A/N: So...this is very much not the next chapter of "Glasses". But I promised myself that I'd post something today. I apparently haven't been feeling it—I've got a whopping one sentence typed out—and have spent my writing time playing with this one again, so I thought I'd buy myself another four days to work on the other one (does it work that way, Bryler!? *flails* Have I cheated you? D:).

This is the first thing I started writing and has kind of been my baby since Christmas. And it's still not close to being done. I don't think I'll be updating it again until after "Glasses" is finished, if only because I've done a lot of jumping around on it and still haven't finished the first half of the very first scene. I don't really adore this intro, but the story has to start somewhere. And this kind of makes it a bit more real, so I'll have to stop dilly dally-ing.

Thanks for reading! :)

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Prompto doesn't really have a home. In fact, he hasn't had in a very long time. But he figures if someone on the street were to up and ask him where his home was, he'd probably tell them that it lay somewhere in Hammerhead. Depending on how many drinks he'd consumed by that point, he may or may not go on to wax poetic about a certain glistening, chrome plated temple wherein the fumes of gasoline, grease, and rubber tended to intermingle with one another in the most indescribably erotic of fashions. And if by this point his audience hasn't begged their leave, thinking him more than a bit touched in the head, he'd probably even manage to regale them with descriptions of the golden haired goddess who dwelled within that rusty, metal fortress, all sweat and bad hat hair and grease smudged skin from her cheeks down to the hollow of her throat and alllllllllll the way down to the often exposed tops of her breasts...

That's where he'd probably have to excuse himself for a little bit of alone time.

Ha! He's kidding!

Heh. Yeah. He really isn't...

In any case, he doesn't remember leaving his first ho—well, the place of his birth, a fact he's grateful for after having seen it again all those years ago. As a kid, he'd always been plagued with flashes of memories he hadn't fully understood. Nothing concrete, really, more just small bouts of intense feelings that would occasionally sneak up on him and render him pretty much catatonic. It was always the same things: fear, pain, cold...hunger. Now, though, he understands it all.

Having seen the condition of the place he must have spent the first six or so years of his life, he isn't quite as ashamed of his claustrophobia as he used to be, and while he's always been an emotional eater and has been handling that one for a long time, now, he gets that, too. He's nervous and fidgety and always has been. To the point that it often drives the people around him crazy. The worst part is that they have no idea just how much better off he is than he used to be. That niggling in the back of his mind warning him that nothing and no one is safe ever and that he needs to run and to hide and to never come out again used to be so overwhelming. It's still back there, but no one would ever guess it, now. He doesn't think he'll ever completely get over any of these things, but knowing where the issues stem from helps him deal with them somewhat.

Well. Probably.

Even so, he wishes he'd never seen the place. The cages, littered with dirt and excrement. Bodies, skeleton thin, with bruises and cuts evident even alongside rotting flesh, little to nothing to keep them warm while they'd still been breathing. So many of them had seemed so young, likely around his and Noct's age. He stills wonders if he'd known any of them before he'd somehow gotten free. Being there has only brought about a new set of daemons to haunt his nightmares.

Prompto doesn't really remember when he made it to his second home, either. He's just got the stories his mom had told him. Apparently, it hadn't been all that uncommon for young children, lost and orphaned by the war, to be rescued by glaive members and wind up in Insomnia's hospitals. When he'd been brought into her ward, she hadn't thought he'd make it out alive. He'd been malnourished, dehydrated, and his leg was swollen from an infected snake bite—he's still got the marks on his thigh. It's one of those cute, sappy, feel good stories that occasionally pop up in the news. The ones where the vigilant nurse watches over a sick, abandoned little boy who refuses to speak a word to anyone, but she just knows something about him is special. Then during his recovery they bond, she's the only person on the staff he communicates with, and when he's released, voila! Instant happy family!

