Chapter Text
Time passed in flashes. Bursts like the flash of a camera in front of his eyes, snapshots that didn’t quite come into focus. There was the train, the cold press of his gun’s metal casing in his hand with steady aim, a flash of blue light and-
And.
Blue eyes widening in dawning horror, hands outstretched but a touch too late. Always, endlessly, too late.
“He’s not coming back for you, dear heart. None of them are.”
His eyelids were heavy, something red coating his vision in a way that made the room around him seem more out of place. Unreal. Familiar outrage sparked weakly in his chest, though he couldn’t remember who the voice was referring to. Blue eyes, reaching hands.
“Don’t….,” his mouth felt foreign, lips numb and heavy all at once. “Don’t know ‘em…. Like I do.”
The voice laughed, it echoed everywhere and nowhere. “Oh, precious thing.”
A finger touched his chin, he forced his eyes wider, enough to catch burgundy hair and a flash of wild hunger in the other man's eyes. He flinched. Ardyn’s light touch danced down his neck, across his chest- nauseatingly, tainting him, poisoning him- and finally caressed his tightly bound wrist. He tapped the exposed barcode twice with a crooked grin.
But they don’t know you.
The man reached for a tray behind him, the hand on his wrist turning vicious and he pulled-
Another flash, a skip, his brain short-circuiting and rebooting hours, maybe days later, and he was strung up by his wrists again. The lurching pain brought him out of the foggy floating grey, a grinding of bones in all the wrong ways at the twitch of his fingertips. This was familiar, now. This was normal. He couldn’t tell how much time he’d spent here in this lab but between the frozen wasteland and the blood under his nails, it felt like a lifetime and a half. This time a cold band of metal pressed his back flat, uncomfortably tight against his ribcage. squeezing air from his lungs that couldn’t expand enough to catch reprieve. There was something else, too. A pinch on his side that shifted grotesquely with every shallow gasp, the inescapable sensation of something pouring carefully into his veins, thick and vile.
He remembered this. From the Before. Only faintly, as the years wore down the darkness with new memories and bright blue skies, but still there. A raindrop’s impression on a mountain side. He’d been too young, they’d said, to remember anything, but he had dreams and dreams of hallways and voices, of bright lights and orders. He’d been called something else back then, something a lot closer to a list of numbers and orders that left no room in him to think. Prompto hadn’t existed within the mess of black wires and scientists, between the test tubes and the sharp bite of needles.
But something else had.
He’d spent years stamping it out, burying whatever the vials and the syringes had done, convincing himself he was normal, that he was as human as anyone. That there wasn’t anything more to his tattoo than bad dreams.
Guns always felt a little too natural in his hands, however, and sunlight always burned a little too hot. Sometimes he developed cravings for things, like raw meat and the crunch of something brittle between his teeth. Sometimes he had to lock himself up in closets and crawlspaces and try desperately to focus on his blunt fingertips, his thin veins, his fluttering heartbeat. Human, he’d beg desperately to nobody and nothing, I’m human.
The wires jolted sickeningly between his ribs as Ardyn’s hands suddenly wrapped around his neck, forcefully enough he was jolted back into himself and into awareness.
He tutted, a condescending lilt to his aggravatingly calm voice, “Please do try and be a polite guest, would you? I’d be rather put out if you were to miss all the fun.”
Prompto blinked dazedly at the man, trying to flex his fingers beyond the pain to force blood back into them. Fingertips, heartbeat. You’re human, Prompto. You’re good enough for me.
“This seems awfully familiar, no? Much like a welcome home party I suspect.” Ardyn grinned wolfishly at him, a hint of frustration crossing his dark eyes for a moment when Prompto didn’t react.
“I must say I expected a little more of a fight from you, after all that time parading in the wilderness. You always seemed like such a feisty one, I dare say I’m disappointed.”
Prompto would have laughed if he could remember how. He settled for a faint smirk.
“Just…. don’t wanna… waste m’ breath. On you.”
A fist landed on his exposed chest, right beside the slide of wires beneath his skin. The world spun dangerously.
“Ah ah, mustn't insult your host. After I’ve been so courteous as to bring you back home. It’s almost as if you desire more...punishment.”
Prompto gasped as Ardyn pressed down on his chest, constricting his lungs even farther.
“You should consider how easy it would be for me to take everything away, how simply I could pick off your friends one by one.” His voice took on a gravelling lilt, dark as a thunderstorm in the night. The world went spotty, greying out around the edges. Blue eyes, reaching hands. I won’t let anything happen to you.
“You’d do well to follow your orders as you are told, lest I lose interest and desire more company.”
“No,” Prompto gasped, “No, leave ‘em… Leave them alone. Please, no.”
Hands fluttered against his sides, against the twisting, jolting mess beneath his skin, where the wires connected him to this place like hooks against his core. “This is all you’ve ever been, and all you will ever be. A rejected science scrap. An experiment.”
The words were all Ardyn, all his level voice and deceivingly even-tempered mannerisms. But when Prompto pulled his eyes upwards it was Ignis. Cooly calculated as ever, the icy look of disinterest in his dim eyes contrasting against the red of his new scar.
