Prompto Argentum (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hashtag_chocobro) wrote2022-06-23 04:40 pm
hashtag_chocobro) wrote2022-06-23 04:40 pm
Entry tags:
Aranea's Haven; Niflheim, Eos; ??????? Evening, ??/?? ET [06/23 FT].
Nothing quite like a frantic race through a frozen wasteland with guns and missile launchers shooting at you the whole time to really cap off an entire existential crisis. If anything, having to plow through hordes of MTs and trying to control the vehicle underneath him as it hit outcroppings of rock and sped along trenches and over rock formations provide and excellent distraction, fueled by the adrenaline and the desperate need to just get away from the facility and all he'd be leaving behind within it.
But, eventually, he had to stop. And when he did, there was nothing left to keep it all from rushing right back to him.
At least he had a vehicle now, and a potential ally, and a possible rendezvous point. Not that he deserved any of them. But what else could he do? There was a good chance that Aranea wouldn't even make it, and then he'd have one more to add to the list. What would he do then, knowing he'd lost her, too, because she'd stayed back to protect him?
He couldn't even let himself believe that much. She was there on her own accord, after all. She wouldn't have even died for something like protecting him; she'd have died because he'd simply gotten in her way.
The point marked on Aranea's map lead Prompto to a small Haven beside a frozen lake. He had surprisingly little difficulty getting a fire going and, as night began to descend, so did the snow. But as he huddled in front of the fire, a can of rations that he'd lifted from the shack he'd woken up in however many days ago in his hand, he couldn't feel the cold. He didn't even feel the heat from the fire, or the food in his stomach. He couldn't feel anything. He just felt numb.
Still, spooning another bite of the unknown canned mystery meat into his mouth, he let out a faint, dry laugh. "Mmmmm," he hummed. "Almost as good as Iggy used to make!"
But the joke fell flat, especially with no one else to hear it, and Prompto just sighed with a miserable groan. He set aside the can and tried again, forcing a staggered laugh out.
"Well," he said, encouragingly….to himself, "at least it's quiet for a change…."
The nervous giggles died away as quickly as they had started, and Promto just stared into the crackling flames of the fire, watching the shadows playing in front of him. The shifting light catching on the exposed bit of skin between his gloves and his jacket, and that barcode….that fucking barcode...staring back up at him. Reminding him. A constant reminder of everything he'd just learned, everything he truly was, everything he was supposed to be.
Prompto didn't even realize how quick and rapid and desperate his breathing had become. All he really knew was that he couldn't stand to look at it anymore, and his fingers were moving, scrambling, trying to scratch at it, to tear at it, if only he could just get in there and rip the skin right off. But he was wearing gloves, and, even if he hadn't been, could he really be strong enough to do that to himself?
"Dammit!" he sobbed out, his finger stopping, his head hanging, more sobs somehow managing to find their way out of him all over again. But then he looked up, at the crackling embers of the fire, the burning heat of the gathered logs therein, and, quickly, he reached out to grab one.
The end of the thick stick glowed gently with the embers of the fire and he stared it at, almost challengingly, almost as if telling it to do its worst. And then, slowly, he lowered his other arm, he turned the barcode its way, braced himself with a shaky breath, and brought the smoking wood down onto it.
So much for no longer feeling anything.
The intense pain was immediate, searing into his flesh, but Prompto just made sure he pushed it in even harder as the strangled screams escaped him, groans of agony as the heat sizzled into his skin. He forced himself to endure it, though, for as long as he could, until, finally, he had to give up, he couldn't take it any more, and he tossed the stick aside to wrap his hand around his wrist and cower over it and all the scorching, lingering pain that followed.
And when he finally could stand to look at it again, the barcode was still there, it was just there underneath a gnarly new burn wound, flecked with bits of wood and ash.
All he could do was laugh, thin and high-pitched and slowly losing its grip on sanity.
"....branded for life," he joked, in a quiet whisper, once the manic giggles had died down.
"Don't tell me you thought that would work."
And great. Now he was hearing things, as he could have sworn the words had to have come out of Aranea's mouth, in that deep, rich sarcastic drawl of hers, but obviously, he was alone. Obviously, she wasn't…
Slowly, he lifted his head, to find her tall, slim figure standing there, one hand on her cocked hip.
"Prompto," she said, "right?"
