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To put it lightly, Prompto has been through a lot.
But even this seems like too much.
He can’t even say that it hadn’t been his intention, not really, because he did in fact arc his arm through the air, rage rushing through him as he slammed it again and again and again. And, okay, yes, it was completely satisfying when he felt the bones crunch against the butt of his gun. Accomplishment and satisfaction rippling through him like heat as he watched Ardyn crumple indelicately to the floor.
Maybe it’s just the consequences are outside of his intentions.
He’d craved violence, undeniably so, but murder?
His breath is shaky but his arm holds firm as he holds his gun out in front of him, finger poised on the trigger he hasn’t yet pulled. He can feel the soak of black squelch on his palm, along the sleeve of his jacket. And there on the floor before him is Ardyn. Or what remains of him anyway. The roots of his hair still black but not because of the strange not-blood that coursed through him. He has no discernible face. Prompto did that.
Perhaps exceptions could be made. Yes, murder.
His mind is unusually clear (I’m glad this happened) but his body doesn’t seem to agree. Something wracks through him, a shiver that threatens to send him to his knees, but he’s better than that so he stands. It’s difficult to breathe and it’s like he’s only now learning his body for the first time. Maybe that’s the case.
Prompto doesn’t look away. But even if anyone were to ask him point blank what the hell happened he doesn’t trust himself to remember. Not correctly anyway. There’s an insistence that things have always been this way. That Ardyn had always been whole and that Ardyn’s face was never smashed to bits with pieces of it splattered on the floor. Prompto mentally holds the two truths that should, for all intents and purposes, be conflicting and yet.
Ardyn is whole and alive and laughing.
Prompto traces with his thumb to check the hammer. It’s ready.
“You’re quicker than your precious prince, I will give you that,” Ardyn says, laughing and rising to his feet as though he hadn’t been dead only moments ago. “But I suppose I should have known. You certainly live up to your name. Shall we give it another go? Would you like a chance to put your hands on him? Perhaps crush in his face? It was so fun to watch you two play cat and mouse on the train.”
Prompto scrunches his face. “He didn’t mean it.”
To Prompto’s horror, Ardyn is in front of him with those black stained hands cradling his cheek, thumbs brushing up under Prompto’s eyes. Prompto looks away, instinctively, cradles the trigger with his finger. Nausea roils through him.
“Ah, but think of the catharsis. The release. Don’t you want to ease the tension?” Ardyn doesn’t bother trying to hide the sick double entendre. He punctuates each sickening little word with a gentle caress of his fingers.
Prompto is already in so many pieces. It shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t. There aren’t many lines Prompto won’t cross and even the few he’s made a point of drawing are so distant. Unthinkable things he’d never ever imagine in his entire life – except that there’s not a single one he hasn’t already leapt over. No point in trying to stop now when he’s already every horrible thing he can think of.
For once in his life Prompto puts himself first.
“This isn’t about Noc – him.” Prompto wets his lips and tries to not cry at the name. “You brought me here, right? I’m here for you.”
Ardyn smiles at that. It’s brilliant and terrifying in equal measure.
“For me? You’re saying you’re here willingly?”
“I said what I meant.” Prompto puts all of his anger into his words and he hopes that it’s enough.
He presses the tip of his gun under Ardyn’s chin. The smile Ardyn gives him burns as it thrills through every nerve in Prompto’s body. It barely registers how close Ardyn is until Prompto feels his laughter curl around Prompto’s lips.
“What have I done to earn the pleasure of your attention?”
Prompto tries not to laugh at that.
“Everything,” he says and then he’s bashing the gun into Ardyn’s face again.
Just the once this time. Just enough force to put Ardyn back on the floor. On his knees. Right where Prompto wants him.
That same treacle thick blood curdles around Ardyn’s crushed cheek, seeping out from a gash near his forehead. Ardyn snaps his attention back up to Prompto but he makes no move to get back up. He folds his hands behind his back and looks up, expectant and eager. It’s like he’s waiting to be disappointed. Prompto can’t stand that.
