Chapter Text
Listening to the soft crashing of the ocean waves against the wood, Cor held the screwdriver in his mouth and glared. In his other hand he held a busted old radio, attempting to prise the back free with blunt nails. The screwdriver head was nowhere near flat enough to slide between and Cor’s frustration was the ebbing tide, the urge to drop the damn thing from the top of the lighthouse quickly rising. He had fixed the speakers fine. It was this finicky piece of shit that was giving him grief.
There were a dozen little jobs to do today. None of them important. None were truly worth the Marshal’s undivided attention. But they weren’t in the city anymore and Cor wasn’t getting paid by the hour. Nowadays he did what he was told by those whose mastery lie elsewhere – domestics, mechanics, the art of keep things alive and flourishing rather than killing. But Cor accepted anything that came his way. When he had nothing to do his thoughts had a habit of wandering down roads he didn’t like. It was nigh impossible to ignore the history that surrounded them, all the moments far beyond their reach embedded in the concrete. There were ghosts and little hidden secrets that only Cor knew. Hidden safes, holes in plaster. He determinedly ignored the ghosts, ignored how he struggled under the burden of silent expectations. It was merely a matter of occupying his hands.
Cor exhaled harshly. Here, it was all he could do to listen to the afternoon waves. The boat was docked, swaying silently. Everything was still dusty, and bits were rotten through as if the lighthouse was still abandoned. The overhead lights were poor and the sofas were lumpy. The blankets hadn’t been washed in years. Iris had wrinkled her nose at the sour stench and Talcott much preferred the lush gardens above, how they bloomed in the height of summer. The older boys never visited, avoiding the memories of taking their damned voyage. This could have become Cor’s private space, if he wanted it.
Gods, he wanted it.
Three kings. Three, and he had failed them all. Spectacularly at that. Twice now he had been negligent and borderline the fool, miles away from the kings he swore to serve in their hour of upmost need. Out in the wastes playing at being a hunter when his closest friends, his brothers died violently, city falling into ruin and trying to play family with their newly orphaned children. Playing farmer on Iris’ behalf as Noctis was forced to take up his father’s mantle alone, swallowed in the light of the crystal. Such mistakes were infantile. He was the same fool who stood by and did nothing as Mors wasted away to merely a bag of bones. Decades of a life, and little to show for it.
As always Cor swallowed around the thick lump in his throat. This was his burden to bear, and he would carry that shame alone. Above in the dying light of day his family enjoyed the fading warmth. Amais worked hard on the farm and their children showed interest only in plotting their next move. One man less, down but never out. They carried the Leonis and Amicitia names and did them proud, always. Cor would not allow a beaten man who felt old beyond his years to drag them down. It seemed there was little use to him outside a fixer of the home – and unable to show his face, scurrying into the dark to struggle to fix an old radio, he seemed a poor fit for even that.
He sighed and dropped it with a clatter of plastic. Clarus’ old worktable was ugly and married but a damn sight more useful than him. Cor reached for his wine – one of many old bottles that Weskham had stashed for later and tried to keep out of Cor’s hungry hands - and took a heavy gulp, refusing to enjoy it. It was a means to an end and nothing more. He would sit and drink until drunk, until he showed his shamed face up in the surface and crawled into bed with his husband and would not suffer the nightmares that plagued him. Cor would be at peace, finally, whatever the cost.
Cor tapped his empty glass down and was dutifully reaching across to pour another when a deafening noise made him wince, too accustomed to his own breath and the peaceful waters. Across the room the elevator shaft made a great clang, gears whirring and a heavy old machine complaining its way to life. With a shudder, it began to rise.
Eying it, Cor poured a smaller and thoughtful glass, emptying the bottle easily. He abandoned it to roll away without its cork, uncrowned. The world seemed to tremble as the elevator rose - it steadied, gradually, and Cor was truly alone again. Iris frequently enjoyed sitting atop the highest reaches of the lighthouse, reclining on the house’s roof or balcony, swinging her legs and enjoying the final rays of the falling sun. Yesterday she had dusted off the single yellowing paperback she could find and sat alone.
Before they had left for Altissia her family had joined her. Basked in sunlight, she would lean against Gladio who sat enjoying his own novel and Talcott would claim his other side while pouring over his grandfather’s notebook, waving through heavy, weighed down papers. Ignis would stretch out on a blanket with Noctis close at his side, phone screens bright or their eyes peacefully closed and as ever Prompto was the archivist, eagerly perched between them all taking his snapshots.
