flamesburned | Liz's Apartment Above the Photo Hut

It was definitely an interesting moment for Prompto; there had been plenty of times he'd thought about if/when he might ascend into the apartment above the Photo Shop, and he definitely would have preferred it to be under entirely different circumstances. But...in for a penny, in for a pound, there was no turning back now.

And when they got there, he was awkwardly battling between his curiosity to look around and wanting to be polite and not look around too much, but of course his eyes were instantly drawn to the photo boards, and he was pretty sure those were photos of---

---oh, hello, there, cat, perfect little distraction from....everything right now!

Prompto? Totally honing in in the cat. Cats were good. Cats were safe.

"Heeeey, there, Rain, buuuuuddy!" He knelt down in front of the cat with his hand held out for a moment for greeting before he was definitely picking her up. "How's it going?"

Rain purred loudly in response as she sniffed his hand and she had definitely started to lick it as well because hi Prompto, hi! she was going well except her human had been sad and mopey lately so it had been exhausting taking care of her by demanding lots of pets because that was definitely how it worked.

She would also not object to being picked up and further cuddles.

Prompto had spend pretty much every moment of free time since Thursday pretty much commandeering one cat; clearly, it was time to commandeer another.

Sorry if he was clinging a little more with those snuggles, Rain. You and Issa can complain about the abuse together on your next cat playdate.

"Do you need any help?" he then asked Liz, as if he didn't currently have an armful of cat in desperate need to scritches and snuggles.

Rain was going to tolerate it Prompto because she liked snuggles and scritches, she meowed softly and purred. Especially if she got another cat playdate out of it.

"It's alright," she said softly as she watched Rain and Prompto interact with a small smile before she started to head to the kitchen and then stopped, "um ... how do you take your coffee?" she turned back round, she knew he liked the fancy holiday themed drinks but they were a little bit out of her repertoire.

And he definitely wouldn't expect that of her, especially when he'd essentially invited himself over. Sure, it was for a good reason, so that he didn't have to drop all of his trauma in a coffee shop, but still!

"Ummmm," he said, snuggling into soft lovely Rain-fur. "Lots of sugar, lots of cream?"

A pause.

"Basically right on the line of when it's probably not even technically coffee anymore..."

"I'll see what I can do," she smiled softly and she went into the kitchen to start preparing the coffees.

She came back a short time later with a tray with two mugs of coffee, hers was her usual black with 3 sugars and she'd brought extra sugar and cream in case she hadn't put enough in Prompto's, there were also a plate of chocolate biscuits because she felt after everything, it might be nice for a treat, "I hope this is okay," she said as she set the tray down on the coffee table.

"Of course it is," Prompto said, especially since, well...once he got started, he wasn't really sure how much he'd been partaking anyway. Already, the thought of putting anything in his flip-flopping stomach sounded like the last thing he should do.

He made a few little kissy sounds to the cat, a few more scritches, and then...feeling a little awkward about it, but knowing he'd need to sit down for all of this...plopped down on the couch, cat and all.

"Th-thanks..."

Rain was perfectly content as long as she was still being held, she purred loudly and got very comfortable.

“That’s okay,” she said softly and a few moments later joined him on the couch and then an awkward silence lapsed between them. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do or say because when she had decided to tell Prompto everything she had started crying and it didn’t look like Prompto was going to start crying. At least she didn't think so.

“So…” she tried again and then her voice faltered, “um…”

Sorry, Rain. Your time for snuggles was limited, but you still had some preamble before Prompto set you aside, since he would eventually need to free his hands.

"So," he said, and it was funny, he'd went over how he was going to eventually in his head so many times, yet he still wasn't quite sure the best way to start...

"Well...

"Um..."

He cleared his throat.

"This...uh, BPRD...that you...worked for? You said they worked with, like, paranormal stuff? Things like that? Um, so....what about, like, any...um, weird science stuff? Like experiments and, uh...."

Oh, man, he was doing so well, to, but once he got to this word, it was a little harder of a hill to climb.

"...clones...and stuff. Any...anything like that?"

Whatever Liz had been expecting it hadn’t been that. She thought back to a lot of the cases she’d work on as an agent.

“The closest I can think of is one of our colleagues, Johann Kraus … he’s a psychic but he doesn’t possess a physical body anymore,” she said at last, “I’ve only met him a couple of times, Johann Kraus is an occult scholar … his physical body got destroyed so that they had to find a way to keep his form alive in a containment suit but that’s the only instance I know of where they’ve done experiments of that nature,” she said slowly.

