fandomtownies | Chilly Boulder; Late Friday Afternoon(-ish?). [09/13].

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Chilly Boulder; Late Friday Afternoon(-ish?). [09/13].

A cry for help had been made, and far be it from Prompto to rise to the occasion to stage a daring rescue against the threat of boredom! Especially when that rescue involved pretty hopping on over to Chilly Boulder after hanging out with some dude on a boat and waiting for Nina so they could have milkshakes and then maybe, possibly, actual food somewhere else afterwards because there was no way he could actually manage to get milkshakes for him, for Nina, and possibly for Grog if they wound up crashing in his room without it all turning into a big melty mess.

So he was there, he plopped into a chair near the door to wait for Nina to get there, and let out a clearly long-suffering sigh. Ahh, the life of a hero was just so, so hard....

[[ expecting the one, but definitely open for all your ice cream and milkshake needs! ]]

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And, really, he was so accommodating about it all too!

Shortly, Nina swept in to beam at him.

"My hero!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Because far be it for her to deny the narrative that title!

"My lady." Grinning, Prompto stood up so he could offer her the appropriate narrative response properly and sweep into a fitting bow. "Far be it from me to ever turn down the opportunity to save a damsel from such a terrible distress like boredom! Come on." He tilted his head toward the counter. "What do you want? I've been dreaming about these milkshakes since the first word."

"Normally I get strawberry," she mused, since that was her preference most of the time, even as she gave him a picture perfect curtsy before drifting in the direction of the counter, "but I think I'm in more of a chocolate mood today................"

"Ooooh," said Prompto approvingly, "mixing it up a little, living a little dangerously, are we, Nina? Any particular inspiration behind such a daring decision, or are you just really so bored, you're just throwing everything out the window?"

She laughed.

"If I was throwing everything out the window then I'd be wearing a pair of Vette's jeans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Which Nina was never, ever going to do.

Well. Probably never.

"I just feel like chocolate!!!!!!!!!!!! What are you going to get???????????"

"I don't know," Prompto admitted, looking thoughtfully up at the menu board. "I mean, obviously, I've had some time to think about it, and I was thinking banana at first, but then, yeah, chocolate? Yes, please. But then I started thinking peanut butter, and I wonder if they could do, like, all three of them mixed together?"

He didn't let himself splurge on stuff like this very often, after all. Well, more so lately around Nina, but still. Better make it count, right?

Nina was... maybe a terrible influence.

"Ooooooh!!!!!!!!!!! I wonder if they'd do strawberry and chocolate, in that case!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Still, she wasn't unaware of Prompto's food issues, so...

"We're just, like, having dessert first," Nina reasoned, "so we can go find something healthy after, right????????????"

Or just the milkshake. Or maybe a late-night jog later. It wasn't like he had to worry about daemons on Fandom, right? At least not these days anymore, thankfully.

Today had also been his class with Dr. Lecter, too, and there was never a thing like restricting yourself in one of Dr. Lecter's classes...

"Yeah, exactly," Prompto told Nina with a grin. "Besides, bananas and peanut butter are totally healthy for you, too, so it's all good. And I can't see why they can't do that. Especially not if we stand here and refuse to leave until they do!"

Which he'd actually feel bad about doing, so it was a good thing it wouldn't be a problem.

"I don't think they'll do that," she said, laughing, and then going to place their orders--which, totally, no problem at all--before he could do it. She wasn't entirely terrible: he'd come at her beckoning, she could buy him a milkshake!

(She'd also come at his beckoning, it was to be noted...)

"Like, they're way more reasonable than Portalocity!!!!!!!!!!!!!" she added, after ordering.

"I hope you don't think," Prompto stated, narrowing his eyes at her a little and trying to side-step her so that he nudged himself closer to the register while extracting his wallet, "that just because you're ordering, that you're actually paying for these, too. I got these, Nina. What kind of rescuer makes you pay for the privledge, huh?"

"Rude!!!!!!!!" she protested, though she only sort of meant it. "You rescued a lady!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What sort of lady would I be if I didn't pay for our sustenance????????????"

"The kind of lady," Prompto insisted, though he couldn't help chuckling, "that lets a gentleman be a gentleman. And, you know, since it's me we're talking about here, I don't do the whole gentleman thing very often, so you should really take advantage of it while you can."

.....................

"............ Well, I guess I could buy supper later," she conceded, since he did have a point about the whole gentlemanly thing and Nina was all for wholesome practice of that. "I guess!!!!!!!!!!!!"

And she was going to bat at his arm playfully as she mock-flounced back to where he'd been sitting.

"Supper's more expensive, though!" Prompto protested as Nina flounced away, unable to stand much ground when he was right in the middle of paying and everything, but, well, he was the range attack guy, wasn't he? Which in this context just meant shouting after her. "We go halfsies on that!"

Her only response to that was a tickling sort of laugh as she folded herself neatly into a seat and glanced out the window, not deigning to shout an answer back at him.

Well, then, Prompto was clearly going to take her silence as agreement. Ha!

