fandomtownies | Furnado Animal Shelter; Friday [04/12].

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Furnado Animal Shelter; Friday [04/12].

Feeling like he really should have pulled one of his I.O.U.s on Sidon for covering him so that he had more time to get ready for the dance (after all, what all did Sidon have to do to get ready? Shine up some jewels and maybe add an extra frill or two to his cravat?), Prompto was nonetheless still there at Furnado for his shift, with the intention of blasting through all the things that needed to get done so he'd have a good reason to get out early to get ready.

Hair like this didn't just happen on its own, people.

He charged Girl with the tasks of playing with the puppies, then, so that he could focus on his tasks. "Sorry, little dudes," he told them. "No time for puppy playing today..."

...but then they had those eyes. And those faces...

Ah, who was he kidding? There was always time for puppy playing! And absolutely nothing was probably going to get done, and Prompto was so not going to have enough time after his shift, but...PUPPIES. WORTH IT. SO TOTALLY WORTH IT ALWAYS.

Furnado is open!

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Puppies were always a good idea, and once Zack was reasonably certain that the shelter would be open for the day, he was swinging on by. Because...

... Because he kind of desperately needed his therapy dog, today.

"Hey, is anybody here?"

Girl definitely picked up on Zack's entrance well before Prompto did, though her attention caught his and he was able to fit in at least one "What is it, Girl? Something up? Did someone fall in a well?" before she eagerly went heading toward the door before Zack had even said anything.

Prompt was a little nervous about following, really, until he heard that voice, wondering if it was who he thought he was, and then saw that he was right and laughed. "Aw, man!" he said brightly. "The Zack Attack is Back! Look at you, dude! When'd you drag yourself back into town, huh?"

As it started to really process in his head, Prompto practically seemed more excited about it than even Girl was. Total fanboy mode switch activated! ...not that it ever took that much. But Zack! Zack! One of the coolest dudes to ever dude was back!

...and maybe he brought chocobos!

Probably not, but, hey, a guy could dream, right?

"Late," Zack replied, smiling a little. "Really late last night, actually."

Guess who was already crouching down to hug the heck out of his dog! Guess!

"Sorry I wasn't back earlier, man. Some stuff came up, you know?"

Unfinished business that had abruptly been finished for him, before it even began.

He was still trying to figure out how he felt about that.

Was it Zack? It was Zack, wasn't it? Prompto was going to guess that it was Zack!

...but, aww, man, Prompto was really going to miss having Girl around, but, at the same time, there was seriously nothing better and more heartwarming than a very good doggo being reunited with her owner. Just seeing it filled Prompto was all sorts of warm fuzzies, just like when he'd gotten the letter from Lady Lunafreya informing him that Tiny (sorry, Pryna) had returned to Tenebrae safe and sound.

Seriously one of the best things ever, and Prompto could only just feel glad that he'd had the opportunity to take care of her in the meantime.

"Hey, man," dumb, dopey grin on his face, Prompto shook his head, waved a dismissive hand. "Don't even worry about it. Gotta do what you gotta do, right? And me and Sidon and Summer held the fort down well enough, when we could. Some weeks better than others, but, well, you know how it can get around here."

"Oh, don't I ever," Zack replied, smiling wryly. "But it looks like everything is in one piece and all the animals seem happy enough, so I'd say you all did a great job."

... Odds were he'd be saying that even if he'd come in and the place was on fire.

"Were you the one looking after Girl while I was away? Or was she hanging around here the whole time?"

"Yeah, no, she was staying with me," said Prompto, practically glowing with pride over it before he snickered a little. "Summer got herself a cat and the cat didn't approve ~~I think?~~, and she saw how good I was with Girl, so I sort of, you know, took up the mantle."

Which had been such, such a difficult burden to bear. Soooooooo much.

"But she's been great, though," he added. "We've been going on lots and lots of runs, sometimes just us, sometimes even with Yaaaaang," pardon him for a moment as he included that wholly unnecessary detail merely because he could, making his grin widen and his face brighten even more as he thought about how he couldn't wait to get out of here and see her, and, oh man, see what she was wearing tonight, he still couldn't get that red dress she'd worn to the last dance out of his head...

...right. Zack. Talking to Zack right now. Prompto shook his head a little, laughed, and continued. "She even helped me out with some video games; she's a really good spotter. Good pillow, too."

Ahhhh! He really was going to miss her, wasn't he? But maybe that just meant there was more reason to visit Zack or something, so he could get his Girl fix.

"She's been really great, though, this whole time. The best, actually. Best Girl in the whole world."

And he'd have said that even if it weren't necessarily true, either. But it definitely was.

"She's definitely my favorite Girl," Zack replied, smiling and ruffling his hands through the dog's fur again. She was practically an excited puppy herself; she'd missed her boy. A lot. "Best pillow, best comfort blanket. I don't think there's anything she can't do."

That little smile stayed on his lips as he looked up again.

