Fast Eddie's; Saturday Afternoon (Daytime) [07/13].

[hashtag_chocobro]

This week? Was driving Prompto crazy. Truth be told, this whole summer was making him crazy, and every day was like a new roller coaster of anxiety and pent up energy and horrible crippling fear, and it was reaching a point where he wasn't sure if he could take it anymore. But there wasn't much he could do about it outside of just hitching a portal back to Insomnia, but, what? What he going to do that every single time?

Well, he could, but he'd feel pretty shitty about.

But what else could he do? Something fun, something silly, something that could be done in the daytime hours before the sirens but that wasn't necessarily outside that would remind them of everything, but wasn't in the dorms, either, because he was feeling a little closed in and trapped and claustrophobic about the place this week...

Then he had an idea, and it was pretty dumb and dorky and kind of lame, but (spoiler alert!) HE was pretty dumb and dorky and kind of lame (SHOCKER, right?), so it worked, and he hit up the emails and the texts to his fellow students:

S'up, everyone!

I don't know about you guys, but this week is feeling all KINDS of BLAH for me, so I got to thinking: I'm gonna do something about it! Kind of. I'm talking Fast Eddie's, pizza, bowling, arcade games, BOOM. Something that's decidedly NOT all doom and gloom and creepy monsters. And early, so the people who need to can get back well before the sirens go off again, and everyone else? Bring your weapons, we can have, like, a super raid party on the way back!!!

Anyway, I'm going to be there either way. Hopefully you'll all be there, too! DON'T MAKE ME EAT ALL THIS PIZZA BY MYSELF!!!

--Prompto!!

And, as the message said, he was there, either way, getting in a few warm-up practice shots before too many people showed up (assuming anyone even will, but, whatever, he was going to have fun and a million leftovers if no one did!), wrinkling his nose at the bowling shoes because he sort of like them for how weird the color combos were, but, man, did they make his ankles look small when he was used to wearing boots all the time!

[[ work is pretty chill this morning and I'm bored af (famous last words!), plus a couple of bottles thrown into the recycling bin sounded like bowling pins to me, so here we are! Invitations went out to all students, but it's a public place, so come on in, anybody! No OCD because that would take me a million years; let chaos reign, I guess! woo! ]]

Comments

[following_my_fishie]

Delirium got the message. Not on her phone, no. She just.. got the message. And it said 'prompto' and that meant right away so there she was, wandering through the hellscape toward a bowling alley and arcade.

Lights and noise and joyful chaos and the smell of sweat and stale beer - her sort of place.

Barnabas trailed along, keeping a careful eye on her. She seemed more put together than usual today but he knew just exactly how fast that could change.

Del smiled and wandered through the place. Stopping to watch an epic galactic shoot-out at one game cabinet, brushing her hands against a skee-ball machine and making it vomit hundreds of prize tickets the next minute. Didn't realize what she'd done, she was already distracted by the taller boy with the crazy blonde hair.

She just kind of.. grinned up at it. She loved it. It was nuts. Fluffy and spikey and all over like an edgy dandelion clock.

[hashtag_chocobro]

Prompto would gladly take 'edgy dandelion clock' over some of the other things his hair had been compared to...

He grinned when he saw Delirium there, grinned even more when he spotted Barnabas with her, and decided to abandoned his unfortunate 7-10 split for now to bounce over and play Good Host and just be glad that he wouldn't be the only one here.

"Hey!" he greeted her eagerly. "Sweet! Someone else to eat all this pizza!"

And then he noticed all those tickets still spewing out of the machine. "Whoa," he said. "I don't even know how to play that game, but you've got to show me what you did to get all those!"

[following_my_fishie]

"Hi!" Del beamed up at him, "You have really great hair. Do you know how great your hair is? Has anyone told you? Cuz I think it's great. It looks very fluffy and nice."

She blinked and looked over at the machine spewing tickets and made a small 'oops' noise. "I, um. I oopsed. That's an oops. I wasn't playing it, I was just saying hello to it and. Um. It's.. saying hi back. Really loud." Beat. "Sorry?" That's what you said when something was an oops, right?

Barnabas cleared his throat and nudged her with his nose. "New person?" he prompted.

..Heh.

"Oh!" she said after a minute and then beamed at him because hey she was getting good at this part, "I'm Delirium. It's very nice to meet you. This is Barnabas." Beat. "He's a dog-shaped person."

"I am," Barnabas said with dignity, "a dog, Delirium."

"But you're a people," she insisted, "You are definitely a people. I don't have many facts but I have that fact, it's mine, so there."

[hashtag_chocobro]

"I'd say as far as oops goes," Prompto noted with a crooked grin, "that's a pretty good one. You might be able to get one whole plastic spider ring for all those tickets!"

