Prompto pulled at the shackles chained behind his back, glaring up through his hair towards the one way mirror to his right where he knew someone was watching him. He could hear their heartbeat as they studied him, steady and slow. He didn't know whether they were just there to guard him or they were his interrogator studying him before coming in to torture him for information.
After he had been frogmarched through the whole citadel, Prompto had been placed in a small interrogation room, chained to an uncomfortable metal chair bolted to the floor, and was left there for gods knew how long.
The room was conditioned, making his soaked clothing freezing to the touch and Prompto fought back a violent shiver. This was probably part of the interrogation, leaving him waiting and freezing for hours with nothing else to do but imagine what they were going to do to him. The blond was ashamed to admit it was working.
He hears multiple people enter the viewing room on the other side of the mirror.
"Is this the guy?" one voice asks, he sounds young and something about it makes Prompto perk up. He wants the stranger to talk more, he could listen to them for hours.
"Yup," a gruff voice confirmed, the one who has been guarding him for the last couple hours. "How's your ear?"
"Fine, doesn't hurt too bad. Doc said it would scar though." the first voice says, and after a moment asks "Has he done anything?"
"Nope. Bastard hasn't said a word since we brought him in, he did growl at Accius when he was cuffing him to the chair though."
"Like actually growled?"
"Yeah, like a fucking dog or something."
The first voice hums and Prompto closes his eyes, resisting the urge to bare his sharp teeth and snarl at the glass. He is not a dog. He is a person. He is a human. He repeats this in his head over and over like a mantra: you're human, you're human, you're human…
"Do you know who he works for?"
"We have a couple guesses." the man grumbles, "Why are you even down here? It's late, you should go to sleep; you've been through some tough shit today."
"I wouldn't be able to sleep even if I wanted to," the first voice admits distantly, "Every time I close my eyes I see Drautos's body hitting the floor…"
"Shit, Noct…" the second voice sighs, and he thinks he hears the first voice (Noct?) shrug.
"It's fine, I'll be okay," There is a long moment of silence before the man speaks again, "He doesn't look like an assassin."
"And you would know what assassins look like?" the gruff voice wonders wryly.
Noct makes a frustrated noise, "Not like that, I just mean… he looks - nice. I guess."
"That man tried to put a bullet in your skull today."
"You don't think I don't know that? You know what - nevermind. It's stupid."
"Yeah, it fucking is."
And then they lapse into silence, neither speaking. Just watching him. Prompto bites his cheek to stop himself from shifting uncomfortably.
If there was one thing he hated, it was being tied down and studied. He had spent most of his life locked away and he would rather die than do so again. Sadly, that bastard kingsglaive that had captured him (Ulric, was it?) had ever so kindly relieved him of every single hidden blade on his person, even going so far as to pull off his boots and dig for the one in the sole, so he had nothing to help him escape this stupid citadel.
Prompto leaned his head back to stare at the ceiling, thinking. He knows for a fact that he isn't going to be killed, Lucis was remarkably forgiving on that front. No, he'd probably be locked away for the rest of his life in some Lucian Prison after they got every single piece of information out of him. Would he be tortured? Prompto didn't think he would, at least not in the physical sense.
In a way, he supposed what he was going through right now was a form of torture. Cold, alone, injured, and very very hungry.
With a sigh, Prompto gingerly shifted his burning throbbing shoulder, gritting his teeth at the pulsing pain that radiates from the socket. He probably dislocated it in his fall. The rest of his injuries were minor, various scrapes and bruises, and of course the dried blood still caked to the side of his face. No one had even offered to wipe it off and the flaking blood pulled at his hair every time he moved. It was annoying.
Everything about this situation was annoying. He played the day's events over and over in his head. How could he have been so stupid to openly reveal his weapon like that? What the hell had he been thinking? Oh right, he hadn't.
A part of him craved the agony of the Correction he would go through every time he made a mistake in Magitek Facility One. He had fucked up. He needed to be Corrected. He malfunctioned. He needed to be fixed. He needed it.
Gritting his teeth, Prompto shook his head, purging the thoughts that sounded sickeningly familiar to Besithia's scratchy voice.