When he didn't say anything, she strode forward, her boots clicking smartly on the stone of the Haven, and knelt down beside him. Before he could even think to protest, she reached for his arm with one hand while pulling out a potion with the other. Smashed it down on his wrist so that it broke and spread its curative magic all around to soothe the pain. He tucked his hands almost sheepishly in his lap, avoiding her constant gaze as she settled down to sit down beside him.
"You could at least look happy to see me," she pointed out as she leaned back, getting comfortable.
"I…." But it was all Prompto could get out.
Aranea's head tilted as she looked at him for a moment.
"I ran into your buddies in Tenebrae," she offered, and that definitely got his attention. Prompto lifted his head with a surprised gasp, first pulled out of his brooding by a brief flash of hope, but that died down quickly, as soon as he remembered why they were separated to begin with.
Aranea gave a soft laugh. "You've got 'em worried sick," she told him.
Though a small part of Prompto appreciated the fact that Aranea was clearly trying to make him feel better, those words seemed to pull him in exactly the opposite way. They couldn't possibly be….maybe Ignis. Maybe. But Gladio? Was probably glad to be rid of him, and Noctis?
Well.
The incident on the train told him exactly what Noctis would think about it, His shoulders hitched slightly, as he pulled himself closer around himself. How could he even explain to Aranea, that what she was saying was clearly bullshit, when she was just trying to help? If anything, he should just tell her to stop wasting her breath, stop wasting her energy on someone like him. Surely, she had more important things to take care of than a failure of an experiment and a useless waste of space.
"You gonna go see 'em," Aranea prompted into his silence, "or what?"
He didn't need to look at her to feel her expectant eyes on him. He almost thought about just continuing to not say anything, but there was a firm stubbornness that he knew wasn't going to just go away that easily.
"I…." he finally managed to get out, "I can't."
This was apparently not an answer that Aranea had been expecting. The faint grin on her face faded away into something else as she shifted, brows knitting.
And still waiting.
"I can't," Prompto repeated, a bit firmer now, and he shook his head. "I'm…not like them. I…never have been. I was…born…here. In Niflheim. And that's not…" Now that he'd started, he almost felt as if it was all flowing out of him, unbidden, and he couldn't have stopped it even if he tried, "that's not even the worst part. I wasn't born into a happy family. I was made--created in that laboratory. The entire reason I exist is to make Noct and all of them miserable. How could I possibly see them? How could I expect them to accept the real me?"
Aranea looked at him for a hard moment before rolling away slightly, adjusting her gaze off to the distance. "You spent all that time driving around together," she mused, "and you still don't know," she turned back to Prompto with a faint grin, "what kind of guys they really are?"
Prompto frowned at that in confusion, slowly looking back up at Aranea with a bewildered, "Huh?"
"In case you forgot," she said, "your princely pal and I weren't always on such…friendly terms, remember? Me trying to kill him? But you know what? He put all that aside and asked me to make sure you were safe."
Noctis? Asking her to make sure he was safe? The same Noctis that tried to kill him, that pushed him from the train?
He stared up at Aranea, almost too afraid to ask this next question, simple as it was. "He….did?"
"Think he'd do that," Aranea asked, an almost playful challenge to the lilt in her voice, "for someone who 'makes him miserable?'"
Prompto sat with that for a long, thoughtful moment, before he dared to venture forward with another question he wasn't sure he really wanted answered. But now that it was there, he almost felt he had to ask. "Uhm," he ventured slowly, "did they…say anything else about me?"
"Mmm." Aranea tilted her head with a thoughtful hum. "Not that I can recall."
"...oh," said Prompto, retreating back yet again and telling himself that it could have been a worse answer. No news was better than bad news. And it was probably foolish of him to think that they would have anyway. "....right."
But Aranea laughed softly. "His Highness was so worried about you," she elaborated, "he could barely speak. But don't worry. I whipped him into shape."
And Prompto breathed out a half-hearted laugh, too. "So he doesn't hate me after all."
It was still hard to believe, really, but he sat on that for a moment before asking, "Is…everybody okay?"
"All things considered, I guess," Aranea offered. "Sounds like they've been through a lot since you left, but they're still dead set on getting to the capital."
"Oh," Prompto said softly, and gently shook his head. "....hope they make it."
"They'd have a better shot with you around," Aranea pointed out.