Ignis lacked the small quirk of fondness, the faint upturn of his lips like he was always barely repressing a smile. Prompto didn’t flinch at the harsh words, didn’t react when they turned to anger. Ignis was coming for him, the real one. His Ignis was kind and caring and would be up fretting right now, somewhere, planning, hoping.
He closed his eyes, peacefully letting his head fall back against the metal brace, even as cold blades bit into his skin.
The slam of a fist against his ribs was Gladio. Ardyn even managed to copy the wings of his tattoo down, each one interwoven with phrases, words that inspired him. But this Gladio was all anger, fury down to the core. Prompto knew him better, after long nights around a campfire, impassioned speeches about Cup Noodles, terrible romance novels he got far too invested in. Ardyn only sketched out the lines, he didn’t have all the colours. He smiled when his rib cracked, when a punch to his face knocked something out of place. When agony rippled in waves through him, he grinned.
“Prom,” A feather light touch against his bruised face, a pair of blue eyes in a mess of dark hair. “Prom, I need you to give up. It’ll be better. You’ll be okay, just let it take over. Can you do that?”
Prompto did laugh at that, his cheek was so swollen it hurt, but it was a good kind of pain. The kind that grounded him. Despite the tears tracking down his dirty cheeks, he felt unbreakable. Ardyn knew so much, had all the cards in his hand, but he was wrong.
His dizzy gaze met blue eyes, ice cold and distant in a way his Noct had never been.
“’unna have to... try harder. ‘S a fake. Noct’s never needed me.”
Everything passed too slowly, and then abruptly all at once. Noctis didn’t know what to do with his hands, with his thoughts. With any of the swirling guilt and self directed disgust. Loss seemed like a brand against his heart, determined to follow him wherever he went. Death trailing like an anchor dragging him downwards. Prompto fell off the train, I pushed him. Ardyn made me, but I-
I pushed him.
“Prompto’s tougher than he looks,” Gladio nodded, but his brows pinched together when he turned away.
“We’re all concerned, but we must keep moving,” Ignis’ hands folded primly around his new cane, the red of his scar like a warning light in the dark. “Ardyn likely has a plan.”
Noctis only hoped the plan consisted of more than tearing their found family apart, piece by piece. That his end goal wasn’t simply to take and take, and take until Noctis had nothing left to give and nothing more to gain.
He’d pushed Prompto against the metal wall of the train cart, elbow against the hollow of his throat, he’d dug his fingers into the freckled cloud on his upper arm until red imprints stained the pale skin beyond. He’d knocked Prompto off the train, watched his eyes widen in fear and something that stung a little too strongly of betrayal. He’d seen Prompto’s reaching hands and he’d been too slow to stop any of it.
The train cart was full of silences and empty spaces, so much of the bubbling conversation dimmed so suddenly. They all skirted around it, unconsciously maybe but aware. Endlessly and impossibly aware of what they were missing. Between Ignis’ unfamiliar withdrawn frowns and Gladio’s misplaced frustration, there was no room for anything, no room to move or breathe. As if his chest wouldn’t expand wide enough, as if the air was filtering away moment by moment.
Ignis red scar and dark glasses tilted his way, and Noct’s chest hitched.
Noctis closed his eyes, pressing his forehead against cool glass, and tried to breathe slower, tried to inhale longer. His hands clenched, trembled, and fell slack. His mind raced onwards, slowly and too much at once.
___
“You’re a waste,” the sharp words span outwards in tight circles, spinning against a background of nothing. Pain arched upwards from his rib cage, a metal point digging inwards slowly, tauntingly.
“You never told us, all this time and you said nothing.” Prompto struggled to pull back from the greyed out static hedging inwards on his mind. His lips cracked as he gasped, the biting metal pressing in and in. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out? An MT,” the voice spat the words like a curse, fingernails digging into the soft underside of his exposed wrist. “All this time we were traveling with a defective abomination… And you had the gall to think you could return to us, broken as you are. That we’d ever take you back.” The words were punctuated with spikes of pain, making Prompto wheeze and pull at his restraints weakly.
His eyes fluttered open, icy blue eyes glared up at him, wrought with hatred and disgust. Noctis jammed a needle full of inky liquid into his side, lining it up with the several other vials connecting him, a spider web tangling between his lungs, under his bones. He hissed at the familiar sensation, the crawling darkness in his veins, the burn like embers spilling into his chest.
Something writhed inside him, claws digging sharper. Animalistic, inhuman. He held on.
“Did you think we’d forgive you? That we wouldn’t care? Or were you too afraid to own up to what you really are?” Noctis’ fist barrelled into the side of his cheek, the grey swarming back inwards took a moment for him to fight off, static filling his ears as something sticky welled in his mouth. He spat it out dazedly, gulping in panting breaths. “I suppose it’s no matter, we would have gotten tired of you eventually. A nobody, travelling with the future king. What kind of sad punchline is that.”
Noctis leaned in close, teeth nearly grazing Prompto’s ear. “You mean nothing to me, don’t you realize?”
“No....” He writhed in his confines, bucking with everything he had left. “Sh-shut up… Ardyn…not as good at… acting ‘s you th’nk, asshole.”
