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ffxv_kinkmeme2017-08-02 05:17 pm
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Prompt Post Round Five
Welcome to Round Five of the FFXV Kink Meme!
Closed for prompts | OPEN for fills
Please have a look at the extended rules here.
The important rules in short:
Please direct any questions or report any problems to the Ask a mod post.
Prompt, write, draw, comment, and most importantly have fun!
(You can also check out our Pinboard for Filled or Unfilled prompts)
If you'd like to advertise a fill, head on over to the fills post! This is, of course, entirely optional.
New Prompts are Closed for this round. Please wait until 11/13/2017 for Round Six.
Closed for prompts | OPEN for fills
Please have a look at the extended rules here.
The important rules in short:
- Post anonymously.
- Negative comments on other people's prompts (kink-shaming, pairing-bashing etc.) and personal attacks of any kind will not be tolerated.
- Don't be an asshole.
- One prompt per comment. Warnings for common triggers and squicks are encouraged, but not required.
- Prompts should follow the format: Character/character, prompt.
- Keep prompts to a reasonable length; prompts should not be detailed story outlines.
- Fills should have the word "Fill:" at the start of the subject line.
- Otherwise please avoid changing the subject line.
- No reposting of prompts from previous rounds, please.
- No Meme-Police. Only ffxv_kinknator and ffxv_kinkhelper and ffxv_kinkmod are allowed to mod the meme. If you spot a rules violation, don't comment in the thread, report it on the Ask a mod post.
Please direct any questions or report any problems to the Ask a mod post.
Prompt, write, draw, comment, and most importantly have fun!
(You can also check out our Pinboard for Filled or Unfilled prompts)
If you'd like to advertise a fill, head on over to the fills post! This is, of course, entirely optional.
New Prompts are Closed for this round. Please wait until 11/13/2017 for Round Six.
Fill #2 (1/?): Ardyn + Cor + Prompto, Dysfunctional escaped lab rat family
(Anonymous) 2017-09-14 02:48 am (UTC)(link)The last (and only) fic I ever wrote was waaaaay back in 2012, but I really fell for your prompt, anon! I have no outline for the plot past the first few chapters, so we'll see where this goes. It could be short or reaaally long :)
I also have both a crazy job and a terrible sleep schedule, so updates might be sporadic. Good thing you have two fillers (and possibly three, looks like!) to keep you sated :D
----
Two years and seven months after he joined the Imperial Army, flashing forged papers and a scowl that dissuaded all but the most basic questions about his origins, Cor Leonis finally made his move.
The power was out across most of Gralea, just as planned, and most of the on-duty soldiers had been pulled away to tackle either the impressively large electrical fire at the power plant, the demon breakout in the Optima Research Station, or the derailed shipment of neural toxins at the shipping yards.
The Marshal of Lucis did not operate by half measures.
In the rush to solve too many problems with too few resources, Cor and Marcus had been left alone to guard the tower entrance to Zegnautus Keep. Marcus was currently napping off a taste of his own shock baton to the base of the skull. The scientists and staff or Zegnautus had been dispatched to Optima.
Cor been carefully gathering data on Niflheim's military operations since enlisting, taking care to not mar his perfectly unimpeachable reputation, but tonight was the most reckless operation of the entire mission. He was making a final sweep of the Keep's research unit, planning to be out of Gralea by dawn and Niflheim itself by noon on an urgent field unit resupply mission he was already assigned to carry out. There should be no trouble at the border. His truck was loaded in the yard and only awaited his change of shift.
With both the freight and personnel elevators out of commission, the Marshal had quickly made his way up the too-many-astrals-damned flights of stairs, and was making a sweep of the administrative offices on the lower floors.
Cor couldn't carry away all of the reports he came across, and he certainly didn't have time to sit and peruse them to decide what might be important. He didn't understand the science, in any case. Not that it was a problem; he just picked up each folder, report, and stack of papers he came across, and unceremoniously "dropped" them into his own pocket of the armiger. Nifs were certainly advanced in daemonology and certain areas of tech, but for some reason, they'd lagged sorely behind in computing.
