📷 [QUEST CATCH-ALL] You're dripping like a saturated sunrise

[photoshooter]

Who: Prompto Argentum and, for Quest 32: Ignis, Summer, and Noctis; for the fallout of Quest 35: OPEN!
Where: Quest 32: Bluohaus and his hideout in Flavo; Quest 35: out and about Chroma
When: November 3rd to November 12th
What: Prompto throws himself into the grateful spirit, but when illness is the thanks he gets, he goes a little... grey about the gills.
Warnings: Gross black stuff disease, Final Fantasy XV spoilers (probably),

NOV. 3RD TO NOV. 5TH: QUEST 32

[The minute Prompto sees the quests pop up on the forum, he knows what he has to do. Finally, a quest he can totally, absolutely get behind! Not only does he understand the sentiment, but of course nothing bad can come of it, ever.]

i. your little brother never tells you but he loves you so (ignis)

[In some ways, Iggy's the easiest, because all the things Iggy does for them reveal what's important to him, too.

Prompto sneaks out of bed early--very early--to tiptoe to Bluohaus's common area. There, he ties an apron around himself, clips his hair back, rolls up his sleeves, grabs a dust cloth, and nods.

By the time Ignis wakes, the kitchen nearly gleams, tidied and dusted and wiped clean and smelling of fresh coffee. Breakfast is ready, too: It's simple fare, toast and cheese and fruit, but it's warm and it's plated and it's waiting there for him. There's coffee. There's orange juice. And a few pressed sprigs of lavender have been placed in an extra mug to give some color to the table setting.

There's also a letter from Prompto.]

Dear Iggy,

Thank you SO MUCH for everything you do for us. We'd totally fall apart without you man!! You're smart and cool and levelheaded and you care so much I don't even know how you do it! (=^v^=) Thanks especially for remembering my b-day. I would've forgotten all about it and it means a lot that you went out of your way for me. You're the best!!! ☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ

(Sorry I didn't make breakfast for Noct or anyone else. I wasn't sure when they'd wake up but you're almost always up even before me. Consider this breakfast special just for you! (*＾∀ﾟ)ъ)

-- Prompto

ii. you touched me and suddenly i was a lilac sky (summer)

[Summer's harder, if only because he has to factor in what girls like and what she, not just any girl, likes in particular, and what's okay to say and to give and what's not cool this soon--or is it even 'soon'? Is there, like, a trajectory? Is he overthinking this?

He's probably overthinking it.

Anyway, it takes him until later on the 3rd to come up with something, but he's pretty sure it's a nice idea.

Gathering the materials he needs doesn't take too long, and luckily, he's gotten pretty okay with a hammer and nails (heh, and wood) of late. He works on it behind their hideout in Flavo and only has to go inside once he's done to set it in a place of honor in the bedroom--where the sunlight will hit it in the morning, but where it'll stay warm and cozy inside.

It's a birdhouse, orange and purple paint mixed until he managed to get a friendly shade of red for the roof, padded inside with hopefully appropriate nesting material, twigs and miscellaneous fluff. Prompto was going to paint "JERICHO" above its entrance, but stopped when he realized he didn't know how to spell it.

So he painted "HOME" instead. He steps back, smiles at his work, and then goes to see if Summer's here. If Summer's home.]

Hello? Ace, you here?

iii. you were a vision in the morning when the light came through (noctis)

[Of course Noctis's takes the longest. What do you get the king who once had everything?

Prompto knows exactly what he wants to do. He's been thinking about it for weeks, actually. This is just an excuse to finally make it happen. Most of it he prepares at the hideout over the 4th, but it's easy to bring back to Bluohaus once he's done. It's easy to sneak back into the room just after dawn, when Ignis is awake but downstairs and Noct's still sleeping.

In the early morning light, he papers one wall of the room with drawings. But they're not drawings of just anything. They're amateurish, to be sure; Prompto's no sketch artist. But they're recognizable renditions of the best photos from his camera, moments of triumph, of friendship, of stupid poses in front of diners and sheer badassery in a sahagin's face, of the places they've visited and the faces they've loved. Over the last day or so, Prompto's drawn enough to cover a good section of the wall with memories of their journey. Of the good things that happened, not just the bad.