A hand caressed his chin, Noct’s familiar lithe form slipping away like water off a cliff face. Ardyn’s beady eyes met his, alit with anger. He pushed Prompto’s chin upwards, constricting his airways even farther against the cold steel. Prompto struggled to pull in a breath, eyes streaming and wide, the black sludge crawling up his windpipe, reaching hands to drag him back under. The grey pressed in on him, constricting him, dragging his mind along with it.
Ardyn’s smile was all teeth, hungry, always hungry. “Don’t you worry, little bird, I’ll break your wings yet. We have all the time in the world, after all.”
The dim hallways, flickering lights, and half dead robotic corpses would haunt his nightmares for a long time, Noct was sure. He wet his cracked lips, stumbling forwards through a new set of doors that hissed open with a click. Footsteps padded quickly off into the distant, soft. No metallic echo, he gasped.
A flash of blonde hair appeared just before it vanished around a corner, his heart leapt into his throat. “Prompto! Prom- wait!”
He stumbled forwards on legs that felt unattached, wooden. The ring’s presence weighing him down in unsettling ways. Part of him, the rational side, knew it couldn’t be Prompto, that the blonde gunner wouldn’t be strolling freely down the hallways in the center of the Empire, but his fear and worry pressed him forwards. Nearly tripping around the corner in his haste, he almost missed the mocking laughter echoing around him. Prompto was gone, but of course he was gone. Another trick, another trap. Another moment Prompto was in pain and alone.
“Oh, so close! And to think, each second you spend wasting your precious time, your friend slips ever so slightly farther away. It’s almost poetic.” Ardyn’s voice spilled from the overhead intercom, metallic and warped in the tight pathways. Noctis growled, pushing forward.
“You really shouldn’t dally too much, Noct. Your precious gunslinger isn’t doing too well I’m afraid.”
Noctis knew Ardyn was trying to get under his skin, trying to make him reckless and overcome with panic. Sadistic bastard. He couldn’t help the spike of terror worming across his heart though, or the images that spun in his imagination. Prompto bloodied and broken, Prompto cold and still. Prompto yelling out for him, trapped and afraid. He clenched his eyes shut, gritting his teeth. He’d get Prom out of here. They’d get the crystal and get out as fast as they could and Prompto would be fine.
He’d be fine, he had to be.
Ignis and Gladio would be fine too, they had each other to rely on and they’d all find each other soon enough. Noct just had to keep going.
Maybe Ignis and Gladio had found him already and squirrelled him away into one of the many bunk bed laden rooms. Maybe they were already tending to his injuries, Ignis dabbing away at small bruises and cuts with curatives, just waiting for Noctis to find them. Maybe Prompto was babbling away, a little nervously, a little bruised, but okay. Alive, smiling gently. Noct let out a breath, propelling himself another step.
“Tick tock, my dear boy.” Ardyn hummed nonchalantly. “Maybe you need further encouragement?” The sounds overhead cut off abruptly, Noct shook his head and turned another corner. His eyes fell on a familiar limp form, tied to a chair and seemingly unconscious. Dark blood matted down one side of a usually spiky head of blonde hair, and Noctis’ heart clenched.
“Prom!”
He yanked open the cell door- if he’d been less frantic, maybe he would have been concerned about how easy the whole setup was, but Prompto was too still, too quiet, and his chest wasn’t moving—
He reached a hand to the blonde’s downturned face, to check his wound maybe, or his heartbeat, or maybe just to get his bright eyes looking at him, but he’d barely grazed the boy’s cheek before the whole image rippled and tore. Prompto wobbled, like Noctis was looking through a cascade of water, before he melted apart and a daemon arose in his place.
“Shit,” he scrambled back a step, still weaponless, still alone, but aching in the spaces between his ribs that almost made him want to tear the daemon apart by hand.
Almost made him want to make it hurt.
“Careful now,” Ardyn was laughing, shark toothed and smug of course. “One might think your Highness was a tad defenseless all on his own. And these poor dears are a touch starved. Nearly rabid, I confess.”
Noctis felt the crackle of the ring like lightning across a still lake, the inky depths beckoned him to delve deeper. Use more.
“Cornering an enemy when he hasn’t anything left to lose?” Noct’s voice was harsh, gravelled. It sounded foreign to his own ears, startling him as much as it egged him on. He sounded fearless. “You should know better than that.”
He was losing himself, bits and pieces strung up like stars above him. Too far away to hold, twinkling and fading away against the curtain of nothing beyond. Memories swirled, disorganized and out of time, peppered in between Ardyn’s masks, between his friends—not his friends, his friends wouldn’t, they couldn’t, they cared about him, Noct cared— broken fragments from long ago and stabs of pain and always, always, the vials and the tubes and the darkness.
He’d been here before, strapped down with tubes and needles pinching and pulling at his too narrow rib cage. Prompto remembered the grey walls, the sounds of metallic hordes reverberating down the halls. He remembered the feeling of biting back the other thing, the desperate side. The part of himself that wanted to dig sharp nails and pull. Prompto remembered the feeling of being barely human but clinging to it with weak, dirty, palms.
“Disappointing,” Ignis told him, and Prompto knew there was something off, something wrong in the way his two shining eyes bore into him, but he was so tired. He spat the welling dark blood in his mouth towards the man, watched as Ignis’ cold expression faded into burgundy hair and wild eyes.
