4.


The nightmares start up again, after more than six months of peaceful, dreamless sleep.

Prompto doesn't know why. Things are good. His life here, where he said he never wanted to live, is comfortable. The couch is now perfectly molded to his body. Motor oil smells like home. He's even made his peace with the sand and the way it gets into everything.

These dreams are different from the others. He startles awake almost every night, gasping, shaking, horrified, and with Ardyn's voice still in his head.

"Tell me Prompto, do clones have souls?"

It's a question he does not know the answer to and one he's avoided thinking about for years.

Created, not born, from pieces of a madman. Does that mean he's capable of the same? Sometimes, he feels it in his bones, sure that he can be just as cruel, sure that if he let himself, he could become everything he hates, and he hates himself for it.

Were a heartbeat and a mind the only requirement for a soul? Was he a monster lying in wait, a monster, created by a monster?

In the light of day, these questions seem trivial. He fills the hours with photography, he washes cars, pumps gas, and fetches parts, and he can convince himself that he's okay. He still misses Noctis, but it doesn't hurt as much. He's able to function, to laugh and smile and actually mean it. If he isn't exactly happy, he's content. He has all he needs here.

But the dreams start to eat away at him and all the progress he's made. Night after night, he wakes, full of guilt and fear and sickened by the thought of becoming his father's son. His mind is filled with visions of the people he's lost, with all the blood spilled, the sound of gunfire and screams.

"Do you have a soul, Prompto?" Ardyn asks. "Or are you no better than a daemon?"

In dreams, Noctis pushes him off the train and laughs. It's Noctis who tortures him.

Sometimes, it's Cindy in restraints, all bloodied and broken with her eyes swollen shut, locked in a cell with blood dripping from her nose, her blood on Prompto's knuckles.

In dreams, he sees Iggy and Gladio fall on the steps of the citadel. One phoenix down among the three of them and Prompto chooses to save himself.

Always, the same questions on his mind when dawn arrives.

He senses a darkness in himself that he can't kill. It's there, coiling in his belly like a serpent, ready to strike.

The other dreams faded after a while, and he hopes these will too, but they don't.

They don't.


He sees a tourist with a young boy: a round, soft, chubby little thing that reminds Prompto of where he came from.

The tourist shouts and strikes the child. A painful crack echoes across the lot as the man's palm crashes against the boy's cheek. Prompto feels like he's the one who's been struck.

The boy can't be older than seven or eight, but he takes the hit like a seasoned fighter, conditioned to take the pain. The boy knew it was coming, and there's nothing but calm acceptance in his face. He's used to this. It isn't the first time, and it won't be the last.

Something inside Prompto's chest breaks into a thousand razor sharp pieces as the boy's eyes meet his. He sees himself looking back.

He bounds across the lot, his fists clenched, unable to stand aside, and forces himself between the boy and the man.

"What's the big idea?" he asks. "He's just a kid."

"Ain't your business," the man says.

"Does it make you feel tough?" Prompto demands and shoves the man so hard, he stumbles. "Beating on a little kid who's too small to fight back? Huh? What's wrong with you?"

"Fuck off."

Prompto takes a swing. His fist collides with the man's jaw. He feels a bone in his hand crack, but there's no pain, only rage, and a memory of being so afraid to fight back, he could only cower.

The man stumbles back, and Prompto's second punch knocks him down. Prompto is not finished. He can see nothing but Ardyn. Nothing but Verstael. Nothing but the man who raised him. This stranger has become everything he despises about this world, everyone who ever took something from him, and he can't stop until he's taken it all back.

There are shouts behind him, but Prompto can't make out the words until someone correctly identifies what he is.

"MT! He's an MT! Someone do something!"

He doesn't wear his wrist band when he helps Cindy in the garage. It only gets in the way, and she doesn't seem to care. He never figured anyone would notice anyway. Most are too wrapped up in themselves to pay attention.

He's lifted away from the man, kicking and screaming and out of his mind with rage. His knuckles bleed and his fingers swell, but still he wants to fight until he can't fight anymore.

The tourist doesn't get up. He lays still in a heap on the pavement while the boy sobs quietly into his hands.

It isn't the tourist on the ground, though. It's Ignis, his face a swollen, bloodied mess. His hair is streaked crimson, his sunglasses smashed and askew on his nose. Dead, dead, dead, past the point of saving.

The ground is shaking and daemons swell up from the concrete, in full daylight, where they're not supposed to be. Ardyn stands in the boy's place, smirking.