As he moved from desk to desk, a smile started to tug at one corner of his mouth.
I hope Clarus enjoys filing.
Cor, of course, did not expect to be joining that filing. Cor expected to be at Galdin Quay catching up on several months of leave, as soon as he could finish delivering the material and debriefing. He picked up one last handful of folders, dismissed them in a small shower of blue sparks, and checked his watch. He still had two hours to shift change.
Time to check the labs.
Cor tapped at the clunky datapad all Nifleheim soldiers were issued, trying to bring up a map of the upper levels. He'd been stationed at Zegnautus for some time, but soliders were mostly kept to the lower levels, and he hadn't been beyond the third floor, himself. Nif architects were unnaturally fond of labyrinthine halls and dead ends, and last year, after yet another two-day missing lieutenant was found slumped by a cola machine, General Lambardus finally threw up his hands at a staff meeting and ordered that all soldiers of appropriate rank be issued electronic maps of government facilities. Cor frowned at his datapad. smacking the unit lighty until it flickered to life. He missed his Insomnian cell phone, with a working screen, and GPS.
Following the map, Cor dodged down interminable corridors and up yet more flights of stairs, heading for the offices and labs the directory listed as belonging to the scourge and MT scientists he'd been assigned to target. He paused only for a judicious application of fire axe to the doors whose locks had automatically engaged when the power went down. They remained surprisingly easy to force open as he approached the research unit.
Nothing too strong in these labs, then. Probably no demons I can't handle on my own.
He paused to breathe for a few minutes when he finally reached the correct floor, massaging his calves.
There were emergency lights on in this wing, running on a generator or battery system, and Cor dismissed the fire axe for later use.
Convenient. I can move faster.
He headed to the right, entering a hallway off which the main labratories branched. Cor moved down the hall, moving through one lab filled with small demons in cages to another with sickeningly bloated and dark-veined human body parts and limbs preserved in neatly labeled rows, sweeping his flashlight into dim corners. They had sent the right man for the job; the Marshal had been cultivating a strong stomach for years. He snapped quick images with the camera he'd bought in Gralea on his soldier's wages, tucked a few of the more securely-stoppered jars in the armiger, and moved on. Magical storage was terribly convenient.
The seventh door he opened turned out to be the maintenance office. Cor turned to go, but suddenly he stopped, slowly turning around. This time, he really smiled, and it was more terrifying than the scowl that had almost engraved itself in his face. Three years, Regis! And he wasted five minutes of precious time dropping every teetering pile of maintenance procedures and plumbing mishap reports into the armiger that he could lay his hands on. Cor's skill with the armiger had never been terribly refined, and when he started retrieving "paper," it would all be gloriously mixed together. Having cleared the maintenance office, he moved on.
The next door Cor approached was noticibly heavier than the others; he had to summon the fire axe again to break the lock, and this one took quite a few blows. As he pushed it open, and maneuvered past several carts piled high with surgical trays and instruments, Cor cast the beam of his flashlight around to supplement the dim lights. This one looked like an operating theater, and in it Cor saw for the first time in his sweep of the facility a sight that made his blood grow cold.
The center of the cage-lined room was occupied by a crowd of unidentifiable instruments and heavy machines, some gone dark and some still blinking, and in the middle of it all was a stainless steel table, atop which he could see a body, so covered in wires and tubing and straps that the naked form was hardly visible.
Not a body, he thought, edging closer. You don't secure a cadaver like that.
Then his flashlight's glow glinted off the black blood, and Cor the Immortal almost turned tail and ran.
Re: Fill #2 (1/?): Ardyn + Cor + Prompto, Dysfunctional escaped lab rat family
(Anonymous) 2017-09-14 03:11 am (UTC)(link)Nice spooky lab, BTW. And forever giggling at Cor giving Regis a pile of plumbing reports.