Only when he's arranged them all to his liking does he go to shake Noct awake.]

Hey. Noct, buddy. Can I show you something?

NOV. 5TH: QUEST 35

you're ripped at every edge but you're a masterpiece (summer)

[He doesn't even know where he's run to. All he knows is running, is having run. He squats somewhere cold, close to the trees. In the trees, maybe. His whole body's broken into a sweat, but he's shivering uncontrollably, wracked with horror.

He did that. To Noct. He just wanted to thank him for everything, for--for always being there, and.

He did that. Like he gave the flowers to Summer, he gave--that. To Noct.

Gulping for air and gasping out guilt, wishing he could throw up except there's nothing in his gut to expel, Prompto folds until his forehead touches ground, hands pressed over his face, like he can un-see what he did. Like he can disappear.

He makes a crying, choking sound with no words.]

NOV. 6TH-12th: QUEST 35 FALLOUT; OPEN

everything is grey: his hair, his smoke, his dreams (OTA)

[Today, a grey figure dressed warmly in black sits on the steps outside Bluohaus, dull-eyed and devoid both of color and movement. Only the breath that fogs out of his mouth shows any sign he's alive at all.

Sometimes, he stirs enough to take a walk, but his interest always seems to wane before he gets anywhere important. He stares at windows without really seeing them. His eyes follow a bird's movement without really registering it. He doesn't take out his camera.

With no yellow to color it, his hair's so pale a grey it looks almost white. His freckles are just light flecks of soot on his blank face.

Prompto Argentum's lost his color.]

Comments

ii because i'm feeling it

[whichcraft]

[The worst part of getting sick, in Summer's personal opinion, is always the sore throat. The congested nose is rotten, of course, and so is the inevitable coughing and breathless wheezing near the end, but by and large the part she hates more than anything is the feeling of her throat on fire, the sensitive back burning sharp and raw. It makes it impossible to talk, impossible to swallow; it feels like there are thorns digging into the skin, scraping unpleasantly with each swallow and breath.

This isn't a sore throat, and yet that scratching feeling like thorns is still there anyway. There's no fever, no earache. But it scratches, like there's a sore throat coming, and she can't help but groan and lament it with anguished resignation.

...But that it never comes. The soreness never escalates beyond that odd thorny scratching. And so at first she thinks that's simply that, and maybe there's still a chance of fighting it off —

Except that as she swings her legs out of bed where she'd been relaxing and reading, and starts to get up to go in search of food, a wracking cough overtakes her, followed by a flutter of something wide and velvety in the back of her throat, and she has to cover her mouth as she chokes on it and tries to work it free.

When she pulls her hand away, there are wet pink petals against her palm.

She doesn't know what it means, or what could be happening, so she does what she always does when things unnerve or frighten her lately: she hurries to go find Prompto, pausing no less than three other times along the way to stop and choke up petals.]

[photoshooter]

Oh, there you are! I wanted to--

[The sight of her cuts off his thought as abruptly as a steel wall. She's running, she's frightened. As new as this thing they have is--as new as this thing they are is--what happens next is etched as indelibly into Prompto's core as if he'd been running that route for years.

Summer flips a switch in him, in his chest. The alarm that floods him doesn't say hide. Prompto lifts his arms instead, steps forward to catch her.]

What happened? What's wrong?

[whichcraft]

Dunno...

[It's not very articulate, the response she gets out, but that's because that weird strangling tickling in the back of her throat is so preoccupying that it's hard to use her words. She's swallowing after every breath, trying to get it back down somehow, or at least enough to get a sentence or two voiced because she of all people knows how important it is to share good information as quickly as you can in a crisis.]

Something — feels like there's something stuck —

[She wraps her hand around the front of her throat in open indication, but doing it sets off another wracking cough and she's quick to release her neck in favor of covering over her mouth instead.

Pink petals again. And this time, a single smaller one along with them — a baby red one, like from a bud instead of a flower proper.]

