hashtag_chocobro | Room 303; Saturday Afternoon [05/25].

Man, Prompto, there were so many ways that plan of yours could have backfired. What if Nina had been out in town? What if she'd been napping? Or what if she simply hadn't had her phone on her?

Though that one, at least, alright, was unlikely to happen. Nina had taken to that bit of tech like, er, a fish to water and her phone was her most favourite tool in this world. (Though her tablet was trying to convince her otherwise.)

And, in any case, all Nina had been doing with her Saturday had been lounging around stealing cookies out of the snack drawer she and Vette had, and exploiting her new library card to borrow all the books. Well. Not all of them. But it certainly felt that way as she read and read and read.

So Prompto's text was read, like, half a second after he sent it and, with a yelp of complete indignation at the very thought of him drinking this milkshake of hers, Nina was up and moving and it was only on the stairs that she wondered why he was doing this, but by then, well, there was nothing to do but keep on going.

And, like, sure. She could have knocked but if he didn't think her trying the door to see if it would open was a thing she'd do (it was totally a thing she'd do) then he deserved the despair that would bring him as she burst in on him.

And if the door was locked, well, she was pretty content to talk through the door. That was knocking enough, really, wasn't it?

"Promptoooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!! What a thing to threaten!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's rude!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

If any of those things had happened, then Prompto would have had two milkshakes. He'd have to then maybe spend an extra hour in the gym, but he needed to do that regardless. This would hardly have been a backfire, and, therefor, it was a risk he had been incredibly willing to take.

And locking the door when he'd expected a full-on burst through would have been silly, as well. He'd have been disappointed if Nina didn't burst through, and he was quite prepared for it, though, he had to admit, that had worked even better than he thought. That was...quick. Which was good. Less melty milkshakes!

So he felt even more justified in his absolutely shameless chuckling, sipping from his own pointedly through a straw before grinning at her.

"But it worked," he pointed out, "didn't it?"

And Nina felt absolutely justified in sticking her tongue out at him, then laughing and laying claim to her milkshake, so he couldn't drink it.

She folded herself neatly on the floor, posture perfect, skirts demure, and as she raised that milkshake to her lips, fixed him with a look.

"This," she told him loftily, "feels like a trap!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

One that she'd burst into willingly, mind, and oh that was a tasty milkshake, it really was.

"... But a delicious one, I concede!!!!!!!!!!!"

Because, like, Nina knew Prompto. If he was bored, he'd probably be playing video games, not making milkshakes and then threatening her with them.

"I do know my way around a milkshake," Prompto admitted proudly, "and a trap. You girls don't even know what you've gotten yourselves into by opening the door to that one."

Though this was hardly the sort of booby trap any of them likely had in mind. His grin faltered a little, though, letting her enjoy at least some of that milkshake before diving into anything, or perhaps just letting her drink up some of it now so that there was less that was likely to wind up in his face later.

That was a possible outcome that was only just now coming to his mind and he was starting to wish he'd worn a shirt he'd be a little less heartbroken about being ruined by a milkshake, and then realized, after the Ketchup Catastrophe, that food and Nina and his room were not a wise combination that should probably be avoided in the future if things did turn out that way.

"I must confess, though," he informed her, "that this milkshake absolutely does have an ulterior motive."

Which he'll get to. He was....building suspense. Or just delaying things. A little of both, but mostly the latter, definitely mostly the latter.

Milkshake, at least, was probably easier to get out of shirts than ketchup.

... Maybe?

Nina considered both his faltering grin and her milkshake thoughtfully before taking another sip of it. It was tempting to play up the romantic side of this. A young lady, summoned to a boy's room, and plied with milkshakes.........

But Nina knew that, whatever it was, it was probably not that and, if it was that, well, she felt weirdly flat about the whole idea. Huh. That was... that was something.

"I do like ulterior motives," Nina admitted, since it was true, that was the sort of thing she adored. "And the more traps you do, the more I'll just point Vette at them??????????? You saw how excited she was!!!!!!!!!!"

"Yeah, I did," said Prompto, who really couldn't help grinning at remembering the way Vette just lit up like a little blue and bouncing lightbulb, though he shook his head. He was really going to have to put together something good to meet that level of expectation, but he'd already ruined a blender in the pursuit of that possibility, so he had a pretty good feeling about it, really. "Her traps are going to be way different, though. Even if I could see her falling for milkshakes just as easily. But I don't have an unfulfilled promise of milkshakes from a million years ago with her, do I?"

".................... ................ ...... . .............."

Nina frowned at him. If he was trying not to lead her brain down merry, romantic pathways, he was failing miserably.

Those milkshakes had been meant as a date.

"I suppose, probably not.............???????????????" she ventured. "Though I wonder why it's coming up now????????????"

Edited 2019-05-25 14:39 (UTC)

Meant as a date that Prompto honestly hadn't even taken seriously back then, much less now, so it was mostly just an attempt to latch onto some sort of common ground, a little nugget of something that showed all they'd been through even with unfulfilled milkshakes.

