I got to sing, I got to dance I got to be a part of a great romance Still forbidden, still outrageous Only a few around us knew I got to love, I rode the rails You came with me because you cared I was broke and I was scared You held my hand and took away my fear We knew we couldn't last And that was hard.
Prompto was half-dozing when the door slid to the side and the privacy curtain was encountered and then deftly evaded.
"Sorry to drag you out here," Prompto said. Ignis turned his head towards his voice. He looked just as Iggy as ever: his button-down shirt was pressed with the sleeves neatly folded up, and he was wearing a snazzy dark purple waistcoat which Prompto thought was new. "The bathroom's to your left, then there's the sink and a chair, and the bed's in front of the window."
"And you, I take it, are in the bed." Ignis navigated the room without any visible hesitation, finding the chair and leaning his cane against it. His hand found the edge of the bed – complete with railing – and lingered there. "Will I be disturbing any equipment with an embrace?"
"No problem," Prompto assured him. "Embrace away." He reached up and caught Ignis' hand, pointing out the IV thing and the oxygen thing as he pulled him down. He didn't mention how that much exertion just about wiped him out, but he assumed Ignis would figure it out. That was what he did.
He let himself relax and enjoy the hug: strong warm hands on his shoulders, the press of Ignis' cheek against his own, a gentle tousle of his hair as Ignis pulled back to settle into the chair.
"So," Ignis started. He left his hand on Prompto's shoulder, warm and comforting. "Obviously, I received your message. Would you care to elaborate?"
Prompto thought that sounded very civilized. He'd only sent the message the day before and Ignis must have left as soon as he got word – and traveled through the night – to be here this soon. It was unfair of him to look and sound this good, really. Weren't forty-year-olds supposed to slow down and start graying and go thick around the middle?
Ignis was forty. The gods were unfair, because Prompto never would be.
"I don't think the Nifs cloned MTs to last," Prompto said, closing his eyes so he didn't have to see Ignis' reaction. "Like I said, the doctors don't think I'll make it to the end of the year. My lungs are shot – " as if Ignis couldn't hear how he had to keep stopping to get his breath – "I just had my necrotic pancreas yoinked, my bones are brittle, and apparently my heart is a time bomb. But fuck me if I'll die in a hospital. Quality of remaining days over quantity, right? I want to go home."
Ignis didn't even pause to think the idea over. Classic Iggy. "Certainly. When will you be able to leave?"
Prompto sucked in a shuddering breath, and then another, and made himself look Ignis in the face. "They'll only release me if I have – I forget what it's called – a caretaker. Chaperone? I said you were my fiance."
The confession earned a head-tilt, as if Ignis were struggling to contemplate just how serious Prompto was. But after a moment he just sighed and let his mouth curl into the faintest of smirks. "You've been reading Gladio's books."
"For the plot," Prompto insisted. "Not just the smut."
"I've always wanted a fake dying boyfriend," Ignis said, voice as dry as tinder. "How much luckier could my day get?"
"Someday, you're going to actually hurt my feelings and then you'll be sorry," Prompto warned, but it was hard to steal sympathy points when he was grinning. "I hate to impose, et cetera et cetera, but damn I'm glad you came."
Ignis held his free hand out. "Cling to me, then, darling," he murmured. Prompto had no idea what was up, but he grabbed Ignis' hand and pulled it up to press a quick loud kiss to his knuckles. Ignis wrinkled his nose and tried to wipe his hand off on the sheet, but Prompto wasn't letting him get away so easily. Next time, he was going to use teeth.
That was when the nurse on duty slid door open and shoved the curtain aside to poked his head in. He looked irritated by everything he saw: the gentle hand-holding tussle, the way Ignis' head turned sharply as if assessing a threat, the dark glasses and the cane. Prompto felt guilty (for what, he had no idea), and then was hit by a wave of weary exasperation.
"Mr Argentum," the nurse said. "I see you're awake."
Ignis' thumb rubbed across the back of his hand, slow and comforting enough to stop Prompto from retorting, and I see you're an asshole when you get stuck on evening shift.
"Please forgive me for not rising," Ignis said smoothly. He turned in his chair and aimed a nod towards the doorway – polite, but the polar opposite of obsequious. "Ignis Scientia."
"The better half," Prompto supplied, as if their linked hands weren't a big enough (albeit expertly staged) hint.
Ignis shot him a chiding look.
"I'll tell the doctor," the nurse said, and disappeared down the corridor.
Ignis gave Prompto an abstracted pat, and then got up to close the curtain over the doorway. "I assume you forgot to mention the blindness."
