A/N: I'm baaaack (again!) I really have no idea where this ficlet came from. I wrote it in about 15 minutes one day during a lunch break at work, emailed it to myself, and then proceeded to forget about it for six months before rediscovering it last week and deciding it deserved to be polished up and published. Hopefully you all agree! I have a few more half-finished fics in the works that I am hoping to post soon, so keep an eye out!
Prompto hates himself. He hates the darkness, hates living day after Astrals-forsaken day in a world without the only person who could bring the light back again, but above all he hates himself.
Hate you hate you hate you hate hate hate…
The whole world is suffering, not just him, but tonight instead of doing anything useful to help he's crouched outside in the dirty dark and damp while he slowly loses himself to his own selfish grief.
Deep down he knows it's wrong to waste food this way; he does. It's wartime and people are starving and he needs to keep his strength up if he wants to be able to fight and he knows, he knows, he knows.
But his body doesn't know, doesn't care anymore. It rejects everything he forces into it, just like it has nearly every day since his purpose for living vanished and took a piece of his soul along with him. His stomach pitches and rolls and burns and he sobs harder, realizes he's just too tired of fighting, of fear and anger and pain.
Hurts, please, it hurts, just make it go away…
Tears streak down his face as he shoves his thin, bony fingers down his gullet again, chokes on tears and bile and the loneliness that slowly spreads through his body like a deadly poison faster than he can get it out.
Weak, Prompto. You're weak.
Noct would be probably ashamed of him. But Noct isn't here, and the sunlight is gone and Prompto's light is gone. How can he stomach anything, how could anyone, when everything tastes like ash and coats his tongue like dust and he knows it's going to kill him if he doesn't get it out, clog his throat and fill his lungs and choke him until he just –
"Prompto?"
He hears Ignis calling him, and he almost screams, almost gives himself away.
"Are you out here?"
Blindness hasn't affected Ignis's gift for stealth, it seems.
Or maybe you're just losing your touch, his traitorous mind whispers.
In an instant he comes back to himself, packs the grief away for another day and then forces a smile, standing and walking toward Ignis as nonchalantly as anything.
"Yeah, Iggs, I'm here," he calls back, hoping Ignis won't notice the rough edge to his voice, the acid on his breath. "Just needed a little fresh air."
Ignis hums quietly, obviously suspicious, but he lets it drop and Prompto is grateful. The advisor wraps a gentle arm around his shoulders and they make their way back toward the caravan. Prompto takes a deep breath and turns his gaze up to the starless sky, wondering how after all this time the sight can still send a chill down his spine and a dagger through his heart.
He feels another hand slide into his, the fingers weathered and callused after years of combat but still somehow warm and comforting.
"We will see him again, Prompto," Ignis says, with a quiet confidence that Prompto doesn't dare question. "If you can trust nothing else, trust in that fact. Noct will return to us."
And as foolish as he knows it might be, in that moment Prompto decides to allow himself to believe it.