Chapter Text
There’s a light ahead, filtering through the trees, that looks like it belongs to thunder bombs.
Prompto gives his partner a nod, watching after him as Ace moves ahead soundlessly to take point. Then he turns to face the group of world-weary refugees he’s helping escort through a once-idyllic countryside to the safety of Lestallum.
They’re clustered beside an outcropping of rock, as much shelter as there is to be had out here anymore, and their lights and voices are low -- strained with exhaustion, and the worry bordering on paranoia that’s kept them alive until now. Every one of them has noticed the light ahead, too. At this leg of the journey, Prompto doesn’t need to tell anyone to be still and quiet.
He can afford to give them a few more minutes. The terrain is rough for civilians, and as much as he wants to get them behind city walls as soon as possible, he doesn’t want to deliver them half-dead on their feet.
It’s the work of a moment to sweep through a quick headcount, to make sure everyone’s accounted for -- and then Prompto pauses, frowning, and counts again.
“We’re missing someone,” he says. His voice isn’t loud, but it cuts through the absolute stillness like a knife anyway. He shelves the immediate alarm, refusing to act on it just yet.
Sometimes this happens -- someone steps away for a moment of privacy, to be sick or catch their breath, despite the endless warnings Prompto will have given them along the way to never step away without letting him or his partner know.
But no one pipes up with a “my sister is just over there,” or “my husband needed a minute, he’ll be along right away” and that means they have a problem. Prompto watches as the people react to his words -- some of them look alarmed, and reach out reflexively to seize their friends, or their children, or their lovers, and hold them close against a similar fate.
But some of them don’t react at all, staring hard at their hands or away at the ground. It’s those people that Prompto moves in on.
His heavy boots step soundlessly through the forest litter, in the way that was ruthlessly trained into him by necessity and survival, and Prompto crouches in front of a sallow-faced man with a teen tucked under his arm.
There’s a cold pit opening in Prompto’s chest, at the idea of one of his people hurt or lost or gone.
“It’s my job to get everyone safely from point A to point B,” Prompto says plainly. “You really don’t want to get between me and my job.”
It’s as much of a threat as it needs to be. The man swallows once, twice, throat bobbing. Then he says, “The blond boy hurt his ankle. He fell behind a little while ago.”
Prompto jerks upright, and turns on his heel to scan the group again. His earlier alarm is crawling down off its shelf and taking up shop in the middle of his chest.
There should be a little boy, with uneven hanks of pale hair and big reproachful gray eyes. He had been walking with a little girl his age, and Prompto had assumed they were friends or siblings, that the girl’s mother would be keeping an eye on him -- but when Prompto’s gaze finds the woman, she’s clutching her daughter with a look of horror on her face.
“I didn’t realize,” she whispers. “I didn’t know.”
Ace is at his shoulder the moment Prompto spins around to look for him. He says, “Go ahead,” and his voice is as tight and angry as Prompto’s probably would be if Prompto could even speak. “I’ll call you back on the radio if I need you.”
So Prompto lifts his gun and plunges away into the dark, back the way they came. He’s searching the ground so hard he would probably walk right into an iron giant before he noticed it was in his way. He hasn’t prayed to the Astrals since they took Noctis away, but he finds himself throwing words up to any of the Six that might listen -- please, he’s just a kid, please, I’ll watch him closer next time, please --
Gladio says Prompto cares too much. Prompto doesn’t know why he says it like that, like it’s something Prompto can change, like it’s a dial that he can turn down.
But after hardly ten minutes of backtracking, he finds the boy -- tucked up under some foliage, his back to the trunk of a tree. He’s clutching his ankle, and his eyes are wide and terrified, but he’s alive. Somehow, all on his own out here in the daemon-infested night, he’s okay.
Prompto feels lightheaded with relief, closing his eyes for a second and breathing through it.
Then he shoves his gun back into its holster and kneels, offering the little guy his hands.
“Sorry,” he says, scraping up a smile. “It must have been scary. How about you walk with me from now on?”
The boy hardly needs any coaxing to spill forward into Prompto’s arms, clutching at him with shaking fingers. He’s cold, and Prompto manages to maneuver his jacket off without dislodging him, wrapping it around the boy’s thin shoulders.
The ordeal must have worn him out, because he dozes off there against Prompto’s chest as they pick their way back to the group.
Whole pounds of tension go out of Ace’s shoulders when he sees Prompto and his little charge, lines of worry easing out of his dark face.
“Thank the gods,” he murmurs.
“Or something,” Prompto replies. Then he turns sharp eyes on the people behind him, mouth working furiously as he tries to come up with a way to explain to them succinctly just how fucked up he thinks this whole thing was.
“It’s not our job to babysit orphans,” someone pipes up. They don’t sound cruel, they just sound tired. They have a little boy of their own on their lap. “We have to look after our own family first, don’t we?”
Maybe Prompto would have said something different two years ago. He was kinder back then, he thinks. Or the world was kinder.
But that was two years ago, and Prompto says, “None of you are my family. Should I leave you behind when you slow me down?”
The silence that greets the question is heavy and heaving. If he left them, they would be down to one protector where even two doesn’t feel like enough. He’d never do it -- and he’d never do that to Ace -- but these people don’t know that.
But at the stricken looks on some of their faces, the plain horror on others, Prompto relents. He looks down at the dirty blond head nestled against his shoulder, and says, “It can’t be like that anymore. There’s nothing left. All we have is what little we can give each other.”
He thinks of Ignis and Gladio, and how little they have to give each other anymore. How they seem to have nothing to give Prompto anymore. And when that starts to hurt, he thinks of Noctis, and what Noctis would say if Prompto gave up on them, too. What Noctis would say if Prompto gave into the bitter gray feelings always creeping in around his periphery.
And he manages to summon a smile instead.
“So shape up,” he commands without any heat, “and let’s get a move on. Lestallum’s only another hour west. You’ll be home before you know it.”
Ace gives him a companionable nudge as they fall into loose formation again. Most of the civilians don’t seem able or willing to make eye contact. The mother from before approaches Prompto with her hands out, a clear apology and a clear offer in her eyes.
Prompto shakes his head, holding the bundle of boy and coat a little tighter.
“It’s alright,” he says, “I got him.”