Prompto presses the barrel of the gun into the dent in Ardyn’s forehead, gently though, only the barest push but still he can feel the brittle bone giving little more than token resistance. Ardyn lets his eyelids flutter, lets his mouth hang open slack, as Prompto forces the barrel in further with one slow, measured thrust. The gash is barely there and not barrel shaped but it gives and accommodates around the polished metal
He doesn’t get very deep, isn’t really trying to honestly, before Ardyn flinches and sucks in a painful hiss. When Prompto pulls the gun away it leaves a splattering arc of black along Ardyn’s cheek. Ardyn stretches his tongue but it doesn’t quite reach the drops. Good effort, though, Prompto will give him that. He watches Ardyn’s tongue and allows himself a brief moment of mesmerizment. It’s flexible. Long.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather - “ Ardyn gasps and clenches his eyes shut but the damage is already done. Even Prompto’s ears are ringing after that, the recoil echoing through his shoulder.
“I really wouldn’t,” Prompto says. He can guess well enough what Ardyn had meant.
Ardyn’s mouth is still slack, though less from the pleasure of being broached and probably the shock of having a gun shot off right beside his ear. His tongue is curled back behind his teeth, some of the black from his still sludging wound falling now over his perfect, sharp teeth. It isn’t that his lips are dry, crackled in the corners, and it isn’t even that the flick of Ardyn’s tongue is all that enticing.
It’s more that Prompto just wants something and he wants it now and the quickest way from point A to point B is, well.
Prompto fires another shot on Ardyn’s other side. He can’t be sure if Ardyn had grown tired, or if he was simply shifting to a more comfortable position, or what but it doesn’t matter. Ardyn moves when Prompto tells him he can. The chancellor looks disoriented now, swaying slightly drunk in between the ringing that has to be assaulting his ears. Prompto takes the opportunity.
The thick barrel of the gun singes Ardyn’s flesh on the way down. He doesn’t so much as gag on it, though that happens too, as he does scream. It’s muffled around the hot metal forcing its way down his throat. And, to be fair to Ardyn, he barely moves. Just a fine shudder. He’s such a quick learner.
Prompto gets the gun down until his trigger finger is knuckling up against Ardyn’s tongue, scraping on his teeth as Prompto pull out then back in. He thinks he can feel it, the cauterized patches of flesh catching on the gun. He can smell it. The stench of burning scourge that Prompto recognizes from grenades and red giants.
It’s a familiar, sickening smell but there’s something else laced through there. A headiness that Prompto’s never noticed or maybe he never had the chance to really focus on it. It’s sour and musky and whatever it really is it floats around Prompto’s head, intoxicating. He sways in time with the movement of his hand, rocking gently back and forth on his feet. He doesn’t quite know what he’s looking for but this feels right. Not enough, but a step in the right direction.
He adjusts his grip on the gun, tighter now, hand nearly shaking but Prompto has been disciplined so well. He keeps his trigger finger steady. His other hand is still a mess and he needs to do something with it. Needs the reassurance of something physical. He finds it in Ardyn’s hair, taking fistfuls of it near his neck and forcing his head back the same time as he slides the gun as far as it will go.
Ardyn moans on something filthy and oh. Oh.
Prompto already hates himself. He never wants to even acknowledge his existence as something there. It’s why he insists on being the photographer, the camera guy. It’s why he never lets anyone touch his camera because maybe, just fucking maybe, if he’s careful or tries his best or was even a little bit lucky for once in his damn life, he won’t have to face the fact that he’s this revolting mass they call a body. The fact that he exists physically, is perceivable. That he is a thing on which people can pin their disappointment and rejection.
There isn’t a part of himself that he likes, let alone cherishes respects loves. He already hates himself.
And so the shame that should douse him is so inconsequential. A single raindrop evaporating against the heat of his desires.
Prompto steps closer to Ardyn. Close enough for his knee to knock near Ardyn’s shoulder. Close enough that he has to drag Ardyn’s neck back so far Prompto can see the thick barrel of the gun as it pushes down Ardyn’s throat. Fascinating.
It’s difficult to tell if Ardyn’s resistance would be worse. As things are now, he’s sucking on the muzzle of the gun as if it were – something else – sloppy movements of his lips and something like black spit dripping down his chin. Prompto’s never had the best control over his body, even less over his libido. He’s young and touch starved and practically every minute of his existence for the past so many days - he struggles trying to comprehend it because goddamn how long has it been not quite a year but pretty much right fuck – vacillating wildly between near death experiences and comfortable familiarity with not one, not two, but three incredibly stupid hot bastards who won't hesitate to toss him aside -
Anyway!