Cor had envied them – perhaps, if his own journey all those years ago had someone as sunny as Prompto, as determined as the son he cherished, Cor would have more positive memories of the brothers he missed so deeply. It was easy to recall drunken laughter and gentle mockery as older men but Cor could recall little of their grand trip. He remembered sitting with a warm cup of soup, Clarus’ leather jacket over his shoulders. He remembered the scent of Weskham’s cologne, warm and enticing. But little else came to him and he missed those days as physically as any limb.
As a teen he might have loathed one so energetic. But when he looked at the single photograph they had, his scowling face and tense posture, that sickening feeling of loss and regret gnawed at his bones. Cid has glowered when Cor had gotten too close to the frame, wrench on his lap and scowls carved into his ancient face. Cor longed for it, a copy of his own at minimum – but Cid would never part with it, the single lasting memory of his king as Cor should never part with his own within his heart. The warmth the memories brought would never fail him, as surely as the pain.
Cor had never joined the children at the lighthouse. When they gathered and began to wind down from a long day Cor was constantly hurried, careful to patrol the area for fiends and making sure the new floodlights he had installed were blaring by the roads. He spent hours on the porch watching intently, often hearing laughter and music drift down from the lighthouse. It worked to soothe his anxious heart. He knew now he should have joined them if only once. Now, even as the elevator stopped and fell silent as Iris disembarked, it felt much too late.
Cor supposed it wasn’t too late for most things. If the children were heading up, it was almost Cor’s time to stand guard. Even if he was a mess of a man, a pathetic failure of a father, husband, marshal – he could fight for them. Bleed for them, die for them.
Fix a godsdamn radio for them, if need be, and Cor began his struggle with the clasp of the radio yet again when the elevator sounded – this time, growing closer.
Cor looked up sharply. He couldn’t help his frown. The room began to rattle again with the metal grates of the stairs rattling, and a pen rolled off the work surface. A mix of feelings with discomfort chief amongst them only worsened as it finally touched ground. The guilt made him sick. Here he was, a grown man cowering from those who needed him. Talcott, back when the boys had departed for Altissia, had been clingy, following close at Cor’s heels and all too eager to please. A markedly better change from sitting at the end of his grandfather’s grave or playing alone, throwing a rubber ball against a wall. Perhaps he was out looking for Cor or Gladio was fetching him for dinner. Maybe even Dave desperate for extra hands, not that Cor would dare leave his family alone at night after only days of bringing them home from the Empire’s soil again, fractured deeply.
Pushing his worry aside, ready to plaster a small and fake smile for anyone desperate enough to believe it and enter a miserable man’s space, he waited for the elevator to touch down. His hands paused upon the radio and then the steel doors ground open dramatically slow, and then Prompto stood within, expression bland and closed off to the rest of the world.
Cor sat up. His knees accidentally knocked the table, jostling his glass and spilling a few errant drops. The movement caught Prompto’s quick eye. They stared a while, caught like thieves robbing the same home, and before Cor could clear his throat and call out a greeting, Prompto smiled. His lips were pale and thin and drawn tighter than he had ever seen them. It hurt Cor like needles, sinking into his skin and freezing him to the core. The scuffs and scratches the Empire had left on his son’s skin had disappeared within a handful of days but the haunted, pale look to his cheeks had not budged. He had never been healthy looking, not since he was an infant, tiny and tucked away, half frozen and hungry. Colour rarely lit his cheeks. Splotches of pink only came from embarrassment or exertion. But Prompto was a man grown now, competent and witty, and he bore all the resilience of a Leonis.
“Hey,” he greeted, even his soft voice deafeningly loud in the absence of sound. He stepped from the elevator, rubbing at his arms as if cold. He wore one of Gladio’s jackets, worn to the point of fraying.
Cor waited and watched his son descend. Prompto was not a quiet lad, and never let the silence last for long. Filling it with chatter, laughter, vague exclamations to himself alone. There was never only a single word. Prompto hated the quiet.
The absurdity of it, when Prompto failed to speak, make his hackles pick up. “Hey, champ.”
