeeeee. These poor dumb boys. I love them and I love you A!A

Re: FILL 3/?: gen chocobros, ridiculous sickfic

(Anonymous) - 2017-08-18 18:17 (UTC) - Expand

- CLEIGNE? -

On their way out to the hunting grounds, Noct got stuck in a riverbank.

Ignis's chocobo ran straight through a river, leaving him dripping for a good half-mile afterwards. Gladio fell off his and was briefly left behind when none of them noticed until three fields later. Prompto fell off a cliff. There was a moment of upset on everybody's part, but it turned out his chocobo had managed to flutter down fine; it still took him an extra hour to get back up to the path, and Prompto would have twigs in his hair for the rest of the day.

Even the fucking chocobos seemed to be having a bad time of it, Noct reflected. Maybe he should've rented from a different post. If his head hadn't been pounding so badly, he might've circled back for replacements. As it was, getting there was already taking long enough.

Possibly too long. Longer than expected. Maybe exponentially so.

"Have we arrived?" Ignis prodded after Noct pulled up for the third time in ten minutes to try to get his bearings. Ignis asking are we there yet? was never a good sign. Noct frowned at the map.

"Should be," he said. He looked around. There was nothing in sight except a very wide cliff face and a copse of trees. He looked back down, offended.

"Buddy, I think it's upside-down," Prompto pointed out, peering around his elbow at the paper.

"It's not, I'm navigating," Noct snapped, wrenching it away. "You turn maps to navigate."

"Which marker are you heading for?" Gladio said, sounding weary.

"Which..." Noct looked closer. "Why the fuck are there two markers?"

"Here, this one's the one with the hunt, right? See the symbol?"

"Mother of -- what's the other one for?"

"Shall we turn around?" Ignis said. There was a thump and a stream of cursing as Gladio fell off his chocobo again.

Noct gritted his teeth.

- CLEIGNE. -

"Fuck!"

"Get down! Get -- "

"Two! Why are there two? I thought you said -- "

"The tipster said it was one!"

"26 K for one monster? Why did you even take this?"

"Was it 'grootslang'? Plural? As in, two or more?"

"He said he -- he didn't know what it was," Noct said, flushing.

"I'm with Prom," Gladio said, looking slightly green. "Shouldn't've taken it."

"Thanks for the input, Gladio, maybe if you hadn't been making out with a styrofoam cup -- "

Prompto took a step and swiveled his head around. "Guys, where'd the chocobos go?"

- KELBASS GRASSLANDS. -

So, other than the fact that Prompto moaning oh Noct, oh Prince Noctis, please give me some of your healing juice! on repeat was, to date, the phone alarm audio most likely to successfully wake him up in the morning, here was the thing Noct had figured out about healing.

As his Dad had been fond of explaining in their few lessons together, the Line of Lucis carried magic in its blood, but that magic manifested differently for each individual. It was something to be discovered, not trained into. Each King would wield it differently, and that was true of both offensive and defensive magic, of magic used to attack and magic used to heal; previous Kings and their advisors had developed certain best practices in the arts of healing, but their successors would adapt and adjust those techniques to suit their own strengths. Regis and Noctis would continue in this tradition.

Making Phoenix Downs knocked Noct out for about a day. He'd determined on this trip that he could do a few at a time, maybe even four or five when he got going, but it took him a while to find his focus; it didn't matter whether it was one or a half-dozen, he'd need a nap afterwards and would be completely unresponsive for the rest of the day. As such, they'd set aside some time every so often to restock -- just a day or two spent camped on a haven over energy deposits, Noct concentrating in a corner with a few six-packs of energy drinks cracked open at his feet.

Potions generally provided a quick boost that could get you over a mid-calamity injury for long enough to get to safety. They wouldn't heal whatever was wrong with you, but they'd keep you on your feet, which was usually good enough for the time being. Elixirs could actually fix shit up if employed within a reasonable amount of time, and as such they took a bit more finesse and effort to slap together. These were Noct's standard mixes, and they were usually sufficient for getting everybody through a fight.

The problem was -- as they'd learned after a fun encounter with a hvitomr and some very large bees -- that when you were down for the count with something that was fucking you up from the inside, there really wasn't much point in chugging any of the good stuff. You'd feel better for maybe a half minute before it started to get to you again. Poisons, toxins, whatever: you really just had to wait them out, or take a break, drive into town and find some proper medical attention.