“I haven’t heard anything about clones but then a lot of the missions are classified and I don’t have that high a clearance level,” well now that she’d quit she didn’t have access at all, “I mean that’s not to say it’s happened … the BPRD have existed in some form or another since the 1940s,” she told him.

Prompto nodded a little, going quiet, fingers moving through Rain's fur, looking at the coffee table, the tray, the mugs and the biscuits. A little harder, he realized, since he was honestly kind of hoping it might be something they maybe dealt with all the time, no big deal....

He sighed. "Sorry, Rain," he then said, moving the cat and setting her down on the couch between them, because, well....

He didn't think he could say it. But he could at least show her.

Carefully, he started to undo the leather straps covering his wrists, peeling off his gloves, and holding up the back of his hand, revealing the barcode on the back of his wrist.

"It's funny," he said, eyes still toward the table, "if you scan it at T&C, it comes up as Cinnamon Rolls."

Because of course he'd actually tried it at one point.

Rain meowed a little softly at being put down on the couch but she still stayed where she was and purred.

Liz looked at that barcode on his hand and it made sense suddenly about why he’d asked if she’d seen anything like that in her world, “Oh,” she said quietly with that realisation and then didn’t know what else she could say but wondered if he would object to her holding his hand.

She tentatively reached out but she’d understand if he didn’t want her to touch it, “I’m … “ she started and then stopped, “How …” she realised that she didn’t quite know what to say but she wanted to say something. “I’m not going anywhere,” she told him at last because she wanted to be there for him like he was for her, “I’m right here,”

Prompto shrugged a shoulder, just leaving his hand up between them, if she wanted to take a closer look.

"I didn't even know," he added softly, "until some weird Fandom thing, where we were all twenty years older, and then, I knew. And I remembered. That's mostly why we're here, teaching and everything. Fandom keeps giving us hints of a future we're trying to prevent, but you can't really change something like this..."

And, since he was apparently in it now, there was no reason to hold back.

"I was created in a lab," he explained, "with the sole purpose of being experimented on. The Niflheim Empire, they....create these supersoldiers to build their army, and they had a special program where they were testing the limits of daemon blood. But they....some Lucian spies broke into one of the facilities, found out what was going on. Maybe they tried to save more. Maybe they just wanted one for evidence. But I think a lot about the fact that, if I hadnn't been in that first tube, I wouldn't even be here..."

There was a small, pained paused.

"I shouldn't even be here at all."

Liz listened to him talk, if she could at least do something she could be there and listen to him.She reached out to take his hand in her hers, “but you’re here, I’m … I’m glad you’re here,” she said gently, even though she knew it likely wouldn’t mean much, “I’m … “ she wasn’t sure what to say, was this something you apologised for.

Then she thought back to their first date and she had mentioned Hellboy and oh … she must have freaked him out by showing that photo ..

Her eyes darted to her photo board and she wished she could hide those photos of Hellboy that she had on there because wow … it must make him uncomfortable to know that she worked with and that she counted a demon among her friends.

“Do you want me to take the photos down?” She finally asked, “if it makes you uncomfortable I can take them down?”

It was hard not to let out a small breath, a small, grateful smile at her comment about her being glad he was there, biting back the natural inclination toward self-depreciation by saying something like well, then at least that's at least one of us...

...but then what she said after that seemed so out of left field for him that her just sort of turned his head toward her in confusion.

"The photos?" he asked with a frown. "What--?"

Then he remembered the photo board when he came in, and looked toward it again, though it didn't help his confusion.

"Why would--?"

That was when he realized who else was on the board.

"Oh. What? No. Why would I...? N-no, it's fine. I wouldn't..."

She was totally just friends with something straight out of his existential crisis nightmares, that's all! It was tooootally fine!

“Are you sure?” Liz hesitated, maybe she shouldn’t have even brought it up … he likely hadn’t noticed the photos and wow she was really on form this week between her breakdown and now she had photographic evidence of her friendship with Hellboy, whose existence was more than likely going to cause problems for Prompto and … what if Hellboy visited for Parents Weekend next year? He used to visit her all the time at school … and … oh god Hellboy and Prompto meeting …

She could feel her hands starting to shake … and it took every ounce of self control to take control and breathe and bring her thoughts back down …nope, she was focusing on Prompto and being there for him, this was not about her today, she took several deep breaths, “it’s …I’m sorry … I didn’t know about …” of course you didn’t know Liz, you didn’t have psychic abilities, “I can take them down,” she finally said again.

