fandomtownies | The Photo Hut; Monday [11/15].

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The Photo Hut; Monday [11/15].

There were a few of Fandom's little quirky weekends that weren't exactly great, and, for Prompto, one of the worst ones, hands down, was the one where they turned into the younger versions of themselves like this last weekend. Usually, at least, he could be saved by his younger self's absolute utter dedication to being anti-social to save him from any awkwardness when the weekend was over, but this year? Not so much. Because now Gladio, Seivarden, and, worst of all!, Liz would know that he was just this big, sad, chubby loser...

He almost wondered if it would be better to skip out on work today, but honestly? All that would do would draw attention to it and make it all the more obvious that he was embarrassed and kind of hated everything about last weekend right now. And who knows? Maybe Liz wouldn't even bother coming down today, maybe she would be busy, it's not like she didn't have a life outside the shop! Besides, technically speaking, he never did give her his name. Maybe she wouldn't have realized it was even him?

Yeah, right. Even if it weren't for radio...painfully awkward shy nerdy blonde kid with an obsession with photography and chocobos? No amount of weight was going to shield you from that one, bucko!

So Prompto came into the shop for his shift that day ready to painfully suffer with the agony of his entire existence, hoping that focusing on making a pyramid display of some disposable cameras that came in that day would suck up enough time to just get him through it.

Ugh. There weren't enough disposable cameras in the world...!

The Photo Hut is open!

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It had been a long time since Liz had been turned into a younger version of herself and the memories associated with her childhood were …conflicted at best …

She had been a bit distracted that morning at some of the more unpleasant memories that had resurfaced. Well she was going to have a lot to talk about next session with Dr. Lecter.

She had considered not going down but maybe she should check in with Prompto and see how he was doing because she had figured out that it had been Prompto who young Liz had bonded with over photography.

“Hi,” she said softly, hesitating a bit after she had come downstairs.

Edited 2021-11-15 10:30 (UTC)

And even though it had been soft and he'd been half-expecting it, the greeting seemed to make Prompto jump a little, enough so that his current nearly completed pyramid of disposable cameras went tumbling down in a clatter, spreading around the counter and the floor from his failure to successfully place the final piece.

"Shi--" he started in frustration, stopped himself, took a moment to just wallow in the very complex levels of mortification filling him right now, and swept down to start picking some up.

"Oh," he said, resurfacing to dump an armful of the boxes on the counter, face already burning. "H-hey, Liz. Hi. Uh, g'morning."

“Hi,” she said again because apparently it needed to be repeated, “um…good morning,” she gave a small smile, her attention turning briefly to the pile of disposable cameras before she looked back to Prompto, “um ……uh…how are you?” she asked rather awkwardly.

A masochistic part of Prompto's brain was tempted to just respond with an overly-cheerful answer of fucking terrrible! But, hey, at least I'm a SKINNY pathetic loser again and not a FAT one!, but the thought of actually saying that only made his face burn even brighter, and his eyes stated dedicatedly on the counter and the box that he somehow kept fumbling with in his hands.

"F-fine," he said, then hurriedly, as if to make it more firm so she would believe it more, "I'm fine!"

He almost wanted to then comment on how crazy the weekend was, right? After all, they were both Fandom alums, they were used to this kind of crazy shit, but he also, at the same time, didn't want to do anything that would draw attention to the weekend and what it meants and that it even existed at all. If they could just pretend it never happened at all, that would be waaaay better.

The box in his hand, somehow, managed to almost spring out of his hands and go flying, leaving his fingers awkwardly twitching at empty air and wondering if he should just leave it alone before one of those boxes found up smacking one of them in the face, or something.

He risked a glance over toward Liz.

"How..." His brows lifted with the realization that he actually did really want to know, "how are you?"

Liz opened and closed her mouth several times as she debated because her first response was to also say she was fine but then she wasn’t really fine. Normally that weekend didn’t bother her so much but being a lot older now …“it …uh…I …it’s kind of complicated,” she finally admitted.

When Liz was visibly struggling to come up with a response, Prompto's look of concern and worry deepened. Maybe he shouldn't have asked? But also, he couldn't not have asked, either, but he really hadn't meant--

But then she finally did say something, and he couldn't help giving a soft breath of a smile at the answer.

"Yeah," he murmured softly, "you're not wrong."

Because, you know, BIG mood right there.