“You will regret that,” Ardyn snarled, and the wave of agony that swelled in his ribcage nearly drowned him. His chest was too small to house the wild ferocity of the other thing locked up inside, it was bending and gouging at the walls. He bit back a scream, refusing to give Ardyn the satisfaction.
You hold so much upon yourself, Prompto, a memory swirled, offering reprieve from Ardyn’s frustrations. Ignis’ voice like a balming water against his boiling flesh. He dived in, gratefully. Seamlessly.
Ignis hadn’t liked him when they’d first met. Prompto had been strewn messily across Noctis’ couch, a cascading wreckage of snack wrappers and chip bags cocooning him and the sleeping prince like the strewn remains of a fierce battle. Ignis had primly walked in, arms laden with bags of groceries, caught Prompto’s stunned expression and merely quirked an eyebrow at him before dropping his bags and leaving.
Shortly after, Noctis was coincidentally ‘too busy’ for their weekly arcade trip, and had ‘too much homework’ to hang out over the weekend. Noctis had lamented the sudden increase of scheduled events on his calendar, complaining that some of the details were completely unnecessary, but that Ignis had insisted.
Prompto understood. Ignis thought he was a bad influence, probably. Being a punky teen nobody probably didn’t stack up too well alongside his various misdemeanours and fines. It wasn’t as though Prompto was a bad kid, or a delinquent even, he just had a terrible tenacity to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Plus he was unreasonably klutzy and tended to ramble just on the side of too much when nervous. There had been a lot of misunderstandings in his earlier years- he couldn’t bare seeing animals in pain, or knowing he could have done something to help, or really, he’d just been trying to help.
None of his reasons would help him in the eyes of the future King’s advisor and his strict and ice cold logic, though. And Prompto couldn’t blame him either. Wouldn’t do well for the Prince to be seen around a useless screw up like him, really.
He’d been forced to spend a few weeks meandering around town by himself, using the free time to grab more pictures, level up his characters, and…. Feel lonely. Class time Noctis would nod off, like usual, but lunchtime he was insistent on dragging Prompto off behind the trees and spending every moment together. It always seemed hinged with strange amounts of desperation, like Noctis were a drowning man and Prompto a life raft waiting in the wings.
Prompto knew Noctis had no control over his busy schedule, but he couldn’t help feeling a pang of sorrow and self pity every time the end of the day rolled around and the slick black sheen of the Regalia slid smoothly into the parking lot. He felt a yawning gap appearing between them, the reality of how different their lives truly were and would always be threatened to overwhelm him. Noct needed people who would be able to reach his level, not people like him who only sullied his name and dragged him further down.
‘You’re you,’ Noctis had said once, as if it explained everything. As if Prompto were missing something obvious.
‘Yeah, just me.’
Noct surprised him, a few days later surrounded by the gentle cover of trees and the light rustling of leaves in spring.
“I’m going to sneak away,” he stated with a firm nod, leaving Prompto blinking in confusion.
“You’re— wait, what? Won’t Ignis lock you away in the tallest tower or something if you tried?”
Noct snorted.
“Oh, he can try. He’s been ridiculous lately, he has me scheduled to start learning two new languages this week and now he’s talking about taking up piano? I think he’s making things up at this point, it’s like he doesn’t want me to have friends or something.”
Prompto looked down at the grass between his fingers, idly plucking a blade and fiddling with it between his shaking fingers. “Maybe he’s just worried.”
“Worried about what?”
Prompto shrugged, not daring to look up. “About you hanging out with the wrong kinds of people? I dunno.”
Noct fell silent for a moment. Prompto pulled another blade of grass, listening to the breeze swirl around them, like an ocean between the two of them and the cascade of voices beyond.
“Ignis isn’t right about everything, you know.” Noct said softly. He stood up suddenly, and Prompto glanced over, catching his cocky smirk lit up in the shadows of the trees above them. “We’re going to the arcade today.”
The last bell rang after class and Prompto gulped down a wave of nerves that threatened to overwhelm him. Sure, Noctis would likely be in trouble for skipping but he’d weasel out of it like always. Prompto on the other hand, well. Ignis already didn’t like him. Who’s to say he wouldn’t be immediately bustled off to prison for treason or kidnapping or something.
Noctis’ grin flashed towards him, as he looped an arm around his shoulders. Then again, Prompto cheeks warmed mutinously, it’d be worth it.
“So, how do we take the trains to get there?”
“Oh, right. You’ve probably never- uh. It’s this way!” Prompto shouldered his backpack, as Noctis smiled at him, deciding with all the sparking strange happiness in his chest that he’d never be able to refuse Noctis anything.
Later, he’d fight with himself over the specific events. Taking the train as the crown Prince, when everyone knew your face, was mistake number one. Mistake number two had been not telling any of the royal guards or advisor’s or his sworn shield where they were.
All Prompto could recall distinctly, was the sick and laser sharp knowledge that if he didn’t do something right now, he’d regret it for the rest of his life. Fighting a drunken man much larger than himself, only equipped with gangly muscle from running and his own boundless determination, had probably been mistake number three. But it was a mistake he’d make a thousand times over in a heartbeat.