[photoshooter]

[He's quick to hold her arms so she has some support to stay up while she hacks up what sounds like two thirds of her lungs.]

Aestas--

[This close, he catches sight of what comes out between her fingers. Prompto's first thought is blood. But it's not. And the chest-bursting horror simmers down to a mere horrified confusion.]

Ace? Is... are those flowers?

[Nani the fuck?]

Uh. Here, c'mere. Let me see.

[Shifting, Prompto tries to coax her to turn, both so he can see and so he can put his arm around her, guide her to sit, rub her back and the nape of her neck to try and soothe whatever the heck is going on.]

[whichcraft]

Fuckin'...fairy-tale bullshit...

[She coughs again, hard, with some real throat-clearing action, and another few petals join the first in her hand but she eventually manages to get things freed up enough to function, at the very least.]

Real cute. Make it hard to talk...

[She grumbles, but doesn't fight him as he coaxes her down and starts to pet her. It actually does help a little, from the way it gets her to relax a little more, which prevents her throat and lungs from seizing up of their own volition and not just from the flowers.]

Just what I need.

[photoshooter]

This is gonna sound stupid, but you didn't, like, swallow a bouquet or anything, right? This is just, uhhh. Weird Chroma stuff, right?

[He keeps rubbing her back as he leans forward to peer at her face, see if anything else is wrong. After a moment, he slides his glove off and checks her forehead against the back of his hand.]

Would tea help, you think?

iii

[nascere]

[ Noctis has been feeling steadily sicker as the days had gone by, and he's not entirely sure why. The illness had been brief at first, lingering, and then eventually it had progressed into something that's horrified even Noctis. The transformation had been slow, gradual, but with every hour that passes he feels worse and worse, even his own potions and elixirs are unable to dispel it.

He's tried, of course, dreading it when he comes to understand just what it is, choosing to retreat to tend to himself. So he's hiding underneath the covers, resting and pale when Prompto comes to wake up. He curls into himself, recoiling from Prompto as he croaks. ]

Not now, Prompto... 'm tired.

[photoshooter]

You're always tired.

[The baby pout's practically audible in his voice. Still, Prompto's too swept up to sulk and too excited to take much note of Noct's condition, so he gently shakes Noct's shoulder again and kneels on the bed to pat his cheek obnoxiously.]

Come on, I promise it's good! I mean, I hope it's good. Sparky, help me out here.

[Prompto bends down, sweeps little Sparky up, and puts the chocobo right up in Noct's breathing space before bouncing the mattress beneath them.]

Nooooooooct.

[nascere]

[ Unsafe. Unsafe.

Noctis is quietly horrified, not sure why this is happening to him -- slowly but surely this virus will consume him, and what's left in its place is what they've always fought, and when Prompto brings sweet, innocent Sparky close, he very nearly panics.

He stays hidden, but he finds Prompto -- knee, perhaps, or shoulder, his arm darting out lightning quick to shove him away, frantic instead of angry, afraid for Prompto's sake. A sharp-eyed individual will, perhaps, have caught sight of the unpleasantly vivid Starscourge marks snaking up that arm before it swiftly retreats into that tense, tight little huddle.

Noctis hadn't been asleep, after all; he's sick. ]

No.

[photoshooter]

[Prompto's a gunner. A photographer. His eyes are almost as key as Ignis's are to who he is. He stumbles back when pushed, but it's so fast, so startling, so--wrong, he doubts what he saw. Just shadows in the room. Right?]

Noct?

[He knows Noct wouldn't push him away. Not again. Not on purpose. But his heart speeds up anyway, ricocheting in his ears like a shot gone wild.

Ruffled and upset himself, Sparky squalls to see what's wrong with Noctis, but Prompto sets him down on the floor and leans in again, more carefully this time, to touch his shoulder once more.]

Hey, buddy. What's wrong?

[nascere]

[ Everything's wrong.

His heart hurts when Sparky squalls, knowing that distressed sound -- Noctis has never turned Sparky away before, and had often brought the little chocobo to bed so that he can nestle with him, for as often as he can get away with it.

