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’So. How long have we been friends now?’
Noctis can still remember their chat on the roof of the motel. It’s so clear, so vivid, he can feel the balmy breeze against his skin, can see the way it flutters through Prompto’s hair.
Prompto had seemed so pensive that night, and Noctis had said all the wrong things. Had meant to console his best friend, to reassure him, but he had come across like a jackass instead. He had teased Prompto, the way he always used to — but it hadn’t been what Prompto needed to hear.
There are so many things Noctis wishes he did differently, that night most of all. All the mistakes he made, all the missteps, all the times he snapped at Prompto for being his usual peppy self… He wishes he could take it all back.
He can’t.
The body in the chair seems so small, so frail. He’s never thought of Prompto that way before — fragile. He always acted like he was ready to take on the world.
He’s already thinking of Prompto in the past tense; he realises he’s been doing it since his friend fell from the train.
All Noctis can think about is everything he ever did wrong, and how he’ll never again have a chance to put it right. He wishes he could pick Prompto up and shake him by the shoulders, shake him until he wakes up like out of some bad dream.
Neither of them are dreaming.
When he drops to his knees in front of Prompto and touches his hand, it’s cold. He almost recoils, but he forces himself to stay; forces himself to look up into Prompto’s face where his head is slumped against his chest.
His expression is peaceful, Noctis thinks. At least he can imagine that however Prompto died, it was better than the reality he left behind — the cuts and bruises forming a pattern over his body only hint at what he endured, and Noctis knows only a fraction of whatever Ardyn is capable of.
He lifts his hand, touches it to that pale, cold cheek. Prompto’s freckles are still there, hidden a little by the mark across the bridge of his nose, but still there. For some reason — for some gods-damned reason beyond his understanding — that makes him smile, and that smile turns into a laugh and that laugh turns into a sob.
He gets up, half-stumbling into Prompto’s lap; pulls him close, letting Prompto’s head slump heavily against his shoulder.
What he wouldn’t give to hear Prompto’s voice one last time, to feel his arms wrap around him.
The room is still, so still. The air feels heavy with the weight of his loss — with the weight of his guilt.
He doesn’t want to let go: he can’t. So he clings tightly to Prompto, afraid to let him go. Afraid that when he does, that’ll be it, and there won’t be any denying it any more.
He’s not ready for this, not ready to face the world without his best friend. He’s known Ignis and Gladio longer, of course — they’ve been friends to him almost as long as they’ve been his advisors, his protectors. But it’s not the same with them, never will be.
He can feel tears leaking down his cheeks, pooling damply on the collar of Prompto’s vest. It’s this that breaks him out of his spell: he pulls back and blots at the material with his hand in a vain attempt to fix it, and as he does so he hears the sound of a rasping breath.
Prompto’s still alive.
Noctis grabs a phoenix down and moves to press it into his friend’s hand, but Prompto weakly shakes his head, his eyelids fluttering. The harder Noctis tries, the more agitated Prompto becomes — like he’s struggling to wake from a nightmare.
‘No,’ Prompto whispers, the whites of his eyes showing. ‘D— don’t…’
‘The hell are you talking about?’ Noctis growls.
He tries to stuff the down into Prompto’s hand, but somehow — some-freaking-how, in spite of how weak he is — he’s got his fist clenched tightly shut.
‘It’s too late, Noct.’
When Prompto tries to open his eyes this time he succeeds, just barely. He’s trying to look up at Noctis, but his eyes are glassy like he’s seeing nothing at all.
‘The infection,’ Prompto murmurs. ‘I can… I can feel it.’
Noctis is still working to pry open Prompto’s fingers, even as his friend speaks. When he finally accepts the futility of the task he lets the feather flutter to the ground and grips Prompto by the shoulders instead, sitting him upright so they can see eye to eye.
‘What infection?’ he says, giving his friend a gentle shake. ‘Prom, what’s going on? Why won’t you let me help you?’
Prompto tries to laugh, but it comes out as a wheeze. He shuts his eyes in pain, and Noctis sees his adam’s apple bob as he swallows.
‘Ardyn must’ve…’ Prompto says, trailing off. His voice is getting weaker, so Noctis strengthens his hold on him and it seems to rouse him a little — enough to keep him there for just a while longer. ‘The Starscourge. It’s too late, Noct. I’m gonna turn into one of those things.’
‘No,’ Noctis blurts, shaking his head frantically side to side. ‘No, I can help you! You just gotta let me!’
He sets Prompto carefully back into the chair and drops to his knees, fumbling around on the floor for the phoenix down. With a lurch, he realises it must be gone — but then he finds it under the chair, where it must have fallen. He manages to squeeze the feather into Prompto’s hand this time, but it just stays there and does nothing at all. No glow, no healing light: nothing.
Prompto was right.
‘No,’ Noctis says again. ‘This can’t be happening. I can’t… I can’t lose you.’
