Rambling Into the Abyss

 

Fandom:  Final Fantasy XV
Characters:  Noctis Lucis Caelum, Prompto Argentum, Ignis Scientia, Gladio Amicitia. Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, Ardyn Izunia, Nyx Ulric, Crowe Altius, Libertus Ostium. Regis Lucis Caelum, Carbuncle, various astrals. A few other cameos.
Pairings: Noctis/Ignis/Prompto/Gladio, Noctis/Luna, Noct/Luna/Ignis/Prompto/Gladio, Noct/Luna/Nyx, a giant clusterfuck of an implied polyship, and implied Ardyn/Prompto
Chapter Rating:  PG-13 
Warnings: Anxiety, panic attacks, possession, dimension-hopping, mild suicidal ideation, blindness, canon disabled character, implied kidnapping, polyshipping if you couldn’t tell.
Word count: 21,734
Notes:  …So I wrote a sequel to If the Ring Fits. It took… a while. And it’s over twice as long. I got a little carried away. But I’m actually pretty proud of it.
Once again, basically every AU presented has had way too much thought put into it and some of them might be expanded upon later.
Some of the AUs here also showed up in ItRF, but I’m not gonna explain that here. Either you figure that out or come ask and I can explain things in way too much detail.

previously: If the Ring Fits

 

Noctis stared at the ceiling of the hotel room, the room dark enough that he couldn’t make out any of the details. To his left, Ignis was all but wrapped around him, their legs tangled, one of Ignis’s hands fisted loosely in the fabric of Noctis’s shirt. To his right, Prompto curled up against his side, one arm tossed over both him and Ignis, as if to hold them close and keep them safe at the same time, the fingers of his other hand threaded through Noctis’s hair. Gladio slept on the other side of the bed, his back to the three of them.

Noctis couldn’t sleep. It was such a strange thought. Part of him wanted to get up—to try to walk off the excess energy buzzing through his veins—but another part of him was wary to move. Ignis had never been a heavy sleeper and Prompto slept so much lighter than he used to, always waking up with a start like he expected to be somewhere else. 

So Noctis stared at the ceiling for another half hour, trying to will himself to fall asleep, until boredom finally won out and he began the careful process of extricating himself from the tangle of arms and legs. 

Ignis made an agitated noise and his hand tightened against Noctis’s chest. He buried his face further against Noctis’s shoulder, only to jerk awake with a pained hiss. 

“Noct?” he murmured, voice rough with sleep. “What’s wrong?" 

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Fandom:  Final Fantasy XV
Characters:  Prompto Argentum. Lunafreya Nox Fleuret. Ravus Nox Fleuret. Pryna. Umbra. A couple OCs.
Chapter Rating:  PG, for the moment. 
Warnings: Brief mentions of invasion
Word count so far: 12,313
Notes:  Chapter title from Sing Me to Sleep by Alan Walker and Iselin Solheim
Shilling: ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? If not...well, sorry. But if you are, I have a Ko-fi. I'm broke and appreciate every cup.

Previously: Prologue. Chapter One. Chapter Two. Chapter Three.

 

CHAPTER FOUR: Wait a second let me catch my breath

“Assistant to the king,” Prompto repeated, stuck somewhere between dubious and wildly incredulous.

“Yes,” Luna confirmed, nodding once, her hands linked together behind her back. In the kitchen, Ravus had tea with Prompto’s parents as he explained much the same thing to them. “He has more duties now than he’s ever had before, and he had no time to prepare for them. On top of that, many of the personal staff he would have inherited from our mother did not survive the attack.” Her expression dimmed slightly, before she cleared her throat and carried on. “He needs someone who can make it so he doesn’t need to worry about the minutiae. You’ll have your own room at the palace as well as the attention of my old tutors.”

"But what if I’m bad at it?” Prompto asked, tone approaching something plaintive. “I’ve never done anything like this before!”

Finally, Luna smiled gently. “Then your job will be to keep me company. I’m sure we can think of an official title. The Oracle’s Confidante, perhaps?”

“I don’t understand why, though?” Prompto replied, slightly distraught at the special treatment.

Luna’s hands settled on his shoulders. “Because making sure you’re safe is important.”

Prompto’s mouth opened, but no words came out, and he closed his mouth once again with a click. He blinked at her dumbly, and she covered her mouth with one hand to ineffectually hide a laugh.

“Will you try, at least?” she asked quietly.

Slowly, Prompto nodded. “Okay,” he agreed faintly.

