Second floor common room- Monday morning

[seriesofbaddecisions]

Sabine only had one class on Monday, and she had just planned on getting some caffeine before having to go, except she walked into the common room to find puppies. Random puppies. Adorable, tiny, fluffy baby puppies.

She didn't know where they came from and obviously they wouldn't be staying, but could anyone blame her if she ignored the caffeine to pick one up and cuddle him? (The answer was no, not unless they were a monster.)


[Snow day! You need puppies, come play.]

Comments

[hashtag_chocobro]

You don't have to do something that makes you uncomfortable.

Prompto almost laughed at that, half sardonic, half nerves, because his whole life had been doing things that made him feel uncomfortable. It was only just recently that he'd finally decide to just run with it and hope to keep up.

"Yeah, I know," he said, that smile managing to find its crookedness, even though it was still a little soft on the edges. "But...I do. Really. Especially if you say Foomy's different, I won't know unless I meet...him?, right? Just, you know, probably not at work."

Now he did laugh, just a little,one more notch on his crooked grin as he leaned in to dramatically whisper, "If the cats saw me like this, I'd never hear the end of it."

[bookbeltof_love]

Her eyes narrowed slightly, as if she heard the things he wasn't saying. And, sure, she had no mind reading powers, but--well, between Vette and him, Nina was going to have her work cut out for her, dealing with two low self-esteem idiots.

Still...

"I guess the cats are pretty important," she said, though her expression was still serious. "But I mean it, Prompto. Only if you want to."

[hashtag_chocobro]

And this one here was a low self-esteem idiot who now felt the need to prove himself more and more with each concession she made.

"And I mean it, too," Prompto said, firmly now, meeting that serious expression on Nina's face with one that almost bordered on defiant, though it was more in defiance of himself that it was toward her. "I want to."

There was a slight pause, though, a crack still there that he couldn't quite cover up.

"Eventually."

[bookbeltof_love]

And Nina didn't want to push him too hard, wanted to give him a break, but she also wanted to challenge that defiance, see how far it ran.

"How about a picture, then?" she suggested. "You don't have to meet Foomy or go anywhere near him. It's just a picture."

It was a compromise that didn't leave her satisfied at all but she wasn't going to drag him to her room to shove him at Foomy. That would be cruel.

[hashtag_chocobro]

See, and the eventually worked nicely as a opportunity to just avoid it forever in the future, and even though it was just a picture, the mere suggestion of it just got Prompto's palms all sweaty again, but it's not like he could turn back on it now.

"Yeah," he said, shrugging a little; it was just a picture, "sure. Let's see him."

Which, he figured, would be good. Because he could either be totally proven right that it was terrifying and crazy that Nina had a daemon for a pet, or it would prove that she was right, and it wasn't terrifying at all, because it was completely different, and in no way related to the daemons at home. Either way, it would be good to know.

[bookbeltof_love]

Eventually was code word for never and Nina hadn't been going to let him get away with that.

She gauged his sincerity for another moment—and, well, it wasn't like Foomy was the sort of thing nightmares were made out of, especially given that Prompto adored cute things, so Nina dug out her phone again.

"Okay," she said, sliding through her pictures, "one picture of Foomy then, coming up."

And she offered him her phone.

Foomy was small, pink with a brown swirl (of peanut butter) through him and a totally unfairly cute face. In the picture, Foomy also happened to have a thimble on his head and looked a bit confused about that, but happily so.

[hashtag_chocobro]

Prompto looked at the phone for a second as if half expecting it to bite him, but he took it from Nina and tilted it toward him.

And blinked. Blinked again and tilted his head, and then Prompto brought the phone closer, narrowing his eyes, wondering if Foomy might be behind the adorable little pink thing.

"That's Foomy?" he asked, almost incredulously.

Holy smokes, just kill him now. There wasn't a hole that existed that was deep enough to bury his shame now.

[bookbeltof_love]

Er. Well. Yes, a bit.

"That's Foomy," Nina agreed, her voice fond. "He was singing a button to sleep when I wandered in here."

Because that was a thing peanut butter jelly demons did.

[hashtag_chocobro]

"Yeah." Just how red was his face just now, he wondered? Had it reached ketchup stage yet? Was there something more red than ketchup stage? That's probably where it was right now. "Daemons are waaaay different here than back home, or else my entire life had been a lie."

He even tried to think about this little tiny drop of cute being a ruthless, insatiable killer that would tear a person limb from limb without a second thought, and just...couldn't. It didn't even have arms to rip other arms off. And he highly doubted it had the kind of teeth that could gnaw into you and bite your head clean off, either.

[bookbeltof_love]

She couldn't help but smile, just a little, and nudged him companionably.

"I mean, like, your entire life has probably not been a lie," since that sort of thing didn't tend to happen outside of the cheesy romances she read, "but look on the bright side: now you can claim you've met a demon and survived!!!!!!!"

Well. 'Met' in the very loosest of terms.

But Nina was pretty sure he'd be willing to physically meet Foomy now that he'd seen him in a picture.

[hashtag_chocobro]

Prompto swayed himself a little more than would be natural at that nudge, breathing out a faint laugh, trying to imagine pulling off that story with Gladio. "Yeah," he said, "I can't wait to tell 'em all about how it nearly smothered me to death with cute, but, somehow, somehow, I pulled through victorious in the end."

How? How was that thing called a daemon? This place made no sense, but, in this case, he was feeling pretty willing to just take it.

[bookbeltof_love]

"And I'm glad you did," she said, before adding, in a more earnest voice, "but, like, are you okay?"

Did she need to go find a nurse? She could do that.

[hashtag_chocobro]

"I am," Prompto assured her, and, this time, it probably was far more convincing, because it was easily far more true. "Perfectly okay. I promise."

Incredibly embarrassed and probably unable to look at her again without wanting to just die from it, sure, but still easily in the margins of okay.

[bookbeltof_love]

Well, it was better than the terror she'd inspired in him earlier. Nina would take it.

"Okay," she said, because she had to trust him, at least a little. "And I'm sorry. I didn't even think that saying something like that might mean something different in other worlds."

And she probably should have, come to think of it.

"Maybe next time, I'll just show Foomy off and tell people what he is after."