#me after repeating the same ive screamed about a dozen times on here: maybe now ill be normal

[aalghul]

my eyes start twitching every time i see someone say that Batman recruited jason to keep him from becoming a criminal when it was actually because an untrained, essentially unhomed (since the people he was trying to fight were from his new living situation, and by getting these people caught, he would once again be homeless), and tiny jason todd tried to stop a robbery that had nothing to do with him. batman saw jason’s strong sense of justice and that jason was a good kid in a tough situation (and batman had instantly taken a shine to jason at that point. he was just really charmed by him, and that part’s important too).

[xadoheandterra]

Series: The Burning of Solheim Title: The Path Untrodden Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Chapters: I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | XIII Characters: Prompto Argentum, Ignis Scientia, Cor Leonis, Gladiolus Amicitia, Noctis Lucis Caelum Tags: 10 years older!Prompto, Ardyn is Ardyn, Noctis doesn’t give a fuck, artist!Prompto Summary:  Solheim was the height of civilization long enough that their ruins were ruins over 2000 years ago, and still had the power to function in the time of the King of Light. They should’ve realized something was very wrong the minute Prompto remarked on the lights being on, and yet no one was home.

Prompto woke with the dawn and carefully extracted himself from the pile of Noctis and Ignis on the caravan bed. Ignis rolled over and grumbled something, half on the way to waking, before Prompto tugged the blankets up and nudged the fully snoring Noctis into wrapping himself around Ignis like an octopus. It made Prompto smile—must be a Lucis Caelum trait, then, to be clingy in their sleep. The other bed Prompto noticed was empty, and really it didn’t surprise him.

There were vague recollections of Gladio up in the pre-dawn light of a Haven, and Prompto pegged the Marshal as someone who probably got up ridiculously early like, or ridiculously late like Noctis. Hell Prompto wouldn’t be surprised if the man shifted between both—waking early when out in the field, waking late when in the safety of home—but that was neither here nor there. Instead Prompto stretched and knocked open the door of the caravan to step outside and look up to the sky and breathe in the air.

It didn’t smell as fresh.

Off to the side around the table and chairs that settled outside of the caravan Cor glanced up from his beer and arched an eyebrow in Prompto’s direction in surprise. He took a look sip, then said, “You’re up early.”

Prompto glanced over and grinned. “Had to be, otherwise the Princess would never get his ass outta bed.”

Gladio slapped a hand across Prompto’s shoulder, footsteps loud on the gravel as he approached. He leaned over and eyed Prompto with some skepticism. “Princess?”

Prompto snorted and took the offered beer as Gladio shuffled him over to sit at the table with Cor. “Yeah, well, I refused to call him Healer King like everyone else,” Prompto said wryly. “I figured since he was such a spoiled Princess, why not call him what he was?” At Cor’s raised eyebrow Prompt sighed explosively. “He and his Shield found me wandering the Vesperpool,” Prompto continued, voice quieter. “I traveled with them for ten years.”

“Lucis Caelum?” Gladio asked, surprised. “I don’t remember a Healer King.”

Prompto shrugged. “His family ruled a portion Civitas Lucii, but there wasn’t a Lucis as far as I could get him to explain.” Prompto fingered the beer for a moment then said, softer, “I think he hoped to build one, someday, but….”

Cor sucked in a sharp breath and said, “You met the Founder King. The Mystic.”

For a moment Prompto didn’t say anything, and then murmured a soft, “Maybe….” He’d never heard of the words ‘Founder King’ or ‘Mystic’ to describe Ardyn before. Almost everyone called him ‘Healer’ or ‘Healer King’ or some derivative of. Heck there wasn’t really a Kingdom at the time, more of an idea, and even that wasn’t implemented beyond a few city states because no one wanted a repeat of Solheim. Instead the populace seemed mostly ready to wait until someone had been given the Divine Right to Rule by the Astrals—and who better than Ardyn who waded through the muck to commune with the People?

Prompto shook his head to rid himself of the thoughts because they lead to the reminder that Ardyn’s magic was still there and the feeling that Prompto had forgotten something important. It’d been ten years, he’d long given up the idea that he’d ever return to see the guys again, so he was bound to forget something somewhere. Instead Prompto looked out at the sunrise over Old Lestallum and felt his fingers itch for some charcoal and paper.

