WHAT: Gladio is thralled and Prompto goes to see Laurence WHERE: The Dragon Covert WHEN: October/November 2029 WARNINGS: Character death, sad Future!Vallo things STATUS: Complete
Eight months ago, they had lost Lan Xichen. Two years ago, Abi and Nick. They had all hurt more than Prompto could deal with, but he had been able to compartmentalize because there was nothing left to do about it but survive. They had to keep moving forward, but for what? To die another day?
After the last few weeks, it felt like that's what this was all boiling down to. It took losing Gladio to this new kind of bullshit that people were calling thralling, to finally break Prompto. He had spent a good amount of time burying himself in Noctis’ and Ignis’ embraces, but the guilt over the whole thing was too overwhelming. Every time he looked them in the eyes, he couldn’t help but feel responsible for their latest misfortune. They had lost Gladio because he hadn’t been quick enough to save himself.
And now Interitus had Gladio as his weapon. From all their previous attempts, there was no way to get through to him either. None of those that had been thralled were responding to any attempts to bring them back, but several rebels had died in the process of trying to convince a former loved one to come back to them.
So what could he do now?
Apparently he could find himself once more in front of Will’s front door. He had been by a few times since he had broken the news to Will about Lan Xichen, but the visits were never too long because of the guilt he had felt for not being able to save Lan Xichen before Cloud Recesses had been overrun by Interitus’ forces. He was sure Will didn’t find it easy to look at him either, with the reminder of their mutual loss.
But he found himself there now because talking to Iggy and Noct about this was out of the question, but Will was suffering from a similar type of loss. If anyone had any magic answers to how to deal with this, it would be him. At least, Prompto hoped so.
Laurence didn’t hold Prompto at fault. Prompto had been the bearer of bad news, not an ideal job, but one Laurence was grateful for more than anything. It would have been worse if he’d spent weeks not knowing what had happened to his husband of the last seven years.
That wasn’t to say that he hadn’t appreciated that Prompto’s visits in the past had been short. Without Lan Xichen, there was little company Laurence cared to keep any more than strictly necessary. He still visited the Outpost to discuss strategy and to be given what instructions might be necessary, and he still had visitors to pass on news. But as far as personal visits went, he was content just to have the occasional discussion with Temeraire; even with Roland, he tended to stay, mostly, to the professional.
He didn’t wish to speak of Lan Xichen, or his loss. He’d enlisted in the Navy when he was twelve, had been surrounded by death since then. He’d taken his first life at thirteen, and had watched friends fall in action for more than half his life.
But none of it compared, not even close. The only thing that could compare would be the loss of Temeraire, and now that Interitus had the ability to enthrall the Outlanders, they’d come to the decision that Temeraire would stick closer to home: the last thing Interitus needed was a twenty-ton dragon with the Divine Wind under his control.
He hadn’t expected to see Prompto so soon after his own loss, and he hesitated uneasily for a moment when he saw him at his door. But he’d not be rude.
“Come in,” Laurence said, stepping aside from the door. “Can I make you some coffee or tea?” he asked.
Prompto was capable of manners on occasion. And on the brink of such a heavy conversation, he pulled himself together to give his best face forward. He smiled, weak and a little watery, but it was a smile nonetheless as he stepped through the doorway. “Um, yes. Thank you. Either one is fine? Whatever you feel like having.”
On his way there, he had been more determined to talk about his fresh new loss and figure out a path forward. But now here, faced with Will, he found himself quickly losing steam. What was he doing here? It was too soon still, after the loss of Lan Xichen. He had no right to be here and now he was starting to feel awkward.
It would be coffee then. Laurence would, occasionally, brew a cup of Lan Xichen’s teas, more for the comforting smell of it than the flavour, but brewing his own black tea as often recalled to him the playful arguments he’d have with his husband over his burned tea, and so he brewed it less often than he once had.
He sat Prompto at the table, and busied himself in the kitchen, first starting a small fire in the stove to boil water – he’d reverted to his old way of brewing coffee back in his previous world, namely, steeping coffee grounds in boiling water, in the wake of an unreliable electrical source – and then busying himself with fixing up a snack of hard bread and vegetables.
