photoshooter | Awash IC Inbox

Well, okay, I guess, but--I don't know, none of that stuff should count! I only did it because I was with the guys. Or. Well. I guess not the bazooka thing, the whole problem was I wasn't with them...

[He thinks about it.]

Iiii guess the last time I played that one was before we left Insomnia, when it was actually true I'd never done anything.

So. Now we've both done fantastic things, it'll be an interesting game. Or maybe it'll be even more interesting when we get into the stuff we did before the fantastic things.

[She raises one finger, as if in indication.]

I've never paid rent before. That's fun and interesting.

Really? Well... I never got my driver's license, how about that? Never even applied for a learner's permit.

[Poor Ignis Scientia.]

Ohhh, I've got you beat on that one. I learned late, but I still learned.

[She laughs a little, under her breath.]

You know why I put off doing it? Because I didn't feel confident being in control of a car. I was worried about being safe.

...

[Prompto shifts his grip again to lace his fingers through hers and hold on.]

I was afraid of calling attention to myself. Like, from the authorities. As if somehow they'd know something was wrong with me if I filled my name out on the form.

[Shaking his head at himself with a soft huff of a laugh, he turns to her.]

Dumb, huh? I mean, I was hanging out at the arcade with the government. I've been eating the government's breakfast leftovers for more than five years, but the idea of getting my picture taken at some counter scared the crap out of me.

...Honestly, I just think it's kind of impressive that you were like — you make it sound like it never even crossed your mind, how much those guys could've helped you.

[She looks at him a minute when he turns to her, watching him, gauging the moment — and then takes just one step closer, putting herself distinctly within his personal space, but far enough apart that it's only noticeable, not awkward.]

You're tight with an actual prince and, like...the world's most competent bureaucrat and it's like it never even occurred to you that they would pull strings for you if you asked them to. Or even if you just needed it.

[She shrugs a little.]

I couldn't do it. I'd — I'm not saying it's a good thing, but I'd have taken advantage of them. I just know myself well enough to know I would've. And you don't. You just...you just don't.

I...

[For a second, he looks like the thought never had occurred to him, like it's only dawning now. He glances down, blinking, but his eyes land on their hands and then find their way up again, following the line of her arm.]

If I asked them, I would've had to tell them. And if I told them, I... I thought. They might leave me. Tell me to get lost, never have anything to do with me ever again.

[It sounds stupid when he says it, but Prompto already admitted the whole thing was dumb, didn't he?]

I was more afraid of losing them. Than I was of... of anything, really. [He exhales like that was some revelation to say aloud, some stone off his chest, and adds, like it needs clarification:] They're the only friends I've ever had. You know?

Yeah. I know.

[She glances up at him, conscious suddenly of the fact that he's taller than her, made more evident when they're facing each other like this.]

But I honestly can't imagine anybody wanting to lose you. You know that too, right?

[He blinks again, rapidly, and ducks his head a little, biting his lip to hide a smile.]

It was harder to believe that back then.

[The shy, soft smile lingers without, for once, changing into something else, something wider or brighter.]

Thanks, though. For saying that.

I told you I'm keeping you, remember? So. ...Me too.

[The sound of her voice is like the look of his smile — soft, quieter perhaps than she means it to be. Something that could take an uptick at any moment, turn stronger and louder, but doesn't.]

I won't let you get lost. I'm too greedy to let you go.

[...]

...You like me that much, huh?

[Their hands start swinging again, just a little.]

Careful. Noct's an only child, he never learned how to share very well. Iggy, too. They're gonna get all nosy with you.

Like I said. Maybe I'm just greedy.

[She hesitates, as a tiny revelation of her own sparks in the back of her mind, and her expression melts into something just a touch more surprised as she seems to mull it over like a child turning over rocks along a garden path.]

But not enough to try to take you away from them, either.

[There's one last thought that makes it right to the tip of her tongue — maybe you guys can just adopt me, too — but she holds that one back after she thinks about it on a second pass. It's — it ruins it, somehow, by giving her something in return. The point isn't to get something; in a way, it's better when she doesn't.

Never have I ever, she thinks fleetingly, caught myself taking the selfless option, since I started calling myself a witch.]

I'm...

[Struck. By her face, somewhat, the way that sharp-ish, self-critical humor gives way to something sudden, something unexpected. It's not something he could save on film, that emotion in subtle movement.

But neither are her words. So simple, and yet. And yet.]

Pretty sure that's the nicest thing a girl's ever said to me. I mean... the most thoughtful. ...I guess most girls never really got to know me like this.

[Did Cindy ever even know his name, after all that work they did for her, all that time they spent at Hammerhead? And here he is in this strange, colorless little town, his fingers woven through hers, and it isn't even the first time.