Prompto stood and set his untouched beer down. “I need to get some paper,” he said and moved to excuse himself. Gladio and Cor watched him leave for the market, and he waited until he was hidden away in a corner of the store before he sucked in a breath and steeled himself. He eyed the sketchbooks and the pencils with a faint frown, then reached for that fire-warmth of Ardyn’s magic and hoped, prayed, the materials were still there.

A second later Prompto blinked to find the sheet of papers he used to sketch in one hand, a stick of charcoal in the other, and smiled. With a whistled tune Prompto grabbed a drink off of the counter—Ebony, the can read—and handed over the gil needed before he took a step back outside. He dropped the can into the armiger—Noct’s armiger—and stuffed the charcoal into one pocket while he flipped through the old sketches with a soft smile.

Stuck as he was, disconnected from Noct’s magic as he was, Prompto found himself adrift without the ability to take a photograph of a scene. A part of him itched to snapshot iconic moments throughout the ten years and it was thanks to Ardyn that Prompto even attempted to sketch out something he saw once when the man commented on his artistic eye. Gil had gifted him the ream of papers and the charcoal sticks with which he made his art from and he rewarded both them of them with full portraiture’s of each in the dawnlight.

Eventually Prompto came to the last sketch he worked on, of Ardyn lounged amongst trees with Aera at his side. Prompto had planned to gift that to the man on his wedding day, and his smile turned a bit sour at the thought that he’d never get the chance to even see it now. Ardyn probably would’ve been radiant, and his bride-to-be as well from what Prompto could tell. He carefully tucked that sketch away into his clothes, and then frowned when he saw a new one he hadn’t made underneath the portrait of Aera and Ardyn.

Prompto stopped in the middle of his walk back to the caravan and turned the paper around in his hands to view the image at various angles in surprise. That—that was his face, wasn’t it? Except the hairline looked off—unless his hair had begun to recede, and Prompto had caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror last night and it hadn’t—and the clothes were ridiculous. They looked like some sort of robe-like armor thing that Gil might’ve enjoyed; something inspired by Solheim. After a second Prompto shifted the paper aside and raised his eyebrows at another new sketch.

A dozen of the strange sketches that Prompto never made, hidden away in Ardyn’s armiger, flashed through Prompto’s hands until he came across one that was far more familiar than had any right. It was him, ten years younger, with an arm slung around Noctis’ shoulder in what was undoubtedly Lestallum’s market. He couldn’t even remember the moment that this happened, except he had a good idea that it had because he’d done the motion so often it felt like breathing in a piece of memory in sepia. Prompto swallowed heavily, rolled the papers up, and stuffed them into one of his inner pockets that typically held more knives and some crossbow bolts for when he needed them.

Briskly Prompto made his way back over to Cor and Gladio, snagged his still untouched beer, and popped the top off. Without so much as a greeting he began to chug it down because what the fuck? Who drew him and Noctis? Him? And who was that other man that shared his features? Prompt didn’t know but it gnawed at him like something forgotten, a dream or a nightmare from ten years ago and he didn’t like it. He didn’t—

—Prompto gagged and spat out a mouthful of the beer and settled it down.

“Hey!” Gladio snapped, face full of affront as Prompto rubbed at his mouth. “Don’t waste the good stuff!”

“You call that good?” Prompto choked out, and Gladio grumbled good naturedly but he succeeded in the distraction and Prompto could’ve kissed him for it because—he didn’t want to think about what the sketches could mean. Instead he looked over to Cor who had a hand out with a camera in it and a wry smile.

Hesitantly Prompt reached out to take the camera, partially confused until he realized he recognized it. This was his, wasn’t it?

“You look like you wanted a picture,” Cor said by way of explanation and Prompto mumbled his thanks. He’d forgotten about the camera, so used to sketching these days, and thumbed the device on.

A second later Prompto dropped it with numb fingers and a hitch in his breath as it hit him just what he’d forgotten. The camera smashed into the ground and the screen cracked over a smugly smiling Ardyn Izunia except Prompto could recognize now what he couldn’t in a face ten years younger and not yet ravaged by Scourge. Ardyn Izunia and Ardyn Lucis Caelum were the same man and somehow he was still alive and kicking—and working for Niflheim. The little bit of Ardyn’s magic warmed in Prompto’s chest, but it didn’t stop him from feeling sick because Ardyn was alive—

—and he looked like utter shit.