All of this to say.
He’s hard. Just. His pants feel tight. He shifts to find some friction, some small fraction of release, but he doesn’t want to stop touching Ardyn. He can’t let go of his gun because that feels more correct than – than his dick would. If he releases Ardyn’s hair then Prompto loses that filthy slick undercurrent of moaning filth and that’s completely inconceivable. It’s not like it matters. Prompto’s breath is still coming in stuttering little gasps. He can still feel the flush on his cheeks, the warmth of it spreading down his his chest. The tension budding so deliciously low in his gut.
That whining desperate little whimper is him. Prompto bites down on his lip but it doesn’t stop.
It spills over like this. Ardyn’s hands running up from Prompto’s calves, behind his knees, fingers just brushing the edge of Prompto’s ass. Muscle memory kicks in. Instinct, really. And then there’s the bang. Quick. One, two. The ache in Prompto’s shoulder. The sudden heavy pull of holding all of Ardyn’s dead weight by the hair.
He pulls out all at once. His hand comes away sticky down to his knuckles, black smears muddling the intricately engraved metal of the barrel. He slips off one of Ardyn’s many scarves before letting him drop down to the floor. Prompto ignores how terribly his hands shake at the whumff of sound. He swallows down something that he tells himself isn’t disappointment.
Easier to focus on cleaning his gun, if the most perfunctory of wipe downs could even be called cleaning. It’s a beautifully detailed gun, far more deserving of much better treatment than he’s giving it. He drags the cloth along the length of it, twisting his wrist and flicking it near the tip of the barrel. He’s careful with the inlaid design, sometimes sliding his shorn fingernail along the intricate grooves for that added edge of pressure. Fuck, his hands are shaking. What he really needs is oil. Space to slowly take the gun apart, piece by piece. Give each little nut and knob the attention it deserves. Really take his time before he shatters the completed gun back into the armiger and lets the satisfying tug of magic warm through him. How long has it been since he felt the armiger? He hasn’t dared try to reach for it. No use trying now.
It grates some distant part of him to disrespect his weapon but it isn’t as if he has a choice.
This is his chance to escape. There’s only one door, cold and imposing, with a little card access beside it that Prompto is almost definitely sure he could get open. But then what? He doesn’t know where he is. Underground, that much seems certain, he hasn’t had even a hint of sunlight in who knows how long. He remembers the daemons and the MTs and the tight inextricably linked corridors that seem to expand and shrink at will. Not conducive for sharp shooting.
(But worse than that, he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he never finds his friends again. What he’ll do if he does.)
Prompto crouches over Ardyn, boots astride his chest, and he waits.
He waits there with his elbows on his knees, hands dangling, gun toted lazily in one hand. Prompto’s cock is still strangely, inconveniently at attention and he tells himself it’s just adrenaline and nerves and a bunch of other human things that might not even apply to him since he’s not – he isn’t -
He presses the gun against himself, through his tight thermal pants, and the thrill that sparks up his spine is proof enough. He grinds against the gun, shifts his hips so that his length lines up with the length of the barrel and he can pretend whatever he wants in the private corners of his mind.
“Tease,” Ardyn says. The low gravelly timbre of his voice could be arousal or death and Prompto finds that it doesn’t make a difference to him. “If you didn’t want me to touch, you should have said so.”
“You know now, don’t you?”
“Is this my reward then? I can look but not touch?”
“I'm asking the questions now," Prompto says as he randomly fires off a single shot without looking. It’s reckless and it’s stupid but it gets his point across. Ardyn’s attention is only on him.
A shot by each ear. Two down the throat. And one to make a point. It should be obvious if Ardyn had been paying attention and Prompto would be surprised and disappointed if he hadn’t been. There’s only one left. They both know this. But Prompto makes a show of popping open the gun, letting Ardyn’s gaze slide over that last little bullet. Prompto flicks the cylinder even though it grates his teeth but he’s already here so he can’t stop himself and then he snaps it back into place. Ardyn swallows. The look in his eye is incoherently debased. Prompto has to bite back a smirk of his own.