He was dallying, he knew. It had been eight months since Lan Xichen had been killed, and in that time, he’d not allowed any conversations to veer too close to the topic, had been careful to steer the conversation leeward from it, so that he could spend his focus on how to defeat Interitus. There’d been a rage burning in his stomach since that night that had consumed everything else, and he’d had enough presence of mind to step away from command so that he’d not endanger others with his rage and grief.
He didn’t think there’d be any escaping it now. He doubted very much that Prompto was here in any sort of official capacity, and even if they touched not at all on Lan Xichen, the conversation would be as good as exposing himself to a broadside.
There was no help for it. He was not so far gone in his grief that he’d turn away a friend in mourning.
He placed a small plate of food in front of Prompto and the steeping mug of coffee, and, once his hands were free, he laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
“I heard about Gladio,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
It would have been easy enough to pretend everything was fine. Go through the motions of it, convince himself that not everything was Gods awful because at least Gladio wasn’t dead. But the thing was, Prompto knew that without a doubt that Gladio wouldn’t want to live if it meant he was thralled and a weapon of Interitus. And an effective one, at that.
All that, compounding his already existing guilt over what he felt like was his fault for putting Gladio in a situation where he wasn’t focused on keeping himself safe because he was keeping Prompto safe, made it hard to keep up a cheery facade and that’s why he thought coming here would help. Because Will didn’t pretend things were fine. But he still somehow kept going and how do you do that?
Prompto wanted the magical answer, but he was afraid that there wasn’t one. That coming here was a mistake.
Except, Will had never turned him away. Not even at the worst of his grief over Lan Xichen, did he shut Prompto out when he came to check in on him. Other than the first time, being the bearer of bad news, Will hadn’t been nothing but a friend. So he trusted in the friendship he had found with the man bringing him tea now and asked, “How do you do it?” He looked up at Will, with a tight smile that was nothing more than a bandage for the pain he was feeling. “How do you keep going?”
Laurence frowned at the question, and took a seat next to him. As much as he wanted to, he did keep going. Every morning, he’d get out of bed, alone, and most nights – the nights when he didn’t choose to sleep with Temeraire instead – he crawled back into it. And every day and every night, he felt the loss of Lan Xichen like a caltrop in his chest.
“I have a duty. A clear duty, to Temeraire and the rest of the Rebellion, to do all that is within my power to put down Interitus,” he said at last. “When there is nothing else, there is always that.”
Thoughts immediately veered toward Noctis and Ignis, as well as Sophie, Talcott, Lance, and his other friends. Toward even Will himself, who was entertaining this whole conversation in the first place despite how painful it must be for him. Prompto took a shuddering breath, as he looked at the older man. “I know I’m lucky that I still have my other husbands, but the guilt feels overwhelming. Some days when I can afford to stay in bed and mope, it’s all I can think about. I want to be better than that. I want to keep fighting, but what if I make another mistake? What if Gladio’s not the last one to give himself up for me?”
Prompto blinked back the tears at the sudden thought of losing anyone else he loved like that. “I know it’s selfish to be thinking like that. I know I should suck it up and keep it moving because you’re right. We still have to keep fighting. I just don’t know how to do it. I’m just pretending I’m okay, but sometimes I want to…” he trailed off, unsure where his thoughts were leading him to. But he knew he had felt like this exactly once before, when he had thought Noctis no longer cared for him and had pushed him off that train. He shrugged, looking down at his lap. “Sometimes I want to just give up. That it would be better than to just keep living with this guilt.”
Laurence hesitate, and then placed his hand overtop Prompto’s. “The days when you allow yourself to lay in bed are the days that are going to be the worst,” he said. “It is better to keep yourself busy than allow to allow idleness. Especially if you’re being idle with no one else around.”
Of course, it had been easy for Laurence to go back into the routine of always having a routine. It had only been those few, short happy years with Lan Xichen, before Interitus had taken over, that Laurence had allowed himself lazy days, and those days had always been spent in the arms of his love. It had been easy, exceptionally easy, to give those up again.
“Making mistakes is part of being human. I think the greatest mistake you could make would be to never try again.”