Re: Fill #2 (2/?): Ardyn + Cor + Prompto, Dysfunctional escaped lab rat family
(Anonymous) 2017-09-15 03:33 am (UTC)(link)But at the rate I'm going...----
Only almost, though it was closer than he'd ever come. Cor growled in disgust at the feeling, once the moment had passed. There'd been no sign of hazmat equipment, other than simple gowns and masks. Either the scientists here were extremely reckless, or they'd determined that the risk of airborne infection was negligible. It was more than they knew back home in Lucis.
(For decades the scourge was nothing but a rumor carried across the sea from Niflheim, one most Lucians scoffed at as a wives' tale that had in the telling. Only in the last ten years had three cases of a strange plague eppeared on the edges of Lucis, striking seemingly at random, the victims' blood gradually running black in their veins, turning to an oily sludge that choked out their lives from the inside. One had been taken to Tenbrae under heavy guard, and she had lasted a year longer than the others.)
Cor took a longer look at the man on the table. He was breathing, but had moved not a muscle since Cor had entered the room. Middle aged, Cor judged, with advanced muscle atrophy -- but cuffed tightly to the surface with thick nylon straps, even at his neck. They really didn't want this one moving. A black strip of cloth was tied over his eyes.
This won't bother him, then. New film, check the flash.
It filled two rolls, taking pictures of the man... the IV lines and electrodes. Other sensors he didn't recognize. New scars -- a crescent on the lower part of the belly, a straighter cut under the ribs, a wandering line from shoulder to elbow on one outstretched arm, the forearm below laid open with veins feeding black blood into tubes. Old scars -- too many to count. The black ichor that leaked from all these wounds.
He photographed the man's wreck of a face last, focusing carefully on the scars on his shaved head, on the black blood seeping from his mouth, bubbling around the leather stick fastened between his teeth, trailing down from under the blindfold over pale skin and bruised veins to pool on the table.
Who is this poor man? What was he, before they brought him here?
Cor pulled a glove from the box on the nearest cart and tugged it over his left hand. He readied his camera with the right. Hesitantly, slowly, Cor reached out and pulled up the blindfold, and for the first time, the man moved -- he opened his eyes.
The eyes were black, saturated with that awful blood, the irises an unnatural, gleaming yellow. They were the eyes of a monster, and they were afraid.
Cor backed away slowly, camera forgotten, unable to tear his eyes away from that horrible stare. He bumped against a shelf stacked deep with jars, and the dislodged containers shattered on the floor, saturating his boots and splashing his body with black.
"Shit! Oh, astrals, shit!"
The blood slipped under his boots as Cor rushed from the room and slammed through the door to the maintenance closet, and he leaned over the sink and heaved his stomach dry. Still hacking, he tore at his clothes, flinging everything in a corner, and then he scrubbed at the skin of his arms and legs and face until every spot of black was gone. When it was all over, he sank to the floor, looked down at himself, and laughed, and there was a strange edge to it.
Re: Fill #2 (2/?): Ardyn + Cor + Prompto, Dysfunctional escaped lab rat family
(Anonymous) 2017-09-15 06:45 am (UTC)(link)Re: Fill #2 (2/?): Ardyn + Cor + Prompto, Dysfunctional escaped lab rat family
(Anonymous) 2017-09-15 11:47 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Fill #2 (3/?): Ardyn + Cor + Prompto, Dysfunctional escaped lab rat family
(Anonymous) 2017-09-16 12:47 am (UTC)(link)~~~~
The last lab was full of babies. Dozens of babies, unnaturally silent and still in plastic cribs. Each sported almost as many wires and sensors as the scourge-infected man, and above several IV bags hung, dripping a horribly familiar substance.
The bastards are infecting babies on purpose? What the hell for?
Of the infants, only one seemed to notice him, reaching out with chubby arms. Cor's vision swam, and he tasted blood before he realized he'd bitten his hand.
