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[chauffeuring]

open post. anything welcome. i like all things, i am trash.

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in which the prince has fallen and nothing is alright. (just remember you asked for this.)

[protecting]

❰ twenty-three hours. it's been twenty-three hours since the last time noctis lucis caelum drew breath into his body. gladiolus could name it to the minute, if you asked. to the moment even, if a clock were to measure so precisely, because it wasn't as if they split up and never managed to reunite. he was right there, right beside him. as careful as gladio thought he was, his king was killed in the span of a dawnhammer.

they entombed his body with regis for lack of a spare - a tomb for lucian kings who've died far too soon. prompto took it the hardest, but not quite in the way he takes everything the hardest. there was no wailing, no shouting. there was no sound at all, not a single word from the time the three of them carried noct back to the regalia to- well, to present. and weakest though he was of the four of them, he carried noct's upper half from the car to the tomb with a steady stream of silent tears slipping down his cheeks, while gladiolus himself took noct's lower half.

gladio almost stayed there, outside of that tomb. how long that would've lasted, only etro knows, but protecting his highness, protecting his best fucking friend, that was his life, y'know? his entire purpose, like his father with regis years ago. and somehow, in the wake of this gut-rending loss, that sense of duty translated somehow to guarding his highness's corpse.

but ignis and prompto had already gotten back into the car and they were clearly waiting for him - and honestly? he wasn't sure he had it in him to try and explain, if he did stay. he hadn't gone silent like prompto, but words weren't working for gladio quite the way they should. so instead, he got back in the car. sat back in the seat he'd been sitting in the entire way to the tomb, noct's head in his lap as his body lay crosswise along the bench seat for lack of any better way to transport him. and hours before that, noct was alive and well, sitting in the seat beside gladio and sulking emphatically out over the top of the door, wind whipping his hair into further disarray.

gladiolus doesn't remember all that much of that car ride, and he let ignis check them into a hotel suite on relative autopilot. iggy had this, he sounded relatively functional, and besides, gladio was off the clock. for the first time in his fucking life, gladio was off the clock. it was the single worst feeling he'd ever felt in his life.

the suite had a chair by the window, and gladio sat in it. for hours in fact, eyes unseeing out the window, while ignis flitted around doing every single fathomable thing a human being could possibly do - slowing only briefly to either sleep or pretend to when night fell, but immediately resuming the next morning - and some part of the back of gladio's mind rages for him to do something about it, to still ignis somehow because every single move the man makes radiates the exact kind of desolation threatening to tear through gladio's carefully-constructed blanket of numb, but that small acknowledgement of suffering outside of his own never quite reaches his conscious mind. not much does, right now. it's been a night and most of a day in this hotel room, and he hasn't once budged from the chair. he's not hungry. he's exhausted, but not the kind that sleep will fix. his hands shake where they sit on each arm of the chair, the only active sign of distress making it through.

clearly something's gotta give. ❱

@protecting

[chauffeuring]

[ ignis has had enough. for the last few days everything has been a whirlwind of activity from the moment the sun comes up until the moment they all finally lay down in the tent. it's been two days since they've even been in town let alone a motel and ignis is already feeling fed up from just about all of it. well that and gladio in particular. he's been getting a good few sidewards looks thrown his way when the other two aren't looking. ignis know gladio is doing it and he's certain that's the whole point.

getting hot under the collar without any way to fix it thanks to prompto and noctis needing things doing every hour of the day. cooking, hunts, driving, cooking... not for the first time ignis pushes his glasses up his nose with an inward sigh, wondering if he should just leave noct and prompto alone with their King's Quest game saves and just drag gladio away...

no, that wouldn't do. and so it isn't until the afternoon that an opportunity arises. they've managed to do what's needed and find a haven by 3pm. noct and prompto are recovering from what prompto has proclaimed to be a "food coma" and ignis is sure he's seen herbs a good walk away.]

I'll be leaving you now, try not to panic for at least an hour. I'll be back before it gets dark; there are herbs nearby that would do better in my supplies than they would growing out in the open. [ and then before either of the pair can think to offer-] Gladio, you can assist.