“So, this Inurement thing.”

  Prompto and Gladio jogged around the outskirts of the predawn town at a steady pace. It was quiet at this time of morning; shops were still closed, it was still another three hours until the shift changed at the power plant, and most people were asleep in bed. They had already run two laps around the city—the first to find their rhythm, and the second to just enjoy themselves. This was their third and final lap and it seemed Gladio wanted to talk.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask details,” Gladio said, and Prompto relaxed a little; he hadn’t even realised he had visibly tensed. “But I need to know what kind of effect it will have. What risks it will pose to Noct. I’m his shield, it’s my job to protect him, even if he makes it damned hard to do sometimes. You seem genuine. Iggy trusts you and he’s a smarter man than most. But I need to know what to look out for.”

  It was a fair question, Prompto knew. But that didn’t make answering it any easier. “I want to say nothing, there’s no risk to him,” Prompto said. “But… I can’t be sure, not a hundred percent sure, anyway. I don’t think there’s any risk, though. What they… what was done. It only seems to affect me. That second time I saw you? With the coeurls? I was going to kill Noct. If I had killed him, I could have gone to one of the forts and maybe not be reassigned. I had my gun trained on him and everything. But I didn’t want to kill him,” he said, an eye twitching at the pain that admission brought. “He let me live when he had every reason to kill me. It sounds stupid, but there was only one other person, another unit, who did something similar.”

  “A friend?” Gladio asked.

  “No,” Prompto replied instantly, instinctively. Then, “I don’t know, maybe? We weren’t exactly encouraged to have friends.”

  Gladio gave a bark of laughter. “I can imagine,” he said. “So where is this other not-friend?”

  “Dead,” Prompto said. He shot Gladio a half smile and said, “Noct killed him, up on that ridge.”

  “Hold up,” Gladio said, reaching out and grabbing Prompto’s shoulder to stop him running and turn him to look at him. “You’re telling me you decided to join up with the guy who killed your friend? And you’re smiling about it?”

  “He wasn’t my friend,” Prompto said sharply. “He was just another unit like myself.” Prompto sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets, walking a few steps away to lean on the stone wall of the lookout. A light wind had picked up, drying the sweat on his body, cooling him. “It’s complicated,” he eventually said.

  “I gathered,” Gladio replied dryly, causing Prompto to give a snort of laughter. He leaned sideways against the wall, watching Prompto.

  “I hated him. He was good at everything he did. He wasn’t born into the military like I was, he had a choice and he chose to join. He applied from somewhere in the outskirts of Gralea. He got in when he was twelve and in his first training session, he saves me from a beating. Well, temporarily anyway.”

  “Sounds like he was a good kid,” Gladio said slowly.

  Prompto nodded. “Too good,” he said. “He could make Sir or any of the instructors or scientists believe whatever he wanted. Inurement affected him, but not like anyone else. He could just… turn it off. I hated that about him.” Prompto glanced across at Gladio, watching him from the corner of his eye. He seemed to get it though and was much more willing to listen than he had been before.

  “But having him around made it all bearable,” Gladio guessed.

  The corner of Prompto’s mouth twitched. “Right,” he said.

  “You said he could just ‘turn it off’,” Gladio said. Prompto nodded and looked back out over the canyon, watching the birds circle. “You think you could do that? Turn it off?”

  “I… dunno,” he said. “I don’t know how and I don’t know if I could. When I tried to imagine myself living as a hunter, even having a base in Hammerhead, I couldn’t do it, it hurt too much, I was afraid of the pain.”

  “You’ve already started turning it off, though. You’re stronger than you think,” Gladio said. Prompto turned back to Gladio at that, surprised. “You went against your programming to ask Noct to let you come along, and we all saw how much that hurt you,” he said. Prompto nodded slowly; damn, that had hurt though! He thought he was going to throw up from that pain. “The coeurls too. You said you had Noct in your sights, but you decided not to pull the trigger. You did that, not your Inurement.”

  “Yeah. Nearly blacked out from that, and then where would I have been? Sabertusk food most like,” Prompto said, a hint of bitterness in his voice.

  “You’re not alone anymore, kid. You keep on fighting it, we’ll make sure you don’t become sabertusk food,” Gladio said.

  Prompto blinked, trying to ignore the heat in his eyes, and gave a solid nod. “Right,” he said.

  Gladio raised an arm, the back of a closed fist to Prompto. He stared at it, instinctively expecting to be backhanded, but also suspecting that Gladio wasn’t the kind of person to do that. Gladio sighed slightly and used both hands to take Prompto’s right hand, make a fist, and raise it the same way. He then bumped the back of his wrist to Prompto’s.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “Come on,” he said, as they lowered their arms. “Enough of this mushy crap. Race you to the hotel.”

  Prompto grinned. “You’re on!” he declared, but before he could dart off, Gladio kicked a leg out from under him, making him stumble and allowing him to get the lead. “Hey!” Prompto shouted indignantly to Gladio’s trailing laughter, and he bolted after him, determined not to lose.

  -l-l-l-

  “I’m not sure how well he’ll take to it,” Ignis said as he flipped the bacon.

  “It’ ee ine,” Noct said, mouth already full with bacon.

  “Noct, please-” Ignis started, but was cut off by Noct swallowing and speaking again.