And it was almost a shame, really, not even being able to appreciate a top-notch word choice like that. But Prompto had found himself pulled back into that dark hole he'd mostly inhabited before Aranea arrived and, giving it a moment, she finally pushed herself back up to her feet, brushing off the back of her long quilted duster.
"Look," she said, looking down at Prompto, "I can tell you want to get back together with them. So why not just let them know?"
She turned to walk away, and it took everything Prompto had to manage to get these next words out of him before she was gone. "You think they'd let me back?" he asked. "After all this? And…." He drew in another breath, shaking his head again, still not willing, not able to believe it. "Even if they did let me back…..I'd probably cause them nothing but trouble…"
He winced, forcing down all that pain bubbling right back up inside of him again. "I don't know how I could live with myself."
"Uuuggghhh!" Aranea groaned, tossing back her head, releasing that frustration into the air as she rolled her eyes, and then turned on Prompto, taking quick and focused steps back toward him.
"Because you're doing such a great job," she mewled derisively, "of living with yourself now."
When she reached him, her boot went flying out for his chest, kicking him back. The sound that escaped Prompto as he tumbled backwards from the force was more out of surprise than pain, and the next thing he knew, he was sprawled out on his back, with Aranea crouched over him, all but straddling him as she pulled him up by his lapel. "What do you want, then?" she demanded, eyes narrowed in a fierce glare. "You worry so much about what other people want from you that you don't even know what you want anymore! Your life isn't yours to live!"
Prompto stared up at her, not knowing what to say, but she wasn't finished anyway. Her hands clasped his face, one on each side, pulling it closer to hers so that he couldn't turn away. "Forget about what everyone else thinks for a second and figure out what it is you're really after here."
She let that linger a moment before she released him, pushing back his head as she did so and crawled off of him. And what could Prompto do but lay back against the cold, hard ground, remembering how to breathe again, as Aranea stepped over him and left him there to wallow in that question.
"I'm going after the new model in the morning," she informed him. "You're on your own now, kid."
Prompto waited, laying still as if paralyzed, until he was sure the sound of her boots had retreated entirely, before pulling himself up from his sprawled position with a groan.
What did he want? What was he after?
They were very good questions, and he thought he knew the answer, at one point. But now? The answers he had just seemed too incredibly insurmountable to even be possible.
[[ and finally, part 4 of 4 of today's batch of Episode Prompto! More to come tomorrow, and thanks to everyone who's stuck through/skimmed up through this point! You know you're in for it when literally every post comes with a CW.]]
But, eventually, he had to stop. And when he did, there was nothing left to keep it all from rushing right back to him.
At least he had a vehicle now, and a potential ally, and a possible rendezvous point. Not that he deserved any of them. But what else could he do? There was a good chance that Aranea wouldn't even make it, and then he'd have one more to add to the list. What would he do then, knowing he'd lost her, too, because she'd stayed back to protect him?
He couldn't even let himself believe that much. She was there on her own accord, after all. She wouldn't have even died for something like protecting him; she'd have died because he'd simply gotten in her way.
The point marked on Aranea's map lead Prompto to a small Haven beside a frozen lake. He had surprisingly little difficulty getting a fire going and, as night began to descend, so did the snow. But as he huddled in front of the fire, a can of rations that he'd lifted from the shack he'd woken up in however many days ago in his hand, he couldn't feel the cold. He didn't even feel the heat from the fire, or the food in his stomach. He couldn't feel anything. He just felt numb.
Still, spooning another bite of the unknown canned mystery meat into his mouth, he let out a faint, dry laugh. "Mmmmm," he hummed. "Almost as good as Iggy used to make!"
But the joke fell flat, especially with no one else to hear it, and Prompto just sighed with a miserable groan. He set aside the can and tried again, forcing a staggered laugh out.
"Well," he said, encouragingly….to himself, "at least it's quiet for a change…."
The nervous giggles died away as quickly as they had started, and Promto just stared into the crackling flames of the fire, watching the shadows playing in front of him. The shifting light catching on the exposed bit of skin between his gloves and his jacket, and that barcode….that fucking barcode...staring back up at him. Reminding him. A constant reminder of everything he'd just learned, everything he truly was, everything he was supposed to be.
Prompto didn't even realize how quick and rapid and desperate his breathing had become. All he really knew was that he couldn't stand to look at it anymore, and his fingers were moving, scrambling, trying to scratch at it, to tear at it, if only he could just get in there and rip the skin right off. But he was wearing gloves, and, even if he hadn't been, could he really be strong enough to do that to himself?
