fandomtownies | J,GoB, Tuesday Afternoon [10/25].

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J,GoB, Tuesday Afternoon [10/25].

So today was the actual day of Prompto's birthday (or, well, the day of the birthday he'd been given, anyway; it was complicated), and he knew Liz had plans to go out for dinner later, but he had his own plans for a part of the day for himself. And those plans, under the guise of running some errands and getting some more stock shots to upload and hopefully sell, involved swinging by J,GoB, picking out one of the more elaborate and ridiculous cupcakes they had to offer that day, and indulging in the traditional Sad Birthday Cupcake.

Although, really, compared to what he had to call a Sad Birthday Cupcake for a while now, there was nothing all that sad about a cupcake like this, except maybe the solitude of it, and that was mostly just for his annual reflections on another year that had passed, and how, considering all he'd been through, considering everything that he'd learned about himself in the meantime, too, how much of a miracle it was that he'd managed to even make it this far.

Sad Birthday Cupcake had been a thing for so long, borne out of his parents' vague involvement in his life, their frequent absence whenever October 25th rolled around, gone for work or too busy with something else, but they always left him a little cupcake and a card and a present, usually video games or, that one iconic year, a camera, and so he'd sit there in that kitchen in that quiet, lonely house in that quiet, lonely part of Insomnia, light the candle, and make a wish.

It was the same wish, every year, maybe slightly different here and there, and it eventually even started to come true. Just to find somewhere where he belonged. To maybe one day have a place in the world that made sense, and where people were actually happy to have him there.

And look at him now.

He'd found a spot in the corner, where he sat with his cupcake, plunked a single candle into the top of it, lit it, and just sort of reflected on the single dancing flame for a moment. Sighed a little, smiled lightly, swiped a hand across his cheek to push away the wetness of the tears that he was going to pretend weren't there, and blew the candle out.

And it was definitely a slightly different wish than usual, this year.

[[ and J,GoB is open, of course, for all your delicious and potentially emo baked good needs! ]]

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You know who missed pastries after spending a week as a majestic reindeer? This gal right here. Which was definitely why she was ordering a very large amount of them.

She offered a smile at the person she was pretty sure she hadn't met before, though.

Prompto had to admit being a little intrigued about that very large amount of them, wondering what the occasion was or if they were all for the woman ordering them, in which case, good for her...

And then she sent a smile his way (or so he assumed, there wasn't anyone behind him in the corner...he hoped...and not really anywhere in between), so he offered a slightly embarrassed and awkward smile-and-nod back, throwing in a notch of his hand in a wave as he yet again played that never ending fun game of totally new person or person not recognized....

He'd like think he'd remember a get-up like that, though.

Look, a gal had to eat. A Norse god level of food. Totally normal!

"Hi," Jane said, waving at him. "Are you new in town? I mean, I'm new, so it could just be a case of not having met you yet too."

Aaand there it was. Prompto laughed a little, because it was also so nice when that one managed to resolve itself without any particularly extra work or flailing on his part.

"I'm....recently returned," he said, after a moment, figuring that was probably the easiest way to put it. "So not new new, but I've been gone long enough to miss a whole bunch of new faces in the meantime. I'm Prompto." Another wave of his hand, another nod. "Prompto Argentum."

He half wondered if he should get up and offer out his hand, but somehow that felt like it would wind up being more awkward than if he just at there, overall.

"Jane Foster," she replied, juggling the bag of food into the crook of her arm to carry. "I think I've heard the name on radio at least!"

"I should...probably get back into the habit of listening to that again," Prompto admitted, with sort of a sheepish chuckle. "But...it's nice to meet you, Jane. I'd ask how you're liking the place so far, but..." He nodded to that juggled back, "wouldn't want to keep you from your pastries. Unless you wanted to join me, anyway, while I work through...."

He glanced at his Sad Birthday Cupcake, then gestured at it with a grin.

"...all this."

"It's a lot," she joked, nodding solemnly. "But you could have one of mine if you manage it."

Since everyone had been so nice about sharing with her, it was a sort of pay it forward thing.

"And it's always nice to meet new people, after all."

"I think I'm good with just the one," Prompto admitted with a laugh. "There's been...a lot of cake this weekend, I definitely should stick to just the one. But I'll still take the company. Pull up a chair, dig into one of your own, tell me how you're liking the place so far."

"Well, I ended up turning into a reindeer for a week," Jane said, taking a seat. "And it still wasn't the weirdest thing that's happened in my life before coming here. Take that as you will."

"Then you're pretty well equipped to handle this place in general, I'd say," Prompto noted with a chuckle. "A reindeer, huh? I usually turn into a puppy, myself. And now I've got to ask....what is the weirdest thing that's happened in your life before coming here, then?"

Like, she seemed friendly, she'd probably met enough to people by now to know that saying something like that was just bound to make people want to ask.

"I disappeared from reality for five years," Jane said, just going off the list of her weird, weird life. "And my ex is a Norse god who I am currently... filling in for on that front."