But now, Noctis is hurting and afraid, because what if this illness takes over everything and he becomes no different? What if, what if --

Everything in him wants to escape before he can hurt anyone, but this is Prompto, and while he flinches from that touch to his shoulder, he doesn't shove him again, slowly pulling down the blanket to reveal the truth of his appearance. Ashen, fair skin darkened and marred with the Starscourge, his face already half given over to it, trails of ichor down formerly pristine cheeks. ]

You -- you have to get away from me.

meanwhile, quest 35

[whichcraft]

[There's an instance in the forest that Summer always remembers vividly — an occasion a few months back when werewolves marauded across the land, and one day she was fighting solo against them when all of a sudden a blur of blond fur came hurtling out of nowhere in a timely, unexpected rescue. It's hard not to remember rescues, just from how grateful she always is on the rare occasions when they occur. She's long since accepted the perspective that no one is going to help her, ever, unless somehow she makes them or coerces them or tricks them into it. It makes it a little weird, always, when the exceptions to that rule prove her wrong.

But today it's a rule in reverse. This time it's Prompto who's running and alone, stumbling down onto his knees, pressing his head against the chill ground like he's trying to turtle into a ball and shelter himself form the world.

She knows a look like that. That's the look of someone desperately in need of a rescue — and on second pass, it occurs to her that the last time she remembers seeing him look this rattled and distraught was on the day they met in the bottom of the well, when he looked like he was expecting the world to swallow him up and spit him out chewed beyond recognition.]

...Prompto...

[She approaches carefully, with the tails of her cloak whispering against the grass where they drag along the ground, keeping a wide respectful berth from him even as she makes her slow, uncertain approach.]

Prommy, it's me, it's — hey. I'm coming over, okay...?

[photoshooter]

[First nature is to furl tighter, to tell her to leave him alone because the self-abnegation he feels is utter, so tight and dense and black it should crumple him up and yank the dirt in, too, and the woods, and the earth, and the world until there's nothing left. He wants that, wants to vanish so completely there's not a trace of him left, not even the molecules of lung matter in the air he chokes out. He wants to say get back. Wants to howl like an abyss if he can't be one.

But it's her. Aestas. Summer. She hasn't said it, not directly, but if he had to guess--if it turns out like everything else he's told her, everything she's bared to him in return--if he had to pick one person out of everyone he knows, everyone who cares about him, probably she gets it. Probably, she's the one who best understands how cold fire in a dark cave can be, when you're alone with your own horrible, hideous skin.

She promised she wouldn't let Prompto hurt her.

He doesn't reach out for her. But he lifts his head, lets her see the bright sheen of liquid swimming across his eyes, the pallor of his skin behind his fingers. He lets her see his face. And he tries, in his cracked, winded voice, to explain what's happened. What's wrong.]

I got--Noct sick. I gave him the. The...

[It hurts. It hurts like he's putting the torch to his lungs instead of his wrist. A whine catches in his throat like smoke and he strains to get it out, shoulders again bowed. His head drops so far down, it exposes the back of his neck even in his arctic jacket, white and ready for the guillotine or the garrote.]

Like I gave you the flowers, but it was the St--the S, ss--

[He can't say the word. It grows iron spikes in his mouth, pinning his tongue down, forcing his jaws open so the only noise he can make is wounded, a dying animal cry. He buries it in his hand, screws his eyes shut, and gives himself over to a long, low, wretched note that crumbles into hiccuping sobs after an eternity.

Prompto'd be the first to call himself a crybaby. He whines, he tears up. But never--not in Niflheim, not when the Wall fell, not when they lost almost everything in Altissia--not since he was a child--has he wept with abandon like this.]

[whichcraft]

[It's the moment he invokes Noctis that her blood runs cold, because in a strange way, Noctis is the last significant part of the sight that she's seeing — the one thing she'd needed to knock this from objective into hitting entirely close to home. She's heard Prompto talk about Noctis before (who hasn't?) and she's seen how they are together. Noctis is everything to him, in a way that she can't even be jealous about because it's just such a fundamental part of Prompto's existence. It'd be like being jealous of his hair for being attached to his head because she can't be. It's everything, Noctis is everything.