"Dammit!" he sobbed out, his finger stopping, his head hanging, more sobs somehow managing to find their way out of him all over again. But then he looked up, at the crackling embers of the fire, the burning heat of the gathered logs therein, and, quickly, he reached out to grab one.
The end of the thick stick glowed gently with the embers of the fire and he stared it at, almost challengingly, almost as if telling it to do its worst. And then, slowly, he lowered his other arm, he turned the barcode its way, braced himself with a shaky breath, and brought the smoking wood down onto it.
So much for no longer feeling anything.
The intense pain was immediate, searing into his flesh, but Prompto just made sure he pushed it in even harder as the strangled screams escaped him, groans of agony as the heat sizzled into his skin. He forced himself to endure it, though, for as long as he could, until, finally, he had to give up, he couldn't take it any more, and he tossed the stick aside to wrap his hand around his wrist and cower over it and all the scorching, lingering pain that followed.
And when he finally could stand to look at it again, the barcode was still there, it was just there underneath a gnarly new burn wound, flecked with bits of wood and ash.
All he could do was laugh, thin and high-pitched and slowly losing its grip on sanity.
"....branded for life," he joked, in a quiet whisper, once the manic giggles had died down.
"Don't tell me you thought that would work."
And great. Now he was hearing things, as he could have sworn the words had to have come out of Aranea's mouth, in that deep, rich sarcastic drawl of hers, but obviously, he was alone. Obviously, she wasn't…
Slowly, he lifted his head, to find her tall, slim figure standing there, one hand on her cocked hip.
"Prompto," she said, "right?"
When he didn't say anything, she strode forward, her boots clicking smartly on the stone of the Haven, and knelt down beside him. Before he could even think to protest, she reached for his arm with one hand while pulling out a potion with the other. Smashed it down on his wrist so that it broke and spread its curative magic all around to soothe the pain. He tucked his hands almost sheepishly in his lap, avoiding her constant gaze as she settled down to sit down beside him.
"You could at least look happy to see me," she pointed out as she leaned back, getting comfortable.
"I…." But it was all Prompto could get out.
Aranea's head tilted as she looked at him for a moment.
"I ran into your buddies in Tenebrae," she offered, and that definitely got his attention. Prompto lifted his head with a surprised gasp, first pulled out of his brooding by a brief flash of hope, but that died down quickly, as soon as he remembered why they were separated to begin with.
Aranea gave a soft laugh. "You've got 'em worried sick," she told him.
Though a small part of Prompto appreciated the fact that Aranea was clearly trying to make him feel better, those words seemed to pull him in exactly the opposite way. They couldn't possibly be….maybe Ignis. Maybe. But Gladio? Was probably glad to be rid of him, and Noctis?
Well.
The incident on the train told him exactly what Noctis would think about it, His shoulders hitched slightly, as he pulled himself closer around himself. How could he even explain to Aranea, that what she was saying was clearly bullshit, when she was just trying to help? If anything, he should just tell her to stop wasting her breath, stop wasting her energy on someone like him. Surely, she had more important things to take care of than a failure of an experiment and a useless waste of space.
"You gonna go see 'em," Aranea prompted into his silence, "or what?"
He didn't need to look at her to feel her expectant eyes on him. He almost thought about just continuing to not say anything, but there was a firm stubbornness that he knew wasn't going to just go away that easily.
"I…." he finally managed to get out, "I can't."
This was apparently not an answer that Aranea had been expecting. The faint grin on her face faded away into something else as she shifted, brows knitting.
And still waiting.
"I can't," Prompto repeated, a bit firmer now, and he shook his head. "I'm…not like them. I…never have been. I was…born…here. In Niflheim. And that's not…" Now that he'd started, he almost felt as if it was all flowing out of him, unbidden, and he couldn't have stopped it even if he tried, "that's not even the worst part. I wasn't born into a happy family. I was made--created in that laboratory. The entire reason I exist is to make Noct and all of them miserable. How could I possibly see them? How could I expect them to accept the real me?"
Aranea looked at him for a hard moment before rolling away slightly, adjusting her gaze off to the distance. "You spent all that time driving around together," she mused, "and you still don't know," she turned back to Prompto with a faint grin, "what kind of guys they really are?"