The one thing Gladio had not anticipated his day to go after a week of Prompto being presumed dead, it was the events he found himself in witness to now. He bet even Ignis couldn’t have predicted this, and Ignis was terrifyingly good at predicting the outcome of things. Gladio couldn’t be certain what about this entire debacle was frightening more—the fact that Cor was actually red faced and tearing into them as a collective, or the fact that Prompto was still pale-sick and looked to be on the verge of screaming.

“—believe how little you paid attention!” Cor snapped out and turned away from Ignis who had his mouth dropped open and seemed to struggle with his own words and Gladio dragged his attention back to the dressing down they were all getting. “This was your job Ignis! You were meant to be aware of all potential political threats—”

“He’s not really a political threat,” Prompto mumbled to himself and Gladio glanced at him.

“The Chancellor of Niflheim is not a political threat?!” Cor demanded, and whirled onto Prompto who stared back and a small part of Gladio just felt glad it wasn’t him this time.

“He’s not the fucking Chancellor of Niflheim!” Prompto snapped, and then shook his head and grit his teeth. “I mean he is but—fuck.”

Noctis, dazed and on the bed, not quite certain what all the yelling even was about except that it had something to do with Ardyn, piped up tiredly, “He was helpful, if weird,” only to be cut off by Cor who narrowed his gaze onto Prompto and Gladio winced.

“If he’s not the fucking Chancellor of Niflheim who helped fucking invade Insomnia, then who the fuck is he, Prompto?!” Cor demanded, and his breath was sharp as the room went dead silent for a moment.

After a second Prompto seemed to steel his spine, and Six Gladio had to give it to the scrawny ass blond—kid grew some big fucking balls to stand up to a pissed off Cor. Gladio had enough stories growing up of the times Cor blew his top, most of them centered around either his dad or the King, and it was enough to drive him with a healthy sense of dead of pissing off the Marshal. Still, the next words out of Prompto’s mouth felt like a horrible punch to his gut, and the sound of crystal glass in the wrong color, and the weapon in Prompto’s hand made him feel just the slightest bit sick.

“His name is Ardyn Lucis Caelum,” Prompto said, and in his hand lay a very old style of crossbow thankfully not really aimed at anyone, but cradled gently, “Healer King, and to me just yesterday the dumb fuck who was tempted to touch some ancient Solheim bullshit that transported my ass through time.”

Cor swallowed heavily and stared for a long, long moment at the crossbow and Gladio wanted to cry because how was this their life? Seriously? The creepy bastard with an uncomfortable interest in his would-be King was related to the lazy bastard, and apparently Prompto was Oathbound to both. This wasn’t even touching the fact that apparently the Chancellor helped with the Invasion if Cor was to be believed which—what the fuck, man. Gladio wanted to cry.

Noctis thankfully broke up the silence, horrified that it was, with a tired, “So he’s my Uncle? Cool. Can I go back to sleep now?” and when no one told him no Noctis promptly rolled over, grabbed the blankets and pillows, and promptly dropped back off into sleep. Gladio envied Noctis in that moment, the way the black haired young man could just drop off without so much a by-your-leave.

Five minutes they stared at one another in silence before Cor spoke up again, this time much quieter as he regarded the slumbering King, “Explain.”

Gladio watched how Prompto bowed his head, but he did as Cor bade and began to talk. The words were just as crazy as the first few out of Prompto’s mouth before and made Gladio question if he were even dreaming. First the lazy Prince became the lazy King, then the Gods started to walk the earth and make demands, and Gladio had to push Noctis’ ass forward—and now this. He stepped away to fight an Immortal who was said to kill the unworthy, to prove himself the Chosen Shield of the Chosen King—not that he believed much of that tripe anyway, it just made for a good story or so he thought until Ignis ripped him a new one—to learn Prompto died except Prompto hadn’t died, he’d been transported through time by some magical ancient bullshit.