And he got Noct sick. He cares about Noctis more than anything in the world, or at least more than just about everything, and now he's the instrument of his destruction, when everything good in him makes him the sort of person who'd sooner take a bullet for him instead.

She's frozen, rigid, feeling the skin of her face go pale as the scars beneath her glamour feel like they're crawling. She remembers anguish like this all too well. How could she not? It's not as though she could ever forget the wounded cry of someone wailing as they grapple with the fact that they've betrayed their comrade, their most trusted, their stalwart shoulder-to-shoulder companion.

She remembers what Nick did when he was the one wailing like that. She remembers how the black ink stains had seeped beneath his skin, trailing down his face, as he stared at his hands in horror and processed the recognition that his hands were the ones that had destroyed her face beyond repair.

That's what Prompto is going through now. That same feeling of being ripped open from the inside from the guilt and the revulsion and the shame, from being unable to think anything but I did that until it spirals inward and internalizes and assimilates into his soul.]

Hey. Hey, look at me. Look up at me, okay?

[She's moving toward him slowly, a handler toward a frightened wounded animal, trying to get near enough to kneel down beside him in the grass.]

You did the quest. For Noct, like you did for me. Yeah...?

[photoshooter]

[Bless her, he tries, he really tries to look up at her, but Summer's just a watery blur. He can't focus on her, can't focus on anything but the worthlessness, the despair, the hatred he feels for himself and everything he's ever been. The attempt to look at her collapses as totally as Altissia's arches, washing out to storm and saline.]

I was s-so busy working on it, I didn't even--it's been days, he must've been. So--hff, hic--scared!

[Uglycrying. He feels ugly. He feels like the Scourge itself: a horrible, black miasma, plasmodia, daemonification. He remembers every word that bastard taped in his egocentric delusions, the monstrosity that gave birth to him and a horde of marching death.

Prompto curls an arm tightly around his ribs as if it would keep that sick bile in. As if he really is host to that plague.]

It's always me, I always--he wouldn't've been alone in Gralea if it wasn't for me. He wouldn't--Ardyn, he only used me to hurt him, it never mattered about me. I'm always... weighing him down...

[His brows are drawn, his jaw clenched so tightly his face could shatter. For all his running, his face is so bloodless, he could be made of glass or paper. He wheezes in, then spits out, almost strangled:]

They made me to make him miserable and it worked!

[whichcraft]

[Hysteria, she thinks with a twist in her stomach. Not the kind that people throw around derisively, but like the real actual thing, hysterics, the panic and the sadness and the complete inability to focus. That's what she's looking at, the sobbing that won't stop, the crumbling. That's what she's looking at, the internalizing circular pathway of thinking, doubling in and in and in on itself as it amplifies with every turn.

What she knows, deep down, is that rationality isn't going to do anything here. This sort of emotion can't be fought with reason, and it would come off condescending to try. She can't convince him out of these feelings, can't persuade him to put them away. His anguish is as much a sickness as the ones he unknowingly inflicted on the people he loves, and this sort of poison can only be treated by letting it out.

And yet it kills her to see him like this. It aches, to watch him in his misery. And she can't stand by and just do nothing.]

You know he asked me once, what my intentions were for you.

[It's not a response to anything he's said; it doesn't actually address anything that's hurting him. But it's got a steady cadence to it, a predictable rhythm, and as she's talking she's moving toward him again until at last she's close enough to touch him, but doesn't yet.]

Grilled me, really. Because of all the time I was spending with you. Because he wanted to make sure I wasn't going to hurt you. He loves you, so much.

[Slowly, she eases her cloak off of her shoulders, and as she sinks down near him, she brings it around to drape around his shoulders, heavy and warm and leaving her in just a T-shirt and pants underneath.]

Here — wrap this around you, and get warm. Okay?

fallout 35 + mirrors!

[retrobeats]

[ Michael often passes through Bluo on his way to and from the library. but between the sudden cold snap that's fallen over the town and this new exercise in Chroma-brand awful in the form of these "hey wanna meet the worst parts of yourself" mirrors? he's super considering becoming a hermit until both these things pass over.

