Prompto wakes up blinking, muscles tense but with no recollection of what he dreamt. A quick glance at the clock lets him know it is barely 4 am. He rolls back under the covers on a futile attempt to go back to sleep. It has been three years since sunlight came back properly and he still can’t manage a decent sleeping schedule. On his defense, habits gained during stressing times are difficult to leave behind, but he would have loved to have been able to sleep in today.
He went drinking with Cor last night. Technically. In reality, he had barely arrived at his home in Insomnia after his trip from Nova Nilfheim when the bell rang and Cor greeted him with a familiar stern gaze and two bottles of hard liquor.
Prompto only needs one.
He never gets plastered, getting drunk is renouncing control and he’s already forced to do it seven days each year because his body demands so. He was so close of losing it completely during that nightmare in Nilfheim. His life is about deciding and cherishing the control he has over it.
So no. A bottle might be able to inebriate him, but one shared offers no risk greater than getting overly contemplative during their talks. It’s a tradition that started during the Years of Darkness, and one that neither (he hopes) wants to break three years after sunrise came back to its normal cycle.
He had asked for some delivery, finding it distasteful to offer ration bars to the man who was practically his father figure, and sat down on the sparsely used living room after it arrived. They had talked about life then. About his journey, the reparations of Nova Nilfheim –not much because their conversations are not exactly heavy on the protocol and information they can read on a report- the life on Insomnia, the headaches caused by the stuffy council, Cor’s worry at having seen a white hair and then punishing the squads of glaives in training after finding out it was a prank. He had laughed, and shared stories about the mishaps he’d suffered as well during Altissia, when confusing pollen with golden sugar while making tea, of the pranks Biggs and Wedge did on him while he was verifying the supply lines and the new railroad.
He doesn’t share the fact that those two are still searching Gralea archives for the MTs registration program.
“What do you want to do?” Cor had asked during a lull in the conversation. Light reflecting the glass, and for a moment Prompto had thought this man hailed as immortal looked very human and approachable. He had felt like seventeen again, the seventeen very nearly eighteen, when he had first been asked that. That time he had answered with his determination to follow the path of the gun.
He remembers having answered last night with a cheerless shrug and a soft I don’t know. Cor had only studied him for a moment before nodding and briefly placing a hand on his shoulder. He had expected a reproach, a bit of judgement, a bit of guidance. His only words had been something along the lines of consult that with your pillow. Prompto had hoped for a miracle, but the new morning greets him with the same sense of disorientation and unease as the day before. It’s a little pathetic, all this time, at twenty six, he is still unsure.
Sometimes he envies Gladio and Ignis for a minute (or ten): they both know what they want from life, they had known since childhood what they wanted to be, what they would become; the expectations and talents. He would like a bit of that certainty and self-assuredness for himself.
His only childhood dream was to become Noctis’ friend then Gladio’s and Igni’s, but at this age he knows it is not enough. They all have their own lives, and he can’t fixate his own life, have it be determined, by his relationship with other people.
(He had tried it during the years of darkness, to find a purpose for himself and of himself. Last time he had decided to do so was on Insomnia, when he choose training and a gun. It had felt right and proud… until realizing years later to have been bred for that exact purpose and worse.
It should have been different during the Years of Darkness. With nothing more to hide about himself, it should have been easier to draw the line between friendship, need and closeness. To find a space for himself while doing something he chose to do and help. Yet instead of lessening the attachment to others and taking it back to himself, he cheated and moved some to Lunareya.)
He needs to find a life of his own, a purpose of his own, a path and a choice.
He doesn’t want to estrange himself from his friends, he wants to go around the world; he wants to remain a Crown citizen, he wants to connect with the survivors of the country that should have been his home; he wants to help rebuild Nova Nilfheim, Altissia and Insomnia; he wants to go around taking pictures of whatever he fancies, he wants to be on the hunt protecting people; he wants to live on a Chocobo ranch, he wants to remain in the replica of his adoptive parents house, he wants to live at the Cita–.
He can’t do them all. He can’t choose them all. He’s an adult too; he doesn’t have the luxury of time. There are responsibilities he must bear. And choices entail sacrifices.