This was too much. Too much. His mind racing, he crossed off a thousand ways to save them all, each more foolhardy than the last. You couldn't put babies in the armiger. Nothing alive.
I can save at least one from this hell.
Mind resolved, Cor turned to the room's cabinets for supplies, caching everything he touched. Diapers. Formula. Bottles. Towels. Antiseptic. Whatever the hell's in these boxes.
There was no easy answer on which baby to save, no choice that would allay the heaviness in his soul, so Cor went to the infant that had reached for him, peeling electrodes from delicate skin, pressing guaze and a sticky bandage to the baby's scalp as he pulled out the IV port, averting his gaze from the soft blue eyes brimming with tears.
He picked the baby up, froze for a moment, and put it back down. And Cor the Immortal, short of time as he was, managed to fumble his way through changing his first dirty diaper.
You're lucky, kid, that my stomach's already empty.
He pulled the sheet covering the crib's thin mattress up, and tied it into a sling with an extra from the cabinets to cradle the baby tight against his chest, over the unstained shirt he'd pulled from the armiger.
Tugging the knots to make sure they were secure, Cor took one last look around at the rows of babies, and he felt his heart break.
"I'm so sorry."
----
As he jogged back down the hall, Cor slowed at one particular door. He couldn't save the man inside, but he could at least grant him a final mercy. He untied the sling and situated the babe on the floor.
"Wait here for me, OK?"
Cor pushed through the broken door and approached the table more slowly this time, stepping carefully around the drying sludge on the floor, grabbing more gloves and pulling them on. Those unnatural eyes, still uncovered, followed his progress.
When Cor reached him, holding up his hands to show he meant no harm, the man flinched, and tried to turn his head, but he couldn't pull away.
Sighing, Cor dropped his hands. Thinking of the dying soldiers he'd comforted in Accordo, he reached out to touch the man's undamaged arm, stroking it softly. Those eyes flicked back to him, the man's confusion plain even through the disfiguring blood.
Moving slowly, Cor reached across to pull the leather bit from the man's mouth. He spoke as softly as he could, in the language of the Empire.
"Do you want me to end this? I can make it quick."
The man squinted at him, and looked away. Cor tried again in Lucian.
The man swallowed, and licked his lips several times.
"Nescio. Quis es tú?"
It came out quiet and harsh, and brought on a round of coughing. Cor stepped back, considering. Whoever the man was, he didn't speak Nif or Lucian, and Cor didn't have time. He reached down to lace the fingers of his left hand through the man's own, summoned a long dagger behind his back, and brought it around slowly, miming striking at his own heart.
After a long pause, the man smiled softly. It was ghoulish.
"Sis me interfice," and his yellow eyes slid closed.
In seconds, it was done. The man's eyelids fluttered, but he made no sound apart from a quick gasp as the knife found his heart.
Be at peace.
Cor watched for a moment after the man's breathing stopped, to honor this stranger with the raveged body. He withdrew the blade slowly, intending to leave it behind as an offering, and as a message to whoever found the remains. He flexed his fingers to pull away his left hand away and the body jerked, and his hand was suddenly caught in an iron grip. The knife fell loud to the floor, loud as anything Cor had ever heard.
~~~~
I have nothing but a few 19th century Latin phrasebooks and ye olde internet... so, uh, please forgive any mistakes (but corrections are welcome!). What Ardyn's saying here is "I don't understand. Who are you?" and "Kill me, if you are willing." I think.
Re: Fill #2 (3/?): Ardyn + Cor + Prompto, Dysfunctional escaped lab rat family
(Anonymous) 2017-09-16 12:49 am (UTC)(link)Re: Fill #2 (3/?): Ardyn + Cor + Prompto, Dysfunctional escaped lab rat family
(Anonymous) 2017-09-16 01:07 am (UTC)(link)Re: Fill #2 (3/?): Ardyn + Cor + Prompto, Dysfunctional escaped lab rat family
(Anonymous) 2017-09-16 01:39 am (UTC)(link)Re: Fill #2 (3/?): Ardyn + Cor + Prompto, Dysfunctional escaped lab rat family
(Anonymous) 2017-09-16 01:59 am (UTC)(link)Poor MT babies.