He remembered the crack of metal against his arm, blinding pain, and the feeling of blood between his teeth. He remembered Noctis yelling, everyone yelling, and the loop of ‘not Noctis, not now not ever’ running through his brain like a neon sign, brighter and more visceral than anything.
Even waking up in a hospital across town with a deep ache in his left arm, and with Noctis’ red rimmed eyes peering at him, couldn’t make him regret fighting back.
He’d heard the full story later. The drunken man had been some sort of political opponent, frustrated at the world and at the crown at large; upon seeing Noctis unarmed and alone his dizzy mind had seen it as an opportunity. He’d had a knife on him, a large one, and enough intent to harm for him to be locked up for years to come. The guy would have likely been in for worse than an ‘attempt’ had Prompto not seen him stumbling towards Noctis and immediately pushed himself in the way.
Noctis told him in a quiet wavering voice, that it had been a close thing. The red rimmed and strained look to his eyes told him it had been far more than that. Prompto had managed to knock the guy out with sheer instinctive self defense, but the large wound on his arm- nearly slicing it in two, from what he’d heard- had almost killed him. Prompto might have felt proud that he’d reacted and saved his friend, if it hadn’t been for the shuttered, numb look in Noctis’ face.
He shouldn’t have ever agreed to go to the arcade, gods he was so stupid.
“That seems a tad unfair, considering,” Ignis’ calm voice snapped him out of his reverie. Noctis had been corralled back to the palace a while ago, royal guards and kingsglaive crowding around him barking things about ‘threats’, and Prompto assumed he wouldn’t be able to see the other boy for a while, at the very least. Prompto had been quietly wrapping himself up in layers of regret and guilt and shame and loneliness like a careful cocoon ever since. His parents were too busy to visit, and he hadn’t really made too many other friends; the silence had long ago stopped being a relief. Half hearted cards from odd classmates lined the window beside him, along with a half-deflated balloon from Noctis himself. Prompto thought it was all kind of morose.
Ignis cleared his throat. “That is to say, ‘stupid’ seems an unfitting term,” he continued, expressionless. Prompto winced.
“Sorry, I didn’t know I was talking out loud,” he muttered, and waited for the inevitable beratement and disappointment. He’d heard Ignis was infamous for his lectures, he just hoped he could feign sleep or call a nurse with some excuse at some point to prevent himself from completely losing all pretenses of respectability.
“It’s quite alright, I should have announced myself. “ Ignis, the ever picture of etiquette, gestured towards the chair to his right. “May I?” Prompto nodded, tense.
“Now then, I wanted to—“
“I’m sorry!” Prompto squeaked, hands clenching nervously against the bed’s fabric. “I— the arcade wasn’t my idea but I should have told him no, I should have... It was a bad idea, and he almost got hurt and— Astrals, I know sorry isn’t enough but—“
Ignis raised a hand, Prompto’s jaw snapped shut with a click. He knew what came next, either Ignis banned him from ever seeing Noctis again, or he brought the guards in and hustled him off to the dungeons. Stupid Prompto, stupid. Stupid.
“Again, ‘stupid’ is not the word I would use.”
Prompto winced. He chanced a peek towards the advisor, watching him primly pushing his glasses into place with a sigh. Prompto waited to see the anger, the cold malice and judgement, the well deserved hatred or disgust or—
“I would say brave is more fitting. Perhaps selfless.” Prompto’s brain froze and shut down. Ignis sighed, folding his hands together, twisting his fingers in a way that seemed almost...restless.
“Prompto, I fear I owe you an apology.” Ignis frowned, the downturn of his mouth was unsettling. Sad. Prompto blinked, lost somewhere between ‘apology’ and ‘brave’.
“Part of my position is to pass judgement on those his Highness choses to spend time with, to ensure the best paths and opportunities are available to him. But I seem to have made a glaring error with you.” Prompto blinked, Ignis finally looked up at him and Prompto was blown away by the twinkling warmth and guilt shining in his light eyes.
“I misjudged you, simply due to your background and your lack of title. It was unfair and improper of me, and you have clearly proven me horribly wrong. I would like to...” He paused. His gloved hand suddenly resting gently on Prompto’s exposed one. “Prompto, I’m so sorry.”
Prompto’s mouth was open, he realized dimly. He should probably close that. He blinked again, stupidly.
Ignis cleared his throat again- nervous habit, maybe? - removing his hand quickly, like Prompto’s silence had burned him. “I fear I’ve overstayed my welcome. I do hope I get the chance to make this up to you. I ask not for your forgiveness of course, but—“
“I-Ignis…” The whisper that came from his lips didn’t sound like him. He looked down at his hands, twisted to the point of hurting within the thin blankets. Prompto swallowed, sorting through the tangle of emotions fighting to the surface. He squared his shoulders, meeting Ignis’ pained eyes finally.
“Thank you.”
Ignis nodded, moving to stand. Prompto reached out with his good hand, stilling the older boy.
“I…. I don’t blame you, yanno?” Prompto tried to give him a reassuring smile, but felt it wavering beneath the mass of confusion, relief, the overwhelming feels of displacement. Of understanding. “I know I’m not. I’m not good… enough.” He gestured vaguely at the King’s Crest sewn onto Ignis’ breast pocket. “For any of this, really. For Noctis. I’m trying, but…. You were just doing your job. I understand.”