His parents, once it was explained that Prompto would be safe from the public in the palace, were quick to agree as well.

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Fandom:  Final Fantasy XV
Characters:  Prompto Argentum. Lunafreya Nox Fleuret. Pryna. A couple OCs.
Chapter Rating:  G, for the moment. 
Warnings: Very brief mention of vomit. Prompto still has self-esteem issues.
Word count so far: 6262
Notes:  there’s no Ravus yet. next chapter, I promise.

anyway, I apologize if the transition at the end seems really abrupt, but it was already way longer than I expected, and I didn’t wanna go into ‘third verse, same as the first.’
Chapter title from Go The Distance from Disney's Hercules
Shilling: ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? If not...well, sorry. But if you are, I have a Ko-fi. I'm broke and appreciate every cup.

Previously: Prologue. Chapter One.

 

CHAPTER TWO: Though the road may wander

Prompto woke up to the sound of barking outside his window. He rolled out of bed and stared out his window, and Pryna stared back at him from the lawn, dancing on her front paws and barking. If nothing else, his dad was at work already and his mom could probably sleep through an air raid siren, so he wasn’t worried about that.

Groaning, Prompto dragged himself to the front door and opened it. Happy as could be, Pryna trotted inside and started bouncing in circles around the family room.

“D'you want some breakfast?” he sighed, even as he was already pulling out a bowl and dragging out the bag of dog food. He filled the bowl and set it down in front of her before he set about getting his own breakfast.

( Read more... )

Fandom: Final Fantasy XV
Characters: Prompto Argentum. A couple OCs.
Chapter Rating: G, for the moment.
Warnings: A bit of bullying? It’s glossed over.
Word count so far: 495
Notes: So, in If the Ring Fits, there was one AU where Prompto lived in Tenebrae, was buddies with Luna, and was working as…basically Ravus’s PA. That AU, along with the Fail Bus AU, attracted some interest and I decided ‘why not?'
Now, I’m gonna be honest with all of you.
I am VERY SLOW when it comes to fanfiction. And very flaky. I’m actually kinda excited about this one, though, so hopefully I’ll keep at it. (all encouragement is welcome. and I encourage people to shout out suggestions.) But so far I know BASICALLY NOTHING about how this is gonna go. Will there be pairings? Fuck if I know. How many other characters are gonna show up? Thbbbppppt, ask someone else, 'cause I have no clue. What am I doing? Saying 'fuck it all,’ that’s what.
Anyway, here we have the prologue. The very tiny prologue. I only posted this part separately because it’s written in a noticeably different style than the true chapter one, and I figured it’d be kinda jarring if it was submitted as one chapter.
(also I had Jenny O. music stuck in my head when I typed the fic title)
Obligatory Disclaimer: I don’t own FFXV, since I’m not Square-Enix and I don’t even know anyone from Square-Enix. I don’t own the characters. I’m just playing with them.
----

PROLOGUE: Let's start at the very beginning

When he was an infant, he was smuggled out of Niflheim, wrapped in a blanket with his arm swathed in bandages to hide the barcode imprinted there. He was given to the Argentums, a Lucian family. They called him Prompto, he called them Mama and Papa, and they belonged to each other. If they were ever aware of where he came from or just how unusual his adoption was, they never said anything about it. His mother worked as an EMT and his father as a banker. They were good, well-meaning, average people.

Prompto was four years old when an opportunity for his father to have a better job opened up across the map. They packed up Prompto, his toys, and most of the things in the house, and off they went to Tenebrae. It made little difference to Prompto, whose memories of Lucis were young and faded easily.

His mother could have stopped working if she wanted to. She didn't--she said she would go batty if she couldn't fill her time--but she did work less, so she could drop Prompto off at school herself most mornings, and pick him up on some afternoons. So she could watch him grow and feel like she was actually there for his life.

He was a solitary child, clinging to his mother's pants in public and keeping to himself in class, even if he watched his classmates like there was a window between them and he was trying to figure out how to break it.

He was eight when his parents gave him a camera--plastic, disposable, maybe ten gil, but that wasn't the important part--and he loved it. It went everywhere with him, until it ran out of film and his father took it away to get it developed when he wasn't looking, deftly leaving an identical replacement in its spot.

He learned through trial and error, for the most part. The first lessons were simple. Faces were good, so long as he wasn't looking up someone's nose. Faces were better if they weren't paying attention to him. Nothing looked like what it was supposed to be if he moved too much. The more complicated lessons came later, but they were some very nice building blocks. He was only nine by the time his parents decided he could be trusted with an actual camera.