Poor Ardyn. I just want to hug them all.
Re: Fill #2 (3/?): Ardyn + Cor + Prompto, Dysfunctional escaped lab rat family
(Anonymous) 2017-09-18 03:15 am (UTC)(link)----
Cor pulled, hard, but he couldn't break free. The body jerked again, held down place by the straps, and black motes began seeping from the man's skin. They bunched thickest at the stab wound and the dissected arm, flowing in masses across the body. Cor felt a slight tingling, though no discomfort, where they touched his hand.
By the time the black motes dissipated, seeping back 'til nothing remained, Cor wasn't even surprised to see the man start to gasp, chest heaving, neck arched as if he were still in pain. The open wounds had healed into shiny scars, mottled in black. The right arm had reformed itself, though the tubes that had been attached to his veins remained, sticking oddly out.
"What the hell are you?" Cor whispered.
There were no stories or rumors of the scourge healing its victims. This man... was his strange scourge the product of Nif experimentation? Were they trying to bend the disease to military use? Cor envisioned hordes of Nif soldiers, rising up from whence they'd fallen. Were there more like him, locked away in other labs? Even Insomnia -- even Regis -- couldn't resist an unkillable enemy.
His mind fell upon another horror, and held fast to it: what if the scourge itself was a byproduct of the experiments conducted here?
A door slammed, not too far away, and Cor made several very poor decisions in the space of a heartbeat.
He leaned down to grab the knife, and started cutting through the straps.
You're going to get yourself killed. This whole mission will be wasted!
He shoved the thought back to a corner of his mind. The mission had just added another new objective.
I'll rethink my impulsive decisions LATER, Clarus. That particular nagging bit of conscience always had a familiar voice.
"OK, if you can manage to keep up," and even as Cor was said it, he was thinking, oh astrals, the stairs, "you're coming with me."
The man's eyes were still screwed shut, his lips twisted in a grimace. Cor stopped cutting.
"Hey."
Another slam, and Cor thought he heard faint shouting.
He patted the man's face, and again, a little harder, until he saw a sliver of yellow staring at him. Cor held up the hand the man still gripped, showing him his own arm pulled free from its bonds. The yellow eyes grew wider.
"Quid facis?" The man's voice was clearer then before, though he spoke through labored breaths. "Neque tu times?'
"Yeah. Would you let go of my hand for a minute?" He pried at the fingers holding his, and was relieved when the man released his grip. Cor resumed cutting, sawing at the tight nylon as fast as he could without catching flesh. He didn't know what to do with the healed-over arm, but blood no longer flowed through the lines. He sliced through them; it could be dealt with later. When he was done, he started pulling off wires and sensors and tubes, less gently than he had with the baby, slowing down only slightly to drain the balloon before tugging the catheter free. Another skill from Accordo's medical tents. That earned a glare.
Cor laid a hand on the man's shoulder in silent apology.
"All right, we're going to get you up. Come on."
Cor pulled up on the man's shoulder, and he seemed to understand, raising himself just enough for Cor to get an arm under his shoulders.
It's already been all over me. I'm already exposed. So's the kid. Huh. Maybe I'll come back to life when they find us and shoot me.
He lifted, trying not to notice how close to dead weight his body was. With the man sitting on the edge of the table, arms shaking with the effort of holding himself up, Cor consulted out his army datapad, flicking quickly through the map. He found what he wanted, and tapped the screen off.
"Stay here. I'll be right back."
Not waiting for an answer, Cor dashed back to the hall. A quiet voice followed him, full of confusion: "Nescio."