Prompto kept his eyes downcast. Dithering at the very middle of the stairs he cast an uncertain figure. It was strange – unheard of, even, to see the youngest son alone. The elder was never far behind, nowadays pressed right alongside him with a desolate look to remain certain he would walk unopposed. Prompto had once been practically intertwined with his prince, from the moment of their first meeting to their final days together and seeing him utterly alone made Prompto seem smaller, sadder. And Cor could feel that pang of pain – that frantic urge to comfort and protect what was yours. Cor knew that feeling never truly went away.
There was plenty of space for two grieving men, Cor supposed. If he couldn’t carve out that space for his own son, who else? He shuffled up and gestured at the space he made. “C’mon,” he said as casually as he could muster.
Without another word Prompto obeyed. His steps down the stairs thudded heavily, rattling and echoing. His bootlaces were coming undone. Meanwhile Cor busied himself, prying harder and harder until his blunt nails were chipped and torn. It was awkward and heavy between them, just as it was between Amais and Ignis and every other poor soul cooped up in the lighthouse. There was only so much space for so many people, mattresses in the dining room and those in or barely out of their teens cramped together like they were children again. They were packed in tight, the building only intended for a small family to run the lighthouse. But a chasm still deepened between them all, gaping wider and wider with each day, feelings and fears unspoken. There was little even Talcott could do to make them smile. Gladio spoke very little, eyes void of his usual determination, quick to anger like never before. Cor had not heard him speak more than a few words today, and only to his sister. By the sounds of things, he hadn’t spoken to even Ignis in days.
Cor couldn’t entirely blame him. To hear how Prompto had told it, finding Noctis gone without any hope of rescue but still hearing the echo of his screams. Finding the Accursed, unable to strike him down, and Cor knew of precious few foes that could not be brought down with a blade. A dead man walking, seemingly commonplace these days, able to wear the face of any.
It didn’t bear thinking about. So Cor pushed it away for as long as he could, knowing that the moment he crawled into bed it would return to him. It always did, at the darkest hour.
Prompto had reached the bottom of the stairs. There he dithered, hands toying with each other and wearing an uncharacteristic frown. There was plenty of space for him with long sofas and even a few camp beds. It was liveable here even if the dust seemed to have settled itself into his lungs. Cor sometimes stole naps when he couldn’t sleep through the gut wrenching sounds of Iris or Gladio softly crying in the next room along.
“Dinner ready?” Cor asked and after scanning the room slowly Prompto looked over at him. He stared for a moment. There was an offbeat second between them, as if they existed in parallel universes just out of time with each other. As if Prompto was struggling to recognise Cor’s reality, so deeply embedded in his own.
Finally, he blinked and looked firmly at Cor’s boots. “No,” he said, and his long fingers hooked together. For a long moment he said no more, cheeks blowing out as he sighed. “Just wanted the quiet.”
Cor nodded. That he could do. Even as all else failed he could offer silent support, a little company. He patted the sofa seat beside him and gradually Prompto approached, taking the long way around, winding between the tables. Finally he had lost his limp from his rough landing from the train. Most bruises were gone, but deep and barely healed scars remained on each of them.
He sat gingerly. Taking in the table, weighed down with old newspapers from the days before Prompto himself and boxes of unused fish bait, he squirmed. There was a long stretch of sofa between them.
Cor offered him the most reassuring smile he could. Even in its weakness it was all he could do, and when Prompto mirrored it they were both all too blatantly tense and miserable. These days it felt like all they could feel, feeding on each other’s doubt.
“The others a little too much for you?” He asked, and Prompto nodded silently. “Gotcha,” he said, and looked back to his radio. It was beginning to give, finally. Tech outside of Insomnia wasn’t as fast, wasn’t as capable as the shit the city was mass producing even a decade ago. But it was built to last. Their cars were some of the sturdiest Cor had even seen past Insomnia’s military grade armoured cars. It was as strong as steel, as were the people who created it, and only time could wear it down. Cor respected it begrudgingly.
He reached again for the screwdriver but not before a steadying mouthful of wine. Prompto’s eyes lingered on the glass and then drifted to the empty bottle across the room.
“There’s more hidden in the wall panel by the stairs, and a glass in the cupboard above the sink if you want.” Cor offered, but Prompto only looked away again.