Ignis’ sharp breath was the only warning he received before the advisor was leaning towards him, gently pulling him into a half hug.
“Prompto, you saved Noctis’ life. You make him smile when nobody else can get him to leave his room. You make him happy, something neither myself or Gladio ever seem to be able to do. You’re more than good enough. I only hope, beyond all of my recent mistakes, I may still have the honor of getting to know you.”
The hospital walls faded, cracking apart and splintering to pieces before his eyes. A wave of sickness bore down on him, pressing out the feeling of happy tears against his cheeks, of Ignis’ arms carefully wrapped around him. The tide pulled away all of it, the safety, the fondness, the feeling of belonging. The arms around him pulled too tightly, stealing the air from his lungs. The hallways ran dark, a shadow passing overhead. Ignis’ voice in his ears turned dark along with it.
“What a shame getting to know you revealed some rather unsightly scars.” Steel dug into the thin skin where the dark lines of his tattoo stood. He tried to break out of Ignis’ punishing grasp, tried to breathe, anything.
“I-iggy…. please …!”
Ignis growled, “do not call me that as if we ever shared anything, as if I should have allowed you into Noctis’ life. As if you are anything more than a mistake. An MT from Nifelheim.” His lips drew back with disgust, Prompto could feel his snarl against the curve of his ear.
“Shall we try this again, Prompto?” The cold, empty Ignis spoke. Ignis smiled, a razors edge against stone, and carved out another piece of him methodically, unflinchingly. His gloved hands pressed against his throat, Prompto gasped, greying out at the edges. “I lost my eyes protecting you, and for what?” Ignis said, and gods, he was right. Black pools of nothing rested where his eyes should be, the red slash of burned skin was spreading outwards, like a patch of sickness, like death. Ignis had covered for him, in Altissa. Because Prompto was more focused on something else, because he hadn’t seen the missile until it was too late. Ignis was always covering for him.
“You weren’t careful, you were never careful enough. I’m blind because of you, a filthy MT. A niff. A defect.”
Prompto would have cried, if he had the strength. Would have spouted apologies, knowing they weren’t worth anything, knowing he wasn’t worth anything. Ignis pressed harder against his throat, and Prompto couldn’t fight it, didn’t fight it. His world was folding inwards, collapsing under the weight of Ignis’ cold fury. It was wrong somehow, he knew. Ignis was never cold with him, never cruel or unkind. Even in his most careful moments, if one knew where to look, they could find the exasperated fondness, or the protectiveness.
The last snatches of colour were beginning to dim, turning muted and dim, cold like the steel glinting in Ignis’ uncaring eyes.
He watched it crumble apart, turn to dust, and threw himself back into the grey.
“Prompto, please! Hold on!”
He jammed his hands through the small opening, ripping and tearing against the stone in his desperation to get through. He could hear the screams, ricocheting in circles like a record skipping endlessly, looping through horror after horror. Prompto, oh astrals, Prompto.
The sound of his best friend, gurgling as if in death's throes as he screamed, gods.
He pulled himself through the gap in the wall, ignoring the burn of scraped open wounds against his skin and all but threw himself towards the prone figure in front of him. It was some kind of twisted parody of a hospital, black blood smearing the walls grotesquely and a single swinging light, highlighting a wisp of blonde hair and freckled cheeks.
His hands fluttered, unsure of where to start. He was bleeding, there was so much of it, but it was wrong. Black and sludge like, pooling everywhere, haloing his light hair as if mocking them both.
“Prompto, please….” His hands were shaking, Prompto’s mouth was wide, flecked with spit and his eyes wild. They were wrong too, fading from blue as he watched, turning dark and empty.
It was a fake, thank god it was a fake, but Noctis’ heart still pounded against his ribcage even as the half functional MT’s nearby sputtered and died. They were getting worse, these traps. The diversions. The screams this time weren’t something Ardyn could have created, all on his own. They were too familiar, like the time Prompto had been thrown from a cliff and broken his leg. Or when he’d been hit by a strange ailment from a plant while trekking through a cave, and cried out, delirious and feverish. He’d never heard Prompto so wildly beyond the realm of rationality, so lost in pain, but it still sounded like him .
“I do hope chasing each of these distractions doesn’t cost you any precious time,” Ardyn taunted. And gods, that was the worst part wasn’t it? He couldn’t bare the thought of accidentally leaving Prompto behind, of thinking him a fake. He had to chase each one, had to chase the frantic couerl-leap beat of his heart. What if this is him, what if this one is him? And they were getting worse. First few were only unconscious, or strung out or pinned down. These newer ones were on display, some twisted scenario around them, screaming or writhing in pain. Noctis couldn’t take much more.
“Where is he?!” He slammed his fists into the floor, knees buckling with relief that he hadn’t just ripped apart his best friend through the ring.
“Getting impatient, are we? I imagine our Prompto is feeling much the same. Why don’t we ask him?” Noctis’ breath caught and held in his chest. This was new, this was horribly new. The choking breaths and cut off moans of agony were all new, all very, very Prompto.