"So, how do I repay you for doing such a great job taking care of her?"

"Oh," Prompto blinked a little in surprise at the question and shook his head, then threw in a wave of his hand to really drive the point home, "no. No way, dude, it's all good! It was, like, seriously my treat. You don't...."

He laughed a little, though, as an idea came to him. "How about this? You repay me by letting me be the first person you go to whenever you need a dogsitter again. That sounds like a pretty good deal to me."

Seriously, duuuuuuude. He felt grateful just to have had her for that long!

"Since you took such good care of her this time? Absolutely," Zack replied immediately, and then finally pulled himself to his feet again. "You're pretty great with dogs, huh?"

Prompto laughed a little again, ducking his head and rubbing the back of his neck a little sheepishly. "I mean," he said, "I'm okay, I guess. These guys," his cocked his head toward the puppy pen, "seem to think I do an okay job, anyway. And...I like dogs, I guess. They're sweet and they're fun and they're loyal. You just gotta show 'em a little bit of kindness and they're pretty much your best friend for life."

...in case anyone was wondering why puppy seemed to be the natural choice for when Prompto turned animal...

His grin softened a little, and he shrugged. "I never really had pets or anything growing up, there was just this one dog I took care of once and..." It changed his entire life. "...I don't know, I guess after Tiny, there was just no turning back. Puppers had me for life from that point on."

"Yeah, there's kind of no looking back once they get you, is there?" Zack smiled faintly at that, glancing back down at Girl. She could already tell something was a bit off, and was dutifully leaning against his leg, just enough to provide a solid, warm presence even when he wasn't looking her way. "It's... kind of weird thinking about life without her."

"I bet," Prompto grinned a little at that. "And, I mean, it's pretty clear she obviously feels the same way, bro. Just look at her. I think she missed you, too. No. I know she did. It's good to have you back, man..."

He hesitated, just a moment, as if deciding whether it was really any of his business or not, but he kind of had to ask. "Did everything go...well?"

Zack obviously made it back in one piece, so that seemed overall pretty good.

"It, um." Zack's smile went a little... strained? Strained. That was the word for it. "It went about as well as it could go, I guess? I found who I was looking for."

A pause.

"She found me?"

He still had a lot to sort through. And a lot of mixed feelings about the whole situation.

And Prompto's expression went a little apologetic. And...grimace-y. Yeah. That was a word for it. "At least that made the finding part easier?" he offered.

"Yeah," Zack replied, bowing his head a little. "I'll take a little easy right about now, honestly. If more things could be that way, that'd be great."

Prompto considered that a little bit, shifting slightly, but then he grinned. "Easy?" he said, throwing in some teasing incredulousness. "So...you decided to come back...here?"

Which was clearly a joke, because Prompto honestly thought this was one of the greatest places ever and it was a million times easier to deal with whatever this place threw at him than what he (and definitely Zack, too, he felt) knew was at home, but...that was...kind of the point

Zack blinked at that, but after a few seconds, actually cracked a little grin.

"I know, right? But," and at this, he held up one finger as though he was about to share a deep, dark secret, "it's worth noting that I haven't fought a single dragon, here."

"Yet," said Prompto.

Especially with how some of them had apparently taken to lurking in closets these days.

But his grin tilted a little. "Hold up, though. Pause. Rewind. Because that almost makes it sound like you have fought at least a single dragon not-here."

"Sure," Zack replied, shrugging a little. "Two Bahamuts, and one of those guys I fought twice."

He shook his head, a little rueful.

"Somebody was using summons to fight his battles for him entirely. Not just the hit and run assists they're for. He'd call them and leave them to keep me occupied while he took off."

Like a coward, Genesis. Like a pretty, pretty coward in a fancy red jacket.

"Bahamuts?"

Prompto blinked a little at that, brow furrowing slightly, because that was...well, a coincidence, maybe. Zack's world had chocobos, too, after all; maybe Bahamut was totally a popular name in the greater spread of the multiverse. But if they were talking about dragons here, that shrug definitely didn't seem to go hand-in-hand very well with what Prompto knew (albeit fairly recently) as the King of Beasts, the Draconian, the Bladekeeper.

The symbol of the Kingsglaive, decorating the very uniform he was going to be wearing tonight.

"Still," he said, "that's dope as hell."

Three Bahamut fights. Even if it didn't mean as much where Zack was from, that had to be impressive.

"Did you eventually manage to catch the guy, though? He...didn't really get away, did he?"

Well, one of them basically blew up the moon every time he was summoned, so it was probably nothing to sneeze at...

"He..." Zack frowned a little. "I came close," he sighed. "He kept me after him for a long time, and I came close, and then..."

Then Iris had broken the world. Fixed the world? Changed time as he knew it, and now Zack had no idea what the case was, out there.

His shoulders bunched up a little.

"It's complicated, apparently."

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Furnado Animal Shelter; Friday [04/12].

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