He squeezed Prompto’s hand. There had been times in Laurence’s life when he’d considered giving up. It was a mortal sin, one of the few sins that couldn’t be forgiven, and so he’d always stayed his hand, but he couldn’t say that there hadn’t been times, both in the war with Napoleon and these last seven months, when he’d gone into battle with no care for his safety, with the dim hope that he wouldn’t come back out. It wasn’t a line of thinking he’d encourage in anyone, but he knew well enough by now that the arguments that might sway a Christian would hold little weight with people who didn’t follow the religion.
“Tell me, Prompto, do you believe in the afterlife?”
Losing his husband, living in this awful world where the very universe was under constant threat of ceasing to exist, it could weigh heavy enough on one's mind. Prompto knew that feeling all too well, but it was only because Noctis and Ignis were still around that Prompto didn't entertain those thoughts often enough to be truly concerning.
But with Will, he felt comfortable enough to talk about the stupid little voice in his head that he was hoping to shut out forever.
"I do," he said, squeezing Will's hand back and thinking of Lunafreya. "The end is not the end, there's more to our existence than this life."
“Someday, I will see Lan Huan again. And when I do, I would like to be able to meet him with my head held high. I don’t think I could face him again were I to give up, or to stop trying, or if I got myself or others killed out of some act of reckless vengeance. As long as there’s breath in my body, I will do what I can so that Lan Huan can claim me proudly as his husband when we meet again.
“Someday, Gladio will be free of Interitus’ control, and you’ll see him again, too.” Laurence couldn’t always believe that this war was winnable, not lately. Then again, there’d been times in the war with Napoleon too that had seemed hopeless, and they’d reigned victorious. But whether they beat Interitus or not, Laurence refused to believe that Interitus had enthralled the immortal souls of those whose minds he controlled. He couldn’t believe that. One way or another, Prompto and Ignis and Noctis would meet their husband again. “I don’t think that he would blame you for what happened, even if you do, and he would want to see that you’d lived your life to the best of your ability in his absence. And I think, too, that Ignis and Noctis still need you as much as they ever have. More.”
Six above, he desperately hoped everything that Will was telling him was the truth. Anything beyond this life was not guaranteed, but what he said about Gladio, his other husbands, he knew rang true. That little voice in his head quieted, as he let himself be soothed by the words of comfort.
He wiped at his face with his free hand, as he sniffed. "Thank you, Will. I think I just needed to hear this from someone that would have no reason to lie to me. Iggy and Noct…Gods I love them, but they would probably say anything to make me feel better about all of this." Not to mention he would feel terrible to put them in a position where they would have to comfort him despite their own fresh heartache and loss.
Laurence knew that there was nothing anyone could say to make Prompto feel better; there’d been nothing anyone could have said to Laurence to make him feel better about his own loss. He handed him a handkerchief for his eyes. “It’s better to be honest in these situations, I think,” Laurence said. Honest and kind, but honest all the same. “You need not worry that I’ll say something untrue just to make you feel better when I know that’s not possible.”
He wondered if Noctis and Ignis were trying just as hard to make themselves feel better with whatever they said as Prompto. He knew that in those first few weeks, he’d told himself all sorts of lies that had felt true, or at least, like they should have been true.
“Yeah, anything less than honesty isn’t going to do anything to make any of this better,” Prompto said, taking a deep breath before reaching out to hold the cup of coffee Will had made for him. “Do you think I can stay here for a little longer before I head back? I wanted to check in on you too, make sure you and Temeraire have everything you need from the Outpost.”
He also needed some time before he headed back. It wasn’t easy to look at Noctis and Ignis in the eyes these days and Prompto needed to make sure his face didn’t betray his inner turmoil of the situation when he did.
“I’m afraid honesty won’t help much, either,” Laurence said. “Temeraire and I are quite well provisioned, thank you,” Laurence said. Perhaps Temeraire wasn’t getting as much red meat as Laurence would have preferred, but while the hunting was poor the fishing was still abundant, and Temeraire had never complained of fish. Laurence knew how much the dragon could eat; he didn’t wish to further strain the limited resources of the Rebellion. It made him regret, a little, that Temeraire had lost his ability to shift back to human, but not so much that he wished that Temeraire had been human when the amulet finally lost its power; no matter how much it took to feed a 20-tonne dragon, Laurence could never regret that. “But you may stay as long as you wish to. The covert is at your disposal entirely.”