Ha! Proper medical attention.

Anyway, Noct thought as he stared down the grootslangs -- grootslang, whatever -- and cracked his neck, it was a good thing he'd had those Spirit ZX on him to pop on the way down. He was pretty sure a potion wasn't going to do shit for his stomach right now, so hopefully this wouldn't take too long.

"Right," he declared. "Let's get this over with."

Wrangling the Armiger turned out to be the first obstacle.

"Noct, you uh, you got my Valiant?" Prompto shouted from across the way, peeling himself off the grass.

Gladio hacked away at the tail of a snake as Noct tried to wrestle its snapping jaws away from his face. He leaped, did a somersault, and landed on his ass. "What? What've you got?" Noct yelled back.

A blast of ice and fire singed and froze Noct's t-shirt to his skin in response. Gladio was knocked off his feet. Ignis shouted as the blast of steam hit him, and the snake hissed in irritation.

"Sorry," Prompto called guiltily, and Noct thanked the gods Prompto's aim was good enough that the blast radius didn't seem to have hit anybody important anywhere vital. "Uh, nothing, all out!"

Noct cursed and swiped for his sword. "Hang on, I got -- " He rapidly juggled sword, daggers, firearm. "You got it?"

Prompto swiped something out of the air. "Cerberus! Noct, I don't need it for -- "

"Giant snakes, got it," Noct groaned. "What about the Noiseblaster?"

"It's in the puddle!"

Noct tried to peer through the ice and was swept off his feet by the second snake. Gladio ran to block for him, skidded on the frost, landed on his side, slid past him and knocked over Ignis, who was still trying to unfog his glasses on his shirt.

"Never mind," Prompto said weakly, and slinked off to find a good sniper's angle as they cursed and tried to untangle their limbs.

"Potion!" Gladio shouted twenty minutes later.

Noct, breathing hard, paused for just long enough to toss him a bottle. Gladio caught it gratefully. Noct turned away.

There was a crack of thunder, a blinding flash, a searing blast of wind. Somewhere on the perimeter, Ignis threw himself to the ground. One great serpent struck the ground dead, its body limp and smoking.

Gladio made a strangled, injured noise from beneath the corpse. "Potion," he managed, shoving upwards, white in the face.

Well, that was where that thundaga quintcast had gone. Noct cringed and rummaged for an elixir.

The sun was shining full-on now directly overhead, heat waves wafting up from where they were close on to drying the flash-frozen grass out completely. Noct squinted against the glare. He couldn't see shit.

"Specs!" Noct tightened his jaw, twisted his shoulders, and dug the polearm into the writhing, scaly flesh beneath him, the second monster trying its damndest to buck him off. "Ignis! What's your -- guh -- what's your analysis?"

"Stab it!" Ignis hollered.

Noct spluttered. The tip of the spear made a cracking noise.

"More!"

Noct toppled off the snake.

With great effort, Noct freed his foot from one of the holes left behind by the burrowing monster. Slowly, painfully, tried to make his way into cover, dodging the great coils of the snake as they swept overhead.

The sound of shots rang out. Gladio roared, trying to shove his sword down the grootslang's throat. "Prompto! Help Iggy!"

"I got him! I got him! I -- AH!" There was a thump.

Gladio twisted around. "Noct! Prompto's in trouble!"

Noct hissed, stopped limping, changed directions, and started limping again.

"How long," Gladio bit out over his shoulder. "How much longer?"

Noct wiped his hair furiously from his eyes as he fiddled with a beetle shell behind the shield. "Just a little..." Fucking beetle shells, why did they have to be so small?

There was a crash to the left. "Cutlasses, Noct!" Ignis shouted. A flash of light; a pause. "The other ones!"

Noct looked up in confusion. The grootslang burst out of the ground six yards away with a sound like a volcano erupting. The beetle shell slipped out of his hand and was lost in the grass.

"Who's got the ribbon?"

"Noct does!"

"What? I don't have it!"

"I don't!"

"Nor do I -- "

"Who's got it?!"

"Noct! Imperials above us!"