“What are you?” Prompto asks. He forces the gun to Ardyn’s temple. It looks so normal now, even though Prompto had seen it shattered and broken more than once. Ardyn’s teeth are all sharp and perfect and the smile he flashes is crazed. Had Prompto not just spent every last fuck from the depths of his fuck reserve very, very recently he might have flinched. Ardyn says a word that Prompto doesn’t know and, as always, the embarrassment of not knowing eats away at Prompto.
“What does that mean?” Prompto asks, pulling back the hammer.
“To you it means that I am immortal,” Ardyn says. Black creeps up under his skin and pushes out from the corners of his eyes, his lips, his ears. “To your dear Noct, it means I am his shadow. A beginning to his end. His reflection in cruel providence.”
A daemon then. A daemon who still flinches when Prompto pulls the trigger and the echo of the empty chamber blares through the room. There’s nothing to rip through the viscera. Nothing to blast through brains. But there’s force and energy exchange and it’s still a gun needing, wanting, made for destruction. Prompto stills his shaking hand and drags the gun down to his throat.
“Show me?” Prompto nudges the gun against Ardyn’s collarbone in encouragement.
Ardyn undoes each button, pulls aside what he can, and rips through what he can’t until his naked chest is there on display. Prompto had half expected Ardyn to be debilitated. To have a body wrecked by time and hate (a body like his) but no. Other than the pulsating black rivers under his skin he looks normal. Flush and firm. Thick patches of hair twisting over his chest and the promise of a pink nipple just under the place where the many layers have been pushed aside. When Prompto drags the heated tip of his gun down over breastbone, Ardyn’s chest rises and falls in anticipation.
“You’ll find I’m generally very patient but you’ll forgive me for being eager. It has been some time,” Ardyn says. He shivers when Prompto presses the tip of the gun over his heart.
“Kill yourself often?” Prompto has to bite his lip, has to look away.
“Oh, if only you knew.”
“Don’t care.” He pushes the gun down until Ardyn huffs out in pain. Not the wince he was hoping for but close enough. “Why Noct?”
Ardyn laughs. “You’d be better off asking the Draconian.”
“Gods usually ignore me in my experience.”
“I wish I could say the same.”
Hammer. Trigger. Bang.
Another empty chamber. The wound this time is a little more...bloody. Prompto had practically been blunt forcing his way through the skin, the release of the trigger made a valiant effort to pierce straight on through. Ardyn is wheezing, his chest frantic as he tries to get a breath in.
On impulse, some animal compulsion he doesn’t even want to understand, Prompto slips two of his fingers into the mangled flesh. It’s wet and sticky and so fucking hot against his skin. His legs, which had been going numb with pins and needles, shake, barely able to hold him up. The liquid seeps between his fingers and he pushes in deeper, curls them into the muscle until Ardyn is crying out. Prompto shuts his eyes, tilts his head back. Anything to make the vertigo slow for even just a second.
The self-healing is life changing. Probably literally for Ardyn but Prompto doesn’t give a shit about that. Muscles twitching and tightening around him, slicking and sucking against his skin as it tries to stitch back together. Prompto shifts his fingers and it’s tighter than anything he’s ever felt. He wets his lips but his tongue feels heavy and dry. He slides down to his knuckle, barely any give but still so tight, and Ardyn is choking on broken syllables.
He could force himself in there if he wants. Even better, he could get his gun in there. It would be incredible.
But the thought of tarnishing his gun like that again... No. It deserves better than that.
“You really are a tease,” Ardyn says but at first it’s difficult to parse through the heaviness of his breaths.
Prompto pulls his hand back at that. It’s rough and quick. It leaves Ardyn dry heaving just a little bit.
“Lucky break.” Prompto takes in a deep breath. Centers himself and ignores how his trigger finger is absolutely dripping with Ardyn. He shifts the rest of Ardyn’s layers until his abs are revealed in all its flush and muscled glory.
“How about you choose next? Should I shoot you here?” Prompto lines a shot right in the center of Ardyn’s stomach. He presses the gun down for emphasis, head cocked to the side in question, and he realizes Ardyn's dragged out groan without shame. But there’s a choice to be made so he drags the gun until the tip of it is pressed roughly in between Ardyn’s legs. “Or would you prefer here?”
“I could go both ways.”