The more Prompto spoke, the more Gladio felt like the world had been stopped on its axis and the rug of reality pulled out from underneath him. He thought the Blademaster had been a terrifying mess to deal with, but it was his choice and he’d been told since he was a child how he was the Chosen Shield to the Chosen King—and he needed to prove it to himself, damn the consequences—but Prompto had it made for shitty life stories right from the start.

“Scourge?” Ignis interrupted, only once, and the sharp look Prompto gave him quieted the man down a second later.

Gladio wanted to know what Cor thought of this all as Prompto continued to talk, but the Marshal kept his face inscrutably unreadable throughout the entire story until Prompto ended it. Of course he pulled out display after display to prove his claim of who Ardyn Izunia really was, as if the very obvious connection to another armiger and magic tied only into the Lucis Caelum line weren’t proof enough.

“He’s sick?” Cor asked, and it was the first words to come out of his mouth for the full explanation, but Prompto nodded.

“It’s…he wasn’t well when I left,” Prompto said. “We knew he wasn’t well. The Confirmation was supposed to help, and it was in two months. After which he’d marry the Oracle and with that magical tie it should’ve…eased the burden.” Prompt fingered the crossbow with a frown on his face and his lips pressed thin.

Cor frowned. “How is he sick?”

Prompto shrugged and murmured, “He said it was like a thousand voices screaming in his head. The Scourge it—” Prompto grimaced. “If you’ve ever seen a person in the process of turning you would understand,” eventually Prompto said with a heavy sigh. “The amount of that shit Ardyn willingly exposed himself to, just to help random people.” He set the crossbow down and scrubbed a hand across his face. “Gil and I swore to each other that we wouldn’t leave him alone,” Prompto said into his hands. “We didn’t want to think what would happen if one of us weren’t there to distract him on the bad days.”

Some part of Prompto’s gaze grew innumerably old, even as Ignis settled down next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. Ignis spoke softly, even as Cor stood there with his arms still crossed and his face still unreadable, “You make it sound as if this sickness was sentient.”

Prompto laughed, a bitter sort of broken sound that Gladio never wanted to hear again. He turned his head away from the sight of a thirty-year-old Prompto with tears and tried to think of something to keep his attention on even as Prompto said, “It is. You’ve seen it.”

Perhaps Gladio could tend to one of his blades, but which one? The large two-handed behemoth that he started out with, or maybe the thinner blade Masamune they found when wandering around Leide?

“We have?” Ignis questioned.

Prompto sucked in a horribly stuttered breath as Gladio decided upon the Genji Blade, as he hadn’t had the chance to go over the weapon that had once been Cor’s before the man lost it to the Blademaster. He thrust the mental equivalent of his hand into he armiger with the intent to drag out the Genji Blade and his cleaning materials, even as Prompto said, “Where do you think daemons come from?” which gave Gladio enough pause to turn with wide eyes onto Prompto, scabbard of the Genji Blade in hand as he stared at the man with wide eyes.

“Wait—what?!”

Prompto looked between all three of them somewhat bewildered as he said, “Wait, you guys don’t know? I just thought you never told me…” and Gladio wanted to throttle someone because what the fuck was Prompto talking about now?! Cor even looked pale and sick in the way he stumbled backward and slumped into he wall of the caravan.

Gladio set the Genji Blade down before he dropped on his ass, and then dropped into a chair with a hissed, “What the fuck,” as Ignis quickly explained to Prompto that no, they had no idea that daemons were a result of apparently an illness that affected people. If they did they would’ve taken far more precaution in fighting the fucking things and Gladio had to agree with that. He felt like he needed a shower for ten years just to get all of the now imagined infectious daemon guts off of his skin.

Eventually Gladio muttered, “I think I’m going to be sick,” as he ducked his face into his knees. He missed the way Prompto looked to him, or when Prompto got to his feet to touch the back of Gladio’s neck. He didn’t miss the way those fingers froze, and then almost seemed to dig into the back of Gladio’s neck in a subconscious twitch. He acknowledged that with a grunt as he raised his head to get a good look at the blond who stared at the Genji Blade in confusion and—Gladio decided that no, he didn’t want to know.

Instead Gladio said, “Ask Cor,” before Prompto could even voice the words stuck in his throat because yeah, Gladio was completely out of fucks to give and revelations for the day. Too much; just, too much. He shrugged himself out from under Prompto’s arm and headed for the shower instead because—too much.