Then he softly shook his head, the smile gaining a little more. "But hey," he offered, "it's over now, right? I mean, until the next time it happens, but that'll probably be a while from now..."

His head tilted thoughtfully.

"You....do you need anything?" he offered. "Coffee? Donuts? Something else? I could go steal a puppy from the shelter; it's totally fine," his grin was much brighter now, "I used to work there. Maybe some booze? I won't tell the boss if you won't."

“Yeah…” she said softly, “sorry, those weekends never used to…” her voice trailed off because there were a lot of feelings that turning into a child had brought up but she didn’t think Prompto wanted to hear.

At the mention of the puppy she couldn’t help but laugh at that, “I don’t know how Rain would feel about a puppy being in here,” she said with a small smile, “but um…a coffee does actually sound great and is probably the safer option, as tempting as the booze offer is though,”

Prompto's main goal with the puppy comment was to get a smile, at least, out of Liz, so to get a whole laugh? He couldn't help beaming now with a fuzzy kind of pride.

"Right," he said, nodding with conviction as a plan fell into place. "Coffee. Cool. Got it. So you stay here, hold down the fort, and I'll run to the Perk and I'll be right back."

And, with that, he turned to go before she could protest or change her mind, but he'd only managed to make it a few steps out the door and down the street before he was backtracking and popping his head back into the shop.

"Hold on," he said, "I don't actually know what you like."

“I take mine black, 3 sugars,” she told him, realising it might have been helpful to mention that earlier. “Thank you,” she added with a smile.

"Black," Prompto repeated, with a nod as if that would help him remember such a complicated order better, "three sugars. You got it."

Then she had to go and hit him with that smile, and it was all he could do to smile back with one of those flutters in his chest and a "You're welcome" before disappearing through the door to embark on his new mission once again.

And then to return, much later than anticipated, because although he'd pretty much sprinted on his way to the Perk, he couldn't exactly sprint on the way back without making a whole mess of everything, and, besides, he'd had a little bit of a crisis trying to decide what he should get for himself, wanting something a bit more elaborate and seasonal (and calorific) but decided one something a bit more simple like hers. Definitely not black, though, and definitely way more than just three sugars, which he realized probably defeated the whole purpose of not getting a calorie-bomb seasonal latte...

"And I return!" he announced, when he got back to the store with the two drinks in hand. "Bearing gifts of warm comfort and caffeine!" And he bowed a little as he presented out the cup for Liz by handing it over to her, regretting it halfway through because he was being ridiculous right now, but it was too late to turn back now! "M'lady's bev-raaahhgge."

Geez, Prompto, good god....

Liz’s smile widened as she gratefully took the cup, “why thank you good sir,” she wasn’t sure where that came from but if anything it was a very good distraction from thinking about past childhood traumas.

“I trust there weren’t any problems?” she said with a small laugh. She had noticed that he had been gone a while.

Prompto's own smile was mostly just relieved that, if Liz minded all of his goofy antics, she was at least incredibly good at hiding it, as he wrapped his hands around his own cup and shook his head a little. "Nah," he said. "Just a little trouble deciding for myself. They make it pretty much impossible with all the holiday drinks and stuff, y'know? Like, how'm I suppose to choose?"

And not everyone could just be like Gladio and apparently just get one of each.

"I must admit I've never actually tried any of the holiday drinks," Liz said as she took a sip of her coffee, "I honestly wouldn't even know where to begin with them," Liz hadn't changed her choice of coffee in years.

Prompto grinned as he took his own tentative sip. "I usually just find out whichever one Ignis considers to be the most ~egregious~ and go for that one."

Which wasn't actually true, especially since Ignis considered them all egregious, but he figured it would at least be a funny thing to say.

"I suppose that is definitely one way to do it," Liz said with a smile and paused, "I don't think I've actually met Ignis yet," she tilted her head slightly.

"He probably keeps to himself the most out of the three of us," Prompto shrugged his shoulders a little. "Can't really blame him, though. He's so busy all the time with Noctis and everything else back home that it's no wonder if he likes to actually use his time here as, you know, his time."

He took a sip, which turned into kind of a snort, and a scheming sort of grin. "The fact that he never really had time to himself before is the reason he's even here at all," he informed her. "Nina and me secretly signed him up for teaching as a Christmas present...which..." He blinked a littel with a realization, "means it's been almost a year, holy crap. Geez. Time flies, I guess..."