And it didn't land nearly as well as he'd hoped, so he sighed a little, shifting a little where he sat, which basically meant untucking one leg from underneath the other, then tucking them back in, switching their positions and therefor not really changing much at all.

At this rate, he probably could go around in awkward confusing circles all day, but that didn't mean he should. He took a long, thoughtful sip before saying anything, his eyes generally on the floor in front of Nina, then he bit his lip, chewed on it a little, and let out a short, bolstering breath before looking up at her, as frankly and honestly as he could.

"We really need to talk," he said. "About....about last weekend."

It was, at least, a very good milkshake?

Nina blinked and then, perhaps more incredulously than she... no, she meant it, she did, blurted, "You want to talk????????????"

About something serious? About something that she'd taken to stalking through Insomnia's public libraries to see if she couldn't figure it out on her own, in a backwards and sideways manner because she'd figured he wouldn't want to talk about it?

"I didn't say want," Prompto felt compelled to point out, though with a faint, wry hint of a grin. "I said need. There's a difference. And I...I was honestly just going to try to brush it off, you know, I...didn't want to make a thing out of it or anything, but now that we...we're, y'know, unbreakable, and everything..."

And maybe had was taking their whole Drama Diamond gang thing a little too seriously; maybe it was sort of just a dumb joke to them, or whatever, but he'd had all day yesterday to think about it, and....he realized how much it meant to him. The same with his boys back home. The same way Yang's dad had apparently decided he was stuck with them, too, even when they'd only met the one time so far. He still didn't feel worthy of any of it, and he knew he never would be, but...that was all the more reason to make sure that he could get at least as close to worthy as he could.

"It's important."

Edited 2019-05-25 15:06 (UTC)

"It must be," Nina said, studying him more seriously. "If we need to talk about it."

She was, honestly, a little frightened by that. This week had been so good to her, giving her both Vette as a sister (and, yes, she knew it was for a library card only, but it meant more than that to Nina) and then the gang, which bound her and Vette and Prompto together, forever, like they were all family.

They were all very dramatic diamonds, the name suited them perfectly, and it was perhaps silly... but that meant everything to Nina.

"We are unbreakable," she said, straightening her shoulders. "And I'm here whenever you need to talk. No matter what."

She was frightened by what he could say, but bravery had never been something Nina lacked.

And that cute little display of bravery in the face of Actually-Being-Serious-About-Something Prompto was encouraging, and probably exactly what Prompto needed for his own little push toward being brave himself. It would be easy to just back out of it, to make something up, to convince himself that she didn't need to be burdened by his problems or his sad stupid future, but it was more than that. And she did need to know, because if she didn't...

He'd gone over this so many times in his head already, so many different ways, but he still just didn't know where even to start.

"Okay," he ventured, "so...."

Seriously, where did you even start with something like that?

Probably with poor, unfortunate, definitely breakable him, really.

"It's probably safe to say that I wasn't fooling you at all with that whole 'I've got a cold' thing last weekend, right?"

Ohhhh, this was going to be fun.

Oh. Oh.

Already, Nina didn't like where this was going, because no, she hadn't been fooled, though she'd done little to admit that to anyone. She'd told Vette that he hadn't seemed well, but really, Vette had been more focused on being there for him, and hoping that would turn out right........... and even while she ready everything she could get her hands on, Nina had sort of been hoping, somehow, that maybe it was really just a cold.

Maybe even, like, a serious cold. Like, pneumonia or mono or bronchitis that would take their toll on someone and leave them sick for a good while, because she'd seen Prompto and the pictures showed he wasn't well, but in person............

"No," she said, "you didn't fool me."

Nina kind of wished he had, but...

"Right," Prompto breathed out a small laugh, to accompany a small little smile, "because you're too smart for that. Which is why it sort of blows my mind a little how someone so smart could still manage to do stuff that's really....like, pretty dumb."

And since he figured she'd immediately try to object to that, he tried to cut off her objections by forging forward with, "Hold on. I'm going to get there. In this future, what you did was dumb because you just didn't know, no one knew before it was too late, but now we do know, so maybe we can just manage to avoid it all together. Like, this weekend gave us the chance to change it, and the real dumb thing would be not using that.

"There's..." He sucked in a breath, bit his lip again, and, milkshake pretty much forgotten and abandoned on the floor beside him right then, his attention was mostly down toward his own lap, where he cradled one wrist in his other hand, rubbing a thumb against the leather straps there, "something wrong with me, Nina. Physically. I don't really want to talk about it, because I don't think I completely understand it myself, and a lot of my memories from last weekend are getting really blurry now, anyway. I don't know if that's just what happens with the possible future things or if it's just because my self-awareness is already changing things, or what, but the point is...no matter what happens, I'm....probably not going to make it too long. Which means..."

