Nyx should have expected the hug, really, but he can't help staggering into it a little, stiff and resistant at first. He doesn't want people to mourn him, he doesn't want to be reminded that his sacrifices might've hurt people. He hadn't said the words, even to Libertus. But he'd acknowledged it in his own way and Libertus had refused it then. Noct already knew what there was to know, Squall had seen him in the aftermath, no one else had ever been impolite enough to pry into the details. Only Cloud and Kuja knew anything about it and it was because they'd both been in his head in some way or another.

He doesn't want to talk about it any more now than he has at any other point in the last year. But he gradually eases the tension in his shoulders, leans lightly into the other man, lets Gladio hold him close. For Gladio's sake at least.

Definitely not his own.

He doesn't need any of that nonsense.

Something he has to insist to himself even more when Gladio murmurs into his ear and he can't make a joke of it but he still tries to keep it light. It is what it is and there's no changing that. "Don't be."