Cor got back to work. Sliding the too big head of the screwdriver back over the plastic hopefully, attempting to wriggle it through the gap, the air was awkward. Prompto sat as if he had something to say – he had been stoic and stilted since Cor and Cid had picked them up from the furthest western island of Altissia, the safest they could possibly be from the Empire, and their tiny silhouettes amongst the docks had filled Cor with equal parts relief and dread. It had only worsened when Ignis had stumbled forward. Crumbling into Cor’s waiting arms, he had sobbed. Behind him Prompto and Gladio were silent, haunted, and when finally they stepped onto the boat to go home, at long last, Cor had reached over to catch Gladio’s shoulder. Their eyes connected. Gladio’s were bloodshot and swollen.
“You’re alright. You’re with family now,” he said, and watched as his godson, so bold and infallible, braver and faster than Cor by far, fell apart entirely.
Prompto was the only one yet who had not wept.
Cor glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. Determinedly his head was turned away and his jaw tense in a way Cor hadn’t seen before. Prompto had said little, eaten little, hardly left the room he shared with Ignis and Talcott. There was something in there – bubbling, boiling over.
Amais was not a man who raised his children to be stoic. Truth would emerge soon enough. In an explosion, in a wave – Cor dreaded it either way. But it would be better for the family in the long run, come what may. Cor would continue to be the best father he could possibly be. Flaws and all.
The screwdriver found its way. The plastic back loosened, cracking a touch. Aesthetics didn’t matter. Cor needed the insides, to fix or salvage.
He worked harder, rougher, and distantly he heard Prompto’s hazy voice. “You didn’t tell me,” he said.
Another crack in the sturdy plastic. Cor pushed harder. “About what, champ?”
“That I’m one of them,” Prompto said, and when Cor’s hand slipped the radio gave in and the plastic flew across the room. It clattered loudly over the cold cement floor, disappearing underneath a camp bed.
Cor looked up. His mouth parted but no words emerged, and the screwdriver fell from his hand to land heavily in his lap. His clever fingers froze, brain tripping, and his slow and lazy heart stopped entirely.
Cor’s son hadn’t changed. He still sat perfectly straight and his expression was tense, but now his sweet violet eyes gleamed with quickly forming tears. Prompto wavered, only playing at strength and confidence, and beginning to fall. His hands trembled.
With a shake of his head, chasing the haziness away but worsening the nausea, the dread, Cor managed to speak. “What are you talking about?”
Prompto sharply looked to him. Even so he wobbled. “Don’t pretend,” he demanded, and his composure lay in ruins as his voice broke. When he blinked, the first tear sluggishly fell. “Don’t bullshit me.”
It was a gut punch and blinding light all in one. Anxiety and dread made Cor feel awful, like he had been slammed by a rampaging behemoth, knocked reeling. He spiralled and landed in the freezing wastes, entirely lost within the cold. “Prom,” he began, but could abruptly say no more. No words felt right. Lies and excuses were almost as bad as the other.
Those memories were long since passed. Two decades since he had found the infant, bound in wires and too weak to wail. Getting home in a rush and having bigger things to worry about than new fatherhood and barely a word said about that awful mark on his chubby wrist. Cor had dared to let himself forget. Now the wounds were tearing back open, sure to scar just like the others.
There wasn’t a single word he could say. He only gaped. He hadn’t thought about the cold, about Prompto’s frail beginnings in years.
“Prompto,” he said desperately, clinging to the only familiarity that remained to him.
In Prompto’s pale eyes he found no such comfort. Nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. That pain and despair grew tenfold and fell until lost in an abyss churning with confusion and chaos. “You knew,” Prompto said. “You knew the whole damn time. What – what I am.”
The weight of his gaze was crushing. Cor hung his head, unable to do more than roil with shame, and it was all the confirmation Prompto needed.
A sharp, awful noise left his throat. “You lied to me,” he continued, enflamed. The volume of his voice rose sharply. “You said my parents died. You said they didn’t make it into the city.” He jut out his chin. More tears followed down the softness of his cheeks. “You’re a liar.”
Cor remained silent. The radio still lay in his hand with its innards now bared. But Cor was lost again, battered by wild winds.
Prompto had been so small in his arms. In a bundle of stained old blankets he dug up from a cupboard he was almost invisible. It had been too cold to leave any of his skin bare. Cor had worried about him for too many long nights. Sickly and fussy, the first few months of his young life were the hardest. Now Prompto was tall and strong, proud, a million miles from the dark depths he was born into, if he were born at all.