Thank the fucking Six that his heightened sense of hearing picked up the sound of footfalls outside the thick door a moment before it opened soundlessly and a man with short brown hair and a serious face walked in, carrying a familiar folder. Prompto recognized him from his reconnaissance of Drautos: Cor Leonis, the Immortal.
Fuck.
The immortal didn't say a thing as he flicked through the folder casually before dropping it on the table in front of the blond, the papers within spreading out across the metal surface. Several dozen files and blurry pictures of Prompto and several assassination reports of Nifleheim government officials. From what he could see by just a glance, all of them were his targets in the past; looks like they had done their homework.
"You're in some deep shit, kid." Cor finally spoke, Prompto glared at the corner of the room and didn't say anything, "So either we can do this the easy way, or the hard way - your choice."
Silence.
"Attempted assassination on the crown prince of Lucis is a big deal." the man hedged and Prompto had meant to play the silent game but that was just insulting.
"Wasn't aiming for him," Prompto grumbled, glancing up through the curtain of his bangs.
"What, are you saying you missed?"
He grins with bloody teeth, "I don't miss."
Cor snorted, "If not the prince, then why Titus Drautos? What do you, or your hire, have to gain from killing him?"
"Nothin'," He sniffed, "But they have a ton to gain from killing General Glauca."
Cor frowned, "What-"
"General Glauca has infiltrated your city and has managed to become the captain of your most elite soldiers, and none of you were any the wiser." Prompto plowed on, "He has been leaking information back to Niflheim for years, I was assigned to… get rid of the problem." He shifted his weight, the chains behind his back clinking together. The bandages on his left arm were loosening thanks to the constant chafing of the cufflinks.
"If you check the body, you'll probably find the liquid armor…" Prompto mentions, almost casually. His stomach feels like it's twisting in knots, he wants to hunch his shoulders and hide into himself but Aranea would probably hit him over the head if she saw him being weak in front of the enemy. Though, Prompto didn't really think Lucis was their enemy. What was that saying? Enemy of thy enemy is thy friend? Hopefully, the Lucians thought the same thing about Vanagard.
Cor glares for a moment before his eyes flicker to the one way mirror and he nods surreptitiously and Prompto hears one of their audience leave the room, probably to go check if Prompto is telling the truth.
"Nifelheim is planning an attack on Insomnia in five months during the Peace Negotiations," Prompto murmurs quietly, gaze nervously flicking up and back away again. This is probably a bad idea, but… Aranea had talked about reaching out to Lucius anyway and he thinks letting them know will do more good than harm. Prompto still struggles with making decisions for himself and others but something in his gut tells him that this is the right thing. "The… people who I work for had broken into Zegnautus Keep three months ago and found confidential files on all of this, about Drautos, the Peace Treaty, everything."
"And who do you work for, kid?" Leonis doesn't look like he believes him, but at least he is humoring him.
"They're called Vanagard, they are a resistance group in Nifleheim who is led by Aranea Highwind, they-"
"We know of Vanagard, kid," Cor lets out a long sigh and runs a hand down his face. Prompto doesn't know how he feels about the whole kid thing. As far as Aranea could guess he was around twenty years old. Maybe. At least physically. MTs were grown in tanks and thus had accelerated growth so it was hard to pinpoint exactly how old he really was but truthfully that kind of stuff never really mattered to Prompto. He was never a child, not really at least. Even when he was smaller he was nothing more than a soldier.
The members of Vanagard who had taken him from the Magitek Facility had called him "kid" too. They had taken him to a ratty bunker base where they tied him up and asked him strange questions that didn't make any sense and he had been so scared he had cried. For some reason when he did that they had untied him and slapped him on the back gently in a way that somehow made him a little less scared. Apparently they had wanted to study what made an MT tic but they could only grab Prompto in the chaos of everything. He knows it is selfish but he is glad that they did. He became their weapon and he killed anyone they pointed to, no questions asked. And he is happy to do it.
