Who told you so, dilly dilly, Who told you so? ‘Twas my own heart, dilly dilly, That told me so.
ouch is one of the most intimate, romantic ways to be close to someone else. The Town knows this very well -- the Town wants everyone to be as close as possible.
Perhaps that's why this bonding is so...aggressive.
Because you're in for quite the shock on this otherwise peaceful day when you brush against the next person on your path.
Maybe you're going out of your way to touch people. Maybe you've got a terrible urge to just see what's lurking in someone's heart. Maybe you trip over a conveniently placed rock -- whatever the cause, you're getting an up close and personal look into someone else's heart.
Welcome to Awash's eighteenth event log, everyone! Further information on this event can be found here at the OOC post. You are welcome to make your own logs and posts for this event!
If there are any questions, please ask them here. Thank you!
The floor practically drops out from under them, it tilts so far backwards so suddenly. Prompto yelps as they slide and crash into the back wall--only it isn't a wall, precisely. There are spaces in it, hard and regular between the hard and regular bars, like--like a grate.
Or like, you know. Bars.
Their bodies hit the bars with a loud, metallic smash, and then, above-slash-ahead of them--that is, the direction from which they fell, the direction of the childhood room--another iron grate crashes shut, cutting them off from the illusion of safety.
They're in a cell, dark and grimy, floor still tilted at a crazy diagonal. The left "wall" of the cell is actually a pile of dismantled--or maybe a better phrase for it is viciously destroyed--tubing and machinery, all warped metal and broken glass dripping with... something. The floor is also littered with trash. Most of it seems to be photos.
Prompto voices only a squeaky whisper.]
Oh, son of a bitch.
[He rolls to his feet and scrambles up the sloped floor to block what's set up on the right wall--a cruciform contraption upon which someone is hanging.
Someone who looks an awful lot like Prompto, and who groans, alive.]
[ Noctis ignores the ache in his back, because ow, that really hurt -- and they've actually somehow tipped into a cell, but Noctis ignores just how insane it all is, scrambling to his feet when he sees what's on the right wall.
It's startling, he knows Prompto is here by his side, very much alive, but he's there, too! He's there, and Noctis can never resist surging to his side, desperate to free him from the contraption. Is it a trap? Is this the real him? ]
Prompto -- [ he looks back at the other one, anxious, demanding answers. ] C'mon. This is you, right?
He's gonna tell you noo~oo. [The Prompto-shaped figure on the cross laughs with Prompto's voice, weak, hurt, and coughing, and still mockingly sing-song. He smiles crookedly at Noct, pleading for help and sarcastic both.] He doesn't want you to see anything he chucks down here. Not that he can bear to look at his own garbage, either. 'Course he wouldn't wish that on you.
[That shuts Prompto up. He seems frozen, actually, caught up in the desperate need to deny everything his injured self is saying, but trapped by what feels like the truth of it.
Without saying anything, Prompto worms his way once more between Noct and the cross and, as gently as he can, tries to push him back. Away from the pain he's locked up in this neglected corner of his heart.
He won't look Noct in the eye. The figure on the cross isn't shy about it, though, and he's as bruised and battered as Prompto was when he came out of the well that day, fresh from the dungeons of Gralea.]
Don't... don't worry about it. Noct. [Prompto swallows and the cell shudders.] Let's just find a way out.
[ Noctis doesn't budge -- he's surprisingly strong when he puts his mind to it. It's horrifying, seeing his best friend bruised and battered and so very bitter. He looks back at the Prompto between them, catching his chin and lifting his face up so he can look at him. Despite his own distress, Noctis is steady, unwavering. ]
I'm gonna worry about it. About you. D'you think I would leave the people I care about? We're not going anywhere until he's out.
[ Prompto's hiding this -- himself -- away, and when he speaks next he addresses the both of them. ] Listen. Nothing you can do will scare me away, do you get that?
[That seems to sink into both Promptos, an instant comfort and strength. That lurking backwards tilt doesn't seem so scary now.
It's the form hanging from his wrists that speaks, smile wry but no less devoted than any Noct's seen before.]
Spoken like a true king.
[Prompto inhales sharp as a gunshot.]
Shut UP!
[As the words explode out of Prompto, some invisible force strikes his helpless other self across the face hard enough to rock his body in the restraints. He slumps, slack with pain, and when Prompto realizes he just did that, the color drains out of him and he takes a wobbly step back.]
Oh.
[This time, there aren't any daemons, no Ardyn or Verstael on which to blame his injuries. The one who locked the beaten body to the cross is Prompto himself. The bruises are self-inflicted.
With his already swollen cheek and temple darkening with newer shades of black-blue, this buried part of Prompto lifts his face once more, wary, resigned, and resentful. It's the real Prompto, uninjured, that gives way, and the other meets Noct's gaze with the most exhausted, soft-spoken resolve.]
You'd be good at it. You'd be the best at it, Noct, we all know. [Every person who's met him has felt the pull of his gravity, Prompto has to believe that. The manacles clink faintly as he shifts.] You'd break down all the walls. Get rid of the monsters. If you were king, you'd make the whole world so much better.
[To the back and side, an unhappy, gummed-up noise gets stuck in Prompto's throat, but his strung-up reflection jerks against the bars that hold him, making metal rattle in the dark.]
But fuck that, Noct. The bastard who made me--the one I'm made from--he made me to be a monster, a screw in his selfish nightmare machine, and maybe I am his kind of crazy, a little. [Before Noct can interrupt, he lifts his chin as high as he can, defiant and damaged and defenseless.] Because I'd leave the planet to the daemons in a heartbeat if it'd keep you safe, dude. If it meant you didn't have to choose. I'd let the sun go down forever.