He's never been sure how much of it was just her romanticizing the entire event. Prompto is pretty sure things were probably more difficult than she let on, what with him as broken as he is, but it doesn't really matter all that much. More than anything, he misses the way she'd pull him into her lap and cocoon him with her love whenever she told him about it. He has no doubt that her arms are the only place he's ever truly felt like he belonged. Even when she'd started taking evening classes and wasn't around as much anymore. It's been years, now, but when he's feeling really lonely and down, he still cries about losing her. Not to say that Prompto hadn't loved his dad, too, and all, but the two of them had very rarely spent time together. He does have some fond memories of the man, they're just few and far between. He's sure his dad cared about him, too, but Prompto was kind of his mom's pet project. He's okay with that. Mostly, he just really hopes he'd managed to dispel as much of her loneliness as she had his.

Even when he'd lost that home, and his family along with it, there was the gang to fall back on. It had been close enough to belonging for a while, but it hadn't ended up lasting very long. Turns out Noct had been the only real common ground the rest of them had had. Or at least the only common ground Prompto had shared with Ignis and Gladio. So without him in the picture, it hadn't taken much for the group to split apart.

Prompto hasn't seen the sun since that fateful day he'd been dragged back to Zegnautus, and as if holding off the daemons hadn't been enough work when it was just during sleeping hours, things had quickly devolved into a fight for survival every minute of every day. Apocalyptic was the only way to describe it, and even that didn't quite seem to suffice.

The three of them had managed to stick together for a while after returning to Lucis, helping the overwhelmed hunters with their dispatches, but a generator failure in Caem had been what had finally driven them apart. When he, Ignis, and Gladio had finally found Iris and Talcott cowering in a safe room in the middle of the lighthouse's ruins, everything had gotten just a little more real. Iris had concluded that she needed to learn to fight properly. She needed to help the people by fighting the good fight, not cowering in a safe room and letting everyone else do the heavy lifting around her. She needed to step up. Honor her name as a true Amicitia. And she needed to be trained by the best there was. So, her brother and Talcott in tow, she went off in search of Cor.

Ignis had done more researching than fighting, though they'd never been able to keep him from attempting the latter. He'd used the journals and records Prompto and Gladio had snagged from the Zegnautus Keep, but due to his injuries, he'd needed a team to help him do it. Prompto had tried, but he wasn't much of a researcher or an intellectual, and he hadn't been able to keep up. All his attempts to be helpful had only frustrated Ignis, in the end, and no sooner had Hunter HQ pooled together the greatest minds they could find, than Ignis had gone off to join them. Which had left Prompto on his own.

Naturally, he'd found himself drawn to the only place that still held something he cared about.

Sometimes the hunts and deliveries take him further away from his number one post than he'd like, but in the end, he always seems to make his way back to Hammerhead.

Prompto pulls his truck up to the building set aside for the town's hunters. It used to be a motel, but thanks to the ever present Darkness there hasn't been a true visitor here in about five years. Hunters are the only way goods and people get in and out of residential outposts anymore. There are a few deliveries he needs to attend to, but he's exhausted from long hours of driving, and it's been at least two days since he'd been to a pit stop with an actual bed and shower, so he knows he reeks of days' worth of sweat. None of the items are so sensitive that they can't wait for morning, though, so the blond flashes his dog tags at the attendant in exchange for his room key, grabs his bag of clothing and toiletries, and heads on up to the second floor.

As he fumbles the key into the lock, he can't help but look out in the direction of the garage. The rooftop is only just visible behind the houses and shops that dot the area, glowing from the artificial lighting that lines every street in the entire town and keeps the daemons at bay. It's late, but he knows Cindy's probably still there despite the fact that the rest of her crew must have gone home hours ago. Prompto really wants to see her, but first thing's first: food, bath, sleep. He hasn't received another assignment from HQ, and he doesn't plan to pick up another hunt for at least a few days, so there'll plenty of time to catch up with her tomorrow.

The lock clicks, and he casts one last longing look towards the garage before pushing through the doorway.

It really is nice to be back.

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A/N: So I thought it was super sweet when Talcott tells you that Prompto's still trying even after ten years have passed. And, while I was at it, I thought it would also be interesting to look into what things might really be like during the ten years of Darkness. It seemed too easy in the game, somehow, and I can't even explain why. Just something about Talcott driving past hords of monsters without ever being stopped by one. Also, it should be separated into three chapters after this. They'll all be much longer than this one.