"Kid," Cor says, snapping him out of his thoughts, "Tell me everything you know." And... Prompto does. Enemy of thy enemy is thy friend, he reminds himself. He talks for hours and hours on everything he can remember from reading the reports himself. He has a fantastic memory so it is a lot. He talks about supply trains and the location of every single Magitek Facility and Military Base in Niflheim. A female kingsglaive comes in quietly with a map for him to better point out exactly where each of these bases, the woman goes and leans against the wall somewhere behind the blond and his neck burns from where her eyes bore into him. Swallowing thickly, he tries to focus on what he is saying without looking too uncomfortable. Though… Cor is watching him like a hawk and he thinks that the immortal is reading him like a book. Prompto has always kept his heart on his sleeve and no matter how much training he went through to hide his emotions he could never really get it down. He shows them the routes Zegnautus Keep is most likely to take as well, and basically any sort of information that he thinks might have some use. When he is finished it is early morning and his eyes are drooping.
"We are done for now," Cor says, getting to his feet and rolling his shoulders "Korvus, take him to one of the holding cells."
Prompto resists the urge to bare his teeth as the tall female kingsglaive who has been standing in the corner of the room this whole time uncuffs him and hauls him to his feet. His shoulder flares in pain and he wrenches himself out of her grasp angrily only for her to grab his left arm and walk towards the door. Halfway there she pauses, eyes fixed on his arm where the bandages are loose and drooping.
"Marshall," she says meaningfully, gingerly unwrapping the coverings to reveal the intricate dark mark underneath and holding his arm firmly so he can't pull away.
"Hey, what are you-" Prompto growls, trying to tug his arm out of her grip.
Cor glances up from where he is looking at some more of the files, his gaze immediately zeroing in on Prom's arm. His eyes widen in shock and suddenly the immortal is looming over Prompto and grabbing his arm and pulling it close so he can study the blemish with an intenseness that puts the blond on edge.
"Hey hey, what the hell? Haven't you seen a soulmark before - get off me!" Prompto shouts, swallowing nervously and leaning as far back as he can get.
"Is it…" the female kingsglaive Korvus wonders hesitantly.
"Yeah," Cor responds curtly with a deep frown, rotating his arm so he can look at the inside of his arm where the soulmark wraps around.
Prompto glances between the two Lucians, bewildered.
What the hell is going on?
Noctis leans to the side to try and get a good look at the assassin that Cor is currently blocking from his sight, curious. He wonders what it is that has gotten the immortal so wound up, the blond had said something about a soulmark?
He glances over to Clarus and Gladio who watch the whole thing with cross arms and serious eyes, none of them have said a word in hours and have just been listening to what the assassin has to say. And apparently he has to say a lot. Most of it is unbelievable and usually Noctis would be bored out of his mind with this kind of stuff but something about this assassin makes it so he cannot take his eyes away.
He couldn't leave the observation room, even if he wanted to. Something deep within him rebels at just the thought. The stranger's voice is just so… so interesting and Noctis cannot explain it but everything about the other man is just fascinating. He wishes the glass wasn't in the way and he was in the same room as the foreigner, he wishes he could be close enough to reach out and touch and hold and-
His left arm tingles at the thought.
To be honest, Noctis hasn't been paying much attention to what the assassin has been saying, instead he is focused on memorizing every single aspect of his face. The scar across his brow, the splattering of freckles across his cheeks, how his unruly gold hair falls into his eyes. Noctis doesn't think he has ever seen anyone so pretty.
Anger boils deep in his gut at the dried blood on the side of the man's face, from what little bare skin he can see the blond is covered in scrapes and bruises and he holds himself stiffly in the chair. This man should not be in pain, ever. And Noctis wants to hold him close and protect him from everything that might ever hurt him and - what the hell is he thinking?
He shakes his head to clear the weird thoughts from his head but they still linger. He desperately hopes what this man is saying is true because he desperately wants to at least be allowed to have a conversation with him. He is lucky Clarus has even allowed him to be here at all. Especially with how grumpy the Amicitia is that the crown prince almost got a bullet in his skull today. As guardian of the Royal family he tended to take stuff like that personally.