Swallowing around nothing, Cor’s throat was hoarse as he spoke. “I’m sorry.” The cold anger was more than he could take. He looked away, heart stuck in his throat. The sound of the waves seemed deafening now.
“You’re sorry? You’re sorry? Are you -” Prompto made a low sound of frustration, of disgust. Cor only stared at the grooves in the table. One of the lines was jagged and short like a drill had slipped and ground into the wood. It didn’t look new. Perhaps it was Cid. Cor constructed the memory silently, everything from the bustle of the harbour to the growl that the younger man would have made.
It snapped when there was the tearing of leather and Prompto’s wrist guard clattered into his view. The material had split, had burst. “This,” the man demanded, and that awful mark on his son’s bony wrist was shoved underneath his nose. The black ink of numbers and bars stood stark on his pale skin, risen over strained, colourful veins. It was a knife to Cor’s gut, cold and sharp. “You didn’t tell me I was fucking marked with this – some – some bioweapon,” his voice burst, face crumpling. Messy brows sunk and the tears made his cheeks hot and flushed. One hand scrubbed at them, forcing the tears away.
Sheer fright that Cor hadn’t felt since the fall of Insomnia, since thinking his family was dead, stung him to his core and the nerves made him sick to his stomach. He swallowed down the worst impulses to snatch Prompto up and refuse to let go, still terrified to this day that the world would see and hear and hate. Instead he carefully took hold of Prompto’s wrist, and the skin was warm, the bones delicate underneath. It was a good enough pretence that Cor had almost fooled himself all these long years. Prompto hurt and bled like the rest of them. Like his brothers, like his uncles. If Cor focused he could feel the pulse flutter. Years of seeing his hair grow longer, overhearing his stomach bugs take their toll, seeing blood trickle from his nose had almost made Cor forget about their awful beginnings – his boy was human. Just like Ignis.
The contact had Cor grounded for a precious half second – then it was ripped away, and Cor’s hand was empty and burning cold.
On instinct Cor jumped to his own defence. “Would you have believed me? What could I have told you?” He stumbled through. Grace was beyond him. Thrown off his axis, he stammered, and Cor knew his world would never be the same. All he could do was scramble and cling to what little remained. “You were a child. My son.” He paused to swallow, hard. The lump on his throat was as hard as a diamond. “I only wanted for you to be happy.”
“For how long?” Prompto shot back. “Until the Empire came? Until someone ended up seeing my – seeing this,” he asked, shaking his hand and gesturing at the barcode. A strip of skin was sickly pale, completely untouched by the sunlight. The rest of his arm was a gentle tan, the difference painfully stark.
“I would protect you. I did protect you. From doctors, from kids who tried to snatch your bracelet,” Cor insisted, and when Prompto scoffed he sat suddenly upright, infuriated for a heartbeat. “You think I would have abandoned you when you needed me most? Why would I risk it all to bring you home, only to throw you to the wolves at the first shitstorm? I love you, and I’ve loved you for the past twenty years. I’ll love you for another twenty, and beyond. Easy.” He met Prompto’s eyes for the first time, for as long as his son dared to hold his earnest gaze. Prompto watched him for a matter of seconds and his son looking away in shame was a kick in the teeth, a blow to the gut.
A stray tear rolled down until it dripped off his chin. Prompto gave no reply, expression steadily sinking, until he sniffed hard. His eyes were already swollen and pink. Posture seemingly collapsing entirely, he hunched over hard, clutching as his marked wrist. His fingertips dug in, leaving pink marks from the pressure.
Tension thickened between them. They sat, cold and miserable, eternity stretching between them until Prompto chanced words again.
“Why’d you take me,” he asked, miserably subdued. Even his hair seemed to deflate, flat and unstyled strands falling into his face. Those tears still dribbled.
Looking at him, a boy forced to become a man far too soon for Cor’s liking, he could see all that had come before. A bald, small head quickly growing tufts of gold. Cor could never pass Prompto off as his trueborn son to even the most chronic of fools, not when his cool blue eyes eventually lightened to a pale purple and not with the fairness of his skin. He was a tiny thing that grew slowly but became more and more lifelike as the months passed. Before he had been a doll, pale as the snow, frame stilted for his age. A tiny child too weak to cry grew to become a beaming, playful young boy. Cor’s youngest was his pride and joy, his eldest the light of his life, and Cor lived with no regrets – at least until his family began to fall apart.