Prompto was ten when a classmate finally grabbed his arm and stared hard at the barcode that he had always carefully not questioned. She squinted at it before laughing and asking, "What, did your parents get you for half-off somewhere?"

He used his allowance to buy a pair of gloves at a thrift store that afternoon. His parents didn't question it. Instead they looked…sad. He continued to carefully not question it.

When he was twelve years old, he found a lanky, half-grown dog wandering the street as he walked home from school. As with many things, the dog changed everything.

Fandom: Final Fantasy XV
Characters: Prompto Argentum. Noctis Lucis Caelum. Ignis Scientia. Gladiolus Amicitia.
Chapter Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Implied death at the end.
Word count: 649
Notes: Spinoff from If the Ring Fits, because everyone on AO3 is an enabler. A different conclusion for the ‘Prompto is an MT’ AU, because a few people wanted the other 'bros to have a run in with the friendly shrieking robot.
This was SUPPOSED to be cute, but that didn’t really pan out. Sorry, not sorry.
Obligatory Disclaimer: I don’t own FFXV, since I’m not Square-Enix and I don’t even know anyone from Square-Enix. I don’t own the characters. I’m just playing with them.

RELATED: If The Ring Fits
----

He was already on his feet when he woke up, with a helmet on his head and wearing far too much armor. He could still feel the ring, digging into his knuckle beneath a gauntlet that may as well have been bonded to his skin for how tight it was.

He looked around and found himself lined up with dozens of others, all wearing the exact same armor. Considering how many of them he had filled full of bullets and riddled with holes, he could recognize magitek soldiers in an instant.

And he was lined up with them, like cattle. That wasn’t quite what he meant by ‘anywhere else.’

Prompto froze, staring at the ranks around him, as if he was going to suddenly snap out of it and wake up in the tent or the Regalia or a motel or anywhere else. It didn't happen, though, and he wasn't sure how to get to sleep. Did robots even sleep?

His attention jerked back into the moment as the airship shuddered and began its descent. Hovering a few yards over the ground, the gangplank dropped open and the MTs began to move, dropping down over the edge of the airship, jostling Prompto forward so he had no choice but to trip after them, tumbling out of the ship.

He landed in a heap in the sand. As he picked himself up, he couldn't really say he was surprised to see Noct, Ignis, and Gladio squaring off to face the dozen MTs, since that seemed to be the only reason the MTs ever got dropped. But still, he felt dread squeeze tight around his heart (or whatever he happened to have at that moment).

He lifted his gun--a rifle, but 'point, pull, repeat' was pretty easy to figure out even in other configurations--and took aim at the Assassin to his right, blowing a hole through its head. It crumpled into a heap of spare parts.

Noct, Ignis, and Gladio were staring. Though by the time Prompto blew the helmets off of two Axemen, the three of them jerked back into motion, joining the fray.

Afterwards, with Prompto surrounded by junked robots, he stared at his gun for a moment, then up at Noct, and then he sat down on the ground.

"…What just happened?" Noct finally asked, stabbing the tip of his sword into the sand and leaning on it.

"It…seems to have helped us," Ignis supplied, sounding about as perplexed as Prompto had ever heard him.

"Glitch in the Matrix?" Gladio suggested, weaving out of the way of the punch Noct aimed at his shoulder.

"What do we do with it?" Noct asked, rubbing the back of his head with his free hand.

"What, you wanna keep it?" Gladio asked, scandalized. "It's an MT."

"It helped us," Noct pointed out, trying for a reasonable tone. "I feel weird just…knocking its head off." Granted, Prompto wasn't really sure he would mind just then. He rather emphatically didn't want to be an MT, and if he had to get junked to stop being an MT then he was alright with one of his bros doing the junking.

"We have no way of knowing if it's going to turn on us later," Ignis pointed out, caught somewhere between bemused and concerned.

And that certainly gave Prompto pause. What if he did manage to fall asleep, or…whatever MTs did? Would this body still be a Prompto, or would it just go back to being a regular MT? And what if it happened while the others had their guards down?

"I guess…" Noct conceded slowly. "But I don't want to…hurt it, I guess?"

Slowly, Prompto set his rifle down and slid it over to Noct. Cautiously, Noct picked it up. "You want me to…?"

Prompto nodded rapidly, and he sat perfectly still as Noct lined up the shot.