Noctis shivers as he thinks back to that moment. It had come out of nowhere. There was the sound of shattering glass and then there was a flare of pain on his ear as something flew passed him and hit Titus Drautos in the back of his fucking head. Truthfully, Noctis hadn't really known the guy, he seemed like the militaristic serious type of man that always intimidated the young prince and he had always kept a wide berth around. But that doesn't change the fact that that had been the first time he had ever seen someone die, and it had happened right next to him. What really scares him though is that… he doesn't really care? He doesn't feel any fear or sadness, it's all distant.
The stitches on his ear itch, and Noctis resists the need to scratch at it.
"Do you think he is tellin' the truth?" Gladio breaks the silence.
Clarus hums, "Hard to say. For my own sanity I hope he isn't."
"Drautos has been captain of the kingsglaive forever, how could he be the mole?" Noctis's shield grumbles. Inside the interrogation room Cor and the kingsglaive are whispering to each other, sending glances at the mirror and the assassin stands awkwardly off to the side, even though the martial still has an iron grip on his left arm. The prince is momentarily distracted by how the still wet fabric of his tight sleeveless shirt is stretched across his chest.
"We'll look into it, figure all of this out." Clarus sighs. Inside the interrogation room the assassin tugs at the Immortal's grip on his arm and everyone in the room stiffens at the sight of the dark bold lines that encompass the entirety of his lower arm and hand.
Noctis thinks he hears Gladio curse and Clarus actually whimper in despair at the rise in his blood pressure but it is hard to tell because the prince feels his own matching mark hum warmly and he can't take his eyes off the blond man on the other side of the glass. His soulmate. His soulmate!
Cor quickly grabs the blond again and basically drags him out of the room, followed by half a dozen crownsguard. The prince makes a move towards the door, only for Gladio to grab his arm.
"Noctis, no-"
"Gladio, that's my fucking soulmate, what do you mean-"
"Your soulmate tried to kill you not even a couple hours ago! You can't see him, at least till we can confirm what he says is true and that he is not a threat to you or anyone else."
"You heard him, he wasn't aiming for me!" Noctis shouts back hysterically.
Gladio gives him a deadpan look but before he can say anything, probably about how stupid Noctis is, Clarus puts a hand on his shoulder. "Look, Noctis, I know you want to go see him. Trust me, I know" And Noctis is reminded of the small bundle of lilies that rest on Clarus's shoulderblade, "But we know nothing of this man, or what he wants. I promise you that when we know that you will be safe you will be allowed to see him, but for now-"
"He's my soulmate why would he want to hurt me, you're making no sense, I-"
"Are young and don't understand these things yet but trust me, this is for the best." Clarus is doing his best to use that father's voice that always makes Noctis crack, even when he is in his most intense of moods, but this time it is not working.
He glares harshly at his father's shield and tries to make a run for the door but is quickly stopped by Gladio. "Nope," the large man grunts as Noctis snarls at him.
"Please take the prince to his room, and don't let him out till morning," Clarus tells a crownsguard and Noctis rages as he is practically frogmarched back to his room. He can't believe this bullshit. What right do they have keeping him from his soulmate? How dare they?
Noctis feels like a caged animal and he storms into his apartment, slamming the door in the crownsguard's face. Growling to himself, Noctis begins to pace, running his hands through his hair.
In his head, the sight of the soulmark that has been on his arm his entire life on someone else plays over and over again in his head. He wants to see them, to get to know them. Gods, he would give anything just to see the blond smile! But he is forced back to his room like some child when he should be on the other side of the citadel with his soulmate.
Snarling, Noctis grabs the nearest thing to him, which happens to be a vase, and chucks it across the room. The polished porcelain shatters against the wall, it doesn't make the prince feel better.
There is a knock on the door, "You're highness, are you-"
"Leave me alone!" Noctis shouts angrily, magic sparking at his fingertips. He even has a chaperone at the only exit making sure he can't leave! Well… his eyes flicker over to the sliding glass door that leads out to the balcony, not the only exit.