He forced himself to look up at her now, firmly, unfaltering. "It would be pretty dumb of someone to go and sacrifice herself to protect someone else who was going to die anyway, right?"

She was smart. She could put the pieces together.

He hoped. He wasn't sure he could bring himself to say it any more directly than that.

Nina's mouth had fallen open to protest, vociferously, about how stupid she was not when he ordered--him, ordering--her to hold on and the sheer surprise of that meant that, what else could she do but hear him out?

So, she listened, and she put the pieces together, slotting the pieces she'd picked up over the weekend--Owen had been angry at Prompto; Prompto had been so sad--and it, honestly, made the puzzle make a little more sense for two separate boys that she'd been worrying about.

(Owen was still not answering her voicemails............ but, no, she'd deal with one boy at a time.)

Nina was smart, she really was. And she got what Prompto was saying, she did.

But it was still really, really stupid of him.

Nina took a shaky breath, trying to think of how to put it, a way that would make him understand that, even if she had known, that older her, it would have changed nothing.

"It is pretty dumb," she said, her gaze trained firmly on a spot on the floor, on about three inches past her skirts, mostly so he wouldn't see that her eyes had filled with tears, "to expect me to stand back and just let someone I love die because they wouldn't have lived much longer anyway."

And that...that reaction, right there, was precisely why Prompto had been so convinced that it would be easier to just avoid her altogether, but then that plan had to go and get all ruined because she and Vette just had to insist on being friends, and, of course, how could he have said no to that? Maybe he should have. It was obviously too late now to go back on that. But if he was just honest and firm...and she wound up mad at him anyway for it, then...maybe it would just work itself out.

"No," he said, shaking his head a little. "It isn't dumb to expect that, especially not from someone so smart, especially when it's putting your own life in danger, Nina. Because...if we're going to do this thing, if we're going to stick together, I have to be able to know I can trust you to be smarter than that. I mean, how would you feel, if the roles were reversed? If it was me who went down in battle trying to protect you? Or if it was Vette who went down like that? And then you find out it was all just a waste? I'm telling you now so it doesn't have to be."

Edited 2019-05-25 20:36 (UTC)

"You-----"

That was it, right there, wasn't it? That was the difference between them and the difference between her and Vette too.

If she went down in battle, Nina was pretty sure they'd be upset (though, honestly, she did not understand how upset they would be, so this was a hazy, weirdly hopeful sort of guess) but both of them had piles of other people who loved them.

Nina had no one else. Vette could say her gang back home would love her, Nina, until the end of time and Prompto's gang of boys hadn't blocked her from contacting them, but they weren't hers and would probably never be. So it was really, really stupid for Prompto to try and put her death on par with the pain that his or Vette's would cause people.

Just... really, really stupid.

"I wouldn't deliberately set out to die," she said, since Nina could be dumb, but she wasn't that dumb. "But it's... it's like, if I saw someone take a swing at you and shouting at you that it was happening didn't work, then all the thinking in the world wouldn't stop me from trying to get there in time. I wouldn't be thinking 'Prompto's going to d-" her voice hitched, "d-die anyway, so don't bother. I'd just be thinking 'some total jerk is trying to hurt Prompto'."

Oof, that little hitch in her voice felt an awful lot like a stab to the gut, didn't it? It was so...weird, he felt fine now, but remembering that he hadn't...

"But you should be thinking 'some total jerk is trying to hurt Prompto, and he'll probably hurt me, too.' And if you....can't think of it like that, Nina, then I can't....then we shouldn't...I just can't let something like that happen, don't you see that?"

"No," she said, honestly bewildered at what she was supposed to be seeing. "I don't--how would I live with myself, if I didn't try to help?"

How could she, if her standing by and doing nothing meant he died?

"I'd... I'd rather die," she said, sounding very small and very young, though she didn't mean to. "You and Vette, so many people love you. I'd be careful, but if I had to pi... pick who lived and who died, between me and you or me and Vette, it would never be me."

Hardly anyone would miss her.

"And that's a dumb choice," Prompto said, a little more harshly than he'd wanted to, especially with her sounding the way she did just then, but he also felt that if he didn't be harsh about it, she'd never get it through her stubborn little skull. "Becaues then both of us wind up dead, and what good does that do anybody? And don't even act like it wouldn't even matter if you died, either, okay? Because a lot of people love you, too, and, believe me, it's not like the world just forgets. I lived through that aftermath, I know what it did to everyone. I"m starting to forget, it's all sort of fading on me, but I still feel surprised that Owen didn't just punch my light's out for it the moment he saw me, for crying out loud! And I wouldn't have blamed him for it at all, either! I kinda want to punch myself out for it!"

Yes. Punch. Present tense. For something a future version of himself allowed to happen that might not even actually happen anymore.

She flinched at his tone and then, really, his words just made her want to keep flinching.