The baby had managed to roll out of his sheets. Cor scooped him back into place, and hitched the makeshift sling around his chest.
"Ready to go, kid?"
The baby squirmed a little, settling in. He burbled a little, but he wasn't the only one Cor heard. It was definitely Marcus, and another voice calling back. Cor shouldn't have left the soldier alive.
Get moving.
Cor rushed back into the lab, ignoring the pointed stare the man gave the sling. Without a word -- because what was the point? -- Cor pulled the man's arm over his own shoulders and slipped an arm behind his back, tugging him forward, supporting his weight as it dropped to the floor.
Cor moved one foot forward, and the man took a trembling step. Too slow. They walked three more before his legs collapsed, and Cor was almost pulled down on top of him.
"Discede. Ego quoque infirmi." He pulled away from Cor, and the Marshal let his arm slide down. Some things were easy to understand. It had been a stupid thing to try.
"Discede!" The man's voice broke, and he seemed to fold in on himself, his whole body going slack. Cor grimaced, and knelt, grabbing ahold of the man's unresisting left arm with his right and pulling it over his shoulder. He'd just carry the man, too. It would be awkward with the baby, but they weren't going far. Not yet. He rose to a crouch, reached back back to find the man's thigh, and hitched him halfway into place.
"Astrals, you've got to at least hang on!"
He stood the rest of the way, off balance, and finally the man seemed to come aware again, wrapping his other arm around the Marshal's neck. Cor grabbed his other leg, and started off.
I feel like a chocobo.
Cor was anything but fond of chocobos.
They'd made it out of the laboratory wing and down most of another hallway when Cor swerved toward the door of an office and stopped running. Shifting the man's weight to one side, he reached into the armiger and pulled out a flask of firaga. It was the first magic he'd retrieved since reaching Niflheim. He was too rusty for this.
No time for second thoughts.
He threw the flask at the opposite wall, grabbed to brace the man's arm, and ducked back into the hall just as the flames burst out behind him. He counted to ten, and raced through the smoldering office toward the hole he'd blown in the wall.
He thought he have heard the man scream something into his ringing ears, or it might have been Marcus, or it might even have been himself.
Cor reached the edge, and jumped out into the night.
----
Latin this time is again pretty obvious stuff: "What are you doing?" -- "Who are you? Aren't you afraid?" -- "I don't understand." (Ardyn is so confused about who this crazy man who keeps running in circles is.) -- and "Leave. I'm too weak." I didn't pop these in up there, 'cause Cor doesn't know what he's saying.
Re: Fill #2 (3/?): Ardyn + Cor + Prompto, Dysfunctional escaped lab rat family
(Anonymous) 2017-09-18 03:17 am (UTC)(link)Re: Fill #2 (3/?): Ardyn + Cor + Prompto, Dysfunctional escaped lab rat family
(Anonymous) 2017-09-18 03:41 am (UTC)(link)Re: Fill #2 (3/?): Ardyn + Cor + Prompto, Dysfunctional escaped lab rat family
(Anonymous) 2017-09-18 10:53 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Fill #2 (3/?): Ardyn + Cor + Prompto, Dysfunctional escaped lab rat family
(Anonymous) 2017-09-26 01:31 am (UTC)(link)Re: Fill #2 (3/?): Ardyn + Cor + Prompto, Dysfunctional escaped lab rat family
(Anonymous) 2017-09-23 01:30 am (UTC)(link)Re: Fill #2 (3/?): Ardyn + Cor + Prompto, Dysfunctional escaped lab rat family
(Anonymous) 2017-09-26 01:32 am (UTC)(link)Re: Fill #2 (5/?): Ardyn + Cor + Prompto, Dysfunctional escaped lab rat family
(Anonymous) 2017-09-26 01:29 am (UTC)(link)------
They snapped back into reality on the edge of an empty parking lot, shedding a shower of sparks, collapsing into a tangle of limbs as Cor’s ankle twisted under him. Alive. They’d fallen so fast, the darkened masses of buildings growing huge in the night, and he’d flung the dagger wildly down into the black, praying that it would find level ground, praying he remembered how to pull.