To some taking a child from enemy territory – a laboratory, no less – was insanity. As he wrapped the infant up in whatever he could find, the nagging feeling of wrong plagued him and still he pressed forward. Cor ran and he hid, snuck in shadows and killed whenever someone drew too close, and the child barely stirred. In the glow overhead, the hard neon light he appeared half dead, even more so than he had caught up in the mess of wires – life support, or nothing more than torture. Cor had no way of knowing.
Cor had begun to lose even his famously calm nerve outside in the heavy snowfall – no food, no shelter, no clothing, and he feared that the boy would pass before he could even escape Niflheim.
When the child would grow unnervingly quiet Cor would take his little palm, pinching even smaller fingers until the boy would protest. Only then did he see the barcode and felt a churning sickness in his belly. Cor had killed many in his travels. Seeing the ink for the very first time, he knew that he should have killed so many more.
Any hope he could have found willing parents in Insomnia’s outskirts died there and then. And Cor could not, in any good conscience, abandon this child to a life of uncertainty. Not if he wanted to live with himself.
“You were so small,” Cor finally said when time had stretched for a small eternity. The words were slow and stilted. Prompto still could not bear the weight of his father’s aching eyes. Cor could not recall ever feeling so stretched thin, even in his darkest days. “Someone had left you alone, in the freezing cold, and you were hooked up to a dozen machines.” Cor rubbed at the back of his neck. Sweat slicked his skin even in the cool room exposed to peaceful waters. It made his skin prickle to even speak of it. “I couldn’t let that be your life. I didn’t know what Besithia was doing to you, but I knew his schemes, and that I couldn’t leave you.” He exhaled slowly. “I was just a soldier then. Not the marshal. They had only yet begun calling me Immortal. I didn’t know what I could do, but I knew what I should do. So I did it.” He turned his head, and pointedly attempted meeting Prompto’s eyes. It didn’t come to pass. “And I know I did the right thing.”
Prompto wavered. He wobbled. Blunt nails scratched at his fateful mark. They were merciless and soon his skin was pink and then an ugly red. As blotchy as his swollen eyes. Cor could not bear to watch. He steeled himself for another painful rejection but still reached over, taking hold of the agitating hand’s wrist.
This time, blessedly, Prompto did not pull away. Instead he stole a subtle sideways glance at his father.
Cor cupped his hand, the way he did when he walked his son to his first day at school. Prompto’s fingers froze a moment before they gave in and curled. It was a single moment, but one that meant everything.
“You never told me,” his son mumbled.
“It was better to tell no one. It was need to know only.” Cor slid his thumb alongside Prompto inner wrist, taking check of his pulse. It was unsteady, frenetic. The brand remained smooth but his scratching had left it swelling slowly. “If anyone found out…” Cor hissed quietly, the sound escaping without his say so. It didn’t bear thinking about. He had risked everything to bring the infant home.
Gods, it was thoughtless. In the moment it could have cost everything he held dear. Regis could have branded him a traitor, ordered the child to be cast away or worse. The boy would have been ripped from his arms and he would be a soldier no longer, let alone a friend of Regis. Cor had banked on the kindness of a king and found it overflowing. Regis would fight the world for the safety of a child, defend from any accusation.
All that uncertainty, and Cor had still held him close. Regis had loved him from the very beginning – Cor knew that in his bones.
“I couldn’t let anything happen to you,” he eventually said, the unspoken what if heavy between them. The world would have not been kind to a child of the Empire in such a fragile time. “I needed you to be safe. Happy. First it was just you and I, and then we had our own family.” Cor couldn’t help but smile at the thought. The days that Cor hadn’t realised would be their most peaceful, when they knew where each meal was coming from and had light and warmth. Cor hadn’t ever taken those for granted. But his family had in the most innocent of ways. They hadn’t known a world before. “I couldn’t bear the thought of telling you after that. I never thought any of this would come to be, and I thought that was the end of it. You were such a happy kid. You loved cartoons, loved your dad, loved your brother. Can’t it stay that way?”
Prompto’s lips thinned out. Pale eyes glowed with fresh tears. “I thought I was one of you then.”
Ice formed around Cor’s old bones. Snow piled up around them, and Cor was frozen all the way through. Only his fragile hold on Prompto was a guiding warmth. “You are,” he promised, as heavy clouds threatened to blot out the sun. “Prom, you are one of us. I told you before, a long time ago. Blood doesn’t always mean family and family doesn’t always mean shared blood. Origin doesn’t matter. Your father isn’t Lucian. Ignis isn’t. There isn’t a single bit of blood we share. Does this mean we’re not family?”
