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It’s mid-afternoon – just an ordinary day – and Prompto is grinning, walking backwards as he regales Noctis with some embellished tale or another. The heels of his boots scrape stone, the vernal freshness of spring tempting him away from the conversation long enough to snap a quick photograph of fresh-blossoming flowers tucked away in a patch of long grass.
Noctis sighs, of course, exasperated but fond as he taps his foot. “Come on, Prom,” he moans. “I wouldn’t have agreed to take the ‘scenic route’ if I knew you were gonna stop to – quite literally – smell the flowers every five seconds.”
“You just wanna nap in Iggy’s car,” Prompto accuses playfully, reluctantly letting his camera fall back to rest against his chest, its strap keeping it secure around his neck. “I mean, dude. You’re totally part cat or something. It’s weird.”
“You’re weird,” Noctis grumbles.
It’s only as Noctis passes him, arms crossed primly across his chest, that Prompto notices someone tailing them. “Hey,” he starts to say, a warning, but his vocalisation leads the man to panic, taking an opportunistic chance in reaching for the gun he has concealed. “Hey, buddy--- stop!”
He takes aim.
It’s a futile endeavour; Prompto is faster.
The gunshot is deafeningly loud in his ears, the sheer force of it throwing him backwards a step on shaky footing. It’s not that he’s never shot a gun before. He has, plenty of times. He’s just never shot at someone. He’s never watched them go down, crumpling beneath the weight of their body, eyes blown wide and staring at him in horror.
Realistically, he knows that the other meant to hurt Noctis. He saw the gun, saw enough to realise his intention, but that doesn’t make it easier to breathe. He drops his own weapon, wheezing, and shatters like a mirror image of Noctis’s would-be assailant.
“Prom? Prompto! Stand up. We need to leave.”
Noctis is pulling insistently at his arm. He sounds surprisingly calm and Prompto doesn’t want to think about what that means. No one should be so calm about an attempted assassination.
His fingers wrap around his gun – it burns to the touch, still warm – and he follows Noctis’s lead blindly, stumbling clumsily back to his feet while Noctis talks urgently on the phone to either Gladio or Ignis, explaining the situation and requesting to be picked up.
Once Ignis pulls up, Gladio quickly bundling Noctis into a car with tinted windows and surveying the area, Prompto hurls. He empties the entire contents of his stomach in the long grass, all over the flowers, and Gladio pities the sickly pallor of his skin enough to pat him on the back. “Easy there,” he says, amber eyes narrowing as he idly scans their surroundings. He’s already been able to determine that there’s no further threat, but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious. “You did good, Prom. You did good.”
It doesn’t feel like it.
No matter how hard he tries, even once the statements have been written up and everything has returned to relative normalcy, Noctis lounging on the couch while Gladio reads a book and Ignis cooks them all dinner, he can’t stop thinking of the man. He can’t stop seeing those dead eyes, every time he closes his own.
After dinner, Gladio leaves. Ignis isn’t far behind him, but Prompto notices how he pulls Noctis to one side first. The words are quiet but the point behind them is perfectly obvious --- he keeps looking in Prompto’s direction, concern written in the soft furrow of his brow.
Noctis collapses heavily on the couch beside him once it’s just the two of them. He doesn’t mention how skittish Prompto seems, how he keeps checking the lock on the door even when he knows Noctis’s apartment is perfectly secure. Instead, he offers a shaky smile and says, “Long day, huh?”
Prompto swallows hard. “Yeah.”
They both search for the right words. Maybe there aren’t any.
“Thank you,” Noctis says.
At the same time, Prompto blurts, “I’m sorry.”
The two friends look at each other in momentary surprise. Prompto licks his lips nervously, watches how Noctis’s eyes widen slightly before his face softens with realisation. “What for?” he asks gently.
“I panicked,” Prompto says, his voice cracking around the edges. “If there was anyone else there, I’d have been useless. Game over.”
Noctis leans into his side, their shoulders knocking lazily. “I don’t think it’s supposed to be easy, Prom,” he says eventually, his voice hushed. He lets the answering silence linger for a few moments before he asks, “Wanna talk about it?”
Prompto exhales a shuddering breath and shakes his head. “Nah,” he says, aiming to sound casual but missing the mark some. “You mind if I stay here tonight, though? Strength in numbers?”
“Sure,” Noct says. “Whatever you need.”