But now, with the terrible debt of their milkshakes now settled and ready to be consumed, he bounced back over to join Nina at the table, flopping into the seat across from her and taking that first amazing sip.

Ohhhh, milkshakes, why were you so perfect?

"Soooooooo," he said, "how was your daaaaaay? Besides, like, soooooooo boring?"

Because they were so terrible for you, obviously! Mmmmmmm, deliciousness.

"I never said the whole day was boring!!!!!!!!!!!!" she protested. "I was very productive, I'll have you know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Oh, yeah?" said Prompto, sounding skeptical as he folded his arms in front of him, leaning forward and taking advantage of the bendy nature of his straw for another sip. "What'd you do that was so productive? Or is it top-secret?"

"Well, first I did some of the reading Ignis sent me," she said, "and then I did some work for Hardison.................... but the real thing I did today...............," Nina took another sip of her milkshake while digging out a phone. It was a cheap, shitty burner phone, definitely not her blinged out actual phone.

Because, psh, as if she was going to run experiments of this nature on her real phone.

"Look, look, look!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" she said excitedly. "Like it's all off and powered down and everything, right???????????????? But watch this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

She set the phone on the table and held her hand out over it, the tips of her fingers glowing green for a moment as she concentrated hard and then, and then...

The phone booted up!

"Look at it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" she said gleefully. "Look, it still reads no-battery!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But it's working!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Naturally, Prompto was instantly intrigued the moment Nina pulled out that phone, already trying to think of what her big reveal was going to be, wondering if she'd started getting into some electronics mods, and if she had, holy crap, they could start working together on sooooo many things, and he was pretty sure he could figure out how she did what she was going to show him, or else he was really losing his touch, and...

...and then her fingers started glowing, and the phone booted up, and, yeah, this was definitely not something he was going to be able to touch, but it was still pretty awesome and he laughed. His hand dove in to pick up the phone and give it a closer look.

"Nina!" he said. "Ohmygod, you can charge my phone when we go to Hyrule!"

He had his priorities on point.

Those priorities were... something, alright, but really...

"Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!" Because being a human battery didn't bother her. "And I'll be able to keep using my phone while I'm back in my world!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Which given that her world, like Sidon's, was pretty technologically bereft... was a good thing!

"I'm, like, trying to make it work without a battery in it at all yet, but I didn't manage that today," she admitted, "and over-exertion was starting to give me a headache, so I had to stop................"

Well, that was enough to take the thrill right out of magic-powered cell phones. "Nina," said Prompto, frowning at her for a moment, "don't, like, push yourself too far or anything, though. I mean, I'm sure that stuff'll get easier the more you practice it and stuff, but you've got to be careful, too. Don't make me have to go all Ignis on you like when Noct goes overboard with all his teleportation stuff in training."

Which, of course, meant he had to go all Ignis on her, because his Ignis impression was always a hit, pulling himself up haughtily and pushing up imaginary glasses.

"Nina, you mustn't overexert yourself. What good is it to anyone if you're just as dead as the battery you're trying to revive."

"That------------"

Her protest died on her lips, as she started giggling.

"Ohmygosh!!!!!!!!!!!!" It was even more hilarious now that she'd spent some time around Ignis. "You even sound like him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Prompto's face broke out into an eager grin, and he took a particularly victorious sip of his milkshake.

"I have worked hard to hone that one," he said proudly. "But he's also the most fun one to do. Gladio is just mostly grumbling and grunting, and Noct is a lot of..."

He clicked his tongue, slouched his shoulders as he gave a groaning sigh, and then rolled his eyes. Flipped his hair as if it was longer and always in his eyes.

And then laughed, because he really couldn't help it after that.

She was also laughing because, really, he was spot on and it was amazing.

(And Noctis really needed a haircut.)

"He really is like that, isn't he?????????????" she said, giggling. "I think he's still sulky I caught a bigger fish than him, honestly????????????"

Because of course Nina had sent him texts and pictures of that to make him sulky.

"Oh," said Prompto with confidence, "he's going to be sulky about that for pretty much ever, you know. Fishing is his thing, Nina, he's not used to getting shown up like that because none of us have, like, any interest in it at all."

Then he leveled a faint, pleased grin at her.

"I'm really glad you got the chance to meet them, though," he added. "I could probably do with a little less swooooooning on your part, but I think it's a worthy price to pay to have someone finally realize how hilarious I am with those impressions."

"Fishing is a whole different thing when you do it because if you don't, you don't eat," she said, lifting her shoulders slightly in an unrepentant shrug. "Though, like, part of it always does come down to luck..........."

That other comment, though, was going to earn him a nudge to his calf with her foot.

"I didn't swoon too obviously around them, did I?????????????????"

She'd tried not to! And then promptly died when they weren't around.

"No," Prompto assured her, with a faint grin. "You didn't. Definitely not that they would ever tell, but, I mean, they're even more oblivious than me. I just have the benefit of knowing you so well."

She sighed. Took a consoling sip of her milkshake.

"They really are oblivious," Nina said, a touch mournfully. "I'm not sure what to do about that.................."