  “It’ll be fine,” he repeated. “You said his pain was psychologically conditioned right? Well, we’ve just gotta psychologically condition it out of him. If I do it little by-”

  Noct was interrupted when the ground started shaking. There was barely enough time for it to register that it was an earthquake before agony shot through his head. A cry ripped from his throat and he grasped his head, the plate falling from his hands and smashing to the ground.

  “Now, Noct, really-” Ignis started before turning and seeing what was happening.

  Noctis heard none of this, was only vaguely aware that Ignis was in front of him. Images flashed before his eyes, too fast to make sense of.

  “Noctis? Noct, can you hear me?” Ignis was saying. It sounded like his voice was coming from down a long tunnel.

  “I hear you,” he said slowly, blinking several times as the world came into focus again.

  The relief that spread over Ignis’s face was almost comical, if Noct been in the mood to laugh. “Thank the gods,” Ignis breathed. Then, “What happened? Are you hurt?”

  Noct shook his head. “Just a headache,” he said. “Came on… kinda suddenly.”

  Ignis rested the back of his hand against Noct’s forehead but shook his head when he only felt slightly clammy to the touch.

  Noct pushed the hand away. “I’m fine,” he said, flashing a grin to reassure him. His head still ached, but it seemed more residual pain rather than something to be concerned about.

  “If you say so,” Ignis said slowly, though he relented and stopped trying to check his prince over for some kind of injury. Instead, he started gathering up the broken plate and spilled food. “Maybe we should stay here for a few days, make sure whatever it is doesn’t come back. There are skilled doctors in Lestallum, we can get you checked out if it occurs again.”

  Noct was already shaking his head. “I’m fine, really! And truthfully, doctors would probably just freak Prom out,” he said, slipping off the chair to help Ignis clean up (it was really the least he could do since he was the one who dropped it in the first place). Ignis just hummed in response, not really wanting to commit one way or the other but unable to deny the truth of his prince’s words. “Promise me you won’t mention this to the others. I don’t want to worry them over nothing.”

  Ignis watched Noct as he picked up the last of the broken plate, but eventually conceded. “Very well,” he said. “But if it happens again, I will not be concealing it. And you will not be driving until I’m convinced that this was a one off occurrence.”

  “Fine, fine,” Noct agreed as the two of them dumped the broken plate and food into the trash, just as Gladio and Prompto burst through the door, both sweaty and breathing heavily.

  “Did you feel that?” Gladio asked, his voice booming and Noctis did his very best to not wince. “It was like the whole world shifted!”

  “Indeed,” Ignis said dryly.

  “Something smells good,” Prompto said, his face turning up and very obviously sniffing.

  Noctis grinned at him, glad that he was willing to express something like that, even though he knew it likely caused him some pain.

  “Nothing that can’t wait until you’re both clean and showered and not smelling so… ripe,” Ignis said.

  “Dibs!” Gladio said, before gathering his things and squeezing into the small bathroom they shared.

  Noct rolled his eyes at his bodyguard, but it did give him the perfect opportunity to carry out his Operation Prompto plan. “So, you like running?” he asked casually.

  “Yes,” Prompto said carefully.

  “How come?” Noct pressed. “I don’t see the appeal myself. All that exercise, and so early!”

  Prompto sighed. Noct smiled sweetly; he got the feeling the Nif knew exactly what he was trying to do, but he gamely answered anyway. “I feel revitalised after running. Back home, it gave a sense of freedom—it was training without fear of pain. Well, not pain inflicted by others, anyway. It’s fun,” Prompto said.

  Noct’s smile widened into a grin; he could see that tightness around Prompto’s eyes that gave away his pain, but still he was trying. Noct looked over Prom’s head to Ignis and shot him a gloating ‘I told you so’ look, which the advisor pointedly ignored. Prompto, perhaps suspecting something was up, looked over his shoulder to try to catch what was going on, but Ignis simply carried on his cooking.

  “Come on,” Noct said, going to the bag of clothes they had bought yesterday. “While the big guy’s making himself smell pretty for all of the five minutes it’ll last, we should pick out your clothes for the day.”

  “Ah… okay?” Prom said as he hesitantly stepped up beside Noct, looking down at the clothes that the prince had just dumped all over the bed. “What… what clothes should I wear?”

  “Nah ah, you gotta decide,” Noct said. “Here, I’ll make it easier.” He pulled out a pair of pants and tossed them to Prompto, who caught them instinctively. “I used to have a pair like these, they’re comfy.” He dug through the shirts then and came up with three and laid them out on the bed. “What one do you wanna wear?”

  Noct watched as Prompto’s eyes flicked back and forth between him and the shirts, back and forth, again and again. He could see the tightening of his eyes as his mind fought against itself and its programming—he had to obey, but in obeying, he had to give an opinion. When he saw the clenched fist, though, almost trembling as if he were holding back something, Noct reached out and rested a hand on his good shoulder. “Hey,” he said, his voice quiet and gentle. Prompto rose uncertain eyes to meet his. “You got this,” Noct said, his tone reassuring. He held Prompto’s gaze until the other boy gave a nod and reached out to grab a shirt. Noct had a feeling that he only chose that one because it was the one closest to him, but he didn’t care; it was a decision and one Prompto had made on his own.

  “Awesome,” Noct said, giving him a wide grin before packing the other clothes away and allowing to Prompto to just sit in one of the chairs. He had that blank look on his face again, but it was still an improvement and proof that Prompto wanted to be his own person. And so long as that was what he wanted, Noct was determined to help him.