Just Launch Me Into The Freaking Sun Already

[Pippi]

Dean didn’t say anything for a little bit, pondering how to best go about this, how to phrase everything properly and… diplomatically. He wished his order was in front of him right now, just so that he’d have something to occupy his hands, rather than just having them rest awkwardly on the table in front of him.

“I guess they are, huh?”

He wasn’t particularly enthused about the trip location, really. The trip itself he was definitely hype for, one last hoorah for most of them, a catchup after the catchup that was the party, one where most people wouldn’t be wasted and shirtless. He’d just never really considered what he’d might wanna do for fun in D.C., he supposed; right now, it was just the place where the trip was happening. The hotel held more of an allure to him currently.

“I guess I don’t have any plans for the trip, really,” Dean said, scratching the back of his head again. “Like, I’m still going; it should be fun, and I’m not one to pass up a good time. I’m just more of a ‘fly by the seat of my pants’ kinda guy, y’know?”

Now, as for prom…

“I’ve got a couple of idea, like, floating up in the air for prom, but nothing concrete just yet.”

That was a completely different beast entirely.

[backslash]

"Yeah, I can imagine," Siyanda said with amusement when Dean described himself as preferring to fly by the seat of his pants. He was exactly the sort of carefree person who would find that enjoyable rather than stressful. Siyanda liked to have at least a vague idea of what ze was doing most of the time, but ze couldn't deny that there was something appealing about the idea of just winging something. It was just that most of what ze had to deal with was too important to risk winging.

"Prom though is... something." Siyanda flicked a stray strand of hair out of zir face. Prom was altogether less appealing than the trip. Everyone who had bothered mentioning it directly to zem seemed to assume that ze was going, but ze hadn't made any plans for it. No idea what to wear, what to do beforehand, what to do once there. After was pretty easily taken care of; that seemed like a "go home, shower, go to bed, and never think about this again" kind of itinerary.

"I guess I didn't think about it much until it was almost here." Or rather, ze had tried not to think about it much. There had certainly been enough people running around and going on about it and what they were wearing and who they were asking. There was nobody for Siyanda to ask, and ze very much doubted there was anyone who wanted to ask zem. Dean probably didn't have those kinds of problems.

[Pippi]

“Truth be told, neither did I.”

It was true, honestly. Out of the two ‘End Of Year Big Shindigs’ involving his class, Dean had been paying much more attention to Swiftball than to prom. It was much more his sort of thing, after all, a big, raucous house party. A time to properly hang out and relax and have fun. Prom would probably be enjoyable too, but in a much different way, and there was a lot more hidden pressure in regards to it, pressure that just kept him ever so delicately on his toes constantly. It was expected, almost socially required to come to prom with a date, after all.

Plus, he doubted any of the teachers or chaperones at prom would take kindly to him smoking there, and rolling a join in the bathroom wasn’t his style at all.

“It was always in the back of my mind as something that I’d have to worry about later, and then… later happened, and, whoops, I’d done jack about it.”

He grinned, and chuckled, and then tapped his fingers absentmindedly against his prosthetic, mind drifting somewhere else. He could jump up and grab hold of one of those ideas, floating just out of each, brushing against his finger tips, put it into motion right this moment.

“You know, uh… I was thinking…”

Ah, why not. Bite the bullet. It’d be worth it.

“I was wondering whether you wanted to go to prom with me?”

[backslash]

Irony, you bitch.

It was suddenly a good thing that their food hadn't arrived, because if Siyanda had been eating or drinking anything at that moment, ze probably would have choked on it. Handling Dean's sudden question by straight up dying in response wasn't how ze wanted to be remembered.

So! Apparently this was a date after all! That still begged the question of who exactly had been asking whom to begin with, which Siyanda kept getting stuck on for no apparent reason.

It was kind of moot what with the... actually getting asked out for real all of a sudden now.

"Um." Right, right, okay, words.

"I don't- I mean, that would-" Be fun? Would it be fun? Ze had just been thinking about how prom didn't sound like very much fun at all, but saying so to Dean's face when apparently this was a whole thing now didn't seem like the best course of action. It'd end this entire day on an unbearably awkward note, and probably ruin any chance of the two of them seeing or talking to each other again without said awkwardness, and ze was wasting time just sitting here and sputtering instead of actually answering.