“Oh,” Liz nodded, “that’s fair enough,“ she said, taking another sip of coffee she paused and then, “you signed him up for teaching as a Christmas present?” she hadn't heard of that being a reason why someone taught at Fandom before.

Prompto's grin broadened into a proud chuckle. "Well," he reasoned, "it's not like he needed another knife set or something! Plus, we....kind of set the bar pretty high for ourselves, as far as presents go. We don't even have Christmas on Eos! But it all kind of started one year when we got Noctis this, like, novelty singing fish thing? Have you seen those? There was one that was kind of a huge deal one summer, it kept being passed on to people who won the summer shenanigans things that Bus Dean--erm, Master Skywalker--does, and we put that fish through a lot...so much so that it sort of went evil and tried to get revenge on us? But, like, the one we got Noct, that one's not evil...not unless you ask Ignis, anyway!...but he loved it, and that's how it all started and now, we just have to keep upping the ante every year, and you can guarantee, he definitely wasn't expecting to get a teaching gig! But he's still doing it, so I think he likes it."

And, wow, Prompto, that was....a long walk to get around a short story, there, wasn't it? He couldn't help it, though! Liz was just so easy to babble at!

Liz smiled as she listened to Prompto’s story, she did not mind him babbling, she was quite enjoying listening him tell it, “I suppose that’s one way to get started teaching, especially if he’s still here,”

There was another pause, “What are summer shenanigans? Is that like camping? We used to move into the cabins for the summer when I was a student,”

"Cabins?" Prompto's brows lifted with intrigue...and already about a dozen different ways the Diamonds could have wreaked havoc in a set-up like that. Maybe it was actually a good call on the school's part to put an end to that before they came rolling in, and he chuckled, shaking his head. "Yeah, we never did anything like that, but instead, every week, Skywalker would host these shenanigans in the park, and it was a different thing each time. Like paintball one week or an obstacle course. The gremlin fashion show is always an interesting one, relay races, I've lost count of how many of them seem to have involved Beaker being shot through a canon at something..."

Sometimes it hadn't even been a part of the activity.

"They're definitely a lot of fun," he assured Liz. "I had to miss a bunch this summer, because of work stuff, but you'll see if they still keep it going next year."

“Yeah I think they wanted us to have time away from the dorms,” Liz said as she remembered, “I know there were usually some students who weren’t happy about it … I didn’t think it was that bad really,”

She listened to the description of the shenanigans, “they do sound like fun, I would not have pictured them to be something Master Skywalker would actually host, did he volunteer to run these?”

"Are you kidding me?" Prompto snorted a laugh. "He friggin' loves it. I mean, yeah, okay, sure, he acts all gruff and irritated the whole time, but you can just tell, you know, that he is just eating it up. He gets to use it to act all tough and tryrannical and like he'd rather be doing literally anything else in the world, but you can just...tell, that he's loving every second of it."

Just like with how he and Nina kept getting away with the bus shenanigans, too. He could totally put a stop to it at any time, and yet...

Prompto's grin almost split his face. "And, man, Liz, I haven't even told you about the shirts yet! Liz! The shirts! Or sometimes socks, and occasionally, he'll bring out these onesies, but if you're participating, you have to wear them, and they are the most ridiculous things you've ever seen. I've kept, like, a ton of them, even collected some so me and the guys could have a whole matching set and everything, I gonna have to show you some of them sometimes, they're the worst, but also the best."

“So he really goes all out for it?” she said as she tried to imagine. “It sounds interesting,” she said with a laugh.

“I don’t think I’ve ever really done anything like that before,” she said as she tried to think of something similar, “it would definitely be something different,”

You said that like you had a choice about participating Liz.

"Oh," said Prompto, with conviction, the brightness of his grin now shining in his eyes peering over his still closely-held cup, "you're gonna love it. Even if I have to drag you out there myself."

Granted, there was a very good chance that Prompto wouldn't actually be there to drag anyone into any shenanigans, and wouldn't be for quite some time. But in that moment, he had no way of knowing that. In that moment, there was just the shiny prospect of coercing that laugh out of her on a bright sunny day in the park, and the absolute failure to recognize just how far away a summer could actually be.

“In that case I’ll definitely have to do it,” Liz assured him with a warm smile, “it’ll be a fun way to spend the summer,” she added, finding it strange that she was already making summer plans, when she had only been back in Fandom for a month.

[sorry, ended up staying back at work, didn’t mean to ping in so late!]

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The Photo Hut; Monday [11/15].

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