Like the guys, she knows--she even said she knows--what he is, at his core. She knows and she... values it. Tells him without telling him she understands what he needs. They're words, and they're action more than words.

He wasn't afraid she would, so it's not reassurance. It's a nice thing she didn't need to say to make him comfortable, like an extra. A gift.]

I was mostly too scared to talk to them for real, too.

[But he's always talked to Flora for real.]

It's not like we're some alien species. If you have to talk differently to a girl than you do to everyone else, well. She's never really meeting the you that matters, is she?

[She smiles, a little ruefully, but with genuine sentiment behind it.]

Take it from someone who's been a dozen different people. Feels a lot better to just be yourself.

Heh. You're probably right. I guess it's something I'm working on.

[He strolls along, self-conscious in the way that he's conscious of himself: the lines of contact where her palm touches his, the way his arms swing differently because one of them's holding hands with her, his footsteps on the cobblestones. It feels like they've been walking forever, in a way. It feels like he could've walked home with her every day of his life.

He rubs under his nose, then waves his pointer vaguely at the sky.]

Hey, you know? I've been thinking about it, and I don't think it's spring at all. I mean, look how long the days are, right?

...Yeah?

[There's a tiny little twist in the pit of her stomach, a little jump that's always there whenever someone innocently mentions the seasons. It's the sort of tell she's long since learned not to show, but showing and feeling are two very different things.

Outwardly, she's calm, but all of a sudden her nerves are starting to buzz, drawing out of the sleepy contentment she'd been settling into as she starts to pay careful attention again, the way she always does when she senses something coming, something important.]

I guess you're right. In spring it'd be more like fifty-fifty, but these days it's light late. That's...not a spring phenomenon.

Yeah.

[He glances at her after a moment, but then faces forward again.]

Noct has a summer birthday. End of August. I wonder if we're getting close.

[Then he turns again, brightening and bouncing their hands.]

Hey, when's yours? Your birthday!

[There it is again. There, again, for the second time, and this time she didn't even have to trick him into doing it — he just did it on his own, like a gift, unthinking, summer.

It's so much of a coincidence that she can't help but wonder if it's intentional, if he really knows. If he saw the card and remembered it, after all. If that's what he's doing now, in a weird sort of charming roundabout way that lets her believe that maybe he hadn't.

Or maybe she's being paranoid.]

Oh — really? Huh. We're month twins, then. I'm the thirteenth, August thirteenth.

Really?

[HEYYO]

We should have a party! We'll make cake! I'm sure we can make cake. Or we'll stick some candles in a tub of ice cream! There'll be presents! It'll be great!

[Prompto punches the air on the last note. You can't spell PARTY(OMPTO) without PROMPTO!

Is this the guileless face of a boy who would offer such a complicated double mobius reacharound kind of kindness? Tosh, my dear Sum R M.]

[IT'S HARD WHEN YOU'RE THE WORLD'S MOST PARANOID FUCK, YOU DON'T KNOW UP FROM DOWN ANYMORE

oh my god she's the vriska to his john what even]

...Hang on, aren't you forgetting something? Quid pro quo, Mr. Silver, when's your birthday?

[Well........ (that's eight dots)

She'd be right, though. Blond Egbert wins this round.]

Not till the end of October. October twenty-fifth.

[Remember who the true Scorpio here is, summer child.]

Ooo. A week before Halloween.

[That's easy to remember. Which is good, because she's making a mental note of it.]

Do you guys do Halloween, where you're from? Do you have it, I mean, or is it like geese?

I'm not sure what that is, so I guess it's like geese. Buuuuut I'm guessing it's not a bird that'll bite off your dick? I mean, I don't think dick-eating birds go in big for scheduling.

[Michael Mell should not be allowed to teach Prompto things about Earth.]

Halloween is like...a kid's favorite holiday except for maybe Christmas. You're supposed to dress up in costumes and go around house to house knocking on doors and shaking people down for free candy, and they're socially obligated to give it to you.

[Although there is something pleasantly refreshing about hearing the word "dick" repeated this many times in a short sitting. Kind of like being back with the boys all over again.]

I don't recall mentioning geese as being dick-eating in particular, either, so who else in this dump has been telling you stories about geese?

This kid named Michael. He's nice, he let me play video games at his... place thing. You know, last week. I bet you'd like him, he's funny, but I think he's still in high school. Dunno if that makes it weird to hang out. He's from... New Jersey?

[He vaguely remembers asking about New Jersey.]

Do they have this Halloween thing in New Jersey, too? He made it seem like New Jersey was sort of weird.

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