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Girls and guys alike used to say that Prompto was cute. He's got a sweet, diamond shaped face and soft eyes. His mouth always lifts higher on the left side of his face when he smiles. Freckles dot his face, neck, and shoulders, like his mother swallowed a piece of a star before giving birth to him. Except, Prompto doesn't have a mother, and whether he was "born" is up for debate.
The sight of his own face didn't bother him as much anymore, once he got used to the endless nightmares and flashbacks from after he escaped certain death and watched his best friend be held for sacrifice like cattle. Sometimes, when he is with you on a hunt, he sees stray MT's wandering the endless twilight, twitching its head rhythmically as though trying to remember something.
The first time you shot one dead, he looked at you fearfully, then back to the helmet of the creature. You appeared to have understood the message of his eyes and lifted the mask off the thing.
Below the mask were metal plates and dead lights that used to be eyes. Prompto sighed in relief and continued forward.
The week after, you found another MT. This one was more fluid in its movements, holding its sword by its side and marching on through the sand. You and Prompto crouched behind some brush, your body close to his as he aimed his rifle at its head and fired.
The bullet pierced its skull, and the creature went toppling to the ground. The two of you looked at one another briefly before rising from the brush and making your way towards the MT. Prompto removed the mask.
He was greeted with himself that time. The flesh-and-bone soldier, one of his many brothers, stared up at him with blood slowly gathering at his tear ducts and pouring down the sides of his face. His pupils were wide, mouth hanging stupidly like he was looking to say something.
Prompto shook his head. This thing wasn't a "he". And neither -
"Prompto."
He looked up to see you watching him patiently. Your axe was out of its holster and nestled in your gentle hands. No matter how many times you did this, how many years as a hunter hardened your spirit, you still shook when you waited for the final confirmation.
You would do anything to protect him - even if it meant killing him over and over again.
Prompto nodded. You steeled yourself, swung the axe back and struck right beneath the things nose. It's head split open wetly, blood splattering out onto the sand and your boots. You took another deep breath, raising the axe again and slamming it down into its forehead. Prompto tried to focus on your heaving breaths instead of the cracking and squelching of the MT's head being mutilated. Black scourge-infected blood kept spreading around you and the creature until you stood surrounded by it.
When you were done, what was once a human-ish head was now an unidentifiable pile of gore melting into itself. Prompto let go of his held breath. He walked up to you, put a hand on your shoulder. He guided you back to your car where you headed home without another word spoken.
Being called a pretty boy wasn't common once everyone stopped caring about things of beauty in general. Now, Prompto's face granted him the occasional second glance when peoples brains began to try and rake up the memory of where they saw it before. MT's weren't as common now that Niflheim was no longer actively deploying them, but some still remained. Whether it was their programming or the Starscourge keeping them from falling limp onto the ground wasn't known, but they were enough of an issue to end up on bounties. They typically traveled alone, making them far too easy, and the reward too low, for most hunters to take the job. This left you and Prompto to survey the hunt board, looking for any signs of MT's out and about. Some people noticed and asked why you two insisted on taking them when younger, inexperienced hunters could use them to bolster their skills. You both made up some bullshit about them being far tougher than they looked, and that was enough to shut them up.
This didn't keep scares from happening, though. Sometimes, if someone was drunk or angry enough, they'd sneer at Prompto, calling him "the Niff", and you "the Niffs whore". Typically, someone else would step in and tell the aggressor to fuck off, scandalized at how someone could insult one of the Prince's companions. Some would spread stories of the MT's bearing the young mans face, but their claims were dismissed as craziness or some sort of new shape-shifting ability in the endless sea of daemons. Peace would follow for weeks, maybe months after, until you heard his name mentioned in another discussion about Niflheim or MT's, and you knew it was time to duck your heads down once again.
One night, a year into the endless darkness, the two of you returned to The Leville after a hunt. A small crowd was still gathered at the restaurant adjacent to the hotel. As you and Prompto approached the doors, you caught something moving in the corner of your eye. It grew closer, and you noticed it was a woman, uneasy on her feet like a newborn foal.
"Hey."
You and Prompto locked eyes, wondering what your next move was, when the woman slammed her hands onto Prompto's shoulders.
"How dare you show your fucking face here, fucking Niff!" She spat, pushing him backwards and causing him to stumble slightly. People in the background were growing louder, telling the woman to leave you two alone, but she continued berating Prompto.
"I've seen you out there, you know, fucking magitek things that look like you." Her gaze hardened even further to where her eyes were plastic. "Goddamn freak!"