“Is that all you have to say to your Prince? Tsk tsk, I dare say we can do better than that.” There was a horrible sound, like a nail through a wet board, and the exhausted whine that followed broke Noctis’ heart clean in two. Gods, he couldn’t even scream, he sounded like he was barely there, barely aware of anything at all.
“You bastard!” Noctis was sobbing, his words choked between fury and desperation. “Give him back! Give Prompto back!”
Ardyn hummed. “Oh, I think that can be arranged soon enough, don’t you, little songbird?” Ardyn’s malice filled laughter couldn’t quite cover the soft words in the background. Noct strained his ears, hearing the faint wheezing breaths and wet coughs, along with a small wavering voice.
“Noct’s…. gunna kick your ass.”
Despite everything, despite the hopelessness creeping through his fingertips and twisting behind his eyes, despite the enormity of fear for his friend curling around his heart- strong enough that nearly stole the fight from his limbs and the light from his eyes- he laughed.
“That’s right Prom. Tell that creep off. I’m on my way, just hold on.”
Please, hold on.
Gladio was breaking his ribs, methodically. Casually. He was sending him warm smiles as he went, grinning with every wheeze and flinch.
“This’ll make you stronger, like you wanted. We gotta toughen you up, blondie.”
Prompto let his head hang down, overwhelmed. The warm comforting press of Gladio’s broad palm, contrasting with the precise and agonizing crack was too much. His mind was hanging in tatters, the sickness filling up where his strength failed.
A calloused palm pressed against his chin, Gladio shushed his whimpers with a gentle tutting.
“You know this is what you deserve, right? An MT, gaining our trust, putting the prince in danger. Heh, you’re lucky I’m feeling generous today.”
He yanked sharply on the bones under his palm, Prompto heard a snap before a searing pain hit him, leaving him stunned for a moment. Hot tears welled in his eyes, but he was too tired to care. Too lost in the darkness to feel anything beyond the initial pain, the sickness swarmed ever inwards.
Gladio laughed, dragging his broken bones farther out of place almost playfully. These hands had never cuddled Iris after a nightmare, never protected Noctis or encouraged Prompto with a pat on the back.
This Gladio enjoyed every ounce of pain he inflicted, only gentle in the way a cat is when playing with its meal.
Prompto ached, something beyond bone deep, something untouchable. He missed the days when he’d train with Gladio, where the bigger man would cheerfully explain where he went wrong, and compliment his improvements. He missed Gladio’s open warmth and kindness, the way he tried to understand everyone on a personal level. The way he’d always been patient, but not delicate. He never coddled people, just dared them to see what was always there underneath.
“You doing alright there?” Gladio’s rough timbre filled the room, like a light switch in a dim room. Prompto pulled his knees in tighter, hiding his face in his hands.
“Yeah, fine. You know me,” he didn’t mean for the bitter edge of his words to show through as strongly, didn’t mean for a lot of things these days.
Gladio hummed, then plopped down gracelessly beside him, careful not to touch. “Yeah, I know you well enough to tell you’re lyin’ through your teeth. Wanna fill me in on the why?”
Prompto exhaled, long and slow. His fingers flexed where they were pressed against his legs. “I screwed up.”
He felt like shrugging, or laughing bitterly until Gladio understood what a waste he’d always been. They brought him on this trip because he’d passed Crownsguard training by the skin of his teeth, because Noctis had fought for him, because he couldn’t imagine not being with his best friend on his big day or any of the other steps along the way. Because whatever else there might have been between them was over, and Prompto had promised he was fine with it, that being in Noct’s life in some way or another was enough.
But today, his perfect aim had failed them. Today his clumsiness had put them all in danger, today he’d gotten Ignis hurt and injured himself badly enough through sheer stupidity, they didn’t have enough curatives to go around.
“It happens sometimes, you know. All of us screw up.” Gladio leaned back on his hands, staring up at the night sky in front of them just beyond the safety and blue glow of the haven.
“None of you have gotten us hurt because of it, though.”
Gladio huffed. “Blondie, you really think Ignis only got hurt ‘cause of you?”
Prompto uncurled slightly, enough to carefully look in Gladio’s direction. “Huh?”
“Yeah,” Gladio shrugged again. “Sure, you may have gotten the final dig in, but Noct shouldn’t have charged in to begin with, Ignis warned us beforehand that we didn’t know what we were up against. I should have dragged Noct out of there, rather than jumping into shit. Ignis shouldn’t have been standing so close. We all screwed up.”
The words didn’t comfort him, he knew Gladio didn’t pass out words insincerely, but he knew the reason the puff of pollen had exploded was because of him.
“Why’d you guys use all the potions on me though, Ignis is—“
Gladio growled. “If you were about to say ‘more important’ you can shut that shit down right there.”
Prompto couldn’t help the frown, or the indignant burst of frustration that shot through him. “Well he is!”
Gladio turned towards him, eyes flickering in the firelight and the haven’s dim hue. He looked like a deity himself, then. God of fury, or something. Prompto’s jaw clicked shut.
“You were dying , Prompto. We had to use a phoenix down to get you breathing again. Sure, Ignis is a little roughed up but he’s trained for this sort of thing. We’re gunna head into town as soon as possible and get him fixed up but he’s fine . Ask him yourself, he’d rather deal with a bit of pain than a dead or dying Prompto. Any of us would.”
