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

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Room 303; Saturday Afternoon [05/25].

Well, this week had been one hell of a ride, hadn't it? Prompto always did have a problem with getting all wrapped up in his own head sometimes, but last weekend and the events that followed meant that he'd been mired in even deeper than usual. And, in light of certain events, he found himself in a situation where he couldn't just ignore and avoid certain people for their own damn good. Which meant that he'd have to do the other thing to do when things got like this, the thing he didn't really like to have to do, the thing he tried to avoid at all costs, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that it was the right thing to do.

He really needed to talk about it.

And since treats always made talks easier, he remembered an unfulfilled idea to go get milkshakes at some point and latched onto that. Of course, getting around the island was a pain in the ass for nearly everyone except Sidon, and while the thought of commandeering Sidon for a trip had crossed his mind, he didn't even know whether any of the good milkshake spots in town were flooded or not, and he didn't want to bother with figuring it out when he could just make milkshakes himself and his room would be more private for all this crap, anyway. So, with more trouble than there should have been (he decided to blame class yesterday, somehow. After blending all those CDs, blending milk and ice cream and fruit seemed suspiciously smooth-going), he managed to make one strawberry one for Nina and one banana one (he was going for a yellow color, which he did not really get, but whatever), found fancy glasses to put them in, even whipped cream and a cherry (thanks, mysteriously accommodating refrigerator!), and then brought them back to his room where he could take a picture and send her a text:

If you're not up here in five minutes, I'm totally drinking your milkshake.

He figured that would do the trick, so he settled in comfortably on the floor, leaning against his bed, contemplating sending her a picture every minute or so with a little bit of her shake sipped away each time to prove that he was serious.

[[ mostly for the one, but can be open if anyone wants to swing by after Nina! And the fact that they met to talk about stuff is a-okay, but if the nitty-gritty deets of the convo could be NFB, I'd greatly appreciate it, squirrels! ]]

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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."

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