Shame darkened Prompto’s brow. He hung his head. “No,” he admitted, strangled, and Cor could feel that awful pressure of his own throat beginning to close up in response. Something in his chest refused to budge, frustration and pain and doubt all a blockage. It was impossible to push down, nothing more than the haunting touch of grief. And Cor could see it mirrored on Prompto’s face, and then the horror as Cor could no longer hold back his own tears, silently giving in to pain. His vision was obscured, hazy.
One became another and soon Cor’s cheeks bore trails. Ashamed – not of tears, but his failure to face his son with composure – Cor scrubbed at them. “We’ve been family for twenty years. I don’t want this to be the end of us.”
It was difficult to watch Prompto spiral while faced with his own grief. His face crumpled, shattered and ruined, close to mindless in his pain. “I’m scared,” he confessed. His shoulders were wracked with hard shudders and quiet sobs. “I – I was alone. Noct had attacked me and he was screaming – I just --” he covered his face with his trembling hands, agitating his vulnerable eyes. “I fucking found out I was made – I wasn’t human. I was terrified of being known but I couldn’t keep it quiet. I knew Noct was gonna leave me behind, or kill me, or…” he swallowed hard and choked on a hiccup. His throat dipped and wavered. “But they all accepted me. Hugged me, said it was okay. Iggy told me I was still his brother, no matter what, but I…” Soaked, ruined eyes met his. Every lash was laden with unfallen tears. “Am I? His brother?”
“Of course. In the same vein that you’re my son. Do you love us?”
Prompto nodded vibrantly. That soft, bright hair that Cor adored bounced softly. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”
Cor shuffled closer, as close as he dared. With a thrum of fear, he touched Prompto’s broadening shoulders. He could have sagged when relief when Prompto said nothing. “Then isn’t that all that matters?”
Those fingers curled and uncurled. A tremor ran through Prompto’s tense form. He ran his tongue over dry, chafed lips and exhaled, letting go of his agitation for as long as he could. “I.. I don’t… I don’t know. Is it?”
“Listen,” Cor said, softly. Pushing past the fear, he shoved and shoved. Still he felt ill. “Your father and I always knew. Your uncles knew and loved you still. You have your family and your origins don’t matter to us in the slightest.” He swallowed. “But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry that I kept this from you.”
Prompto’s eyes bugged out. Still they glistened. “Uncle Regis knew?”
Cor laughed a little. “I couldn’t get anything past Clarus and whatever Clarus knew, Regis knew. But I’ll be honest – I was lost. I was spooked, had no idea what I should do. So I did what I always did, and what you should do. I turned to my brothers for my help. They guided me. But I promise you, they and Sorrel and the Queen were the only ones who knew.”
It was all too clear how Prompto’s mind raced. A new day was dawning upon him, and the light was harsh.
Silence lay between them again.
Prompto thought hard for a long moment. Cor gave him it. He knew questions would come with time, and Prompto had many. “How did you get me into Insomnia?”
“Wasn’t easy. Getting you away from Niflheim was hard enough. I thought we’d both die. Almost did a time or two. But we made it, though the mission overran, and Dustin happened to be at the gates when I arrived. He was so glad to see me they barely checked my pass and only did a little double take when they saw the little bundle. The little you. I just went up to the Citadel, explained the story, and that was that.”
“Bullshit,” Prompto said automatically, and flushed pink when Cor looked at him with raised brows. “They couldn’t have just accepted me.”
“They did. They weren’t going to hold a grudge against a new-born. You were so small, and they adored you – even Cid lost his scowl.”
Prompto tilted his head. “Cid?”
“Honorary uncle, even if he didn’t say a word. As always, he sucked at keeping in touch. He met you as an infant, and then didn’t see you for twenty years.”
“When?”