He feels his throat tighten, feels tears well up in his eyes even as he fights the urge; when he looks up at Prompto he can see that little tremble of his bottom lip as he tries not to cry, too. It isn’t long before they’re both bawling, fat tears rolling down each of their cheeks as Noctis throws his arms around Prompto and holds him tight.
‘I can’t, Prom,’ he says, in the brief reprieve between gasping, shuddering breaths. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
There’s movement against his chest; Prompto’s hand grasps at his shirt, pausing on its way up. Once he has the strength, he lifts his hand and presses it to Noctis’s cheek, using the pad of his thumb to wipe away the tears.
‘You’ll be okay,’ he says. ‘You’ve got Gladio, and Iggy. You’ll be okay.’
Noctis doesn’t answer; just buries his head against Prompto’s chest and lets the sobs wrack his chest.
He doesn’t notice it at first. Doesn’t register the stillness, the emptiness. He’s scrubbing the trails from his cheeks, too blinded by the tears beading between his eyelashes to see much more of Prompto’s face than a blur.
‘I love you,’ he says, clutching at Prompto’s shirt. ‘I love you so much.’
He expects a little smirk on his friend’s lips, a sarcastic retort, but it never comes. He swipes the back of his hand across his eyes, blinking away the last of the tears, and when his hand comes away he sees Prompto’s face, eyes closed as if he’s sleeping.
His lips are blue; his eyelids are covered in a fine network of veins. Noctis touches the tips of his first two fingers to Prompto’s throat, trying to find the pulse, but maybe he’s doing it wrong because it’s not there, he can’t feel anything and—
He’s gone. This time, he’s really, truly gone.
It feels so cruel, so utterly cruel. Noctis had been so sure he had lost Prompto, then he’d been granted a glimmer of hope only to have it snatched away again. He feels so alone, so much more alone than he did before he ever found Prompto again — because it had been the determination to find his friend, to get things back to how they used to be, that had kept him going this far.
He doesn’t have that determination any more, that drive. With Prompto gone, he feel like he doesn’t have a reason to be any more.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, barely able to utter more than a whisper.
He’ll need the guys’ help to move Prompto, when he catches up with them again; he’s not strong enough alone. Then they’ll have to figure out what to do with the bod— with Prompto.
He takes a few slow, measured breaths and rises to his feet. He doesn’t want to leave his friend, but he has to — and he’ll be back. He swears it.
He turns, heading for the electronic reader beside the door out.
He has the keycard in his hand, ready to swipe it, when he hears it — a faint hiss, like gas escaping through a pipe. He lets his arm drop and turns, looking around, but there’s nothing there. He artfully avoids looking at Prompto as he turns back, lifting the card once more and—
There it is again, louder this time.
He freezes, pricking his ears, willing his breathing to still. When it comes again, he’s ready; he hears it, and this time it’s more like the grating of metal against stone.
‘Your… Your...’
He’s sure of it, this time: it’s a voice. But when he turns around it’s just him and Prompto, and Prompto’s still lying there limply, his skin so pale.
‘Your… Your fault…’
He feels the hairs stand up on his arms, feels them prickle on the back of his neck. He thinks maybe he’s imagining it, but then he hears it again, cutting through the hollow silence of the room.
‘Your… fault…’
‘Prompto?’ he says.
He watches as his friend lifts his head, like a marionette being pulled by strings; watches as the mouth moves, unnaturally, the words stuttering out as though he’s speaking a foreign tongue.
‘Noct… Your… Your fault…’
Black liquid pours from Prompto’s mouth, bubbling out with every word; oozes from his eyes, from his nose. He should be choking on it, should be strangled by it, but the more the black gushes from him the more certain his voice.
‘Your… fault…’
Whatever force is controlling him plucks at his puppet strings and he arches upwards, rising to his feet. The stream of miasma is billowing down his chest now, swirling like a vortex across his torso, enshrouding him.
He takes a step forward.
Noctis feels a chill wash over him; feels his body go rigid, like his feet are anchored to the floor. He’s torn between screaming at the top of his lungs and running away, as fast as his legs will take him, but he can do neither.
Powerless to move, he merely watches as Prompto takes step after halting step toward him, twitching and writhing as he goes.
He’s less than a metre away now. His hand — the hand that wiped tears from Noctis’s face just moments earlier — lifts and reaches out, twisting at an impossible angle. His eyes are completely black now, two windows into a void. Another step, and he’s almost close enough to touch.
Noctis’s body finally kicks into gear, and every instinct takes over all at once. A half-formed shout echoes from his mouth and he tries to step backwards and turn at the same time, resulting only in toppling over and landing, hard, on his side.
He hears the scuff of Prompto’s sneakers on the dusty floor, hears the soft moan of his voice as he says those dreaded words again:
‘Your… fault…’
Noctis struggles onto his front, hands scrambling at the floor as he tries to pull himself forward. The concrete bites into his fingers, into his arms, into his chin where it scrapes along the floor, but he barely feels it as he struggles to get away, to get away from that thing—
That thing that used to be his friend.