Really, Clarus should've known the only person that can ever keep him in one place is Ignis. He probably should've woken the advisor up instead of sending a couple of random crownsguard with him. And he definitely shouldn't have forced Noctis to leave his soulmate.
With a downright feral grin, Noctis rushes into his room and grabs his engine blade that rests at his bedside. He walks out of his bedroom and slams the door, hopefully loud enough that the crownsguard at his door will assume he stormed off into his room to rage. Making his way to the balcony, the young prince opens the door and looks out over the Insomnia night skyline. It is still raining, his hair immediately soaking under the downpour but Noctis doesn't mind. He has always loved the rain anyway.
His apartment is over a hundred stories above the ground, and truthfully Noctis has never warped so far but he has knows exactly how to do it. He has been through the motions a hundred thousand times and had gone through long grueling training sessions with the kingsglaive on how to properly warp in different situations.
Jumping a couple of times to hype himself up, Noctis takes a running jump off the balcony and is in a free fall. He allows himself to linger in the feeling of falling, rain droplets splashing against his cheeks before moving into action. Sending his engine blade flying away from him at an angle. He waits a long few moments before activating the magic within him like a spark and there is a pulling sensation deep in his chest and suddenly he is catching his engine blade mere feet from the ground and falls into a roll to break the rest of his fall.
Hopping to his feet, the prince looks back up to the building he has just warped from and grins. Badass.
The easy part is over, and the young prince sneaks back into the main citadel, dripping rainwater all over the floor, and dodging patrols that have been increased since that morning and making his way through the labyrinth of hallways and stairwells. His soulmate is probably being held in the dungeon, which isn't as bleak and scary as it sounds. Really, it's just a bunch of cells, not even on the most bottom floor. Noctis just likes calling it the dungeon cause it sounds cool, really.
It takes longer than he would like, especially with the fact that he has to be stealthy. But eventually, he makes it to the doors leading to the cellblock and finds two guards standing at the entrance, looking bored and tired. Noctis warps past them without them any the wiser and silently sneaks down the hall of empty cells till he finds the one the blond is in. His soulmate.
His heart feels like it shatters at the sight of the small boy curled up into a tight ball in the far corner, trembling. He looks so… small. And Noctis wants to warp through the bars and gather him in his arms and never let him go. But one look at the bars tells him that his magic will be instantly repelled if he tries. And… he thinks that maybe his soulmate won't want him to be so close. The poor boy looks scared enough already without some stranger getting all up in his face. Noctis is fine just being in the same room as the blond, and maybe he will complain about it to Ignis later but this is good for now.
"Hey," He calls, because the boy has yet to raise his head to acknowledge him. The assassin jerks in surprise and lifts his head from where it has been buried in his knees and it occurs to Noctis that the foreigner has been sleeping and he feels a pang of guilt at waking him.
"You're…" the blond starts and shrinks farther into the wall.
"The guy you tried to kill today?" Noctis grins, trying to lighten the mood, and immediately regrets it because the boy flinches harshly at his attempting joke.
"I wasn't aiming for you," He whispers, keeping his gaze down. "You were never in any danger…"
"Oh," Noctis says, settling down on the floor, one knee raised to let his arm rest on, the other bracing his weight behind him. "You did hit my ear, though," he tries to keep his voice light but the blond seems to pull back into himself further anyway.
"You shifted your weight just as I pulled the trigger, if you hadn't have done that you would've been fine… Not that it's your fault or anything! Just know that I-I didn't m… mean to." and Noctis doesn't think he has ever seen anyone as cute as this boy.
"Eh, that's alright. Think I'll get a cool scar from it though?" he leans back on his left hand and smirks and it takes everything within him not to roll around and scream with delight when his soulmate offers him the smallest of smiles.
"Maybe," the boy offers, smiling down at his feet. Noctis spends a long moment just smiling at him when a thought strikes him.
"Hey, what's your name anyway?" and now that he has thought it he can't get it out of his head, he has to know.
The blond looks at him with big purple eyes and bites his lip, "P-Prompto," and Noctis decides then and there that he has never heard a prettier sound than his soulmate's name.
"Oh, I'm-" the dark-haired boy starts.
