The Photo Hut; Monday [11/01].

[hashtag_chocobro]

Soooo, yesterday had been kind of...a loooot for Prompto, and while he did feel a little bad that morning when he woke up back to normal again, he also felt he was fully justified in maybe freaking out a little about the whole daemon thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, logically all the points Ignis and Gladio had made were spot on, so he should have realized that Fandom just gotta Fandom, but...

...it was kind of a big deal for him. It hadn't been the first time, after all, and Ignis and Gladio, they....they just didn't understand. They were normal. They weren't...

Look, okay, there was just a lot going on there, and it left him feeling like kind of a wreck, and he almost thought of just calling off for his shift at the Photo Hut that day, but....with everything else that happened this weekend, before that perfect storm of one of his absolute nightmares (ha! Good luck getting any good sleep this week, Prompto, buddy!)....calling off would probably send a pretty loaded mixed message, wouldn't it?

So he was there, dutifully, but honestly, not really feeling it, just sort of wanting to get finished so he could head back home and lose himself in an all-nighter pizza-and-video-game binge with Noctis, passing the time by taking one of his older cameras (especially since he had that nice new shiny one from his birthday) and taking it apart and fiddling around with some of the componants of it, because you know what? Sometimes it was just fun to dismantle something and see how you can tweak it or mess around with it, and it proved as a nice distraction, especially since a photo shop wasn't likely to be pretty jumping, business wise.

The Photo Hut is open!

Comments

[flamesburned]

Liz was no longer a zombie and had been able to change out of her dress and into normal clothes that she wouldn’t be able to trip over.

She had enjoyed the weekend, Zombieness aside and she’d enjoyed spending time with Prompto, it wouldn’t hurt to check in with him on Monday would it? So she headed downstairs rather nervously later Monday morning.

“Hi,” she said shyly with a smile “how is everything going?” not realising that that may not have been the best question to ask.

[hashtag_chocobro]

Prompto, at that point, had been focused heavily on trying to loosen on particular tiny screw inside the camera laid out on the counter like a dissection, one that didn't seem to want to budge...until he was slightly startled by that shy voice that caused him to jump in a way that finally managed to get the screw out...

...and sent it flying, ricocheting off the ceiling and tinkling to the floor under some shelf.

Welp! That was going to be fun to find later!

But it was definitely a later thing, as he turned toward Liz with as best a smile as he could muster, that now-frequently present red starting to already creep up his neck.

Especially remembering Gladio's reports of how brunch went yesterday. You know, the one where it became clear that Gladio shouldn't have turned into a daemon so much as he should have been a fucking troll.

"Hey, Liz'" he greeted back. "Things are...good!" Here, that smile got a little easier, because Prompto could sometimes deflect and ignore his own shit like a champ. "Really good! Kinda quiet, but, you know....

"Uh, how 'bout with you?"

[flamesburned]

“I’m good thanks,” she smiled warmly, “yesterday was …interesting,” both being the zombie and meeting Gladio, she wasn’t sure if she’d made the best first impression.

“Uh…I …” she stopped and started again “ilikedthetimewespenttogether,” it came out in that one long garbled word and it was now her turn to go red because she hadn’t done enough of that yesterday.

[hashtag_chocobro]

There was definitely a part of Prompto's brain that would look back at this moment, and think about how, if this was Gladio, all he'd have to do was smile and say 'me, too,' and Liz would probably just swoon right into those big, stupid arms. Or if it was Ignis, he'd be able to say something so smooth and beautiful in response, it may as well be poetry. And if it was Noctis, he'd be able to just deflect it in the most charmingly self-effacing way possible....

But he wasn't the brawn, or the brains, or the prince. He was just Prompto, which meant blinking at Liz in surprise before finally managing to stammer out a, "You....you did?"

And, yeah, sure, okay, Gladio had maybe told him as much yesterday, too, but not only did Prompto just assume he was just giving him a hard time, but he was legit having an actual hard time, what with the whole facing down the ultimate fear of one day becoming the monster her was created to be of it all....

And now excuse him as he wished he could find out where that screw wound up a second ago so he could join it and never be seen or heard from again....

[flamesburned]

“I did,” she confirmed, still blushing a lot … she had no idea if she was even going about this the right away. This was all so very new to her … even the idea that someone wanted to spend time with her in her general.