"Foolish, to deny what you are."

He fights the hands that hold him back, closes his eyes against the vision of Iggy's lifeless body and when he opens them again, he's in darkness and Cindy's face looms above him. His cheeks are wet and his skin is damp, but the room is cool. The air con pumps furiously at the window.

"You were sobbin' in your sleep, sweetie," Cindy says. She smooths clumps of hair away from his forehead and cheeks. "Just a nightmare."

He lifts her hands from his face and gets up. From his bag he retrieves his wrist band and covers the permanent reminder etched into his skin. It isn't worth the risk.

"I'm sorry," he says. "That I woke you."

"Nothin' to be sorry for," she says and she lays her palm between his shoulder blades. "Your heart's runnin' on all eight cylinders, ain't it?"

"I'm okay," he promises. "It's getting better."

"You wanna talk about it?"

He shakes his head and shivers when her arms encircle him from behind.

"Do you think clones have souls, Cin?" he asks.

"I reckon so," she says. "Can't imagine someone like you not havin' one."

Her chin rests against his shoulder. Her breath tickles his neck. He wishes he had the courage to turn around and kiss her like he means it, but he won't risk the friendship they've built. He needs to keep that intact more than he needs to get laid.

"One of many," he whispers. "All the same."

"You're the only one like you," she says. "One of many, but you ain't the same."

"It doesn't bother you?" he asks.

"Not one lick," she says. "What bothers me me is that it bothers you so much you wake up cryin' or screamin' your head off. You can talk to me, you know. I ain't gonna judge."

He lifts her hands from his waist and turns around, his head hanging because he can't look her in the eye.

"I'm afraid," he says. "That someday, I'll become him, or something like him."

Her fingertips brush over his cheekbone and he takes her wrist and pins it to his chest, unable to stand being touched without the option to reciprocate.

"I don't believe that for one minute," she says. "Whatever he was, he ain't you, no matter how you came into this world. I don't know why you don't know no better."

He's lying to himself. He still keeps secrets. Things he can't even think about, let alone admit to.

"Anybody ever tell you, you're beautiful, Prompto?"

He snorts and shakes his head. "That's definitely a new one."

"Well, you are. And, you ain't him, sweetie," she says. "You ain't."

"You don't understand," he says, and his voice has gone hoarse with emotion.

"All the did was make you," she says. "He ain't responsible for nothin' else. Not who you've become, not what you done so far, not what you're gonna do. And maybe you could be like him, but you ain't. You hear me? And you ain't got nothin' to prove that I don't already know."

He casts his gaze downward. What she doesn't know will be the death of him.


Cindy's got her hands full servicing a transmission, so when a call comes in about a stranded motorist, Prompto takes it. He drives out to the hunter's HQ in Cindy's tow truck with the air con on high and the radio turned to something obnoxious and loud, and he ignores the ill ease in his belly that says there's something nasty on the horizon.

He pulls up alongside a black car with a magenta chocobo sticker on the bumper and parks. Steam pours from underneath the car's hood and he catches a whiff of antifreeze as he climbs from the cab of the truck.

The driver eases herself off the passenger side door and Prompto loses his breath.

Her dark hair is longer and streaked with pink, but he recognizes her. How could he not? He watched her grow up, a pesky, opinionated ten year old upon their first meeting, and an accomplished slayer of daemons upon their last.

His whole body freezes up and he's chilled all away to the marrow of his bones.

"Prompto?" she asks in a small voice. "Is that really you?"

All he can do is stare at her wide eyes and the slender, tapered fingers pressed against her lips. He always figured it would catch up with him, but not quite like this.

Her eyes fill with tears and she launches herself at him. Her arms go around his middle and she squeezes him with all her might.

"I thought you were dead," she says.

He should be, but somehow, he's still here.

One phoenix down among the three of them, and Gladio, with the last of his strength, chose to save Prompto instead of himself, though he had more left in this world to live for than either Iggy or Prompto.

Noctis wasn't the only one who made a sacrifice that day. Why is a question Prompto has never allowed himself to consider.

When Iris lets go, he sees traces of Gladio in her face and it feels like someone's carved out his heart.

"I'm sorry, Iris," he breathes. "I'm sorry."

He slips to his knees and thinks he might vomit.

For more than two years, he's avoided this. It hurts to think about Noctis, but that pain is manageable.

It's all the rest that Prompto can't handle.


