Work Text:
the bananas have gone bad.
it’s a simple thing really. bananas — and all fruit — goes off after a while. most foods do.
prompto is sure that it shouldn’t trigger a breakdown as big as this but, as he comes down the stairs, no usual bounce in his step, he takes one look at his would-be breakfast and goes back to bed.
he doesn’t even like bananas, so he’s not sure why the reaction is so drastic. maybe it’s because things aren’t going the way he planned; not even something as simple as bananas . it sounds so fucking insane when he thinks about it. why weren’t you at school? oh, yeah, my bananas went off and i had a mental breakdown because of it.
gods, he needs to get himself together.
he doesn’t, though. he won’t. he’ll go back to sleep for another hour, another few. if he snuggles deeper into the thick blanket (the only one he has), then he can pretend he has nowhere to be.
his phone buzzes at him sometime later, waking him up again. it only has 14% left because he hadn’t been able to use the school chargers and his own broke long ago. the cheap replacements that he’d managed to afford for a while are ruined after a few weeks anyway, so he gave up wasting his money.
when he finally clears his head enough to look down at his phone, more messages from noctis are coming in. he’s not sure how he missed the first twenty, but he figures sleeping after Not Sleeping for so long is a good enough reason.
all of them read something along the lines of “where r u?????” and “are u dead prom ??”. prompto feels both love and concern at the same time.
“ill” he texts back. he misses off the ‘mentally’. “srry csnt hang out”.
he drops his phone after that, feeling it bounce the bed. a spring digs into his spine. exhausted after a not-even-short conversation. he wonders whether his parents think of him and whether they’d be proud of the mess they’d created. probably not. not like he cares.
maybe someone will come to find him eventually, if noctis is worried enough. he needs to write a note for school and authorise his absence because unauthorised absences are worse than death in the eyes of some teachers. it’s thursday and he can’t move, though. it’ll have to wait. he doesn’t think he can be bothered to get out of bed and forge something right now anyway.
but it’s thursday. he’s got a shift at the crow’s nest coming up and — now that he’s remembering that he actually has a few jobs — he’s realised he forgot his paper round this morning. there’s a decently high chance of him getting fired because no one there really likes prompto, least of all the manager.
so he forces himself to his feet, slowly moving around his room as he finds his discarded uniform. his rooms a mess and he knows he should clean it but he just can’t bring himself to do it. sleeping sounds so much nicer, after all.
work both flies by and drags. at this rate, prompto thinks he could qualify for world’s best zoner-outer. he remembers absolutely none of the experience, but also knows that it was absolutely awful. when he gets home again, he doesn’t even change out of his uniform; just goes straight back to bed, snuggled in warmth.
even though he tries to sleep, something keeps him awake. whether it’s the anxiety or the weird wave of depression, he can’t tell, but he lies there, eyes open wide, no matter what he tries.
he eventually gets up. hyperactivity mixed with depression is a weird mix, resulting in him swinging between two polar opposite moods, both of which making the other worse. coming out of the depression cave means he now has to clean everything, go for fifty runs in the time it takes to do one , and then fix every single problem he has at 3:44 in the morning.
it doesn’t go like that.
he does tidy his room, though. and puts his uniform in the wash, along with the other piles of washing that have grown far too big. it’s a wonder i have any clothes left at all, he thinks, and then he remembers that he doesn’t.
after showering, he changes into a pair of pyjamas, which happen to be the ones he’s worn for the past week. despite that, he feels clean for the first time in years so he considers it a success. he grabs an apple from the fridge, where he’d started to keep them after they kept going off because he wasn’t eating. as he takes a bite from it, he understands that this is what heaven feels like.
he grabs his school bag and sets his homework out in front of him, on the island in the kitchen; his makeshift desk. starting with maths, the easiest, he slowly moves around to the rest of it; history, which was only to fill in a table, and finally lucian, which asks him to answer a few questions on why is pathetic fallacy useful and what’s a soliloquy .
none of it, in his now-4am glory, was particularly hard. it had required a few google searches and a flip back through his book. he wondered why he had struggled in the first place. he shrugs it off, because at least it’s done.
the clock on the oven, once prompto had finished, reads 4:45 am. it’s far too late to go to bed, though he doubts anyone would be awake yet anyway, especially not noctis, so he has no one to talk to.
the washing is done — and makes itself known by the beep! beep! beep! it cries — so he moves it to the dryer and puts the next load on. after that, he finds his running clothes and gets a head start with his run.
it’s nice, feeling the wind burning against his skin as the sun struggles to rise. everything is dark, dangerously so, with only street lights to guide him. nevertheless, it’s perfect. when he gets home, the sky is barely even brighter, because winter is Like That.
when he arrives home, he strips his bed off and places that on a washing pile, too. he just hopes that he has enough energy to put it back on after school again. he remains in his jogging clothes so he can work the paper round — he prays he hasn’t been fired and prepares to grovel for his life.
that also goes successfully. it seems the universe is on his side, if only for a couple of minutes.
prompto’s phone chimes once he gets back home for the second time. as he pulls his plugs out, stuffing them into his back, noctis’ name appears, which is funny because it’s way too early for him to be awake. he quickly opens it up.
[ noctnoct#1549 ] to [ prom#7557 ] u at school today????
[ noctnoct#1549 ] to [ prom#7557 ] u better be :knife emoji: :knife emoji: :knife emoji:
[ noctnoct#1549 ] to [ prom#7557 ] i licherally dont htink i can take another maths lecture without u by my side
[ noctnoct#1549 ] to [ prom#7557 ] also ignis misses u appreciating his cooking he hasnt said anything but i can Tell
[ noctnoct#1549 ] from [ prom#7557 ] dontchu worry!! ur no.1 bff is alive
[ noctnoct#1549 ] from [ prom#7557 ] didya miss me :wink:
[ noctnoct#1549 ] to [ prom#7557 ] yes
[ noctnoct#1549 ] to [ prom#7557 ] so make sure u get there
[ noctnoct#1549 ] to [ prom#7557 ] also u ok to come round after school tonight?? iggy cookin ur fav & politely forced me to bring u
[ noctnoct#1549 ] from [ prom#7557 ] bro i’d drop everything for spicy food
[ noctnoct#1549 ] from [ prom#7557 ] damn RIGHT im free babey!!
maybe, things weren’t going to be so bad at all; even if they suck in the meantime. he does make a mental shopping list, though. bananas.