“It…it was, …I …” Liz stammered, “it …I had a really nice time,” she finally managed to get out.

[hashtag_chocobro]

And this was something pretty new to Prompto, too, the concept that he was somehow not the most nervous, blushy person in a room! It was such a novel and bewildering experience that he almost had to laugh a little, though a good portion if it was just nerves, too.

Still, he couldn't help grinning now. "Me, too," he said. "I mean....so did I. I mean, like....easily the best part of last weekend. Hands down."

Granted, the rest of it didn't exactly make it that hard! And, okay, okay, that kiss with Eliot had been pretty good, too, he was not gonna lie about that at aaallll!

...and boy, was he feeling glad he woke up with a filter for his mouth today!

But maybe it was because of that filter, because he knew he could think about it before he said it, albeit with hesitancy, that he bit his lip, chewed on it a little, and cautiously ventured, "Maybe, uhhh....maybe we could, you know....like, do it again? Sometime?

"Not, like, a dance or something!" he hastily added. "Obviously! But, like, a date..."

Oh no. The d-word had landed! Repeat! The d-word has landed! They were past the point of no return, boyos!

"Or something," he concluded eloquently.

[flamesburned]

Whatever Liz had been been expecting wasn’t that and she did stare blankly at him for a few moments before she registered that yes he had asked her on a date.

When was the last time she had been on a date? It would have had to have had been when she was a student

“Ye-yes…I mean…yes I would like to go on a date with you…that would…I’d like that a lot…” she finally stammered and was blushing like crazy.

[hashtag_chocobro]

The filter had slipped! He...thought. Prompto honestly wasn't sure if he'd meant to ask for a date or not, but, given the response, he couldn't help but feel pretty glad that he had. In fact, the response had him feeling positively bouyant, because if he could manage to pull even that off...!

He felt his face might start hurting if he kept grinning like this. "Great!" he said. "I mean....awesome! That's..."

He laughed a little, shook his head go try to focus again, but found he was just a little stunned that he'd seriously just done that...and if worked!

"Right," he said, grinning over at Liz now, so. I, uh, gotta head back home for a few days, for, uh, you know, my usual work stuff, but, um, I usually get back in town on Thursday, would....would that work? Or Friday! Friday's also pretty good!

"Assuming," he had go add with a chuckle, "the island doesn't have other plans, anyway, am I right?"

[flamesburned]

“I don’t have any plans this week so either Thursday or Friday works for me,” Liz told him returning the grin and maybe not quite believing this was actually happening. “and yes of course, if the island doesn’t have something unexpected come up,” even though as she said it she wondered what the odds were of that happening now.

There was a small flicker of doubt in the back of her mind that she hadn’t told him the truth about her and what she’d done and that he may not be happy to have this date if he knew but she firmly pushed that aside because it really wasn’t the time to have that conversation .

[hashtag_chocobro]

"Let's do Thursday, then," Prompto said, nodding, thanks to a rare moment of decisiveness fueled by his current success. "It just....feels safer that way, you know? Like, I know the island just hit us with all that Halloween stuff, so we'll probably be good, but who knows? There was one summer where it was going through a different things pretty much every week when I was in school!"

And the momentum of everything was starting to wane, slightly, rolling back into a sort of anxiousness as his fingers started to tap out a rhythm on the counter as he thought of something else to say, if only because he was starting to feel like, if he stopped talking, everything would lose steam and things might start to settle into awkwardness...or maybe regret.

"You wanna pick the place?" he offered. "But don't tell me! It can be like a surprise, y'know? I mean, until Thursday, obviously, unless you'd want to just sit around waiting all night for me to find you or something."

And he laughed, or at least he tried to, but it came out a little nervously because good gods what was he even saying right now? Sure, not talking might mean awkward silences, but was that really worse than whatever would come out of his mouth in the meantime?

[flamesburned]

"Oh the island did that when I was a student too," Liz said remembering suddenly because it was kind of a hard thing to forget, "the school blew up at graduation one year and it kept moving around to different countries and places,"

"but Thursday sounds great," she smiled, "I ... I can do that .. choose a place, I mean," Liz tried to sound more confident than she felt because now she was worrying that she might pick the wrong place and it would ruin the evening. She let out a nervous laugh, "but I'll definitely let you know where and when it will be," she assured him.