"NO!" Noct shouted, staring directly at the sky. "NO!" he shouted again, as Ignis slammed into him, allowing him to narrowly avoid having his head bitten off.

There was a splatter of gore and a loud, wounded screech.

"Holy shit!" Prompto said excitedly. "Holy shit, I got it! I shot it in the mouth! I shot it -- "

"DO IT AGAIN," Noct boomed, covered in muck and blood and pinned solidly to the ground. A magitek assassin's daggers whooshed by to his right.

"Got it! Reloading!"

"DO IT NOW," Noct groaned, and choked as mud got into his mouth.

Two hours, two weeks, two eternities later, the fallen snakes lay across the churned ground of the battlefield, various armored corpses littered before them.

"Da-da-da-da da da da da-DA," Prompto said thinly, teeth chattering.

The nearby foilage, or what was left of it, was variously wet, charred, or shredded and stuck all over their clothes. Empty elixir bottles were strewn around the site, reminiscent of the morning after a patio party that'd gotten really out of hand. The four heroes stood, leaning on their weapons, surveying the scene.

"At least it was kind enough to take out most of the Imperials for us," Ignis panted as he leaned against a boulder.

"Ngh," Noct let out, and swiped the potion from Ignis's hand.

---

("Finally! Is it over?" Spoilers: no. it is not)

OP here. Um. Holy shit. I thought I was worried about these poor dumb boys when Noct picked up the assignment but OH GOD OH SHIT. Have you ever done the thing where you're covering your face with your hands while you're reading because it's scary but you have to know? That was me. These poor boys. Why did they decide to do this thing.

YOU COULDN'T EVEN RIDE CHOCOBOS AND YOU THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA

NOCT COULDN'T READ A GODDAMN MAP AND YOU THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA

YOU SAW BOTH OF THEM RIGHT THERE AND YOU STILL DECIDED TO DO THIS

"Hopefully this wouldn't take too long." PLEASE

NOCT COULD NOT EVEN PROPERLY WRANGLE THE ARMIGER AND YOU DIDN'T RETREAT

These dumb boys. I was so scared for them. These kids could all be dead. Shit, and now they're sick and beat up and they have to at least find shelter, it's got to be getting late, oh god daemons fuck fuck fuck. Now I'm scared for them again.

But, well, they did it. Five points to each of them for sheer dumb luck.

Re: FILL 5/?: gen chocobros, ridiculous sickfic

(Anonymous) - 2017-11-08 03:45 (UTC) - Expand

Re: FILL 5/?: gen chocobros, ridiculous sickfic

(Anonymous) - 2017-11-08 04:47 (UTC) - Expand

Oh the poor things! Cor, come get your boys, they need you!

It's not over???? What more are you putting these boys through, cruel a!a? :)

oh no

A!A - hey all, it's going up on AO3, though I'll likely come back to update here too:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12708150/

<3

- KELBASS GRASSLANDS 2: MORE GRASS, MORE LANDS. -

So, that hunt had gone relatively well, Noct thought.

All things considered. The targets were dead, they were alive. All they had to do was get back to the tipster to turn in the evidence, possibly bitch a little at the man for inaccurate information, and collect their paycheque. Job well done. Twenty-six thousand gil. They might even be able to splurge on a proper hotel room! A hot bath! Real blankets! Maybe Noct could lie down and his intestines would stop trying to kick him in the nuts! He felt cheered by the very thought.

As they dragged themselves upright, Prompto suddenly looked up, as if sensing something.

"Hey, guys," Prompto said. "Guys, I think our chocobos are back!"

Noct looked up, relieved. Finally, something was going right. He fished out his whistle and rubbed it against his shirt to get most of the muck out of it. He blew.

A tuft of yellow feathers darted between two bushes. A cheeping noise echoed softly once, then again. Ignis looked up from where he had been resting, bent nearly double, hands on his knees.

Noct paused. That wasn't a chocobo sound.

Prompto took a step forward. The bird peeked out from around the leaves.

"Aw, no," Prompto whispered.

The bird was tiny, round, fluffy and dark-eyed. It nosed timidly out a few steps into the open air, hopped, and hopped again. It looked kind of like a chocobo chick. But what was with the stripe?

"That's not a chocobo," Gladio announced, as if coming to the conclusion after a long and carefully-considered discussion.