Prompto frowned at that in confusion, slowly looking back up at Aranea with a bewildered, "Huh?"
"In case you forgot," she said, "your princely pal and I weren't always on such…friendly terms, remember? Me trying to kill him? But you know what? He put all that aside and asked me to make sure you were safe."
Noctis? Asking her to make sure he was safe? The same Noctis that tried to kill him, that pushed him from the train?
He stared up at Aranea, almost too afraid to ask this next question, simple as it was. "He….did?"
"Think he'd do that," Aranea asked, an almost playful challenge to the lilt in her voice, "for someone who 'makes him miserable?'"
Prompto sat with that for a long, thoughtful moment, before he dared to venture forward with another question he wasn't sure he really wanted answered. But now that it was there, he almost felt he had to ask. "Uhm," he ventured slowly, "did they…say anything else about me?"
"Mmm." Aranea tilted her head with a thoughtful hum. "Not that I can recall."
"...oh," said Prompto, retreating back yet again and telling himself that it could have been a worse answer. No news was better than bad news. And it was probably foolish of him to think that they would have anyway. "....right."
But Aranea laughed softly. "His Highness was so worried about you," she elaborated, "he could barely speak. But don't worry. I whipped him into shape."
And Prompto breathed out a half-hearted laugh, too. "So he doesn't hate me after all."
It was still hard to believe, really, but he sat on that for a moment before asking, "Is…everybody okay?"
"All things considered, I guess," Aranea offered. "Sounds like they've been through a lot since you left, but they're still dead set on getting to the capital."
"Oh," Prompto said softly, and gently shook his head. "....hope they make it."
"They'd have a better shot with you around," Aranea pointed out.
And it was almost a shame, really, not even being able to appreciate a top-notch word choice like that. But Prompto had found himself pulled back into that dark hole he'd mostly inhabited before Aranea arrived and, giving it a moment, she finally pushed herself back up to her feet, brushing off the back of her long quilted duster.
"Look," she said, looking down at Prompto, "I can tell you want to get back together with them. So why not just let them know?"
She turned to walk away, and it took everything Prompto had to manage to get these next words out of him before she was gone. "You think they'd let me back?" he asked. "After all this? And…." He drew in another breath, shaking his head again, still not willing, not able to believe it. "Even if they did let me back…..I'd probably cause them nothing but trouble…"
He winced, forcing down all that pain bubbling right back up inside of him again. "I don't know how I could live with myself."
"Uuuggghhh!" Aranea groaned, tossing back her head, releasing that frustration into the air as she rolled her eyes, and then turned on Prompto, taking quick and focused steps back toward him.
"Because you're doing such a great job," she mewled derisively, "of living with yourself now."
When she reached him, her boot went flying out for his chest, kicking him back. The sound that escaped Prompto as he tumbled backwards from the force was more out of surprise than pain, and the next thing he knew, he was sprawled out on his back, with Aranea crouched over him, all but straddling him as she pulled him up by his lapel. "What do you want, then?" she demanded, eyes narrowed in a fierce glare. "You worry so much about what other people want from you that you don't even know what you want anymore! Your life isn't yours to live!"
Prompto stared up at her, not knowing what to say, but she wasn't finished anyway. Her hands clasped his face, one on each side, pulling it closer to hers so that he couldn't turn away. "Forget about what everyone else thinks for a second and figure out what it is you're really after here."
She let that linger a moment before she released him, pushing back his head as she did so and crawled off of him. And what could Prompto do but lay back against the cold, hard ground, remembering how to breathe again, as Aranea stepped over him and left him there to wallow in that question.
"I'm going after the new model in the morning," she informed him. "You're on your own now, kid."
Prompto waited, laying still as if paralyzed, until he was sure the sound of her boots had retreated entirely, before pulling himself up from his sprawled position with a groan.
What did he want? What was he after?
They were very good questions, and he thought he knew the answer, at one point. But now? The answers he had just seemed too incredibly insurmountable to even be possible.
[[ and finally, part 4 of 4 of today's batch of Episode Prompto! More to come tomorrow, and thanks to everyone who's stuck through/skimmed up through this point! You know you're in for it when literally every post comes with a CW.]]
no subject
You definitely weren't kidding about this being a lot and there's still more come?
no subject
Lol, but all the heavy lifting is done. Everything for Part 2 is basically a cakewalk after all that.