*brushes away dust and cobwebs* hey, everyone! It's been exactly eight months since I last posted but I found this pretty-much-finished chapter in my documents, cleaned it up and here it is!

I'm a little rusty, I haven't gotten much writing done in these eight months - depression is a bitch, especially undiagnosed, and I lacked both energy and motivation, but this still tickled my brain when I reread and edited it, so I hope it brings you some joy as well.

Enjoy!


Gladio woke with the sun.

It was convenient. He never had to set an alarm, which came in handy now that they were all glued together day and night. Noct might actually try to kill him if he subjected him to an alarm at five in the morning every day. Not that it wouldn't be funny to watch, but even Gladio knew that would be a little too mean.

He sat up, cracked his neck, and rubbed at his arms. It was a little chilly in the tent still, but with how hot it got during the day in this region, he knew to appreciate the cool morning air as long as it lasted.

Grabbing his phone and his sweatpants, he crawled out of the tent, careful as to not bump into the others.

Today, he was even earlier than usual since they had gone to bed when it had barely been dark out last night. It was only just starting to get light outside; the birds were already singing even though the sun wasn't up yet. Ignis would get up in a bit, but for now, even he was still sleeping soundly.

He hopped off the haven and started stretching, taking care to go through all the exercises properly. He didn't do them every day now, not like he used to back at the Citadel. Between cave crawling and spending hours and hours in a car, sometimes there just wasn't enough time and energy left to do stretching exercises. He didn't have to worry about getting out of shape, at least; all that running around and wrestling the local wildlife made sure of that.

When he finished up, he considered if he should do some calisthenics exercises or go for a run, but they did their fair share of running anyway, so he ended up deciding on the calisthenics like he did most days, now.

Turning to get his water bottle from the haven before he continues with his exercises, he froze on the spot.

On the horizon behind the tent, he stared right at what was sure to become one of the most beautiful sunrises he had ever seen in his life.

Wasting no time, he marched towards the tent, pulled the flap open to crawl inside, and went to shake Prompto's shoulder.

"Mmmwhat?" Prompto mumbled, still half asleep.

Gladio shook him again, more insistently this time. With his other hand, he fished Prompto's camera from his bag. "C'mon out, kid. Quietly, don't wake the others."

Prompto, too sleepy to question him, clumsily crawled after him. Gladio almost felt bad for dragging him out of bed like that, but the pictures he'd get to take would more than make up for it.

He grabbed Prompto by the hand and pulled him up. "You might like this," he said and physically turned Prompto towards the sunrise.

Blinking a few times then squinting against the sun, Prompto gasped. "Oh!"

"Beautiful, huh?"

"Uh, yeah! Hang on, I need to get my-"

"Way ahead of ya," Gladio announced and pressed the camera into Prompto's hand. "There you go."

Prompto immediately got to work, completely immersed as the light changed almost by the second. After a few minutes and several hundred pictures later, Gladio actually started fearing for the camera's memory card, but Prompto wasn't looking like he was about to stop anytime soon.

Gladio left him be and went to do his exercises a few meters away.

By the time the sun was up and the colours had disappeared from the sky, Gladio was done with his exercises and joined Prompto on the edge of the haven.

"Can I see?"

Prompto looked up at him, surprised. "Uh, sure, if you want? I mean. I was gonna show them tonight by the campfire anyway, but you can get an exclusive early look."

"Bring 'em." Gladio sat down, leaning in to get a closer look at the camera.

The pictures were beautiful. It was hard to do the real thing justice if you had seen it just minutes before, but Prompto managed just fine. He'd always taken pretty good pictures, since Gladio had first met him, but the more challenging stuff like capturing moving things or even taking selfies mid-battle had taken some more work. Since their trip had first started, his photos had gotten a lot better, though, and it was safe to say he could probably even make a career out of it if he wanted to.

Prompto clicked through the photos and Gladio made sure to comment on them. He knew Prompto took pride in his photos, but he also knew the kid didn't think they were worth mentioning aside from asking to go visit a panorama spot and sharing the photos of the day. And, yes, maybe they didn't appreciate his photos enough, not verbally, anyway, but Gladio was sure he wasn't the only one who looked forward to going over the day's pictures every night around the campfire. There was something calming about it, some normalcy in their trying journey.

After an insane amount of sunrise pictures, it seemed a new subject had caught Prompto's attention.

"You took pics of me?" Gladio laughed. He wasn't that surprised, Prompto took pictures of them all the time, but man. That sunrise had been right there.

To his credit, Prompto only blushed a little. "Uh, yeah? Not my fault you were posing like a model!"

"I was working out!" Gladio corrected, unable to contain his laughter. "Not my fault I just happen to look like a model."

Prompto rolled his eyes but couldn't hide a grin. "Yeah, the gods substituted the modesty for good looks when they created you."

"Can't have everything," Gladio shrugged and gestured at the camera. "Well? Go on, any more candid shots of me?"

There were, in fact, a few more candid shots of him, with a couple more sunrise pictures peppered in, and a selfie for good measure that Gladio immediately made fun of.

Prompto pushed him away, pouting, but then he said, "Yknow, I was gonna take as many pictures as I could on this trip and then make an album when we got back to Insomnia. Figured it could make a nice wedding gift to Noct. Obviously, that's not gonna happen now, but…"

He trailed off, so Gladio picked up. "You should still make that album. You took some really nice photos on this trip, would be a waste to let them collect dust on a memory card."

Prompto smiled at him. "Yeah. I might make four albums, though. One for each of us. Whatcha think?"

Gladio bumped his shoulder against Prompto's. "Sure, that'd be cool. Might have to make several volumes if you keep going at this rate, though." He reached over and snagged the camera out of Prompto's hands, ignoring the protests and changing the setting to close-up photos.

"Here, let's add another one."

He hauled Prompto against his side and held out his arm, angling the camera so the both of them were in the frame, and snapped a picture.

Satisfied, he handed the camera back to Prompto and stood. "There you go."

Laughing to himself when Prompto yelled after him to compliment his "selfie game", he went to go offer his help with breakfast to Iggy, who had since emerged from the tent,

It was good to hear that, he thought, that his selfie game was decent because he fully intended on taking more of those. He was really, really looking forward to that photo album.


I love Gladio & Prompto brotp, Prompto deserves a big brother and Gladio is perfect for the role.

Yeah, so, on getting up... Noct obviously is the least morning person to have ever existed, which is wholly empathise with. I picture Iggy as an early riser but not necessarily a morning person. He's definitely of the do-not-talk-to-me-until-I-am-caffeinated sort. Gladio and Prompto, on the other hand, I imagine them both to be very obnoxious morning people. They get up early to exercise (ugh) and are in an awfully good mood as soon as they hop out of bed. Prompto is as chipper as always no matter how little sleep he got (in fact, he's even worse when he's running on like three hours of sleep), and Gladio is all about seizing the day and all that stuff. Noct hates them both for it.

Right! I hope you're all doing well, and if you aren't, here's a big hug 3 See you around, hopefully sooner than in eight months, this time!