"I know," Noct said sourly. The bird cheeped, shied away, then peeked at them again.

"What is it?" Prompto said. "Was it... was it hiding from the grootslangs?"

"Grootslang," Ignis corrected. "You might be right. Now that the threat is gone, it's seen fit to emerge."

Prompto tilted his head. "Is it lost?" It tilted its head at him in turn and let out another mournful cheep.

"Hopefully," Ignis said.

"Dude."

"Iggy's right. I don't see parents. That's good," Gladio said, rubbing his neck and wincing. "Don't want to have to deal with that."

Noct merely frowned and flicked the whistle. He blew it again. Honestly, where were the chocobos? Their rental time wasn't up for at least another two days. His bird had seemed a little irritated with him right from the start, too. Last time he was ever renting from that place.

"But what do we do?" Prompto was crouching, arms wrapped around his knees. The bird was slowly approaching. It probably thought Prompto was another one of its kind, what with the hair and all. "Do we just leave him? What about the daemons?"

"It's a good few hours 'til sundown. Hopefully, it'll have found its family by then."

"And we'll be long away," Gladio said.

"You are all heartless," Prompto said, put out.

Noct looked down at his hands. Something occurred to him.

"I'm using the wrong whistle," Noct said.

Ignis, Gladio and Prompto all turned to stare at him.

They turned back to the bird. Cheep, it said.

"Well," Ignis said. "Honestly, this could have gone much more badly, I suppose."

As they trudged awkwardly back towards the road, the bird hopped alongside Prompto, half-hidden behind his knee as if it could feel the heat of the others' disdain. Noct eyed it with some measure of despair.

"We're going to have to leave it at some point," he pointed out half-heartedly. It shrank back slightly, as if it could understand him, and Noct immediately felt like an asshole.

"Well, it's not my fault it's following us," Prompto returned hotly. "What do you want me to do, gravisphere it?"

Noct winced as the bird let out a sad whistle of distress and burrowed into Prompto's calf. "It's gonna follow us back into town," he said.

"Hey, safer there than here, right?"

"A town full of hunters, need I remind," Ignis said from up ahead without looking back. "It might not find itself amongst friends upon arrival."

"It's gonna get eaten," Noct clarified.

Prompto made a noise of outrage. "How could you say that? Nobody'll eat it," he argued.

"Hm," Ignis said, sounding very personally skeptical.

"Ignis," Prompto admonished. "It is way too cute to eat."

Gladio was rubbing his temples. "It is pretty cute," he grudgingly admitted. Ignis threw him a pissy look, which Gladio resolutely ignored.

Both Prompto and the bird perked up, as if heartened by this admission. "It is, right?" Prompto said brightly. "Who's a cute chocobird? Like a chocobiiiird!" To Noct's dismay, he was beginning to adopt the Prompto Talks To Small Animals Voice. Worse, the bird seemed to be responding, emanating a new, affectionate energy. It hopped happily from one foot to the other, and prodded Prompto's hand with its beak.

Prompto beamed. "Guys! Guys, it's so cute. It's — "

Prompto stood up, raised his rifle, and shot the cliff face three feet to the left of Noct's head.

The roar of the shot rocketed across the plain. Noct, frozen to the spot, didn't turn his head to look at the crater that he could feel smoking in his peripheral vision.

Noct didn't blink. He seemed to have lost track of his eyelids.

Prompto paled. "Sorry," he stammered. "I don't know what I was — "

Prompto raised his rifle and aimed again.

Gladio leapt for Noct, Ignis flung himself at Prompto, and Noct threw himself out of the way.

"What in the fuck," Noct said from the ground, and then turned to watch in horrified fascination as Ignis drew a throwing knife, whipped it at Prompto's arm — a disarming throw, he could tell, no more force than necessary — and missed completely, the blade richocheting off Gladio's broadsword instead.

Gladio summoned his shield. Noct scrambled to his feet.

"What — what's going on," Ignis demanded, sounding unsure and completely bewildered. "Gladio, where's Noct?"

"I'm right here," Noct said, and Ignis stared at him as if he'd never seen him before.

A crackling, blood-curdling screech echoed across the entire valley then, seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere at once.

All of them whipped their heads skyward, and all hell broke loose.