(the only reason he hasn't done that yet is because he can also be stubborn when you least expect it, and hiding away at home is what his mirror-self, currently cooped up in the bag on Michael's back, wants to do, too. at least he's gonna pick a couple books up from the library first.)

when he catches sight of Prompto sitting on the steps of Bluohaus, he lifts a mittened hand to wave, calling out as he gets closer. ]

Oh, hey, Prompto! How's it-- [ and then he stops mid-sentence. because as he does get closer, something seems... Off. really off. was he always that pale? he definitely wasn't always that still. ] Uh. Everything okay there, bud?

[photoshooter]

[Blink. A long moment passes before Prompto raises his head and seems to register Michael there.]

Oh. Hi, Michael.

[He's still not moving much, enough so that some snow's gathered in the knitting of his beanie.]

It's okay. A... Ace took my color.

[retrobeats]

[ there's something about someone usually so bright and animated being so dull and lifeless, something that sends a chill down Michael's spine that has nothing to do with the snow. and now Prompto's said it, now he's looking for it, he can see it. ]

What? [ he stares at him in horrified disbelief. someone actually did that quest? ] Why?

[photoshooter]

...'Cause I was crying, I think.

[It's sort of hard right now to put his finger on how exactly that logic works out, since he doesn't find any of that upsetting in the least in his current state, but it's all he can think of.]

Or by accident, maybe. She doesn't like hurting me.

i, back when things were happy

[unfatalist]

[Here's a question for the ages: just how many people are grateful for Ignis Scientia? Certainly enough to stack up feelings of Fantasy Illness high enough that he feels rather like death warmed over when he goes to bed the night before. But evidently the sleep did him some good — or so he thinks — because when he wakes up, he feels...still pretty bad, but at least less like death than he'd been the night before.

Well enough to get up, at least, and shamble downstairs in search of coffee, and —

...His kitchen already smells like coffee.

How, exactly, does his kitchen already...smell like...]

Mm?

[He steps into the doorway, and then he sees it. The spotless floor. The clean countertops. The cleared table with its food waiting for him on it, still hot enough that his mysterious benefactor must've only just completed the handiwork a few minutes before. There's coffee, toast, fruit. There's lavender on the table.

It's a perfectly pretty little setup to admire, and that's even before he finds the note.

Once he does, however, he picks up one of the pieces of toast and sticks it absently into his mouth like someone charmingly late for anime school, and heads out in search of wherever Prompto might have gone, feeling even a little bit better still.]

[photoshooter]

[He needn't walk far. Prompto's laughter floats from around the back, as do the familiar happy cries of chocobos. Looks like he's taking care of feeding and exercising Spot and Aurorean on this crisp November day, too.]

Rory! Come on, shhhh. Don't wanna wake your best boy up, right?

[By now, Prompto's lost the apron, but his hair's still clipped messily back. He grins and sinks his fingers into Aurorean's neck feathers for a nice, warm scritchiehug.]

Shhhhhhhh. Who's a good chocobo? You are.

[unfatalist]

Seems to me we have a whole yard full of good boys, here. Well — and one good girl too, of course.

[And three chocobos altogether, though one of them has a few less feathers than the other two. Ignis smiles, crunching a corner of his toast as he leans against the doorjamb, watching them.]

Worthy of choco-boasting about, clearly.

[photoshooter]

[Oops, busted. Prompto jumps and turns, but the smile he beams at Ignis is the proudest one he's got.]

Iggy! Good morning.

[He gives Aurorean another good ruffle and then bounces Ignis's way, followed more sedately by his chocobo.]

Looks like you found your present already. I'll run the chocobos, too, so don't worry about that. Anything else I can do for you?

[unfatalist]

You could provide some clarity, actually, as to what brought all this on. I'm immensely flattered, of course, but a bit...surprised?

[Prompto Argentum: lover of chocobos, happy-go-lucky jokester, man who actually surprised the most capable and put-together guy in all of Eos.]

It's too early for my birthday yet, after all.