"Noctis Lucis Caelum, Crown Prince to the Lucian Throne," Prompto says quietly. He startles a moment later and murmurs a quick, "I-I'm sorry, your highness." something within Noctis sours at the honorific.
He frowns, "No, no, you can call me Noctis, or Noct or… you can call me whatever you want, just…" please don't call me your highness, he thinks but doesn't say.
"Oh, o-okay…" Prompto stutters. His pretty purple eyes flicker from the ground up to Noctis, "Why… are you here?"
The prince shrugs, feels his cheeks burn, "Guess I was just interested in meeting you…" and he tries to catch sight of Prompto's own soulmark but it is curled up against the blond's chest and out of his view.
"I don't think you're supposed to be down here," Prompto whispers. "You could get both of us in trouble…"
"Why would you get in trouble? I'm the one who snuck down here," Noctis pouts.
Prompto glowers at him adorably, "Doesn't change the fact that you're talking to a foreign assassin who nearly killed you."
"Yeah, but you didn't. You said you weren't aiming for me and I wasn't in any danger, right?"
Now Prompto looks frustrated, "Doesn't change the fact that I could've."
"But you didn't."
"But I could've"
"How did you even do that, anyway? Gladio told me that you shot from that one law firm, with the mirror windows?" Noctis is smiling now. His soulmate is such a badass!
Prompto shrugs, "It's just a lot of math, really. You gotta account for the wind, the weight of the bullet, the distance, the curvature of the earth, that kind of stuff..."
"Cool," Noctis says, and he means that. "So, you're like, what? A hitman?"
Prompto makes a face, "I think I'm more of an assassin, Ezio style. A hitman sounds boring."
Noctis grins, "You play Assassin's Creed?"
"Ch'yeah!" The blond smiles back and Noctis's chest feels warm. The warm feeling disappears as Prompto tries to sit up further and he grimaces, his smile replaced by a pinched expression on his face.
"Hey, you okay?"
The blond glances up at him, "My shoulder is dislocated." Noctis stiffens. "I tried to reset it against the bars but it didn't work," and he sounds so casual about it, and Noctis feels his magic crackle between his fingertips in his anger and he rips his phone out of his pocket and swiftly clicks on Ignis's contact.
"What are you…"
"Getting you some help," Noctis practically growls as the phone rings.
Prompto frowns, "I am an enemy of your country, why are you even-"
"From what I understand you did us a fucking favor, okay?" he snaps and Prompto flinches at his tone. Noctis sighs and his voice is much quieter, "Just… just let me help you, please?"
The small blond bites his lip and nods his acquiesce quietly. Noctis is momentarily distracted by how the light reflects off Prompto's pretty hair when suddenly Ignis answers the phone, sounding grumpy.
"Gods, Noct, what could you possibly need at…" there's a pause, "four in the morning?"
"Hey, Iggy do you know how to reset a dislocated shoulder?" Noctis wonders.
There is a long moment of silence.
"... why?" and he sounds so suspicious and there is a wave of brimming anger in his voice that almost makes Noctis smile and he knows for a fact that Ignis is going to kill him.
"Well, you know when you told me not to go see the assassin…?"
Ignis lets out a tired defeated sigh, "Noct, you didn't…" there is an annoyed edge to his tone.
"His name is Prompto and he is just sitting here with a dislocated shoulder, Specs! And he's my…"
"You're what?" Ignis sounds like he is getting up from bed, and there is shuffling in the background that sounds like his advisor is pulling on a jacket. Prompto is staring at him curiously but isn't saying anything.
"I'll tell you when you get here," Noctis decides. He notices the blond shiver and the wetness of his clothes, and also how cold he also is with his still soaked clothes. "Can you also bring some clothes?" he adds. "And a blanket?" because there isn't one on the little cot in the corner and that is just mean Noctis is going to have to talk to his dad in the morning.
Ignis sighs but makes an annoyed sound of affirmation.
Noctis can't help but grin at the blond across the bars and Prompto gives him a nervous smile in return and the prince thinks that his heart is going to explode from just how cute he is.