Cindy's elbow deep in an engine when the tow truck pulls up in front of the garage, absent a broke-down car. She waves at the shape in the cab and assumes Prompto was able to fix the vehicle on his own until a young woman climbs out of the driver's side. She looks familiar, but Cindy' can't quite place her.

She's annoyed, then concerned when Prompto doesn't join her.

"Cindy, right?" the girl asks.

"That's me," Cindy says and wipes her hands on a shop rag. "Where's Prompto?"

"In the truck. I don't know what happened," the girl says. "Something's wrong."

"Let's take a look," Cindy says and remembers who the girl is. "You're Gladio's lil' sis, right?"

"That's right," she says. "Iris."

"How's he doin' these days?"

Iris's eyes go blank. "He's dead."

Cindy stops and stares. This is news to her.

"So sorry to hear that," she says. "What happened?"

"He... he died defending Noctis," Iris says. "Iggy, too. Everyone thought Prompto died with them."

Cindy draws in a deep breath, and her heart gives a hard squeeze. She just assumed, if Prompto survived it, the others did too, and suddenly, it all makes sense.

She never thought to ask about them. Early reports following that final fight said the King and his guard all died, but she took Prompto's arrival as a sign the reports were wrong. She figured, they were off somewhere, trying to rebuild their lives, just like Prompto was. She knew well how tragedy could either draw people closer together or split them apart forever.

All this time, and he's never mentioned them. There have been no phone calls or visits the whole time he's been here, and she never thought to wonder why. These are all questions she should have had the foresight to ask, but never did.

She's enabled him by not thinking about the bigger questions, let him get away with not facing it. She thought her company was enough, that he was slowly working through his grief at his own pace when that was never the case. All she did was allow him to hide it, to bury it. It's no wonder he's struggled so bad.

Inside the cab, Prompto is curled up in the closest approximation to the fetal position he can manage in the bucket seat. He doesn't respond to her voice or her touch and it takes both ladies to haul him out.

On his feet, he's able to walk with Cindy's guidance, but he doesn't answer questions and his gaze is empty and a thousand miles away. She suspects this is the cause of his nightmares, the cause of his lingering heartbreak, the reason for his reluctance to move forward. It was never just a difficult childhood or the loss of his best friend. There was always more.

She and Iris take him home, where she strips off his boots and eases him down onto the couch. He stares at the ceiling, through the ceiling, as if he's retreated so far inside himself, he can't be reached.

Her eyes get misty as she turns out the light. She's failed him and she doesn't know what to do about it.

Iris is crying by the time they return to the garage.

"I heard the rumors," Iris says. "But, I thought they were just rumors, you know? I mean, every now and then, someone claims to have seen Gladdy somewhere, alive and well. I didn't follow up because, well..."

She looks at the photos on the wall of the garage, photos Prompto took of some of the more interesting restorations and paint jobs Cindy's done. She lingers on one of four of them posed in front of the Regalia, before the fall, before treachery made a King of a boy.

How innocent they were then. Ignis, the brains, Gladio the brawn, Prompto the heart, Noctis the soul. Like they were four parts of a complete person, yet individual and distinct unto themselves. It made sense that they'd all face it together. No doubt, Prompto believed they should have all met the same fate. Whatever twist that spared him and him alone was most certainly the source of his pain, if not the only factor.

"I can't tell you how many times I chased down a lead," Iris says. "Someone would say they spotted Gladdy at some outpost and I'd take off, hoping against hope that it was true. They never found the bodies, you know? But, it was always just... he was never there."

She sighs and turns around.

"He must feel so guilty," she says. "Being the only one who made it."

"I reckon he does," Cindy says. "He never said nothin'."

"Yeah, that's Prompto," Iris says. "He always seemed so cheerful, but I know he kept the real stuff to himself. I remember when we were kids, he never wanted to go home. It was a long time before I knew the reason why."

"Yeah," Cindy agrees. "I shoulda known better. I shoulda known there was more."

She promises to get Iris' car in the morning and sends her off to the diner, puts her project on hold, and goes to check on Prompto.

He's gone. His things are gone. On the table are his keys to the garage.

She finds Iris at the camper and they search for him half the night. They check campgrounds and shacks, but Prompto is nowhere to be found. Wherever he's gone, he can't be far, but he's done a fine job of staying hidden. All she can do is hope he'll come back in the morning, once his head is clearer.

It feels like she's been left by a lover, one she was fond of, another in a long line of men she let down by being too focused on her work.

The worst part is that he's never so much as kissed her, but his absence hurts more than any of the others.