His limbs feel like jelly, but he pushes himself and gets to his knees, then to his feet. He grabs at the bars of the door and pulls himself upright, hand trembling as he lifts the card to the reader.
He feels something cold, something impossibly cold, touch the back of his neck. Feels fingers like ice stroke across his skin, almost gently, and for just a moment he’s frozen once more, unable to move.
The fingers dig into his flesh, cutting hard into his shoulder.
Noctis barely thinks as he twists, trying to wriggle free of the grip, but even as he’s trying to shake Prompto off his hand is up, the card falling to the floor as blue light fills his grasp.
His sword — the Armiger. How…?
He doesn’t have time to riddle it out; he brings his arm back and plunges it forward, pushing the blade through Prompto’s stomach, through the inky blackness consuming it until it comes out the other side — and then he keeps going, keeps driving it forward until he’s pressed against Prompto’s chest.
The daemon, shaped just like his friend, still has its fingers digging into his neck and for an instant it’s like they’re embracing, like they’re holding each other for one last time.
Prompto doesn’t evaporate like Noctis expects him to, the way daemons always do. He’s still there, slumped against him, heavy and real.
Noctis doesn’t know what makes him slip his hand into Prompto’s hair, what makes him twine his fingers through the blond strands. He tilts Prompto’s face upwards, and it’s his eyes that are staring back at him. The black is gone, the daemon’s taint, and it’s just Noctis and Prompto, the prince’s hand carded gently through his best friend’s hair.
Noctis blinks, and when he opens his eyes again Prompto’s turning to black ash, the particles swirling up toward the ceiling as if desperately seeking one last glimpse of the sky.
His mouth opens and closes, even as his head turns to dust; Noctis hears the echo of his friend’s voice, and he thinks it’s saying his name.
And then Prompto’s gone.
He’s still trembling when he finds the others — with rage, with sadness. He almost gave up so many times, almost let the doors close in on him in that wretched corridor until he heard his friends calling out to him.
It almost hadn’t been enough.
Gladio looks at him like he wants to speak, wants to ask what happened, but Ignis cuts him off with a hand on his shoulder and Gladio remains mercifully silent.
Noctis isn’t ready to talk about it. Not now, maybe not ever.
He’ll push forward, and then — only then — will he allow himself to grieve.
It becomes abundantly obvious that Ardyn is still toying with him, even though he’s been reunited with Gladio and Ignis; certain doors are locked, while others open with conspicuous ease. They’re being railroaded somewhere, but it’s not to the Crystal — that much he’s sure about.
They find themselves in a long corridor lined with cells; corpses rot in some, while MTs sit in others, like dolls. It’s hard for Noctis not to think of Prompto, of the daemon he became — of the way he had crumpled when Noctis plunged the sword through him, as though somebody had cut the puppet strings.
His hair is on edge again as they make their way down the hallway, checking open cells along the way. There’s little of interest, at least to his eyes, but he knows there’s something here that Ardyn wants them to find.
‘Noct.’
Gladio’s voice is flat; it’s been like that ever since they found each other again, ever since he figured out for himself what had happened in the time they were apart. Noctis turns back to him, but Gladio isn’t looking at him — he’s staring past, down toward the end of the hallway.
Noctis turns, and at first he doesn’t see it. He scans over the corridor, over the cells they have yet to explore, over the bars blocking them. When his glance reaches the end of the hallway and the little room there, he must be staring for a full minute before he finally sees.
Prompto.
Except he knows it’s not; knows it’s just another one of Ardyn’s tricks. Just a carbon copy, a convincing one at that, but an illusion no less.
He turns back to the others with a weary sigh and sees that Ignis has stepped up to Gladio’s side, a hand laid on Gladio’s arm as he opens his mouth in a question.
Gladiolus is still staring, eyes wide.
Noctis doesn’t understand — doesn’t understand why he hasn’t realised yet that it’s an illusion, but then Gladio’s sprinting past him leaving Ignis standing in bewilderment, and Noctis feels the fleeting hope that maybe, maybe, this is for real.
He takes Ignis’s hand, pulling him along in Gladio’s path. He can feel his heart pounding in his chest, can hear his breathing coming out heavy and laboured. All at once they’re there with Gladio, and he’s reaching up a hand to Prompto where he hangs from a cross, and Prompto’s moving and—
It’s like nothing else matters in the world. Noctis almost shoves Gladio aside in his haste, hands fumbling with the straps securing his friend’s arms. Between them they unfasten the restraints and Prompto falls, where Gladio waits to catch him in strong arms.
‘Is it—’ Noctis blurts, shaking so badly he can barely get the words out. ‘Is it really you?’
When Prompto looks up at him, when their eyes meet, Noctis knows.
‘Yeah,’ Prompto murmurs. ‘It’s me.’