"Don't," Prompto said, firmly, maybe even with a little exasperation, as he squeezed Liz's hand and rolled his head over to look at her. "I mean it. It...it's fine. The only reason I even told you is..you told me your stuff, it wouldn't be right for me to keep mine from you, too. It's...kind of a secret, no one really knows, except the guys and my sister, obviously, but....well. after....after what you told me, it just...didn't feel right. Keeping it from you."

And maybe she was just freaking out about the pictures as sort of a way to distract her from thinking about how he was...just some...failed experiment, some weird laboratory freak, or something, but she didn't seem too weirded out by it...yet...so he'd take it.

Edited 2021-11-21 04:30 (UTC)

Liz steadied herself, trying to recall those meditation techniques that Billy had taught her all those years ago back at school, because the last thing anyone needed right now was for her to have an episode right there, “I .. thank you for telling me,” she said softly, “I promise I won’t tell anyone …” there was a pause and, “it doesn’t worry me, about you being a clone,” she told him because she realised she hadn’t directly addressed that, “I still … I still want to be with you … I do really like you and spending time with you,” and there was a pause, “I mean … if you still want to be with me that is,” and yes there was blushing as she said it because of course there was.

Yeah, her burning down half the island just because he dropped the whole 'I was only supposed to exist to suffer horribly' bomb would definitely be a pretty harsh blow to the ego...

But the rest made him smile, almost, faintly, though still oddly somewhat pained. Or at least skeptical.

"Is that what this is?" he asked softly, almost as if, if he said it too loud, it would just hurt that much more. "We...we're with each other?"

"I ... I ... I'd like to be," she stammered, unsure if she was saying the right thing or not, "this ... I don't know how this …is ... it's new," she admitted awkwardly and that was pretty obvious Liz, “um … “ her voice trailed off and she smiled shyly at him, the first proper smile she’d given in a couple of days.

It was nice to get a smile out of her again through all those tears and stammers. And it was a rare thing, that Prompto would find himself actually the most confident person in a room. So it was those two facts, he figured, plus the fact that she really didn't seem weirded out by it, that encouraged him to pull himself closer, to pull Liz into him, potentially getting the cat stuck somewhere in between (sorry, Rain!) into a hug.

"Look at us," he said as he wrapped his arms around her. "The pyrokinetic and the escaped clone, back at it again...

Rain let out a meow of protest as she found herself getting stuck in a hug so she decided to jump down off the couch.

Once Rain had jumped down, Liz leaned into him, wrapping her arms around him and leaned into his chest. She let out a laugh that was more from nervous relief than anything, she was blaming that on the roller coaster of emotions of the last few days.

“It seemed unlikely but they got through it,” she added softly with a small shy smile.

Prompto was definitely going to have to make it up to Rain later! But that laugh, nerves or otherwise, made it entirely worth it. Prompto smiled a little, his own body relaxing in its relief, giving Liz a squeeze before planting a kiss on the top of her head.

"Yeah, they did," he said, and was just going to hold that moment and enjoy it.

Liz didn’t really have anything to add, she let out a murmur of contentment when Prompto placed the kiss on her head and she didn’t want the moment to stop either, so she just continued to have her arms wrapped around him and have her head rest against his chest.

Prompto never had been good at still and quiet, even in the best of times, so it was kind of impressive, that he was able to just hold onto that moment for as long as he had. But even if the fidgeting didn't start to take over, the multitude of thoughts swirling in his head now became louder in the quiet.

"I think," he said softly, eventually, when he knew he'd have to sacrifice either the stillness or the quiet and decided to go with the latter, and there was a sigh in there from him, "you should go to that Thanksgiving thing. Back home. I...I know it won't be easy, but....people like us...we have to hold onto the friends we manage to get. And who know? You might regret it if you don't...."

And that was definitely coming from a place of his own regrets.

Liz trembled against
Prompto but she took a deep breath to steady herself and lifted her head to look up at him, “okay,” she said finally, softly, “I’ll go …I mean it’s just for a few days right? Um…” her voice trailed off.

Part of her was tempted to ask him to come with her but she was pretty sure that it was way to soon in their relationship to bring him home with her, she should probably clear it with Professor Bruttenholm first and then there was that tiny matter of Prompto meeting Hellboy and …she was pretty sure he was already way to anxious at the idea of her being friends with him than what would happen if he suddenly met him in person.

Prompto waited a moment, feeling like that um was meant to lead into something more, but when that didn't seem to come...

"Just a few days," he agreed. "Besides, you...you've got to miss them, right? Your friends?"

Even if things were probably a little awkward between them at the moment.