“Classy,” Prompto says. “But that’s not an answer. If you really don’t want to, then how about this? I get one more question and depending on how you answer I’ll pick one or the other. Like heads or tails.”
“Exactly like heads or tails.” Ardyn shifts his hips but Prompto ignores him, keeps the gun steady as he lazily pulls the hammer back.
“Are you going to hurt Noct?”
Ardyn laughs merrily. It’s a warm sound that claps through the sterile space around them.
“Of course, of course. Undoubtedly so.”
It’s very likely, not unheard of, that Ardyn was probably going to say more. Hard to hear him though over the snap blast of the gun. Live ammo. Loaded chamber. The whole thing. Click click click. Prompto’s getting trigger finger. There’s scourge splashed across his face.
Harder still to hear whatever words over the pitched rush of blood thundering in his ears and Prompto’s own frantic tongue slinging every curse he’s ever heard.
And then the only sound in the room are lone shaky breaths, not sobs definitely not sobs, and an insistent ringing whine coming from... Somewhere. Possibly from within his ear but that would be bad so Prompto considers it then just as fast discards it. It warbles inside his brain.
Prompto drags his arm across his face. He’s so fucking tired. His face hurts. His muscles have given out on him. His shoulder is pissed.
He stands and with shaky hands he tries to reload his gun. He’s done this a million times but it all feels so long ago, it just hasn’t been necessary since he’d been connected to the armiger. To Noct. Magic filled in the chambers as needed and he let it blunt his skills. The motions are familiar, at least. The main problem is his hands. They’re slick and trembling and he has to try more than once just to get one bullet in and he’s already. so. fucking. tired.
He makes his way to the door, leans heavily against the concrete wall, smacks his head against it. An accident at first but the stars feel too good to ignore. He does it again. The rush is admittedly fantastic. His flagging but still hopeful erection is painful now and he thinks maybe he should do something about that.
“Unfortunately we haven’t the time,” comes Ardyn’s voice. Closer than Prompto expects.
Exhaustion has made him slow. He goes to pull out his gun but Ardyn is quicker, slamming him against the wall. The haze feels different. Not the usual, fantastic shower of stars but something else. Something painful. Prompto tries to raise his head but there’s something crushing him, squeezing him in place. He can breathe just fine, taking in frantic gulping gasps, but he’s lost all range of motion. Everything hurts.
Because this is Ardyn, because nothing in Prompto’s life has ever gone the way he wants, because the gods must have decided this isn’t enough of a shitshow – it gets worse.
Ardyn’s hands are all over him. Trailing up his hips, snaking under his jacket, cradling around his face. Ardyn crushes his thigh against Prompto and it’s painful and just the right amount of pressure and if Prompto could move he knows he would. But Prompto can’t do anything about it so he tries to remember to breathe. Everything hurts so bad.
The door slides open and Prompto wants to flinch away but he can’t. He can’t even move his head enough to see who comes in. Not that he needs to see anything. He can hear them well enough. The thunking march of metal on metal as a cadre of MTs file in. Each of them eerily silent, all of them moving in unison. Prompto is glad for the small grace of not having to look them in the face.
It doesn’t last. Of course it doesn’t.
When Prompto can move again he crumbles to the floor in free fall. The pain is too much he doesn’t even try to get up. The MTs take a hold of him, one on each side and one behind him to roughly hold his head back so he can address Ardyn properly.
“If only I could have given you what you deserve,” Ardyn says, crouching so close Prompto can see the fine faults of scourge in Ardyn’s eyes. “Too bad you’re wasted on the chosen king. He has not a clue what he has with you. Pity. Though I suppose we all have our parts to play. And you, my dear, have places to be. I’ll never forget what we had.”
Prompto wants to spit in his fucking face. But his throat is arid, his tongue thick and dry. His mind wheedles too slow for some snappy response and then he’s being dragged away through that endless, abandoned maze of metal and scourge.
He can’t imagine a world where Noct comes here and anything good happens. Can’t imagine a world with sunlight and - goddamn shit, that’s how he knows he’s deep into his own bullshit depression spiral.
But it would make the most sense, it would be the most logical, for Prompto to be left behind. It would probably be for the best and Prompto tries so hard to convince himself that he’s okay with that.
The spiteful thing, the selfish thing, would be to live.
For once in his life Prompto puts himself first.