It wasn't that Nina didn't value her own life--she did; she liked living--but it was hard to wrap her mind around the idea of her being as wanted as other people were. She loved Greenhill and New Leaf Academy and Lady Teresa and Lord Shin and Miss Emilia and everyone but they'd never been family. She'd been a burden, really, one to be taught and trained and raised until she could do something to help, so that she wouldn't be a burden.

"You dying doesn't help anyone either," she protested. "Not for me, or for Vette, or for Noctis or Gladio or Ignis either! So, so it's not fair to say that it's only me, who isn't allowed to die!"

"Yeah, well," said Prompto, gritting his teeth a little in frustration, feeling like they were just about to get started on going in circles over here, "I might not have a choice in the matter. You do. And that's why I wanted to talk to you about it, because...fuuuuuck, Nina, it doesn't have to be like that. It shouldn't have to be like that. I don't want it to be like that, and I know you don't, either!"

No matter how much she seemed to inexplicably want to fight him about it...

Because he was being really stupid about the idea of her being willing to die for him!

Now, though, she was seizing on something else, because it was true, if they starting going around in circles about who could die for who and who was allowed to die for who, they'd never, ever get anywhere or come to an agreement.

"You do have a choice in the matter!" she insisted, leaning forward. "It doesn't have to be like that for you either! You... you said that you were going to d-die," no, she was still going to trip over that word in relation to him, when talked about as a sure thing, "but that was......... if you're sick, can't we find a way to fix that?"

Could they please, please, please find a way to fix that?

"Like, I know that's not what you want me to promise, and all I can promise is I'll be careful, I really will," she said earnestly. "But... but can't we look for a cure for you, before you..."

"I don't....think it's that simple," Prompto admitted quietly, shaking his head. "I think...if it was, then it wouldn't still be an issue in a future where I have access to literally tons of different realities and universes with countless different magic and medical advances and healing techniques."

Some things were just...defective beyond repair, because, apparently, some things just weren't built to last...

Prompto pressed his lips together against the building swell of tears that he'd thankfully had plenty of practice forcing down every time he let himself think about it, and tried to steer things back on task.

"And I guess...I guess that's all I can ask, is that you just...know. And you be careful, and that you don't just throw yourself into something because you don't think it'll matter, because it will matter, it does matter, and don't try to fight me on it when I tell you something's too dangerous or I don't want you going, it's not anything against you, it's just that I'm going to be worried, I'm going to be going into everything wondering if this is when something finally happens that we can't ever take back. And I was...part of me was really wondering if it would just be better if, like, you know, we just...didn't talk any more or anything, because then you'll never have to be in that sort of situation at all, but then Thursday happened, and..."

He sniffled a little, tried to swallow down the lump in this throat, but it wasn't going anywhere, and he shrugged, tried chasing it all away with a faint smile. "We're pretty much stuck with each other now. Unbreakable, right?"

Said the sad, already broken boy.

There... there was so much she could say to that, to all of it, even to the ugly, horrifying idea that she'd almost been discarded, like she wasn't useful, like she could just be tossed aside..............

But, no, that wasn't what he was saying, was it? It was because he valued her that he'd wanted to...............

Nina set aside her milkshake, her hands cold and damp from the condensation (she had forgotten she'd been holding it, this entire time) and flung herself at Prompto.

She needed a hug but, also, she was sure that he needed one, even more than she did.

And that? That was a good call. A hug was a very good call right then, and Prompto was going to take that hug, and he was goingto hug Nina back, and he tried to chase away Owen's growl still in his head about how he should just stay away from her, because that was a different Owen and a different Prompto and a different future, hopefully, and so he was just going stick with the hug. He tried to think of something to say, something funny and stupid to lighten up the mood a little, and all he could think of was a pretty lame, "Hey, hey, watch the milkshake," with a chuckle and a squeeze meant to show that he really didn't care about that milkshake, anyway.

Nina's own giggle was pretty weak, and she wasn't going to let go of him, but she did manage to retort to that with, "You can just make me another."

Because, please, now that she knew he could make milkshakes as if she wasn't going to take full advantage of that.

"And... and you said I hadn't known, in that other future. And we're unbreakable. So I'm going to find a way to cure you."

Because, obviously, he was terrible at studying. Nina was much, much better at it. He must have missed something.

"Let it be known," said Prompto, snorting despite himself, "...and let it never be forgotten...that that is a much better and acceptable way of saving my sorry ass than jumping out in front of daemon swords."

Because seriously.

"I would have thought it worth it," Nina said, confident in her judgement of this other, older, deader her. Present her thought it was fairly worth it too, but she knew better than to say that.

Nina pulled away from him, but not for long and not far--just enough so that, instead of sitting across from each other, she could sit next to him.

"But, because you care, and because you've asked me to be careful," she said softly, "I'll look into the other way of saving you more. But... but that means you'd need to tell me, what you could........."