"Just accept it," Prompto said with a laugh, shaking his head. "Any other path will just lead to frustration and misery, Nina. I mean, you finally came around to just how hopeless I am already; pretty much the same thing."

They were all, all of them such dumb, dumb boyos, Nina. Even the smart one.

"Yes, but...................!"

Ugh.

"How am I supposed to know if they like me then??????????????? Honestly, why are boys so difficult.............."

"We're really not," Prompto said with a snort, and then he laughed, shaking his head on his way to another milkshake sip. "And they like you, Nina, don't worry about that. I promise, they do. Whether or not they like like you, now, that's a different story, but, also, like, I mean, they just met you, so...."

Also, if he was honest, that would be super weird for him, and Nina was also a little young, and, sure, they were his best friends, but now he was feeling all big-brother protective....

She was a little young, when Gladio was already twenty ~~if I've got my maths right~~, which Nina had definitely noticed and then pretended she hadn't noticed the entire time they'd hung out in Hyrule.

It just didn't seem fair when she could keep up with them mentally and physically to be held back by a thing like age. Especially when her romances were full of much, much larger age gaps.

"I know," she said, a bit petulantly. "But still................... and Wayne's been being weird lately too and it just seems like............. everyone's in love except me.............."

"Isn't Wayne the hands-out-of-the-water dude?" asked Prompto, with a quirk of his brow that suggested that maybe Wayne pretty much was always weird. "And that's not true, not everybody..."

But there was a little sympathy for her there, at least. She did sort of have to deal with being the odd-Diamond-out in that respect, even if Prompto was feeling like he was barely hanging onto his relationship by the skin of his teeth.

But it wasn't like he was actually going to talk to anyone about that, come on.

"And there's still, like, plenty of time, it's come around, and when it does, it'll, like, totally be worth the wait. What about, like....any prospects from any of the new kids, you think?"

"I wish, but no," she said, heaving a sigh. "Like, there were only two boys in the new batch and, like, one of them is your roomie--who I haven't actually met, but who doesn't look like my type.............. and the other is my newest sibling, who, well, we didn't really talk much, but, like, he recoiled from my being excited at the newbie picnic and that's just disheartening............"

Nina sipped her milkshake.

"And, like, I guess your sibling is a boy too, but like, that's super not happening..................."

Because cat.

Prompto laughed a little at that; he felt a little bad about it, because Nina was clearly so miserable, but still!

"Yeah, Kuybey is pretty much the cutest thing ever and I'm sure he's great at cuddles, but there might be a few other issues with that one," he said. "But, hey, if anything did end up sparking between you and Grog, you and Vette can bond even more over constantly having sore necks from having to look up...and up...and up at your BFs. Kinda sucks about your sibling, though. I honestly don't think I've met him."

"At least I'm taller than Vette," Nina grumbled, though she wasn't loads taller than her. Still, it mattered. "And, like, I haven't really seen him since, so maybe he was just having a bad day or something, but............ his name is Ulysses????????????? And he wears, like, bright clothing.............."

"Should I keep an eye out for him?" Prompto asked, lifting his chin, sounding Very Serious about it. "Do a little reconnaissance? See if I can dig up any good potential there for you?"

And she couldn't help but giggle a little, touched by the offer, but also amused.

"I don't think he's my type," she said, "though I guess I wouldn't know either................. also him being my assigned sibling is kind of weird........."

Since Nina tended to take that whole sibling thing pretty seriously. Not always, but enough.

She sighed. "At least Owen thinks I'm pretty............"

And Owen did pretty much despise Prompto back in that one future where he got Nina killed...

"Well," he said, "I would hope so. Because if he didn't, then he'd be an idiot. You're very pretty, Nina. Anyone who can't see that is, like, bli--"

--ooh, not the best choice of words when thinking about Owen and that future there, bud--

"--ind."

And, like, even though Prompto really was basically her brother at this point, Nina was still happy to hear him say she was very pretty.

Prompto's choice of words, though, was still going to get a wry sort of glance from her.

"Pretty and yet single for life," she said dramatically, reaching for her burner phone. "Ugh. At least I can, like, still be useful............."

Even if she was, apparently, unlovable.

"Nina." Prompto fixed her with as serious a look as he could manage while also being faintly amused by her dramatics, because seriously. "Do I really need to bring out the whole sob story again about how I didn't even have any friends when I was your age?"

Which, put like that, made him sound super old, but he was almost eighteen over here, so that clearly gave him some mega life experience points over her.

"Actually, it was right around that time that I met Noctis, you know? So you seriously never know when something great like that's going to be right around the corner. You're not going to be single for life. Unless you, like, die tomorrow. Which, by the way, you're not allowed to do. I am expressly forbidding you from biting the dust tomorrow, got it?"

"I will do my best to not get hit by a rickshaw or suffocate in blankets or drown in the shower," Nina said solemnly, though she couldn't hide the way that made her smile, even though she ducked her head to try. "Or choke on food, or slip on the stairs, or electrocute myself, or..............."

Prompto, look what you'd done.

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Chilly Boulder; Late Friday Afternoon(-ish?). [09/13].

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