Prompto nodded a little a that. Maybe not entirely understanding it personally, but, well, Fandom, and all that. Seemed pretty on par with the sort of thing most people dealt with.

"I was stuck back home in my reality for ten years," he offered out sympathetically, although it wasn't exactly the same thing, or even remotely, but he found it natural to just cling to anything having to do with messed-up time, "and only about four months had passed here, so that's been kind of an adjustment, but none of that happened before coming here. But filling in for a god, huh? That's gotta be..."

He frowned a little at his cupcake, picking at it a little, thinking, of course, of Noctis. Of Lunafreya. Titan and Leviathan and Ifrit...

"A lot..."

Jane nodded with some very sympathetic eyes at the missing out on time with other people part. Because, well, she'd had that happen to her too. Not exactly the same, but enough to get it.

"I got to grow a almost a foot, so that part's nice."

Again, short people perks.

And as the short guy on his team, Prompto had to snort out a laugh at that. "Oh, man," he said, "where do I sign up?"

Too bad Noct couldn't make a deal like that with the Astrals, too, although, really, a whole lot of good some extra height would have done in the longrun, anyway.

"Probably some sweet powers, too, though, right?"

"I'm pretty strong. Oh, and I can fly." Hence the cool cape. "Well, it's more that Mjolnir can pull me through the air, but it's like flying."

She hefted the hammer up to showcase it for him.

"Hey, if it looks like flying and feels like flying," Prompto offered, "might as well call it flying. And I was wondering about that," he said, giving a nod now to the hammer, but you just didn't ask about a person's giant hammer right out the gate like that! "That's, uh, that's a pretty impressive weapon you got there, but I guess that would come with the territory, wouldn't it?"

"It's sort of where the powers come from," she admitted in a little whisper. "Mjolnir. Which took me ages to pronounce correctly."

"Well, if it's that hard just to pronounce," Prompto said with a chuckling grin, "then I definitely won't ask you to spell it for me. But hey," he lifted his cupcake as if in a toast, "welcome to Fandom, though, Jane. Sounds like you've already got a pretty good handle on the sort of weird you're likely to run into around here, at least."

"I hope so," Jane replied with a smile. "How about you? Coming back after--" All of that time away. "--settling back in well?"

"I have been," Prompto said, with a faint smile reminiscent of the dopey one he'd been sporting pretty much all weekend, "yeah. Almost a little too well," he added, now with a laugh perhaps just a bit nervous, "you know? Like I'm just kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop or for it all to take some horrible turn..."

Because it had been proven, time and again, that he just could not have nice things.

"But, I mean, it's definitely been surreal. Still getting used to a lot, it was a rough ten years. I honestly thought I'd ever neven see this place again, and, then, all of a sudden, right at the zero hour, I'm flung right back, barely any time has passed, and I apparently got my girlfriend pregnant before I left, too, so it's been...."

His eyes went a little wide at the table in front of him.

"Kind of an adjustment."

"That is... wow. Just really big wow," Jane replied, eyes going wide at it. "But congratulations. Do you know if it's a boy or a girl yet?"

"It's a girl," Prompto answered, the question managing to sweep away his entire wide-eyed expression of agreement about the wow factor of it all with a pleased, proud, eager kind of smile. "She's due in February."

That earned him a smile because it was pretty adorable to see.

"Well, as someone else who dealt with some strange missing time... I say that it's easy to think about the things that can go wrong, but it's best to use that as the catalyst to live the life you want. Hold onto the happiness you're being offered."

"Oh, believe me," said Prompto, with emphasis. "You don't need to tell me twice. There hasn't been a single day, a single hour, a single minute, where I haven't thought about what an absolute miracle I've been given. If this hadn't happened? I'd have a ten tear old daughter right now, who I wouldn't have even know about and who'd have grown up without her father in her life. That is so...."

He shook his head.

"Sorry about the language," he warned Jane, although he also should have apologize for getting all wibbly on her, too, because those old waterworks were definitely starting to well up all over again inside him, "but there's no other way to say it, it's so fucking mindblowing. This place has given me a whole new second chance; there's no way I could let myself screw that up..."

"Jane, hey!" Raiden said with a wave with a hand holding half a cupcake. He might have a frosting smear by his mouth.

"Raiden, hi!" Oh no, she hoped he didn't think she ghosted him after vacation. Because reindeer. Always reindeer.

After sharing a room with him and his snoring for a week (to say nothing of that incident where he'd nearly gotten stuck in the cruise ship shower), he'd figured she needed a break. Most people would have.

He had not guessed reindeer.

"How's it going? What have you been up to since we got back?"

"I turned into a reindeer and ate a lot of grass," she said, knowing he'd at least understand her need for pastry after that. "Which is apparently a thing that happens here?"