"...what I'm going to get sick with," Prompto finished, after drawing in a deep breath. "Right."

He had planned to dodge that topic, of course. But...

"I guess you'll need to know that, huh? If you're going to try to find a way to stop it."

He was quiet for a moment, though, brow furrowed in thought, since he really hadn't expected to cross the 'tell your best friends you're just the experimental clone of a madman that was never intended to exist outside of a laboratory' bridge quite yet. Sighing, he tilted his head back for a moment, looking up at the ceiling as if maybe that might miraculously hold the answer, and then his head rolled to the side a little, glancing over at her.

"I can't really remember what I've told you, if I've told you," or if she'd gone and figured it out all on her own, "but you know I'm adopted, right? I wasn't actually even born in Insomnia. Or Lucis, even. I was born in Niflheim. You know...that's...the bad guys..."

Nina had known he was adopted, but the rest of that was new to her.

She hesitated.

"That doesn't mean you're bad, though," she said quietly, "though I know people blame children from enemy countries for things all the time. So... so I can see why you'd keep that a secret."

With the amount of war that her world was embroiled in... yes, Nina knew that good and well.

"Yeah..." Prompto looked away again for a moment to build up his courage to go into the next part.

"And then....there's this." He reached across himself to push back one of the leather straps that he always wore with his gloves, then held out his wrist of Nina to see the neatly tattooed barcode there. "I always thought it was just, you know, something they did to people when they were born there, to keep track of of them, stuff like that. That always seemed to make sense to me, that seemed like the sort of thing they would do. I always wondered if it meant anything more than that, though. Did it, like, I don't know, designate me as a sort of soldier? If I hadn't been slipped out of the Empire, would I have been in their army? Would I already just some faceless cannon fodder dead in a field somewhere by now? I've heard that they do weird stuff to their soldiers, too, subject them to all sorts of experiements, so that they're barely even human anymore, but, you know, we're at war, you never really know if any of that's true or if it's just...scary stories you tell kids or kids tell themselves, trying to scare each other about the big bad evil Nifs..."

He couldn't look at it anymore. He drew his wrist back, shuffled the leather strap back in place to cover it again.

"But I know now. It is true. And...it's actually...it's actually a whole lot worse."

Edited 2019-05-25 23:41 (UTC)

This was one of those times where Nina really wished that she better understood how a lot of modern things worked. She knew what barcodes were for, of course, but maybe if she understood their history a bit better, she'd.......

For now, all she could do was memorize the numbers and letters. That, at least, she didn't have to understand to be able to do. 05953234 and N-iP01357 were seen, committed to memory and then tucked away as she listened to what he was saying.

Nina reached out to brush his arm with her fingers, wanting to comfort him. Worse than being made a solider? Worse than being subjected to a whole lot of experiments?

She kept her mouth shut, for once, and just listened, being there for him.

Prompto almost wished she had said something; this was...hard, talking about it, having to actually hear the words come out of his mouth, words that took all of his worst fears and nightmares as a child and blew them up to something almost beyond reasoning, beyond nightmares.

"I'm..." he started, then stopped, tried again. "They were...are...making people. Human clones, in their magitek research facilities. People they could just...do whatever they wanted to, because it didn't matter, because they could just, you know, make more, they weren't really people, they were just...clones. They didn't matter. And they were....using...daemons. Trying to create some...super daemon-human hybrid. And they marked those clones with barcodes..." His lifted his hand again, weakly, and let it fall back down again. "Like mine.

"And the technology's not perfect," he added, quickly, as if to move as swiftly away from that detail and get right to the point as quickly as possible. "It usually didn't matter, either, because, you know, they're just supposed to be experimental, you don't need them to live very long, you're planning on getting all up in their DNA and changing it anyway, they probably never even had one live as long as...as I...do...but it turns out, the cells weren't meant to last, they just start...breaking down....they're...not like a normal person's cells..."

"But they're not breaking down yet," Nina said softly, her thoughts whirling through possibilities, sorting out and discarding and trying to figure out what she could do to help that but....... the Prompto, right here and now was more important. "You're not breaking down yet. You're not some thing. You're Prompto."

That was really the most important thing.

"Your origins matter only because looking at them mean we'll have a better chance to cure you. It's the same way doctor's like to know the medical history of a patients' family. Where you come from and how you came to be, that matters, but they're not you."

That...sounded familiar, like he'd heard it somewhere before. Obviously in the future, the future that was starting to fade with the details, and he rubbed his face a little, trying to remember who had said it, but it was all starting to just be a messy jumble.

He rubbed his face a little, rubbed his thumb and forefinger in his eyes, down to his chin, and let it fall away again with a sigh.

He didn't know what else more to say, really. Because it was him. It was who he was; it might not matter, but it was still...

...but if said that, Nina'd probably just argue the point, so there didn't seem to be much use in saying it at all. And he'd said enough already, really, didn't know what else more there was too say.