Prompto’s shoulders rose higher, he pulled his knees in tighter, fingernails digging into his skin. Gladio sounded so casually sure of his words, the sky is blue and you’re just as important as the rest of us. Except for the fact that it wasn’t true . Gladio might as well be trying to convince him that water was dry or the sun rose in the south. His nails bit angry crescents in his leg, Ignis wouldn’t have pulled a move so stupid. Ignis would have been able to dodge better. Ignis wouldn’t have to choose to be in pain if Prompto wasn’t such a massive screw up.
“Hey,” Gladio’s tone softened, his large hand gently pried Prompto’s hands away from his knees. “Look, kid, you’re newer to this shit than the rest of us. I know Cor had to rush your training a little bit to get you here, it’s unreasonable to expect that you’ll never mess up.” Prompto winced, turning his face farther away.
“But listen, the fact that you’re here? It’s because Cor saw promise in you, and so did I, so did Ignis. You get up every morning and you keep trying, you keep improving. That’s all any of us can ask. Hells, you coulda turned tail and ran a long time ago, but you didn’t.” Gladio’s smile was palpable, like a sunbeam on his skin.
“If anything, seems to me like we should all be thanking you for being so damn brave.”
Gladio’s warm hand was still wrapped around his, squeezing reassuringly. Prompto’s mind whirled and pinwheeled in the face of everything.
“Brave?” He hedged, cautious, unsure.
Gladio was still smiling, a gentleness to his eyes that, before the start of their trip, might have surprised him. The big guy was always loud, always imposing and using his size to intimidate. He was shark toothed taunts and disappointed glares, or so Prompto had thought. But he was soft around Iris, caring and sweet. He shouldered hardships without so much as a complaint, he knelt down to get face to face with scared kids looking for their parents. Gladio was the sun; harsh and unyielding, encouraging and warm.
“‘Course.” He slapped a hand playfully against Prompto’s shoulder, and didn’t move it away. “You just gotta have a little more faith in yourself is all. Right before that cloud of gas blew up, I saw that trick shot you managed to pull off. I’m not sure even Ignis would have been able to think on his feet that fast while diving backwards.”
There’d been so much erupting around them, Prompto had just reacted. Like some kind of instinct, like he’d been trained for it. He didn’t think anyone had noticed, didn’t think his last round really mattered.
“Got the final blow on the thing and all. Damn impressive if you ask me.” Gladio squeezed his hand one last time before moving away. “Yanno what I think, Blondie?”
Prompto’s tongue was still tied up somewhere between Gladio’s easy compliments and the press of his palm between his shoulders. He hummed distractedly.
“I think Noct made a good call askin’ you to be Crownsguard. Probably the best royal decision he’s made, if not the only one.”
“But…” Prompto felt his brows furrow, the words slipping from his lips unbidden before his brain could catch up. “What if I let you guys down?”
Gladio paused, eyes trailing back to the night sky above them. The night’s air was taking on a colder edge, the warmth of the day beginning to dissipate slowly. Daemons prowled off in the distance as the darkness set in.
“You know, kid? I don’t think you could if you tried.”
“N-no…” Prompto’s eyes rolled, darkness only darkness. His breaths broke into panting wheezes as flecks of something erupted from his chest. There were too many wires, prodding and sliding between each other and chugging black ink, sickness. There was no room, not without tearing into Prompto and carving him out. Ardyn took pleasure in making sure there was always more to carve.
But it wasn’t Ardyn, it was Gladio-Ignis-Noctis. Sometimes it was Cindy, or Iris, or his parents .
“Just give in,” they chanted, pulling at his seams and threads with needles and knives. “We need you, you need us . Give in.”
But he couldn’t, he saw Gladio’s sharp smile, Ignis’ tight frown, Noctis’ disinterested laugh and he knew, still. His real friends were coming, his real friends would find him.
“Noctis knew who you were, Noctis pushed you from the train. Don’t you remember, pet?”
Noctis trusted him, though. Noctis smiled just for him, just because of him. He’d pressed warm lips like promises against his skin, cradled his cheeks between his hands like he was holding a rare and wonderful treasure. Prompto knew his blue, tired eyes better than any words could contain.
The wires and needles shifted, the darkness churned and Ardyn carved. “I need you, Prom. You’d do anything for me, wouldn’t you?”
Yes, Noct, of course yes.
A feral grin. “I need you to let go.”
Prompto knew Noctis would never ask anything of him, never had. Only held his hand out, a question in his eyes that Prom had never hesitated to answer with a resounding yes. Gladio had never forced him to be anything than he was, only helped him to see what was always there. Ignis had never made him feel lesser, unimportant. He’d always cared for all of them with the same fierce protectiveness they all cherished him for.
But he was so tired, but his muscles burned like stars and embers beneath his skin, but his chest- broken and flayed, carved out- ached, shaking with each gasp of air, and he was weak. He’d always been weak.
“Let go, Prompto.”
His friends would find him, he couldn’t die yet. Not like this, not without knowing if he was ever really a person to begin with. If he was ever worth any of the kindness they’d given him.
He tried, he really did. He’d dug his heels in, kicked and screamed and refused. But it wasn’t enough, he never was.