"Gray said something about that sort of thing," Raiden said after a moment of pause to absorb the information. "I'm sorry, if I'd known I would have brought you apples or something. Carrots?" What did reindeer eat besides grass? "You definitely need chocolate after that."

"And carbs," she agreed, nodding expressively. "I feel like I missed out on a whole month."

"At least you weren't a reindeer when we were in France," Raiden told her. "That would have been really sad." He sighed. "I miss crepes already."

"And the cheese," Jane added. Because she was still a white woman, okay?

"The wine." So much wine. Even though he couldn't get drunk off it straight, which made it kind of boring as beverages went. "But we're home now! And home is good. Especially when you're not a reindeer."

"Yes," she agreed. "Oh, I'll have to apologize to my class for missing it last week. Do you think they'll be upset?"

Or would a cape-clad reindeer been a good teacher?

"Gray won't," Raiden assured her. "I think he slept through it anyway. Can't speak for the other kids, but I'm sure they'll understand that a reindeer can't really...teach...I mean they don't even have thumbs." He considered it. "Might have been funny, though."

"I just carried the hammer around in my mouth still," she admitted. "If I was somewhere else, I'm pretty sire I would have been made a meme."

If you thought Jane's order was big, Raiden's was...well, downright gluttonous. An unaware bystander might have thought he was ordering for the office, but no: he was gonna eat all of this.

But first he was going to chat with the worker boxing his order up about the secret ingredient in the brownies, because they had his recipe beat by a mile, and then glance over at the blond guy and frown. "Just one cupcake?" Did not compute.

Well, considering what this guy had ordered, Prompto could maybe see where he was coming from, and he gave a crooked, somewhat sheepish smile.

Somehow, he had a feeling that explaining it was his birthday was only going to make him even more confused.

So he went with explanation number 2: "I've had a lot of cake this weekend."

He really wouldn't have. Raiden had one brother who didn't care for sweets, and even Al ate more cake than that on his birthday.

Unfortunately, the backup explanation did not really compute, either. "...so? Oh! You're...tired of...cake?" He had heard of that happening to people. "Wait, but you bought more cake?" Even if it was small cake.

"No, I just--" Prompto started, then faltered a little bit, with a renewed spark of envious disdain for giant dudes who could seemingly eat anything without having to worry about it adding up, and found himself circling back around to explanation number 1, slightly redirected.

"It's my birthday," he said, "and...the one cupcake, it's...it's kind of tradition. Symbolic, I guess."

And so, so Sad.

"Besides," he added, realizing that this suddenly appearing explanation number 3 would have been helpful a second ago, "my girlfriend's taking me out for dinner later tonight. I wouldn't want to disappoint her by filling up on too much cake before hand, you know?"

Prompto's envious disdain might have taken a blow if he'd known that Raiden was literally always hungry. Gluttony was a curse, after all.

"Oh!" he said. "Well, happy birthday!" The 'filling up on too much cake' thing also did not compute, but...Gluttony. He opened his giant box o' treats and asked, "Want a birthday pastry? You can save it for later." Because that was a thing normal people could do.

Bold of you to assume that Prompto wasn't also always hungry, but that had more to do with restriction than it did attempting to constantly fill a bucket that basically had a hole at the bottom of it...

And it was that constant hunger that did have Prompto opening his mouth to accept said birthday pastry, but he stopped himself and pulled it back. "Nah, man," he laughed a little, shaking his head. "Keep it. I have a feeling you'll put it to better use than I would, anyway. But I appreciate the offer, really."

'Restriction' was not in Raiden's dictionary. Or...most of his family's. Deadly sins were fun that way (or "fun" depending on the day and the sin...).

"Oh, well, if you're sure," he said, starting to close the box, but then hesitated. It was the guy's birthday...but if he was sure...he didn't ever want to push food on people, that wasn't polite, and he seemed happy enough with his one (one!) cupcake. He finally closed the box and said again, "Happy birthday!"

It was nothing personal, of course! But fending off gluttony had been a concentrated effort in Prompto's life since childhood, and he wasn't about to start slacking off on it now.

"Thank you," he said, again, appreciatively, with a nod of his head. "I'm Prompto, by the way. I don't think we've met?"

Or at least he sure hoped not! He had been saved that particular embarrassment so far, but that just meant he was probably overdue.

"Raiden," Raiden said, somehow balancing his box on one hand so he could offer the other to Prompto to shake. It helped that he had big hands, probably. "I'm kinda new, I guess. I took over the pizza place a little while back."

Because pizza was life.

"Oh, no kidding?" asked Prompto, after he awkwardly pushed back his chair to stand up and wipes a few cupcake crumbs off his hand on his leg before meeting that handshake. "I love that place. I hope you're not getting rid of the whole thing where you deliver more pizza than the person ordered to the dorms, though. That was definitely one of the best perks about being a student here."

"Those kids never order enough food," Raiden complained. "What if their friends want to eat, too?"

That was a yes on the delivering way too much.

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J,GoB, Tuesday Afternoon [10/25].

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