The wealth was just boggling, really! And as sweet as it would be to see her get to redeem them all for maybe three small penny candies, there was the matter of the fact that she'd complimented his hair (which had come with no small amount of preening) and there was a talking dog here, as well.

"And thanks," he added, turning maybe a little pink and fighting down the urge to run a hand through said hair because that would pretty much ruin it, it took so long to get it to look so perfectly fluffy and nice. "Though, now I have to ask, if you're a fan of the hair...what....would you think about a beard?"

And his chin, at least, he could stroke thoughtfully without messing anything up before his smirk went down toward the dog. "And it's nice to meet you guys, too. I'm Prompto. And, I don't know, though. Being a person's nice, but being a dog is so much better, and I can say that from personal experience."

Of course, just coming off of being a dog, he was incredibly happy to be a person again, but being a person lately? Nope. No way. Nuh-uh. Let's go back to puppy time again.

[following_my_fishie]

"Spiders are nice," Del said a little absently, "They make pretty webs that get all shimmery and sparkly when the dew mists over them and they make little rainbows on the sidewalk when the sun comes out again and the spiders make neat little musics when they crawl back over the web to check it, plucking the strands like harp strings and sometimes taking a drink of a tiny bead of water on their web."

Beat. "But someone else might like the tickets more." She smiled up at his hair and then examined his face. "Would the beard be as fluffy as your hair or would it be a boring beard that hangs only downward like most people have?" Sorry, Kanan. Your chinbeard was boring but don't ever shave, you look twelve and that was just wrong.

"Being a person's nice," Delirium agreed, "I do that sometimes." She looked down at her hands and examined them, "Like now. I'm a person right now. Sometimes I'm not. I've never tried being a doggy before.." Her voice trailed off speculatively.

"No, Delirium," Barnabas said gently, "You'd be bored being a dog, they see things in black and white." "Oh," Delirium said and shook her head, "Yes, no, I couldn't do that. How would I see everything if I only had two colors?" Beat and a smile. "You were a dog? A real dog or a dog-shaped person like Barnabas?"

"I am," Barnabas sighed again and repeated, "a dog."

[hashtag_chocobro]

Prompto did...not like spiders. Or bugs. Or any sort of creepy, crawly thing, really, but Delirium's description was so nice that it left him smiling a little wistfull and thinking that maybe, just maybe, he should try to catch a few dew-dappled spiderwebs with his camera one of thes days, although that did mean the potential threat of dew-dappled spiderwebs in his face, or, worse, dew-dappled spiders themselves.

And the smile lingered a little as his hand moved over his cheek a little to imagine not dew-dappled spiderwebs but instead a big fluffy wilderness kind of beard, and he chuckled to think of what the girls would have to say about that approach instead. "Nothing too crazy," he admitted. "Probably definitely boring, but I think I'd make it a little more interesting. Just a little something, just a patch, on the chin...."

So, yeah. Basically Kanan's beard, as a matter of fact. And Tai Xiao Long! Technically, Papa Long got top billing for inspiration, really; Jarrus was just the whole reason he was even still thinking about it.

"But," he allowed once he moved onto the next thought, "I think, technically, I was just a dog-shaped person, because I was still me, just, you know, a puppy. Like what this island does to people sometimes, turning them into animals. Still Prompto," his hand went to his chest, "who is a....errr...." His brain hitched a little, face going a little red, and he quickly had to nudge himself with still a person, buddy, you're not NOT a person, dude, but still unable to really justify it in his own head, it finally stumbled out with a caveat, "person, technically," and he laughed, hoping that didn't sound as awkward as it felt, "but for about two weeks, I was definitely dog-shaped, and it was awesome. I couldn't talk like you can, though, little buddy, that would have made things, like, super better."

[unusual_sith]

Lana got the text, shrugged at it, and strapped on her lightsaber and armour to head out. She wasn't entirely sure about bowling and arcade games, but pizza and friends sounded good. Plus a chance to kill things on the way back.

She arrived and looked around for Prompto, waving as she spotted him.

[hashtag_chocobro]

"Lana! Hey!" Prompto beamed when he saw her, mostly out of relief that more people were actually showing up than anything, waving back before bouncing over, feeling oh-so-light in his weird, slippery, ugly-ass shoes. "Awesome! Glad to see you make it down! Welcome to the..." And here he had to grin a little bit more, "impromptu Prompto party!"

Which, you had to admit, had a pretty good ring to it, riiiiiight??

[unusual_sith]

Lana laughed. "Thank you for the invitation. What are those on your feet? Are those the infamous bowling shoes?"

