By The Horns

It was a gangley thing, the behemoth they had cornered.

Clearly a juvenile, it had already acquired a taste for humans. It wasn't even half the size of a normal adult behemoth, but it made up for that in speed and ferocity.

That is what had made it a target for Noctis and his friends.

The excessive violence - even for one of its species - emboldened it to hunt humans. Noctis felt no guilt drawing its blood, the beast had a body count in the dozens.

Including children.

So he snarls in rage as he brings the Engine Blade down upon it, aiming to cleave the tendon in its hind leg.

His strike fails to immobilize it, and it turns to him eyes gleaming a sickly red and huffing black miasma. The behemoth swipes and Noctis narrowly avoids.

It jumps a distance away, prowling around their group. Black liquid seeps from its mouth as it excessively drools - the sight sends a cold chill down their backs.

The behemoth swiftly pounces into the center of their group, forcing them to split apart. Before they can react, it spins around lashing with its tail.

Prompto and Gladio are caught by it and thrown a distance away, Noctis cries out as he sees them crumple to the ground.

In the split second his eyes are off the beast, he suddenly finds himself in the air, eye-to-eye with the behemoth.

"Noct!" Ignis's cry is bloodcurdling, and he understands something is wrong but hasn't realized what yet.

Still eye level with the behemoth, his back slams against a rock wall high off the ground. His right leg struggles to find purchase against the wall, but his left leg strangely doesn't. He oddly observes his sock is wet.

Noctis looks down to see why, hands wrapping around the behemoth's horn because -

-because it's going through him.

Blood starts bubbling through his mouth, adding to that already flowing freely down the horn and his leg. His hands become slick with it as he tries to push himself off the horn, but it's pinned him in place with the rock at his back.

The behemoth starts to struggle. Noctis screams and nearly chokes on his blood for the effort.

The screams of his friends go unnoticed as he desperately tries to keep his grip, to not slide forward or let the horn tear him in two or lose consciousness.

Noctis slams his head back against the rock wall as the behemoth jerks beneath him. His vision swims and suddenly everything feels so cold.

The blood flowing down his legs and staining his hands, the rock's chill seeping through his clothes, the horn - which had been so painfully hot a moment ago - spreads an unnatural coldness though his body.

Not unnatural, Noctis thinks - no, it's the coldness of death. He's going to die. Pinned up like some morbid butterfly by a plague-ridden baby behemoth.

Noct's head lolls against the wall behind him and his legs suddenly go numb. He fights to keep his eyes open, and the sound of his beating heart fades and slows in his ears.

An explosion in the beast's face catches them both off guard and Noctis is suddenly sliding down the wall.

He thinks maybe his friends are calling for him, but all he can do is sit limply against the wall. His hands refuse to move, and when he looks down at them he can see clear through the hole in his abdomen.

The darkness of the wound seems to expand as his vision fades to black. He feels strangely detached, even as his lungs stop moving.

Sleep calls to him - and for a moment he panics. That fear fades soon enough however, and he no longer tries to think why he would panic about falling asleep in the first place.

"Noct! Stay with us!" Someone is suddenly vigorously tapping at his cheek. His friends hurried voices fade into a blurb around him.

They are trying to keep him awake, he can tell through the haze. They just don't understand how tired he is right now. Maybe, if he just fell asleep, it would be okay. The others would forgive him if he closed his eyes for just a minute.

Warmth - life - is suddenly held in front of his chest and the embers fall into him. He thinks maybe it's a Phoenix Down.

But as sleep embraces him, he finds he no longer cares.

.

.

.

Someone is hyperventilating.

Above him, they gasp violently - sobs heaving from their chest and violently shaking their core. In turn, it shakes Noctis awake.

At least, as awake as he could manage.

His eyes refuse to open more than a sliver, but he can't see anything more than blurs of blacks and grays.

Every beat of his heart brings pain, and if he could he would cry out. His abdomen and left leg feel oddly numb.

He hisses as the person desperately clinging to him shudders with an agonized sob. They instantly sit up and look down at him, and although Noct's vision is a mess at the moment, he can tell it is Prompto.

"Ignis!" He calls, voice raw with anguish and desperation.

The stomping of feet over the floor indicates that the other has come over.

"Noctis. Noctis! Please, listen to me if you can." Ignis leans over him, hands holding either side of his face.

Noctis feels Ignis shift, and something being put into his hand.

"If you can, please - I need you to work some magic into that."