If there hadn't been a table between them, Siyanda might have just punched Dean right in the face out of sheer panic.

Just getting up and running out was also an appealing option, but ze hadn't paid for the food yet. Fuck.

"...I'm not saying no," Siyanda said, when ze realized once again that too much time had passed without a proper response. "Just, um, give me a minute to think of actual words?"

[Pippi]

Yeah, pushing the table away and running out of the coffee shop and diving headfirst into the nearest hole in the ground seemed like a really inviting course of action right about now.

He’d been doing his best to keep away from the panic stations, but right now felt like the perfect time to slap the alarm and let his mind run away with his thoughts, allowing the havoc and chaos to happen around him. Had he waited too long to ask the question? Or not long enough? Or was just asking the question a terrible, awful idea in the first place?

From Siyanda’s reaction, Dean was pretty sure they’d assumed this was just a meetup at the coffee shop between friends, and, well. Fuck. That was what he was good at. That was what was in his wheelhouse, not… asking people to prom. And stuff. He should have just kept it at that, rather than taking Siyanda off guard and making them freak out.

He was considering just how far he could run away before the waitress realised he hadn’t paid his bill, when he actually paid attention to what Siyanda was saying and his heartrate slowed down by just a fraction. Okay. Okay, this wasn’t completely ruined after all. He just needed to act cool, calm and collected again. God, he’d considered this, he knew there was a good chance Siyanda would say ‘no’. He knew that, and he was prepared for that, and, really, he’d be totally happy either way.

So why did he still have so many butterflies in his stomach?

“Yeah, uh, sure, yeah,” Dean managed to fumble out. “No worries, take as long as you need.”

There was a persistent, rapid drumming sound in his ears. It took him a moment to realise it was his fingers tapping against his arm. He quickly stopped, grabbed hold of his prosthetic, and waited.

[backslash]

The waiter, who clearly had a sense of comedic timing, chose that moment to reappear and set their plates down while Siyanda and Dean continued to stare at each other. "Enjoy."

"Uh-huh," Siyanda said to him without even fully processing what he'd said as he walked away again.

"Um," Ze said again, clasping zir hands in front of zir chest for lack of anything else to do with them. "Sorry. I just wasn't expecting... uh, anything. You know, I've never been, uh... you know."

Never been asked out by a guy, never been asked out period, not in any way that wasn't a joke. Never been one-hundred percent certain if ze was into guys, or girls, or anybody. It was a small comfort that at least Dean seemed just as off-guard and panicked as Siyanda did in that moment. Maybe he'd never asked anyone out for real either, despite Siyanda's earlier thoughts.

"So like... for real, though?"

Fuck. That wasn't what ze had wanted to blurt out. Seeming like ze was actually hopeful would be worse than panic if this was going to turn all wrong.

[Pippi]

Dean jolted as his turkey croissant was placed in front of him, suddenly looking a lot less appetising than when Siyanda had described it. Turns out that fretting about whether you’d completely imploded a relationship wasn’t exactly conducive to a casual meal out. He was tempted to take a sip of his coffee, just to give his hands something to do and to clear his suddenly dry throat, but he had this niggling feeling that he’d just end up spilling it everywhere as soon as he picked it up.

Plus, y’know, he was already on edge. Taking a sip of jittery bean juice would only make that worse.

He smiled as encouragingly as he could at Siyanda as they stumbled over their words. He couldn’t blame them for acting the way he was feeling, for a whole host of reasons. He’d kinda dropped the question on them out of the blue, hadn’t he? In fairness, there wasn’t a whole lot of time between now and prom, but until they’d met at Starbucks they hadn’t really talked a whole bunch outside of classes and stuff, and he hadn’t really shown any indication of wanting to go to prom with them until… well, now.

Whatever. Whatever! He’d done it now, he’d asked the question. No use worrying about stuff like that anymore.

Dean managed to restrain a chuckle at Siyanda’s followup question. Seemed like they were still trying to fully come to terms with what they’d been asked. He drummed his fingers against his arm once more before responding.

“Yeah, uh! For real!” he said, smile sheepish and nervous. “For really real. I’ve kinda been mulling it over for a while, since we bumped into each other at Starbucks, really, cause I thought it’d be fun and… I kinda realised that was what I wanted to do more than anything else, so… yeah.”