[hashtag_chocobro]

"They aaarrreeee," said Prompto, sounding equal parts amazed and mystified by them, as he leaned over a little, lifting his toes, as if to show them off a little more as he looked down at them, laughing a little himself. "Aren't they the worst? I was thinking of trying to pass them off as, like, my new look or something, but I don't think even I could make that sound convincing."

This coming from someone wearing leopard-print skinny jeans, Lana! Leopard-print. Skinny jeans!

[unusual_sith]

"I don't think anybody could." And she'd seen Sith fashion. "Don't they make them in simpler colours?"

[seriesofbaddecisions]

Sabine kind of needed some fun, so once she got the text she headed down, with her helmet and weapons in case it ran late or anything surprised them.!

Also she'd never been here, never been to an arcade type place, and she was already trying to figure out what everything was.

[hashtag_chocobro]

"Sabine! Hey!" Prompto beamed to see more people and, especially, more people coming armed because, look, he worked infinitely better in a party raid situation, and the more the prospect of fighting their way back to the dorms tonight became a possibly, the more he was able to pulled more excitement out for it than, you know...absolute terror.

Not to say, of course, that hte absolute terror wasn't there, but people fighting with you made anything seem possible.

"Ohmygod," he grined, "you are going to hate these shoes."

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"...What shoes? What's wrong with the shoes?"

She did not know what bowling was, really.

[hashtag_chocobro]

"These shoes," Prompto said, taking a moment to gesture down to the stiff, uncomfortable, flat, slippery beauties with raggy-ass, too-long shoelaces and a lovely combination of old rust and pale olive green currently on his poor, innocent feet. He even took a moment to model them for her, lifting his feet, pointing his toes, turning his ankle this way, then that, so she could get the full effect. "Required footwear, they said. To protect the floors."

As he said it outloud, though, a thought occurred to him. "Unless," he said, "I am literally the most gullible person on this planet..."

[seriesofbaddecisions]

This may be the most obvious question for someone from a different planet who knew hiw terrible those shoes were now, but, "Why don't they just get better floors?"

[unusual_sith]

Lana waved and smiled. "Welcome. We're discussing the hideous shoes that are apparently required here."

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"Which is weird and they're hideous," Sabine replied. "But this is something not in the dorms so I'm going to wear them anyway."

[unusual_sith]

"I haven't decided, but I imagine I will, too," Lana said. "The bowling sounds more fun than the electronic games."

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"I might hit those up at some point." Sabine would probably clean up at certain video games. "You should play with us. It's got to be better than just watching."

[misshapen_spark]

You know what was fun? Getting glomped by your girlfriend, who'd decided to wear her favorite tank-top and short-shorts just to cheer up her boyfriend.

"Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaabe. Can we put those bumper-things in the bowling lane and do crazy bowling? Please?"

[hashtag_chocobro]

Wasn't it nice, though, that said boyfriend was just so incredibly easy to cheer up, though? Just think of how nice and comfortable she got to be, too!

And Prompto, chuckling, didn't think he'd ever get tired of being glomped by Yang pretty much ever, nor did he think he would ever not blush furiously when being glomped, either. "Hey," he said, leaning into said glomp, "I'm still fairly new to just regular bowling, remember. What are these bumper-things and what is crazy bowling, and, duh, obviously we can do that."

He hoped. If it was clearly a thing, then why not? Even if they didn't have the stuff for it here or whatever, he would make it work. Somehow.

[misshapen_spark]

"So, you put inflatable bumpers in the gutters, right? So when you bowl, you try to bounce it off them as many times as possible, then add THAT number to the number of pins you actually manage to knock over. At least, that's how Ruby and I play it," Yang replied cheerfully, giving him a kiss on the cheek. "So...no idea how normal people bowl."

[hashtag_chocobro]

Prompto's eyes drifted to the lanes as Yang was explaining it, finding it incredibly easy to visualize, got momentarily distracted with that kiss on the cheek, which couldn't just be a kiss on the cheek, okay? Prompto was grinning and decided to one-up her with a kiss on the forehead, before going back to the oh-so-important task of considering this.

"Normal bowling," he stated, "is just throwing....rolling, really," don't look at him like you're ready to yell at him about that again, STAFF PERSON!, "the ball down the lane to get the pins and that's it, so your way sounds way better, and I am so going too see about those bumper things."

...right after another kiss...

...and then maybe one more...

....whhhaaaaaatttt??

[misshapen_spark]

Hopefully he wouldn't mind if one of those kisses was openly passionate, because even Yang was getting tired of needing to punch things and deal with Nonsense, and she just needed to kiss her boyfriend and relax.

Sure, she was a Huntress-in-training, but a girl couldn't always be training.