He almost thought of offering to go with her, for support, but if that wasn't the most presumptuous thing ever, he didn't know what would be! Plus, he definitely did not relish the idea of being face to face with her actual straight-up daemon friend. If this whole thing between them got any traction, he supposed he'd have to, sooner or later, but that was not an encounter he was looking to just rush into!

“Yeah, I do,” she said softly, looking down at his chest and then back up at him, hesitating again before she finally took the plunge, “if…if I got it cleared with Professor Broom, um you don’t have to …I know this is very sudden …would …you consider coming with me? I mean if you didn’t already have plans that is …I mean…” it came out in a nervous rush.

"I don't have any plans," said Prompto, quickly, maybe a little too quickly, but he didn't want to give himself any room to start second-guessing and self-doubting and backing out. Just the fact that it almost felt as if he'd read his mind...he let out a soft laugh. "I don't even celebrate this thing. Ignis'll probably throw something together just because it's a food thing, but it's fine. I'm sure there'll be leftovers."

Liz had half expected a refusal because this was all so new and she wasn’t sure if this was rushing things so she gave a nervous laugh, “oh um…I’d really appreciate it if you could …um I’ll clear it with Professor Broom, it shouldn’t be a problem but well it is supposed to be a secret government agency I’m sure they’d like the heads up I’m bringing a guy home,” it all came out in a nervous excited babble and she wasn’t sure if Prompto followed any of that - then she was definitely going to have to give Hellboy the “I really like him please don’t give him a nervous breakdown” warning.

Oh, Hellboy's mere existence was going to give Prompto a nervous breakdown regardless, but, thankfully, he was a verifiable expert in keeping all that healthily bottled up inside on lockdown.

But the whole prospect of needing approval (understandably so, all things considered) and the easy out that would come with possibly not getting it helped stave off any such breakdowns for the time being, and he chuckled a little.

"I mean," he offered, "I am an elite member of an actual alien military force. That's got to earn me some kind of ambassador credentials, or something, right?"

He had no idea of that was how any of this worked, but maybe?

“I’ll definitely make sure sure to mention that,” she beamed and laughed, “I know Professor Broom will love to meet you,” also there was the fact that Prompto was the first person Liz had ever brought home with her …he was definitely going to be curious about that.

“Also …um,” she hesitated, “remember my friend Abe, who’s psychic? He can be kind of intense and he may start telling you facts about you and I’ll try to warn him not to do it but sometimes he can’t help it, it’s just natural to him that he knows stuff about people he meets,” she knew based on their conversation how that would be more than unsettling to Prompto, she felt it was only fair to warn him.

"Uhhhhh..."

Damn. Had Liz mentioned a psychic friend? Prompto tried to remember, all he could recall was focusing on the amphibious part, so it probably, unfortunately, slipped right under his radar, and he was glad for how they were positioned right now so that Liz couldn't see the dread draining his face right now.

But at least he didn't have to worry about the clone stuff coming out as a surprise to her now! And maybe this Abe guy would take one look at the absolute mess of jumbled thoughts that was Prompto's brain and promptly nope the hell right out of there!

Like, seriously. Good luck in there, buddy!

"...sure," he finally managed, hoping it sounded more casual than it felt. "Yeah. Of course. I'll...try and remember that..."

Which meant he was now likely just going to get hit with an obsessive wall of Prompto reminding himself remember this guy's psychic, don't think any embarrassing thoughts. Don't think any embarrassing thoughts...

Which would, naturally, just usher in a flood of said embarrassing thoughts.

Yaaaaay.

Liz had half expected Promoto to back out so the fact he hadn’t was rather a relief. She had no idea about the narrative struggle right now or she’d feel rather bad about mentioning Abe.

“I…I think that’s everything other than …” her voice trailed off, she knew Hellboy freaked him out so she tried not to mention the elephant in the room and instead decided to try and focus on something that hopefully wouldn’t stress him out about this visit, “you can meet all the cats,” she told him with a smile. “Rain can visit her brothers and sisters as well,”

Yup. That'll do it.

"Oh, hey, that's right!" Liz could probably feel Prompto brightening up at that. "I forgot about all the cats!"

Did you want him to spend the whole time clinging to cats, Liz? Because that was definitely how you got him to spend the whole time clinging to cats.

Or as much time as he could manage.

“Well there are 20 of them,” she grinned at Prompto’s reaction, hopefully Hellboy would not mind that he was probably going to lose access to his cats for a few days, “and there are so many different kinds as well,” she added, “they’re not all tabby’s like Rain is,”

Liz's Apartment Above the Photo Hut - Saturday Afternoon

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