A goddamn clone. Not even his own person, but by the grace of a few spies collecting information and finding a whole lot more. They could just have easily have grabbed the schmuck in the test-tube next to him, and then he'd be Prompto, probably the exact same, too, no different, because they were just copies anyway...Copies that embodied everything Lucis was fighting against...

It was....

...a lot to take in, yo.

It was a lot to take in and she didn't know any way to make it better or easier for him, if there even was such a way to do something like that.

She just sighed, softly, pulling her knees up against her chest, and thought about how, sitting here next to him, with melted milkshakes, none of it felt quite real. Her angle of research was going to have to change, though she wasn't sure how yet. There was time to puzzle out the enemy later, when she didn't even have a good grasp on Insomnia or Lucis.

Sitting there, just keeping him company, would have to do for now, and Nina was glad to do it and loathe to break their silence, but...

"What about Vette?" she asked, after a while. "Are you going to tell her?"

"I...don't know," Prompto admitted. "I...probably should, though, right? I mean, it's at least easier to tell you guys than it will be to tell..."

Well, that was because it didn't mean as much to Nina or Vette or anyone else here. It didn't even mean anything to them that he was a Nif. And he always got the feeling that Noctis somehow already sort of knew, somehow, but he hadn't even told them that much yet...

He rolled his head to the side to look over at her again. "Do you think I should?"

At least with this, there was a segue, a build-up, they actually had to talk about stuff. But there wasn't anything like that with Vette, it would be just like strolling up to her and being all 'oh, by the way, I found out I'm a clone made by a bunch of bad guys to be made into a nightmarish monster over the other weekend, anyway, how was your day?'

Nina met his eyes, looking up at him.

"I think... I think that you should," she ventured, even though... well, Nina was hardly one to talk about being open and honest with secrets.

What he'd said, though, definitely silenced her other question, about if his boys knew, back home. No, they didn't, and Nina didn't need to ask to know that, like the pictures she'd taken of older-Prompto, she wasn't to tell them about what Prompto had said today.

Which, in a way, was a crying shame. Figuring out how to fix him would go easier if his boys could help... even if only to ease her way and point her in the right direction for research...

"Because, we said it, we promised. Together, we're unbreakable." And, already, they were doing great at the drama part of their name, weren't they? "So... so I think Vette should know. It can be a gang secret, but I think she needs to know."

This was hardly the kind of drama Prompto had in mind when he'd suggested the name, but he wouldn't deny that it still fit pretty well, didn't it?

He drew in a bolstering breath and nodded a little. "Then I'll tell her. Soon. I'm...not sure when it'll be a good time, but I'll try not to put it off. If I do, it'll be too easy to just, you know, conveniently forget or get distracted or whatever..."

"She'd be really hurt, if you didn't tell her and it came out later that I knew," Nina told him, because it was true. "Vette might not say when she's hurt, but she would be."

So... going off and getting distracted and forgetting or... whatever, well, that might still happen. Nina wasn't going to make him talk to Vette, not about something like this.

But if he didn't tell her then, at least, she'd warned him.

"Vette's used to people leaving her," she added, more quietly. "Don't leave her like that, Prompto."

Prompto's attention drifted back to Nina with a little more focus at that, blinking a little as his brain dredged up something else from last weekend, something that made that statement seem to hit with a particularly ironic sting. "Hm." It came out as a mostly thoughtful little breath, but he shook that train of thought away.

"I wouldn't," he said softly. "I...won't. I can't." He nudged her lightly with his elbow. "We're all stuck with each other now, whether we like it or not, right?"

"Always and always," she said, smiling just a little. Even if the universe was determined to make it hard for them to stay that way. "I never though, when we all got on the bus together, that this would happen."

It still seemed unbelievable, how everything had happened.

"I'm so, so glad it did, though," Nina added. "Even when it hurts."

It always hurt; just some times slightly less than others.

"Saaaaaaaaaaame," Prompto tilted his head back and declared it emphatically, chuckling a littlle...and letting it build to a lot. "It hasn't even been a whole year yet, and it feels like I've known you guys for pretty much ever."

And what a trio they made. The slave, the clone, and the orphan spy.

"It's...pretty great, actually," he added, sending a good old lopsided grin her way.

She grinned back.

"And now," Nina declared, "you're not even allowed to get sick of us."

As if he was really allowed to get sick of them before but now, now it was official.

Nina hesitated a moment, but really, given that she'd just told him about not keeping secrets, it really did make her a bit hypocritical to not tell him things.

"Ummmmmmm," yeah, she really didn't want to tell him; Nina sometimes liked keeping secrets for the sake of having a secret, not because it was important, "just so you know, like, I spoke with Ignis?"

Well. Texted.

"And he helped me get a library card for your world," Nina admitted. "Because... because even when you hadn't told me all of this... I was worried. I didn't tell him why I needed one and he didn't ask."