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about, but you need to leave us alone." Prompto replied, turning to shield you with his body and move closer to the door, but the woman's tight grip did not budge.
"Hey, you," She turned to you, "do you know about this? What this thing is?"
You opened your mouth to speak, ready to unleash hell upon her, when a man in the group grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
"Cyrene, knock it off and sit the hell back down," he said. The woman, Cyrene, gritted her teeth but obliged, wrenching her arm from the mans hold and going to attend her drink and meal once again.
You felt a hand in yours, and looked down to see Prompto laced your fingers together, holding tight.
"Shit, I'm so sorry. Cyrene's my sister, she gets drunk as shit and then starts looking to brawl everybody she sees." The man bowed his head. You'd seen him around before, one of the many middle-aged veteran hunters that held steady when the world went pitch black. He turned back to see Cyrene glaring at him, then turned to the two of you again. "I'm really sorry about all that she just said. I know you, Prompto. You're a good kid. Here,"
He stuck a hand and wiggled it around his pocket before pulling out some dusty pieces of gil and shoving it into Prompto's hand. He bowed again before making it back to his table.
The rest of the long walk to your room was uneventful. You shucked off your clothes, spot-treating the mystery goo stuck to them, then sponge-bathing before putting on your pajamas and getting into bed. Prompto did the same, not saying much, clearly lingering on what Cyrene had said to him.
You watched him play Kings Knight for a bit, game play interspersed with endless buffering from the poor data reception, head against his shoulder. Whether he was winning or losing brutally in each match, his expression never changed from sad and pensive.
"Wanna talk about it?" You asked as he continued smashing buttons.
"Nope."
His voice was snipped, clearly not wanting to talk to you. You just nodded, turning your body away from him before settling your head on your pillow, the dim glow of his phone and the quiet in-game noises continuing until your consciousness gave out.
Prompto felt bad making you do this each time. He tried to do it himself once, but as soon as the shotgun blast tore through the things face and popped its eyes out of the sockets, his knees buckled and a searing pain coursed through his veins. He flopped onto his back, arms and legs spread out as he cried out for you, eyes rolling back into his head as he felt every single nerve in his body be torn in half.
"Could be something about how you were made." You proposed once you had carried him back to your room, pressing a hot compress to his lower back that still felt like it was trying to rip his skin open. "Maybe, because you're…were supposed to be an MT, you can't hurt other ones without being hurt yourself."
"That doesn't make any sense. I've killed ones before and I was fine."
"Well, maybe it's different now that the scourge is stronger."
Prompto whipped his head in your direction.
"You're saying I've got the scourge in me?"
His eyes were wide and bloodshot. You swallowed hard, face growing hot.
"No, I mean," you searched for words, "I'm just-"
You paused when you saw him running his fingers through his hair, gripping strands like he was trying to tear them out of his scalp.
"Prompto, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't-"
"No, no. I'm not mad at you. You're probably right. I've got some fucked-up daemon shit in me. Makes total sense." He laughed nervously, sounding more like a yelp. "A daemon can't kill its brothers."
"You're not a daemon, Prompto."
He repeated those words to himself as he watched your final swing land in this MT's face, rendering it unrecognizable. If he wasn't a daemon, why couldn't he just stand up and tear apart a monster, instead of forcing you through it each time? Normal people weren't like that. Normal people didn't have clones of themselves walking around, threatening to send the torches and pitchforks after him if people found out what he truly was.
He wasn't normal, and he never would be.
Prompto didn't bring up the incident with the drunk woman until hours after you arrived from another hunting trip. You had encountered an MT again, but it was a robotic variant that you thankfully did not have to disfigure. After you both showered the blood off and inhaled a couple of soggy deli meat sandwiches, you laid side by side on your bed, staring absently at the ceiling.
"Hey, you know that weird lady that yelled at us the other day?" Prompto blurted out suddenly. You turned to look at him.
"Yeah."
"Do you think-" he paused, "do you think maybe she was right?"
You raised your eyebrow and sat up.
"Prompto, she was a fucking drunk that didn't know what she was talking about. There is nothing wrong with you."
His expression turned, his eyes avoiding yours and his bottom lip between his teeth.