The thought of working any magic leaves Noctis feeling like he'd rather go back to sleep, but as Ignis shakes him slightly with a sharp cry, Noctis obliges.

At first, no magic comes. It's as if the pathways leading to his connection with the crystal had collapsed.

It's uncomfortable, but he forces the magic to come back to him, ignoring how it feels like blood reworking itself through dried-up veins.

He guides the magic, wary of how slowly it travels to his hand and into whatever item Ignis had given him.

Just as the magic cuts off, Ignis snatches the item and uses it on Noct.

His breathing suddenly becomes less of a burden, his heart suddenly doesn't feel so feeble, and the numbness of his abdomen fades to a cold, dull pain.

Noctis opens his eyes, noticing they are in what appears to be a backyard clinic. Or more like a cabin that had been remodeled into an emergency room in a rush.

Either way, he can't complain.

There's an IV in his arm, and Noctis hopes it is clean and safe compared to the rest of the room.

His left leg is slightly numb, but he can feel his toes if he tries. With a show of effort, he raises his head to look down at his feet, noticing they have been elevated.

The pillow catches his head as the rest of his energy gives out. Exhaustion pulls at him and he clenches his eyes.

"Noctis?" Prompto calls cautiously.

Noctis peeks an eye at him, the slight tilt of his lips enough to send Prompto crying again.

"We thought you were going to die!" Prompto cries out, hands covering his face. Ignis collapses into sitting at the bottom of the bed.

Gladio, hands interlocked on top of his head in a clear show of stress, blows out air in a sigh.

"Noct, you don't know how close a call that was. You feeling alright now? Is there anything you need?" Gladio lets his hands fall, coming over to the nightstand and grabbing a water bottle before offering it to him.

Noctis attempts to say he can't drink right now, but all that comes out is a cough.

Ignis reaches over to take the water bottle for him.

"Let us wait until we can sit him upright before offering him any drinks." He turns to Noct, "Feel like you would be up for that yet?"

Noctis shifts, grimacing as he tries to push himself up and his arms fail to support him.

There's a hand on his chest in an instant, and Noctis painfully mumbles out, "...in'a min'te."

"Noctis, you seriously almost died. Please, don't do anything rash." Ignis tells him.

Noctis looks up, guilt instantly eating at him as he looks at Ignis's red-rimmed eyes.

"I'm sorry." Noctis says up at them. Different degrees of shame cover each of their faces, none of them bearing to look at what they almost lost.

"For a while there... it was as if all magic was gone." Ignis starts. Prompto bites at his lip next to Ignis and looks down at Noct to elaborate.

"When we used the Phoenix Down on you, it didn't work like normal - I mean it did work!" Prompto pauses and looks down, "...but not all the way."

"We were able to bring you to an outpost, where luckily they had enough to keep you from dying immediately." Gladio tells him.

A chill creeps up Noct's back at their words, their solemn expressions enough to know how close they thought he was to dying.

"And then... a little while ago," Prompto pauses to wipe at his face, "we stopped being able to summon our weapons."

Noctis swallows, unable to say anything to undo the fear that would have caused.

He fights through the bone-deep exhaustion, and pulls his arm free of the covers to let his hand fall into a fist-bump against Prompto's side.

"What, you think I'd let some little twerp of a 'hemoth take me down?" His voice is ragged, and the words make his throat sore, but he smiles at Prompto nonetheless.

His words didn't make it right though, there was nothing he could say that would keep his friends safe from the fear of a loved one dying.

And to put them through it himself made him feel so ashamed.

Prompto takes his hand and crouches by the bed, resting his forehead against Noct's fingers.

When Noct looks at the other two, he sees Ignis take off his glasses and pinch at the bridge of his nose. Gladio's brushing a hand through his hair, barely hiding the tremor that runs through him.

"You sure you're alright?" Ignis asks the same time Gladio says, "Don't ever give us a scare like that again."

Their voices shake, and Noctis can't help but to offer them a beaming smile for their love and friendship.

"Haha," Noctis croaks, "I'll be right as rain in no time."

He smiles wider, tears pulling at his vision, "Just had to sleep it off."

When they cry this time, it's tears of relief.

Thank you very much for reading!

Please let me know your thoughts/comments/concrits!

Y'all I was originally going to end it right where the break was. Noct was probably going to die, but I thought about people reading and figured that was too cruel.

This is my first contribution for hurt!noct week. I was originally only going to have 3, but a fourth one popped into my mind as I was doing a dissection for class.

So I will be working on that one trying to get it out in time. See you guys soon!

Thank you again so much for reading!