Prompto's head tilted with a little bit of curious confusion, trying to go over the last week for anything particularly embarrassing that he might have done that she'd have sent to the boyos like the potato sack race, but then she continued on with an explanation, which seemed...interesting. A little confusing. Why would she want to....ah, but, then again: Nina. That was kind of all the explanation he really needed.

"You run out of stuff to stick your nose into on this world, had to go start sticking it in mine, huh?" he asked, lightly teasing with a soft smile to prove it. "I bet he was stoked, too, probably went on for about an hour talking about how nice it was to finally have someone actually interested in pursuing," and here he pulled out his best Ignis impression, which wasn't that good, especially since he hadn't gotten nearly as much practice as when he pulled it out on Yang over the reunion weekend, and it helped, giving those invisible glasses a push up his nose and of course he had to add the little flourish of his hand afterwards, that was apparently the best part, "a healthy extracirricular interest in such scholarly pursuits."

Rude! But also accurate.

Nina giggled at his impression. "He's really very nice!!!!!" she protested, though she knew Prompto was aware of that. "Even if... well, he did go on for a bit............"

She had the texts to prove it.

"And it's not just your world I'm sticking my nose into," Nina said loftily. "I'm also sticking my nose into Vette's too."

Because why meddle on one world when she could meddle on four, including her own and this one?

"Yup," said Prompto, "that checks for Ignis. And that checks for you, too."

But there was a slight, maybe even a little bit uncomfortable pause following it.

"What sort of stuff are you looking for, anyway?" he wondered.

Nina considered that question.

"In which world?" she asked, finally.

"Mine," Prompto clarified easily. "I mean, I assume with Vette's, it's a lot of stuff about trying to get her home, right?"

Which was definitely a nice can of worms just sort of sitting there, but he really felt he was in no position at all to open that one...

"Yeah," she sighed, the sound a bit frustrated. "I can get myself to her home, but I haven't figured out how to get her there yet. Vette mentioned having Sidon try talking to the Portalocity people next."

Which Nina kind of desperately wanted to see. The Portalocity people tended to avoid her these days.

"For yours, honestly, all I've really started looking at so far is basic world history," she said tilting her head back. "And some gossip rags, because those are always fun no matter what. But I was looking to see if... if I could find a reason that your future world was in such a bad state. Like, always, in both the past weekend and when your kid showed up... But I don't know anything about your world, so I figured the best place to start would be the beginning.........."

Prompto was quiet for a moment, a thoughtful, debating sort of pause where he was clearly going through a few things. "If you can," he finally said, slowly, "you'll want to look into daemons, maybe....more about what they are and where they came from, but good luck finding much in Insomnia. You should have probably gotten a Nif card instead, that's all their territory. And I dont know what happened in Lucy's timeline, but, in this last one....the details are all fuzzy, but...the world pretty much ended. Everything got dark and the daemons took over after Noct....I...really don't remember what happened, but he was gone, and then, like, ten year's later, he came back, but just long enough to..."

His brow furrowed. Why couldn't he just remember? For sure?

"I think....I think he died, trying to set things right. And...it worked, everything did go back, the daemons were gone, we even got Sidon to send Zora architects to help us rebuild Insomnia, something like that...but everything before...

"Anyway," he shook his head a little, "maybe start there. With the daemons..."

"I'll start with the daemons," she said, though she had so many questions, about things he said he didn't remember, about darkness and daemons and Noctis saving everything but dying in the process...

"Not just for saving you," Nina said, "but for saving Noctis too, and your world."

Because Prompto loved his home and Noctis was his best friend.

"I can get a Nif library card."

How, exactly, she wasn't sure. She didn't even know the name of any of their cities. But thanks to Ignis she knew how getting a library card and, she was pretty sure, it would be similar in other countries.

She'd probably have to come up with another last name, though...

"I dont even think they have libraries," Prompto admitted with a faint laugh, which sobered up pretty quickly with a realization. "But...they do have research facilities! AND you can probably use the data on my barcode to get in! It....granted me access, when...we were all at one, at some point, but I can't....remember why, but I could use the barcode to get into places! Maybe the code is enough to access stuff remotely! But...I mean..."

He trailed off a little, the excitement waning.

"Then you'll really have to be careful, Nina. You don't want to mess with Nifs. If they found something out, who even knows what they could do?"

"Hey," Nina said gently, nudging him. "I know it sounds big and scary and it would be terrible if I got caught, but..........."

She studied her hands for a moment.

"Like, the best way you can help me out is help me figure out the technology of your world," she admitted. "Because, Prompto, the spying is what I'm good at. That's... that's my job. It's just, my world doesn't have all the tech you guys have, so.......... that's my biggest concern."

That wasn't to say she was at all comfortable with the idea of being hunted down, tortured, imprisoned or killed. But those were all threats that she would face at home, too, if she got caught.

"I can definitely help with the tech," Prompto assured jer, since that was easier than thinking about the fact that it was big and scary and probably a terrible idea. "I know the tech..."