“Say, do you know what you want to do tomorrow? You could always join us in Nova Nilfheim, you’ll be welcomed”
He’d just have to choose what sacrifices he’s willing to make.
(He can’t shake the feeling that something is missing.)
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
Fill: (To Decode) Mixed Signals 1b/?
Date: 2017-03-08 01:25 am (UTC)He went drinking with Cor last night. Technically. In reality, he had barely arrived at his home in Insomnia after his trip from Nova Nilfheim when the bell rang and Cor greeted him with a familiar stern gaze and two bottles of hard liquor.
Prompto only needs one.
He never gets plastered, getting drunk is renouncing control and he’s already forced to do it seven days each year because his body demands so. He was so close of losing it completely during that nightmare in Nilfheim. His life is about deciding and cherishing the control he has over it.
So no. A bottle might be able to inebriate him, but one shared offers no risk greater than getting overly contemplative during their talks. It’s a tradition that started during the Years of Darkness, and one that neither (he hopes) wants to break three years after sunrise came back to its normal cycle.
He had asked for some delivery, finding it distasteful to offer ration bars to the man who was practically his father figure, and sat down on the sparsely used living room after it arrived. They had talked about life then. About his journey, the reparations of Nova Nilfheim –not much because their conversations are not exactly heavy on the protocol and information they can read on a report- the life on Insomnia, the headaches caused by the stuffy council, Cor’s worry at having seen a white hair and then punishing the squads of glaives in training after finding out it was a prank. He had laughed, and shared stories about the mishaps he’d suffered as well during Altissia, when confusing pollen with golden sugar while making tea, of the pranks Biggs and Wedge did on him while he was verifying the supply lines and the new railroad.
He doesn’t share the fact that those two are still searching Gralea archives for the MTs registration program.
“What do you want to do?” Cor had asked during a lull in the conversation. Light reflecting the glass, and for a moment Prompto had thought this man hailed as immortal looked very human and approachable. He had felt like seventeen again, the seventeen very nearly eighteen, when he had first been asked that. That time he had answered with his determination to follow the path of the gun.
He remembers having answered last night with a cheerless shrug and a soft I don’t know. Cor had only studied him for a moment before nodding and briefly placing a hand on his shoulder. He had expected a reproach, a bit of judgement, a bit of guidance. His only words had been something along the lines of consult that with your pillow. Prompto had hoped for a miracle, but the new morning greets him with the same sense of disorientation and unease as the day before. It’s a little pathetic, all this time, at twenty six, he is still unsure.
Sometimes he envies Gladio and Ignis for a minute (or ten): they both know what they want from life, they had known since childhood what they wanted to be, what they would become; the expectations and talents. He would like a bit of that certainty and self-assuredness for himself.
His only childhood dream was to become Noctis’ friend then Gladio’s and Igni’s, but at this age he knows it is not enough. They all have their own lives, and he can’t fixate his own life, have it be determined, by his relationship with other people.
(He had tried it during the years of darkness, to find a purpose for himself and of himself. Last time he had decided to do so was on Insomnia, when he choose training and a gun. It had felt right and proud… until realizing years later to have been bred for that exact purpose and worse.
It should have been different during the Years of Darkness. With nothing more to hide about himself, it should have been easier to draw the line between friendship, need and closeness. To find a space for himself while doing something he chose to do and help. Yet instead of lessening the attachment to others and taking it back to himself, he cheated and moved some to Lunareya.)
He needs to find a life of his own, a purpose of his own, a path and a choice.
He doesn’t want to estrange himself from his friends, he wants to go around the world; he wants to remain a Crown citizen, he wants to connect with the survivors of the country that should have been his home; he wants to help rebuild Nova Nilfheim, Altissia and Insomnia; he wants to go around taking pictures of whatever he fancies, he wants to be on the hunt protecting people; he wants to live on a Chocobo ranch, he wants to remain in the replica of his adoptive parents house, he wants to live at the Cita–.
He can’t do them all. He can’t choose them all. He’s an adult too; he doesn’t have the luxury of time. There are responsibilities he must bear. And choices entail sacrifices.
“Say, do you know what you want to do tomorrow? You could always join us in Nova Nilfheim, you’ll be welcomed”
He’d just have to choose what sacrifices he’s willing to make.
(He can’t shake the feeling that something is missing.)