He shrugged, clearing his throat. Finishing strong there, buddy. Smooth as butter.

“But, hey, uh, it’s totally fine if you don’t wanna, promise! I know it’s a big thing and all, so…”

He fell silent again, fingers subconsciously tapping his prosthetic again.

[backslash]

"It's not that big a deal," Siyanda said, a little too quickly. "I mean, I guess it kind of is. To some people." Ze was certainly making a bigger deal of it right now than expected.

"But, um... sure?" That didn't sound very sure at all. "I mean, sure. Yeah."

There was another pause. "I mean, yeah, I'd like to go with you," Siyanda clarified. "Not yeah to... uh, anything else that you said, I guess." Ze didn't think Dean had even said anything else that needed agreeing with. Wow, this was a trainwreck. A trainwreck that they both seemed miraculously likely to survive, but a wreck all the same.

Siyanda opted to save zirself from any further stumbling by grabbing one of the cut halves of zir sandwich and stuffing it in zir mouth.

[Pippi]

Okay. Okay. Things had… turned out shockingly well. At least, he was pretty sure they had. It was a little hard to parse what Siyanda was actually trying to convey. It sounded positive, although they didn’t sound completely enthralled with the idea, but he couldn’t be entirely sure just yet. He rewound the conversation in his head, watching as Siyanda – in an astounding act of attractiveness – shoved half a sandwich into their mouth.

Okay.

Yeah, definitely, very much a-okay.

A broad grin spread across Dean’s face again, and his fingers stopped tapping against his arm. Hell yeah. Hell fucking yeah! They really had said yes! He guessed the residual lack of enthusiasm was from, well, how taken aback they’d been, and how awkward they’d both acted. Now to just keep on playing it cool and calm, and responding in a manner befitting of that attitude.

“Oh, great, cool, thanks!”

God fucking damnit.

Dean was millimetres away from slamming his face directly into the table, or following Siyanda’s lead and shoving his sandwich into his mouth and maybe hopefully choking on it.

“I mean, uh… that’s great, that’s really great. Fuck, it’s awesome!”

He smiled again at Siyanda, this one sheepish and rueful at the disaster he’d ended up piloting. He took a deep breath, then a deep sigh, and took a deep sip of coffee.

“But, for the record, if you change your mind after… that, then that’s completely fair and I’ll understand entirely.”

At least the mocha did taste really good.

[backslash]

Siyanda almost replied, caught zirself at the last minute, and managed to chew and swallow before ze got to really ruin everything. "I'm not going to change my mind."

Not that the thought hadn't already occurred to zem, but backing out of a prom date you'd agreed to even five seconds ago seemed like the kind of thing that you just didn't do unless you wanted it to follow you for the rest of school, short as that time might be.

"...Sorry," ze said, pushing zir hair back behind zir ears just to have something to do with zir hands besides fumble with food. "I was just surprised. I, uh... wasn't exactly sure if this was a date or not. But it's fine! It's fine. I'm glad it is." That was like, eighty percent true, so it was good enough to be the whole truth.

Honestly, if Siyanda was going to do the whole typical end of high school song and dance, ze could probably do a lot worse than Dean for a prom date. He was nice, and he was attractive in some way that ze was into enough to actually note it. All of that sounded like faint praise at best, but it was hard enough for Siyanda to come up with anything positive to say about a lot of people. Dean currently ranked pretty high.

"Did you have any other plans, or are we both just kind of winging this?"

[Pippi]

Dean kept the smile on his face as he studied Siyanda, holding the coffee cup in his prosthetic hand and resting his chin in his other. His smile shifted from awkward and sheepish back to warm and easygoing, just like it had midway through their conversation, and he felt as though his heart had finally decided to calm down and stop zooming around his chest. Now that they’d both taken a moment to calm down after the initial bomb had been dropped (which, again, his bad), things were going along much more smoothly.

Chalk another one up for his mantra of ‘just letting things happen and seeing how it all turned out’.

“I’ve got a couple of, like, nebulous plans in the back of my mind,” Dean said, pausing to take another sip of his mocha. “But nothing more than that, really. Figured it’d be more fun to play things by ear and take it casual than meticulously planning everything, y’know?”