[the-stick-scribblers]

I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, like they tell you to do when you're anxious and you just need everything to slow down.  And I think of Ireland because I remember the rolling green hills giving me this peaceful feeling, and that's what I want now.  This is what I'm imagining as I lay here, the IV in my arm, a place almost as far from here as possible.

Drawing blood, I suddenly understand the phrase in a way I haven't before.  Sort of dark to imagine, the tiny needle literally pulling blood from the vein in my arm, slowly draining it into the clinical plastic bag at my side.  God, why do they have to be clear?  The temptation to open my eyes, even just one of them, if only for a second, is strong.  I don't know why.  I hate this.  I can't even think about it without getting sick to my stomach, hence the conjured images of craggy green hills against a gray sea and white sky.  I cling to them but my stomach does a sick sort of flop anyway.

"Question," says a voice from my left, but I assume it's addressing one of the volunteers and I ignore it.  Then, "What are you doing here if you obviously hate it so much?"

Carefully, I turn my head -- fortunately the voice is speaking from the side opposite my own plastic bag -- and open my eyes.  The man, not much older than me I guess, on the table closest to me is lying with his own arm outstretched, and I can see his bag of blood just fine, though he isn't looking at it but at me.

"Sorry?" I say.  Isn't it sort of common knowledge that you leave each other alone at these things?

"You hate this," he repeats.  "So why come?"

He has a haughty sort of expression on his face, and I notice that his clothes are nice.  Well-fitted, and his shirt, rolled up to the elbow on his right side, just above where the IV is taped to his arm, looks expensive.  He's probably just here for something to do because he has no real responsibility.

I turn my head away again and roll my eyes.  This is a mistake, as it sends another wave of nausea rolling through me.  "It's a good thing to do," I say.  And this will be the end of it, I assume.

Only then the stranger says, "Oh, you're one of those.  A Do-Gooder."

Despite myself, I'm intrigued -- and annoyed.  Why else would anyone be here, and how dare this complete stranger write it off as trivial, silly, meaningless.  He doesn't even know me.

"Brian," he says then, and this time my head whips toward him.  He's laughing before I remember I'm wearing a brightly-colored name tag, the name "Brian," my name in at least one sense, scrawled across it in a bold, blocky script that couldn't be more different from my own.  "Brian Do-Gooder."

"What is your problem?" I ask him, and to my surprise he answers me.

"About a dozen things probably, though only three or four are the reason I'm here."

This startles me into paying more attention and I notice that the mystery guy's name is on his name tag too.

"Thurio?" I say.

"Shakespeare."

"Why?"

"No idea," Thurio says.  "It's not like I named myself."

Fair point, I guess.  Again I notice his clothes.  They're too nice to be at a blood drive, or maybe that's just what he wants people to think?  I'm not sure what to make of his statement that his problems are his reason for being here.  Does he mean literally -- is he sick?  Does that even make sense?  Maybe he means he's broke, though it doesn't look like he's donating anything they pay you for.

"Let me guess," he says now, and he tips his head further back against the little, paper-toweled pillow beneath his head.  "You think there's something wrong with you.  Maybe you've done something you're not proud of.  Hurt someone.  In the boring sense?"  He lifts his head from the pillow and looks at me more closely, like he can read what I'm thinking if he tries hard enough.  "No," he says slowly, drawing the word out, a long O.  "I don't think so.  Something more interesting.  But still not as bad as you act like it is.  And this is your way to attempt making some sort of cosmic amends.  Probably no one even knows you're here.  Am I right?"  He doesn't give me a chance to answer, but instead barrels on, with apparently no care for how rude he's being.  "So what'd you do?  God, you didn't get someone pregnant, did you?  This would be a really ironic way to try to make up for that, and it severely pales."

"I didn't get anyone pregnant," I say, and Thurio nods to me, as though he has suspected this all along even though he's the one who brought it up in the first place.  Still, I'm glad to have the chance to say this, because aside from the detail of it, his read of me isn't entirely inaccurate.  But he doesn't need to know that.  "I don't even know why I'm talking to you," I say, and turn away again.