[The cell fills with unspeakable silence. Those aren't words Prompto can take back, and neither of them try to. The real Prompto watches the one he beat down and hung up like old laundry. The other only sees Noct, here and now.]
You gotta accept that about me, if you still want me down from here.
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ouch is one of the most intimate, romantic ways to be close to someone else. The Town knows this very well -- the Town wants everyone to be as close as possible.
no subject
The floor practically drops out from under them, it tilts so far backwards so suddenly. Prompto yelps as they slide and crash into the back wall--only it isn't a wall, precisely. There are spaces in it, hard and regular between the hard and regular bars, like--like a grate.
Or like, you know. Bars.
Their bodies hit the bars with a loud, metallic smash, and then, above-slash-ahead of them--that is, the direction from which they fell, the direction of the childhood room--another iron grate crashes shut, cutting them off from the illusion of safety.
They're in a cell, dark and grimy, floor still tilted at a crazy diagonal. The left "wall" of the cell is actually a pile of dismantled--or maybe a better phrase for it is viciously destroyed--tubing and machinery, all warped metal and broken glass dripping with... something. The floor is also littered with trash. Most of it seems to be photos.
Prompto voices only a squeaky whisper.]
Oh, son of a bitch.
[He rolls to his feet and scrambles up the sloped floor to block what's set up on the right wall--a cruciform contraption upon which someone is hanging.
Someone who looks an awful lot like Prompto, and who groans, alive.]
no subject
[ Noctis ignores the ache in his back, because ow, that really hurt -- and they've actually somehow tipped into a cell, but Noctis ignores just how insane it all is, scrambling to his feet when he sees what's on the right wall.
It's startling, he knows Prompto is here by his side, very much alive, but he's there, too! He's there, and Noctis can never resist surging to his side, desperate to free him from the contraption. Is it a trap? Is this the real him? ]
Prompto -- [ he looks back at the other one, anxious, demanding answers. ] C'mon. This is you, right?
no subject
He's gonna tell you noo~oo. [The Prompto-shaped figure on the cross laughs with Prompto's voice, weak, hurt, and coughing, and still mockingly sing-song. He smiles crookedly at Noct, pleading for help and sarcastic both.] He doesn't want you to see anything he chucks down here. Not that he can bear to look at his own garbage, either. 'Course he wouldn't wish that on you.
[That shuts Prompto up. He seems frozen, actually, caught up in the desperate need to deny everything his injured self is saying, but trapped by what feels like the truth of it.
Without saying anything, Prompto worms his way once more between Noct and the cross and, as gently as he can, tries to push him back. Away from the pain he's locked up in this neglected corner of his heart.
He won't look Noct in the eye. The figure on the cross isn't shy about it, though, and he's as bruised and battered as Prompto was when he came out of the well that day, fresh from the dungeons of Gralea.]
Don't... don't worry about it. Noct. [Prompto swallows and the cell shudders.] Let's just find a way out.
no subject
[ Noctis doesn't budge -- he's surprisingly strong when he puts his mind to it. It's horrifying, seeing his best friend bruised and battered and so very bitter. He looks back at the Prompto between them, catching his chin and lifting his face up so he can look at him. Despite his own distress, Noctis is steady, unwavering. ]
I'm gonna worry about it. About you. D'you think I would leave the people I care about? We're not going anywhere until he's out.
[ Prompto's hiding this -- himself -- away, and when he speaks next he addresses the both of them. ] Listen. Nothing you can do will scare me away, do you get that?
cw: metaphorical self-harm?
It's the form hanging from his wrists that speaks, smile wry but no less devoted than any Noct's seen before.]
Spoken like a true king.
[Prompto inhales sharp as a gunshot.]
Shut UP!
[As the words explode out of Prompto, some invisible force strikes his helpless other self across the face hard enough to rock his body in the restraints. He slumps, slack with pain, and when Prompto realizes he just did that, the color drains out of him and he takes a wobbly step back.]
Oh.
[This time, there aren't any daemons, no Ardyn or Verstael on which to blame his injuries. The one who locked the beaten body to the cross is Prompto himself. The bruises are self-inflicted.
With his already swollen cheek and temple darkening with newer shades of black-blue, this buried part of Prompto lifts his face once more, wary, resigned, and resentful. It's the real Prompto, uninjured, that gives way, and the other meets Noct's gaze with the most exhausted, soft-spoken resolve.]
You'd be good at it. You'd be the best at it, Noct, we all know. [Every person who's met him has felt the pull of his gravity, Prompto has to believe that. The manacles clink faintly as he shifts.] You'd break down all the walls. Get rid of the monsters. If you were king, you'd make the whole world so much better.
[To the back and side, an unhappy, gummed-up noise gets stuck in Prompto's throat, but his strung-up reflection jerks against the bars that hold him, making metal rattle in the dark.]
But fuck that, Noct. The bastard who made me--the one I'm made from--he made me to be a monster, a screw in his selfish nightmare machine, and maybe I am his kind of crazy, a little. [Before Noct can interrupt, he lifts his chin as high as he can, defiant and damaged and defenseless.] Because I'd leave the planet to the daemons in a heartbeat if it'd keep you safe, dude. If it meant you didn't have to choose. I'd let the sun go down forever.
[The cell fills with unspeakable silence. Those aren't words Prompto can take back, and neither of them try to. The real Prompto watches the one he beat down and hung up like old laundry. The other only sees Noct, here and now.]
You gotta accept that about me, if you still want me down from here.