The baby squirmed, and Cor wrapped his arms around the bundle, drawing it against his racing heart. Alive. Cor opened his eyes, looking back up at the sky. It was as if the stars were spinning. He squeezed them shut again.
"Stulte!" A curse, close to his ear. Alive.
Cor counted between his breaths, forcing them to slow.
“Stulte.” Quieter this time; a breeze of a laugh fluttered in his hair.
A hand reached up to brush Cor’s forehead, and he leaned into the cool touch, letting it ground him.
“Mihi valde places.” It was a whisper, and the man’s hand fell away.
When the world stopped moving, Cor pulled himself out of the man’s arms and rolled to a sitting position, hissing at the pain in his ankle. He took a moment to break an elixir over it. The pain spiked, then faded to a throb as the bones realigned and started to knit.
Praying that no one was looking down from Zegnautus, he clicked his flashlight onto the lowest setting and shone it around. The parking lot they had landed in was small, bounded on one side by a line of tall hedge and on two with hulking offices. They were exposed, and anyone passing by in the blackout was sure to notice his light.
Thank Shiva we’re in the business district.
As a rule, Nif civilians didn’t go out after dark, not since the demon attacks had started in earnest. Even in the bright lights of the city, people hurried home before sunset, hiding behind drawn shutters and locked doors. Soliders like Cor… like those he’d heard in the Keep… were another matter. They’d be sending a search unit.
Cor glanced over his shoulder. The man was laying on his back, one arm flung over his scarred chest, shivering. He was breathing, and his pulse was steady. Cor pushed himself to his feet, and limping and cursing under his breath all the while as he dragged the unconscious man toward the tall hedges. That was as far as Cor’s abused ankle would take them for now.
The baby, still bundled up in the sheet, had started wriggling earnestly. Cor took that as a good sign, but even so, he held his breath as he tugged the sling over his head to pull the little boy free, laying him on the wadded sheet. The baby’s bright blue eyes brimmed with tears under a dusting of mussed blond hair, staring at him accusingly, and his fat little legs kicked in the air. Cor checked him closely, but could find no signs of injury beyond those he’d bandaged in the lab. The only abnormality he could see was a barcode on one wrist that didn’t wipe away when Cor rubbed at it with his thumb.
“I wonder what they’ve done to you that I can’t see, kid.”
Images of the lab – of other babies – flashed into his mind, and Cor pushed them sharply back. Not right now. The baby caught at Cor’s finger and pulled it to his mouth, gnawing at his rough skin with sharp little teeth.
“Hey. You don’t know where that’s been.” Cor pulled his hand away, smoothing down the boy’s fine hair instead.
Somewhere between growing a couple of teeth and walking? How old is that? Younger than Clarus’ kid was when I left.
The baby yawned, tears mostly gone, and Cor allowed himself a small smile. The kid was cute.
Blanket, Cor thought, holding out a palm. He got a gym towel. Close enough. He tucked it around the baby against the night’s chill, and turned to check on his other acquisition.
The man seemed no worse, as far as it went. It seemed Cor had taken the brunt of their hard landing. The dark mottling where his wounds had healed hadn’t faded, staining skin that was already thick with overlapping scars. Cor found more dark spots when he pulled the man over, just where pressure sores would form. He didn’t wake when Cor shook him.
Cor had just managed to tug a pair of his own old sweatpants up to the man’s waist when the baby started to wail.
----
Ardyn: “Fool!” -- “Fool.” –- “I like you.”
Re: Fill #2 (5/?): Ardyn + Cor + Prompto, Dysfunctional escaped lab rat family
(Anonymous) 2017-09-26 02:00 pm (UTC)(link)Poor Cor does not know how babies work. Looks like he'll figuring it out the hard way!