I'm not sure if he's going to say anything else or leave me alone, because this is when the alarm starts.  At first I don't understand what I'm hearing.  I think it feels so impossible, so dissonant with the time and place that my brain can't supply me with the answer as fast as it usually would.  But it's the screeching, flashing noise of a fire alarm, and after several seconds of a frozen sort of terror, I realize this.

I'm so stunned -- can this happen at a blood drive?  We didn't go over emergency exits -- that for a while I don't move.  I'm not sure what to do with the plastic bag full of my blood, and when I look around, the volunteers working the drive are all busy with other people who probably need more help than I do.

"Jesus, you really can't deal with this, can you?" Thurio says from my other side.

I turn to look at him and he's standing right beside my padded table, his own bag of blood held in his hand.

"Here," he says.  He comes around to the other side and unhooks my bag from beneath the table where it's been hanging and slowly filling up as the IV does its work.  Then he wraps a hand around my elbow and pulls me so I'm sitting up.  He holds out the bag to me but I just look at it with the same sick, flip-flopping feeling in my gut.  I shake my head because I don't dare open my mouth to speak.

As all of this is happening, the room is clearing out and the alarm is still blaring.  The people working the blood drive are helping people out of the room, directing them toward the building exits, explaining where to go once they get outside.  No one is even paying any attention to us.

"All right," Thurio says.  He reaches for the IV in my arm, braces one hand against my forearm and grips the other around the long plastic tube.

"No!" I say, just in time to keep him from yanking the needle out of my arm.

"Seriously?" he says, but I can't stand the thought of this all being a waste.  But he shakes his head and leaves the needle in place.  I get down from the table and we rush toward the door of the room.  "This way," Thurio says, now carrying both bags of blood, his own and mine.  He hurries down the hall and I have to run to keep up so the IV doesn't get ripped out of my arm anyway.  Every once in a while I feel it tug against my skin.  It stings and gives me a lurching, ill sort of feeling, but there's nothing to do other than keep on, following Thurio, who at least seems to know where he's going.

Thurio leads us to a door no one else seems to be using, but I have no choice but to follow him.  Then we're outside, and I feel winded in a way I'm sure I wouldn't if all of my blood was currently in my body where it's supposed to be.  But the sun feels good on my face and there's no one over here, which is nice after the panic inside.

I gesture to the wall of the building and Thurio follows me over so I can lean against it and catch my breath.

I feel light-headed, and for a couple minutes I just rest, my face warm under the sun, and try not to think about anything other than stabilizing my body.  When I feel a little better, I realize that for a moment, I've felt that tugging sensation in my arm again, the soft spot on the inside of my elbow where the needle is still rooted in the vein.  I open my eyes and see Thurio shaking both of the bags.

"What are you doing?" I say.

"If you don't shake them every few minutes, the blood clots," he tells me.

I take his word for it, and the shaking only lasts another moment.

It's easier to see him out here in the sun than it had been inside when I was distracted by trying not to throw up all over myself.  Now the IV is attached to me but no longer pulling the blood out of my arm, and it's easier to focus.  He's got dark hair that seems to have a bit of a curl to it, though it's short.  Handsome features, though now he's squinting in the sun.

"Come on," he says.  "We should get this out of you."

He pulls on the bag as he moves toward a set of steps a few feet away, so I have to follow him and sit beside him.  Without the panic of the screaming fire alarm -- still going off faintly inside, and it occurs to me that in case there's a real fire, we should probably move further away from the building -- and the need to rush that it had presented, the idea of this stranger removing the IV from my arm no longer feels quite so horrifying, and I still don't like the idea of touching the bag myself.

"Just, be careful," I say.

Thurio looks up at me and gives me what I can only assume is a wry expression.

“Are you sure you know how to do this?”

“It’s not like it’s difficult,” Thurio says.

“Maybe we should just wait until we go back inside.”

Thurio looks up at me, expression plainly saying that it doesn’t make an inch of difference to him.  “Do you want to wait?” he says.

But the thought of staying out here in the sun for God knows how long with the needle still in my arm makes me feel a little sick.  I shake my head.

“Okay,” Thurio says.  He holds my elbow in one hand and gets a firm but gentle grip on the needle with the other.  “You might want to close your eyes,” he says, and I do.