Gladio landed on Noct first. Noct felt the air driven from his lungs, rock digging into his ribs; Gladio providing cover was nothing new, but something was wrong here, and a moment later, the edge of his broadsword biting into Noct's neck spoke to what, exactly, was wrong.

Noct's shortsword did its job stopping the blade, his wrist wrenching at the angle, and Gladio blinked down at him. "Sorry," he blurted, and pushed off, straightening up for a second before Prompto took him down with a flying roundhouse kick to the head. Noct rolled over and gasped, trying to focus on where the screeching and the thumping beat of wings was coming from.

In the first and only seven minutes of the battle, only Ignis actually seemed to land a hit on the blur of blue-green feathers and talons that whirled through them like a maelstrom. The rest of them seemed to almost exclusively take hits from each other. Gladio got walloped by the beast's tail more than once, Prompto gave up on the guns in favor of his gravity machinery after clipping Ignis on the shoulder, and Noct was pretty sure the slice just above his knee was Ignis's doing, though he couldn't say exactly when it had happened.

Noct wiped sweat from his eyes and leveled his throwing star at someone, no one, squinting blearily at the spot where he swore the creature had been. A blur of gold danced in front of his eyes. "Stay fucking still, Prompto — " he gritted.

"I'm over here," came the distant reply.

Noct turned on the spot. "Where — "

A loud, inhuman squawk and a rush of wind, bits of grass swirling through the air. "Noct!" someone shouted. "Watch out for the — oof — "

"Holy shit!"

"Iggy — don't — "

"Stay back," Ignis shouted, swinging his polearm wide.

There was a clash of metal against metal, and a yelp. "Fuck," Gladio said, muffled swear. "Potion!"

The world seemed to flip itself over. Noct shut his eyes tightly, fumbled with his Armiger, closed his hand around a bottle, and tossed it in the direction of Gladio's voice. He opened his eyes in time to see, in the tilt of the ground and sky, a dark Gladio-shaped figure reach out.

Gladio caught it, chugged it. He threw the empty bottle away. He paused, hand on his knee.

"Salad dressing," he said, voice coming out slightly hoarse.

"Shit," Noct said.

A quick rummage of the Armiger, and then of his actual pockets, later, Noct recognized with dawning dread that actually, actually, this one wasn't his fault. Well, not exclusively his fault, anyway.

"I'm out," Noct declared flatly.

There was an ominous whooshing noise. "Out of what?" Ignis demanded faintly from some distance away.

"Antidotes," Noct said. "Elixirs. Anything." At the cold silence that followed, Noct spluttered: "Nobody told me to stock up!" They all knew by now that Noct only kept track of the curative stock via how tired he was after whipping up a set; that was why it was their job to remind him.

"I thought Gladio and Prompto had gone shopping," Ignis started, and then there was a pained, guilty grunt from Gladio, and a conspicuous quiet from Prompto, as they all remembered how that shopping trip had ended.

The wings of the beast were hovering somewhere above, and now a low sound came, a deep rumble, like a purr. Noct tried to remember how many moogle dolls he had left.

Something plopped on his hair, a big, warm, wet splash. Was it — was it raining?

Noct looked at his hand. He looked up at the others, who seemed to look back at him through a thick mist.

The beast roared again, and with the understanding that they weren't being paid nearly enough for this, the boys turned on their heels and fled, each of them in a different direction.

--

Again, now up and to be continued at: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12708150/

OP here:

just

SALAD

DRESSING

why did you even have salad dressing in the armiger??????? NOCT

I really really hope that they actually remembered to collect the hunt evidence because they really really need a nice place to sleep after all this mess

But no Prompto, like, small animals are cute and all, but please. Please leave the wildlife alone.

Also like these poor boys, their day just gets worse and worse. Even perfectly healthy they'd be completely exhausted by now.

Re: FILL 6/?: gen chocobros, ridiculous sickfic

(Anonymous) - 2017-11-18 16:10 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Prompt Post Round Five

gen chocobros, ridiculous sickfic

Re: gen chocobros, ridiculous sickfic

FILL 1/?: gen chocobros, ridiculous sickfic

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FILL CONT.: gen chocobros, ridiculous sickfic - at AO3

FILL 6/?: gen chocobros, ridiculous sickfic

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