“I rolled past just before the Crown City. You know it’s just the one road. But I was exhausted, and you were wailing, and I couldn’t figure out why for the life of me. Checked you over and just had to pull over when I saw lights – Cid had his own kids, then his little granddaughter and I was desperate enough to crawl back to him and ask for help. Pulled over in Hammerhead, and Cid came out to investigate the ruckus, and when he saw me…” Cor grimaced. It wasn’t a pretty memory – few were when they concerned sick. “Gods, he could have killed me. Hadn’t seen each other in years. Thought I was gonna have my head bashed in with the damn hammer. But then he saw you and properly looked at me, through all the muck and grime. And he gave me food. Shelter for the night, a few words of advice, managed to get you to quit all that crying. Gave me a few baby clothes the Hammerhead gang kept spare for lost travellers, then he sent me on my way at the first touch of dawn.” Cor allowed himself a smile. “We sent gifts for each other’s kids a little while. Until packages barely got through, and then security was just getting tighter and tighter.”
“Oh, I… I didn’t know.”
“Can’t imagine why he would have said anything,” Cor muttered, a touch sour. “But he kept up a while. Didn’t say a word to Regis, but Regis adored you to I guess they finally saw eye to eye again. Noctis had only just been born so his heart was real soft. He listened to my story, read my reports, knew the logic of it all and he still tickled your belly and held your feet. Cradled you when my arms were full.” Cor smiled at the aged memory, but the tears were still generous. His brothers were gone. Cor prayed that his son would never feel such pain. “I fucked around a lot. I played with adoption agencies while Regis gave me some time off. Only a fortnight, but I dragged out the wait for as long I could. I pretended to look at families, but… I knew I’d gotten attached. I loved you so I kept you. Please don’t doubt that I love you. Whatever you do, don’t doubt it.” Cor cupped both of his hands, holding them firmly. He remembered a time when Prompto’s hands could barely hold his index finger. A distant time he longed to return to.
Prompto let it happen. Those tears still sluggishly fell. “Where do I go from here?”
Cor felt the cold creep of dread. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t shake this. I’ve been consumed by it. I can’t think of anything else, night and day.” His body shuddered on an exhale. “If anyone else finds out, I know they’ll hate me.” He swallowed hard. For a moment his lips formed around nothingness, useless, and then the laugh that emerged was pure black bitterness. “Maybe it would just be better for everyone if I just went away.”
Cor’s heart seized. “No,” he said, and his hands were suddenly cruelly tight on Prompto’s hands. “No,” he said, urgently enough for Prompto to start, his expression alighting with surprise. “Stay with us. Please.” Cor’s dignity gave in, collapsing on itself. He had never begged, and yet - “I can’t lose any more. Please.”
That face crumbled. “Dad –”
“Please don’t leave us. I love you so much more than you know – you and your brother are my world now. Your father and I love you. Gladio loves you. A year from now things will be better. I promise you. Just please don’t go.”
“Dad—” Prompto said, startled and wide eyed, but Cor could not stop.
“Please,” he said, and only a fine line of tension held his bones together.
Something terse knit Prompto’s brow. His hands were shaking. “I’m scared.”
“I know,” Cor said, and the desperation could not budge. “So am I. But we’ll figure it all out. I’ll tell you everything you want to know. Just please – please, don’t go. Stay. Sleep tonight. Eat a meal with your family tonight, those who adore you, and go from there. Please.”
Prompto nodded after a pause, unsteadily. Very little of him looked convinced. “Okay,” he said, nonetheless, and it did nothing for Cor’s fear.
Still he leant forward. Their sweaty foreheads met, uncertain and warm. Breathing hard, Cor fended off the tension, chest uncomfortably numb. “I love you,” he said, and pulled away to kiss Prompto’s forehead with all the care in the world, with the gentleness he had kissed him two decades ago. His skin was feverishly hot and marred with bumps and scars from his teen years. “My son.”
“I love you too.” With a heavy sigh, Prompto leant in close again. The warmth and weight of him was reassuring like the weight of him as an infant, and Cor basked as his son wrapped his arms around him tightly and firmly squeezed. Cor’s own arms slipped around his waist and he held him closely, letting his eyes close.
His heart was still heavy. A part of him remained tense with dread, but Prompto’s soft hair against his nose was a reassurance, his words far greater. Prompto’s hands were long since bloodied and hardened, no longer the soft infant he had raised decades ago. But his eyes remained loving if not quite trusting, and that was all Cor needed. His head shifted in the crook of Cor’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry, dad.”
“It’s okay,” he said, and threaded his fingers into the softest, shortest hairs at the back of his head. He tilted his own to kiss Prompto’s crown, his temple resting atop his head and Cor blinked away fresh tears. “It’s okay.”