Prompto couldn't figure out if Ignis thought this had been clever, or insulting, or dumb. When in doubt, insert bad joke here. "You know what they say about love being – "
"Hush." Ignis managed to make the word sound like a dire threat.
"Zip zip zip," Prompto said, and then mashed his lips together. He didn't make the effort of the zipper gesture – why waste energy on that when he didn't have a seeing audience?
Ignis made his way back to the chair and settled down, taking his phone out and then pausing. "May I use this without affecting whatever you're attached to?"
"Go for it. It's just IVs and stuff."
"Ah." Ignis sent off a flurry of messages, and Prompto let himself be lulled by the deftness of his fingers and the monotone of the screen reader. He'd slept with Ignis, on and off, during the ten years Noct was gone – Prompto wasn't even sure it had been a relationship. More like the extended dance mix of hello, I see you're still alive, so am I, that makes today a good day. After Noct came back and then died, neither of them had made a move to start up again. Prompto had settled here in Galdin Quay, and Ignis... wandered. He knew Gladio and Ignis had been fighting about this for years, and he kind of understood. Gladio didn't want to lose another of their brotherhood.
Looked like it was going to happen anyway, though. Damn. He was not looking forward to telling Gladio the news.
He slipped into a hazy sleep, where he was vaguely aware of people in the room and quiet conversations, but at the same time he was walking around a lake that, in his dream, kept growing so that he could never return to the place he started, even though he wanted to. He was sad about that, but he still kept on walking, until he woke with a start to someone calling his name.
Ignis helped him sip water until he was as close to clear-headed as he got, considering the drugs he was on. Ignis said he'd made appointments with this-and-that hospital officials to get the paperwork expedited and set up the home care services they'd need. Prompto hadn't thought about that; this was why he needed an Ignis around, to do the thinking.
"But then we can go home?" he asked. If he sounded pathetic, it was just the lingering weirdness from the dream.
Ignis reached up to push Prompto's hair back off his forehead – probably checking for fever at first, but his fingers lingered, brushing idly through his hair as if measuring its length and attempting to impose order on chaos. He always tried, he always failed. But it was worth it. Ignis smiled more after he lost his sight, for some reason, and he was smiling now, a faint, private curl of his lips that made Prompto's heart skip a beat for non-dying reasons.
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timeasmymeasure
Fill Prompto, problems with being a clone, postgame sickfic? "For What It's Worth" 1/?
Date: 2017-10-14 07:02 am (UTC)Prompto was half-dozing when the door slid to the side and the privacy curtain was encountered and then deftly evaded.
"Sorry to drag you out here," Prompto said. Ignis turned his head towards his voice. He looked just as Iggy as ever: his button-down shirt was pressed with the sleeves neatly folded up, and he was wearing a snazzy dark purple waistcoat which Prompto thought was new. "The bathroom's to your left, then there's the sink and a chair, and the bed's in front of the window."
"And you, I take it, are in the bed." Ignis navigated the room without any visible hesitation, finding the chair and leaning his cane against it. His hand found the edge of the bed – complete with railing – and lingered there. "Will I be disturbing any equipment with an embrace?"
"No problem," Prompto assured him. "Embrace away." He reached up and caught Ignis' hand, pointing out the IV thing and the oxygen thing as he pulled him down. He didn't mention how that much exertion just about wiped him out, but he assumed Ignis would figure it out. That was what he did.
He let himself relax and enjoy the hug: strong warm hands on his shoulders, the press of Ignis' cheek against his own, a gentle tousle of his hair as Ignis pulled back to settle into the chair.
"So," Ignis started. He left his hand on Prompto's shoulder, warm and comforting. "Obviously, I received your message. Would you care to elaborate?"
Prompto thought that sounded very civilized. He'd only sent the message the day before and Ignis must have left as soon as he got word – and traveled through the night – to be here this soon. It was unfair of him to look and sound this good, really. Weren't forty-year-olds supposed to slow down and start graying and go thick around the middle?
Ignis was forty. The gods were unfair, because Prompto never would be.
"I don't think the Nifs cloned MTs to last," Prompto said, closing his eyes so he didn't have to see Ignis' reaction. "Like I said, the doctors don't think I'll make it to the end of the year. My lungs are shot – " as if Ignis couldn't hear how he had to keep stopping to get his breath – "I just had my necrotic pancreas yoinked, my bones are brittle, and apparently my heart is a time bomb. But fuck me if I'll die in a hospital. Quality of remaining days over quantity, right? I want to go home."