"I think she was right, though. I'm not even human. You said it yourself, there's daemon blood inside me and I feel like one day I'm just going to snap." Prompto's voice turned sorrowful as he began rambling, "I mean, there are daemon soldiers wandering around with my face on them, going around killing anyone they can find. And I make you tear those things apart, those things that are basically just me, because something inside me just goes haywire whenever I try to hurt myself-"
His voice grew tearful, face flushing red and water gathering at his eyes. "Whose to say that I won't turn into one of them? If this…thing inside of me will take over and I hurt you?"
His voice trailed off when he felt your weight against him. You held him tight, palms resting firm against his back. He stilled, head drifting down to rest on your shoulder as his composure caved and he cried into your skin. He was in so much pain - you could feel it radiating into your chest and hands as he wept into you. You brought your fingers to his hair, rubbing lightly against his scalp. You felt his mouth open and close against your shoulder, words wanting to escape but him being too afraid to let that happen.
You pulled back, saw his glassy blue eyes wavering in their focus back to you.
"I think he did something to me," Prompto whispered, "He did something to my head and I'm gonna become like him."
"No, Prompto, you can't think like that," You gripped him by the shoulders, "Ardyn may have hurt you but he cannot change who you are. You will always be the Prompto I know."
Sighing, you cupped his face in your hands and rested your forehead against his. "I love you so much Prompto, and I will always be here to catch you when you're falling. You know that, right?"
A wave of tears fell from him again, the meaning of your words wrapping itself around his heart and nestling deep. He didn't answer with his voice, rather, he brought his lips to yours and pulled you flush against him. Any protest from you died as he continued claiming your mouth, both of you sighing into the kisses.
You held his face, the one you had sunken a blade into so many times, and kissed the stardust-freckles along his cheeks, feeling the tears from his eyes fall onto your lips. His hands went to rest at your hips, his fingers digging into the plush skin beneah your shirt. He whined beneath your lips, his breath catching in his throat as he felt your mouth move down his jaw and to his neck.
"I- haah…" Prompto began, but lost his voice once he felt your teeth nip gently at his throat. He moaned again, bringing his fingers into your hair when you moved back.
"What do you need, sweetheart?" You asked, kissing the tip of his nose before he could answer. His face was flushed red, mouth opening and closing as he tried to arrange his thoughts that were rapidly clouding with desire. His hand moved to the front of your shorts, rubbing gently between your legs. His eyes sparkled when he heard your sweet gasp, and he surged forward to catch it with his mouth.
Neither of you wanted to wait to be one together, not when you could feel Prompto's need to feel human again. You stood up to wiggle out of your shorts and underwear before sitting back on the bed, Prompto lifting his hips up from the covers as he shucked off his own boxers. He backed up against the headboard, fully hard and desperate for you as you climbed up his body and slotted your hips against his.
"I love you." He said as he gripped firmly on your hips, guiding you down to take him inside of you. That warm, blooming feeling spread from your core to your chest as you sank further onto him. You wrapped your arms around him and rest your head against his shoulder once all of him was within you. You sat still for a moment, drinking in the sight of Prompto's face. His expression was serene, eyes half-open and rose-pink lips parted for your kisses.
"I love you," You repeated, "I love you more than anything."
Thus you began rocking your hips, being rewarded with a soft moan from Prompto. You whined against his shoulder, his skin against your face grounding you as the warm pressure of his length inside you made you gasp.
"Oh, gods, please…" He groaned as he began to thrust upwards in time with your movements, "You feel so good. So pretty…"
You giggled, raising your head to look him in the eye. You kissed again, though your lips lost contact shortly as you moaned into eachothers mouths, unable to contain your sounds. You rocked your hips faster, chasing the feeling of him pulsing inside you, telling you he was getting close. You snaked your hand down beneath your stomachs, rubbing your clit to bring you to your own end.
"Gonna come," Prompto sighed, the sensation of you squeezing down on him choking his words, "Where do you want me?"
"Inside. Want you to come inside me," You gasped, "I love you, Prom. My beautiful boy."
You cried out his name once you felt that growing heat inside you finally wash over your body. You tucked your head into his shoulder as you came, marking his skin with your teeth as his hips stuttered as he reached his own peak. He moaned out fractions of your name, eyes rolled back as he came. The warm, wet feeling of his seed filling you added to your pleasure, knowing he's marked you.
You didn't move for a while after that. You and Prompto stayed locked together, even after your bodies had relaxed, kissing over and over, unable to get enough of each others taste. You nuzzled his face with your nose, retracing your previous marks to his face with your lips. His eyes were closed, focused only on the warmth of you.
You would do anything to protect Prompto - even if it meant killing him over and over again, because to see him alive and overtaken by love meant everything.