That wasn’t really true at all, but Dean didn’t really see the need to mention any of it at this juncture. It was all kinda dependent on other things happening, and there was always a chance that Siyanda would change their mind later anyways, which would render the whole thing moot. Best to keep it under wraps for now. Surprises were always more exciting anyways.

He went to pick up his croissant, when a question drifted across his mind, one he’d been meaning to ask Siyanda for a good while now, but that he’d never gotten around to. He jolted at the realisation, and looked at them with a curious look in his eye.

“Oh! I keep meaning to ask, Siyanda, I know you don’t use, like, ‘he’ or ‘she’ for yourself, and I’ve never really figured out what you actually use, and, like… I wanna make sure I’m always being as respectful as possible and stuff, ‘specially if we’re going to prom and… yeah.”

In lieu of finishing his sentence with pretty much anything at all, Dean took another deep sip of his coffee.

[backslash]

Oh. Right, that.

It wasn't something that Siyanda avoided talking about, except it totally kind of was, in that ze had just told a few people and allowed the information to disperse from there because having to stop and explain things that ze was still working out zirself to every single person ze talked to sounded exhausting. After the first little bit, hardly anyone had really asked. That people seemed unbothered or at least not actively malicious about it most of the time was usually enough. It probably also helped that Siyanda was not very approachable at the best of times.

Only now ze was sitting in a cafe booth with Hunter High School's Most Approachable Guy, and he was being all nice and asking questions and shit.

"Right, um. It's 'ze', but honestly a lot of people just use 'they' because they find that confusing and I don't... really... feel like fighting them about it most of the time, so..." Siyanda awkwardly trailed off.

"...I can write it down for you," ze finished lamely.

[Pippi]

‘Ze’, huh? Interesting.

Dean kept his expression neutral, nodding slightly as he took another sip of coffee. Internally, he’d raised his eyebrows at that, but actually doing that in front of Siyanda seemed unnecessarily rude. They weren’t pronouns he’d ever heard of before, though, and they’d taken him by surprise; he really wasn’t up to speed on most LGBT things anyway.

Then again, he’d been happy to use ‘they’ for Siyanda up until this point, something he knew worked as a pronoun mostly through osmosis and from other people around school using it too. Like… that one girl, Zen, they used ‘they’ and stuff, right? Although, wait, fuck, that meant they weren’t a girl, right? That was how it worked, wasn't it?

Ugh, yeah, he definitely had a lot of work to do. But he was happy to put in the effort for it. It was definitely worth doing. It’d probably take him a while, but all it was was swapping one set of pronouns out for another. He could do that, no worries.

“Yeah, I’d appreciate that,” Dean said, putting his cup down with a soft ‘tap’ on the table. “I can keep it noted on my phone or something until I get it memorised. I’ll do my best with it, scout’s honour!”

Dean gave Siyanda a smile, hoping that actions would speak louder than horribly fumbled and stuttered words, before finally picking up his croissant and taking a bite out of it.

“… Man, this is really good.”

[backslash]

Dean stumbled, and Siyanda let him, because at least it wasn't zem doing the stumbling. The order of the day was evidently things not being as much of a disaster as they could have been, so it was probably in zir best interest to not push the envelope too much.

Anyway, food was a lot more interesting than continuing to be introspective. "Right? I wish I came here more often actually, but there's just not a lot of time."

Feeling a little spark of boldness, ze added, "Maybe we could come again sometime?"

[Pippi]

He smiled at zem – there we go, that wasn’t hard at all, was it? – with a mouth full of turkey and croissant, and just about managed to stop himself from replying whilst he was still chewing his sandwich. Nothing said ‘successful conversation’ like spraying your prom date with mashed up food, right?

Luckily, they had both finally cleared the ‘awkwardly stumbling around’ part of this whole thing. Dean swallowed his mouthful, then took another sip of coffee to clear his throat, smiling again at Siyanda as he placed the mug back down on the table.

“Yeah, we definitely should!” Dean enthused. “It’s a real nice place. I’d love to come again with you.”

Man, all that worrying had been for nothing, huh? Things had turned out just fine. Actually, no, they’d all turned out even better than he could have expected.

Dean smiled, and finished off the rest of his coffee.

((Dean Puchero continued in Luster))