Ignis didn't even pause to think the idea over. Classic Iggy. "Certainly. When will you be able to leave?"
Prompto sucked in a shuddering breath, and then another, and made himself look Ignis in the face. "They'll only release me if I have – I forget what it's called – a caretaker. Chaperone? I said you were my fiance."
The confession earned a head-tilt, as if Ignis were struggling to contemplate just how serious Prompto was. But after a moment he just sighed and let his mouth curl into the faintest of smirks. "You've been reading Gladio's books."
"For the plot," Prompto insisted. "Not just the smut."
"I've always wanted a fake dying boyfriend," Ignis said, voice as dry as tinder. "How much luckier could my day get?"
"Someday, you're going to actually hurt my feelings and then you'll be sorry," Prompto warned, but it was hard to steal sympathy points when he was grinning. "I hate to impose, et cetera et cetera, but damn I'm glad you came."
Ignis held his free hand out. "Cling to me, then, darling," he murmured. Prompto had no idea what was up, but he grabbed Ignis' hand and pulled it up to press a quick loud kiss to his knuckles. Ignis wrinkled his nose and tried to wipe his hand off on the sheet, but Prompto wasn't letting him get away so easily. Next time, he was going to use teeth.
That was when the nurse on duty slid door open and shoved the curtain aside to poked his head in. He looked irritated by everything he saw: the gentle hand-holding tussle, the way Ignis' head turned sharply as if assessing a threat, the dark glasses and the cane. Prompto felt guilty (for what, he had no idea), and then was hit by a wave of weary exasperation.
"Mr Argentum," the nurse said. "I see you're awake."
Ignis' thumb rubbed across the back of his hand, slow and comforting enough to stop Prompto from retorting, and I see you're an asshole when you get stuck on evening shift.
"Please forgive me for not rising," Ignis said smoothly. He turned in his chair and aimed a nod towards the doorway – polite, but the polar opposite of obsequious. "Ignis Scientia."
"The better half," Prompto supplied, as if their linked hands weren't a big enough (albeit expertly staged) hint.
Ignis shot him a chiding look.
"I'll tell the doctor," the nurse said, and disappeared down the corridor.
Ignis gave Prompto an abstracted pat, and then got up to close the curtain over the doorway. "I assume you forgot to mention the blindness."
Prompto couldn't figure out if Ignis thought this had been clever, or insulting, or dumb. When in doubt, insert bad joke here. "You know what they say about love being – "
"Hush." Ignis managed to make the word sound like a dire threat.
"Zip zip zip," Prompto said, and then mashed his lips together. He didn't make the effort of the zipper gesture – why waste energy on that when he didn't have a seeing audience?
Ignis made his way back to the chair and settled down, taking his phone out and then pausing. "May I use this without affecting whatever you're attached to?"
"Go for it. It's just IVs and stuff."
"Ah." Ignis sent off a flurry of messages, and Prompto let himself be lulled by the deftness of his fingers and the monotone of the screen reader. He'd slept with Ignis, on and off, during the ten years Noct was gone – Prompto wasn't even sure it had been a relationship. More like the extended dance mix of hello, I see you're still alive, so am I, that makes today a good day. After Noct came back and then died, neither of them had made a move to start up again. Prompto had settled here in Galdin Quay, and Ignis... wandered. He knew Gladio and Ignis had been fighting about this for years, and he kind of understood. Gladio didn't want to lose another of their brotherhood.
Looked like it was going to happen anyway, though. Damn. He was not looking forward to telling Gladio the news.
He slipped into a hazy sleep, where he was vaguely aware of people in the room and quiet conversations, but at the same time he was walking around a lake that, in his dream, kept growing so that he could never return to the place he started, even though he wanted to. He was sad about that, but he still kept on walking, until he woke with a start to someone calling his name.
Ignis helped him sip water until he was as close to clear-headed as he got, considering the drugs he was on. Ignis said he'd made appointments with this-and-that hospital officials to get the paperwork expedited and set up the home care services they'd need. Prompto hadn't thought about that; this was why he needed an Ignis around, to do the thinking.
"But then we can go home?" he asked. If he sounded pathetic, it was just the lingering weirdness from the dream.
Ignis reached up to push Prompto's hair back off his forehead – probably checking for fever at first, but his fingers lingered, brushing idly through his hair as if measuring its length and attempting to impose order on chaos. He always tried, he always failed. But it was worth it. Ignis smiled more after he lost his sight, for some reason, and he was smiling now, a faint, private curl of his lips that made Prompto's heart skip a beat for non-dying reasons.
"We can go home," Ignis agreed. "Don't worry."