He...was the tech, in a way.

A grin surfaced, a little easier, now. "Maybe, I'll have to plan a trip home. I wanted to talk with everyone about this, anyway, I just wasn't sure how, but, maybe, if this means we can convince the Crownsguard to do a raid, we can find what we need, you know? We did a lot of raids, once I got out of here, and they're pretty helpful. And there's Hunters, too, they might be helpful if I can't convince the Guard to do anything yet..."

He knew how crazy it would sounds if he brought it to them, but who knew?

And wasn't trying, and failing, better than not trying at all?

"They might even have some knowledge already," Nina said. "Stuff that wouldn't be accessible to the general public. Like, that would make sense, in a war that that sort of thing wouldn't just be paraded around. Anything would be helpful, at this point."

She smiled.

"Besides, like, it would be a tragic summer if you didn't get to go spend at least some of that time with your boys, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, yeah," Prompto snorted a little. "Just how I'd want to spend the summer, too, skulking around Niflheim miliary bases and research facilities, and risking the entire Crownsguard thinking I'm crazy. Perfect summer. Ten out of ten."

He's still do it, of course, but he'd probably just start with Gladio and Iggy and Noct and...maybe go from there.

Nina giggled.

"I didn't mean that part," she protested. "Though, like, it doesn't sound like a bad vacation to me............."

She was, after all, the one who'd thought it'd be great fun to spend a week in a monster infested castle SO.

"I think you need to take more vacations," Prompto decided.

Not that he was anyone to talk, considering his summers up until recently mostly just consisted of video games, fast food, and photography.

Which wasn't bad, really, but they did seem a little lame once he'd realized just how much else there was out there to see and do.

"Where would you suggest I take a vacation to then????????????" Nina wondered, amused and also honestly curious.

Was there, like, a super great vacation spot she was missing?

"Well," said Prompto, grinning a little wistfully now as his head tilted and he looked up toward the ceiling a little, "all the water here right now had gotten me thinking about how I've always wanted to visit Altissia. Travel there's pretty hard with the war, but I bet we could figure out how to get a portal. And you and Vette still have to come visit Insomnia; there's no lack of things to do there, believe me, but we might have to figure something out with Vette. We don't really have anything like Twi'leks on Eos that I know of; would make it hard to keep a low profile, y'know?"

"And Vette doesn't really like not being herself," Nina said, frowning a little. "So it'd be really unfair to ask her to disguise herself as a human or something for a vacation."

For an emergency rescue, now, Nina would have zero issues asking Vette that and, she was pretty sure, Vette would do it. For an emergency.

She grinned, though, and held up her phone.

"Bet I could get us a portal to Altissia, though, no problem."

Edited 2019-05-26 16:08 (UTC)

And Prompto took a second to look at Nina's phone being held up like that, grinning before rolling his eyes. "I could just go and do that too, you know," he said. "But maybe I'll just let you do it. Wouldn't want to deprive you of the satisfaction."

"Yes, but could you get the portals for free??????????" she asked sweetly. "Because I can!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

It was totally a bribe, on Portalocity's part, to try and make her go away.

Prompto quirked a brow at her. "Free, huh?" he asked. "How'd you pull that one off? Mercilessly badger them about a discount until they just gave up and went all in?"

"Rude!!!!!!!!!" But she had to laugh, because that wasn't that far off either. "And, no, I'll have you know that I spent, like, ten days," literally, "badgering them about Vette's world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

A beat.

"This was an attempt to make me go away. It, like, did not work, but it's really nice of them??????????"

And now Prompto was eyeing Nina a bit speculatively, half wondering exactly how much time she did spend in the Portalocity office, assaulting those gnomes with punctuation and demands.

"How long do you think you've got," he postulated, "before they realize it really isn't working and they revoke it because what's the point if you're still bothering them?"

Nina flapped one hand at him.

"I've, like, hardly bothered them since they gave it to me," she said airily. "They did give me what I wanted, after all, and so long as I keep contact with them to a minimum, I rather think they'll just leave it as is, since they don't want me to come back!!!!!!!!!!"

Nina. Nina, that was probably not a thing you should sound proud of.

"And, like, the local office here never had much to do with me????????? They just passed me on up and up and up the line. The big bosses probably do not want me barging in on another board meeting................."

Yes, she'd done that.

And it was...all too easy to picture that, really.

And, since Prompto hadn't been there nor was he a big boss in any sense of the word, it was impossible to picture it without a chuckling a little.

"You're a certifiable menace," he informed her, "you know that?"

"If they'd given me what I'd wanted in the first place I wouldn't have had to go to such lengths," Nina protested, though she was grinning. "Like, I was very polite about it, right up until the end, since barging anywhere isn't that polite................"

She shrugged a little.

"And, I'll note, that you're stuck with me!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Room 303; Saturday Afternoon [05/25].

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