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Gladio
Gladio stepped out of the tent, wrinkling his nose at the horizon when he realized the sun hadn’t risen yet. He’d kind of been hoping the darkness inside of the tent had just been a sign that it was going to rain again, but it looked like he was just doomed to being up early. Great. Maybe he could convince Iggy to part with a can of his Ebony just this once.
He turned away from the view with a greeting already forming on his lips, expecting to see Iggy getting ready to cook breakfast, and paused when he found…nothing. His could feel his shoulders tense in alarm, but before he could get worried enough to even think about waking up Noct and Prompto to go looking for their wayward friend, he caught sight of Iggy sitting on the ground. A half a foot away from one of the chairs they’d left open around the fire the night before, and staring down into an Ebony like he was meditating.
Iggy did not meditate. He acted like he was all calm and collected all the time, but he had about as much patience for it as Gladio did.
Gladio approached his friend slowly, scratching the back of his head when Iggy didn’t even twitch at his approach. The hell was going on? He couldn’t have been attacked by something; the haven kept out anything that would have caused any sort of status effect, and they’d have heard the Niffs even in their sleep. Unless Iggy had left the haven before anyone else had woken up, in which case Gladio was going to fucking kill him.
Gladio nudged Iggy in the side a little harder than was absolutely necessary. Iggy jumped visibly, knocked his can in one direction, actually knocked it onto its side in the other direction when he tried to prevent it from falling over, and finally righted it very carefully.
Then he twisted to the side a little and looked up at Gladio, blinking slowly. “Ah,” he said. “Gladio. You’re awake.”
Gladio snorted. “Yeah, more awake than you are,” he said. He squatted down next to Iggy and picked up the Ebony. “Y’know, it helps if you actually open it.”
Iggy gave him another slow blink, then fixed him with a narrow-eyed scowl. It wasn’t even half as fierce as usual, and Gladio just snickered briefly before he flicked the can open and put it back on the ground in front of him.
With a brief pat on Iggy’s shoulder, Gladio stood up again and stretched. Looked like he was on breakfast duty until the coffee kicked in. He wondered if he could get away with Cup Noodles.
He glanced back towards Iggy, who was once again staring serenely at his Ebony. Nah, better skip the Noodles.
@-`---
Prompto
Prompto scurried out of the tent as fast as he could without waking anybody up, trying to ignore the way he was still shaking. Stupid brain, stupid daemons, stupid dreams; he’d been so comfortable and warm lying in between Noct and Gladio and then he’d finally fallen asleep again and UGH.
He slipped on absolutely nothing as he finally got a foot outside of the tent (stupid sand!), and bit his lip hard as he held back a cry that might have woken somebody up. When he finally dusted himself off and got back to his feet again, he was greeted by Iggy wordlessly staring him down. There was an unopened can of Ebony in his hand.
“G-good morning!” Prompto said, forcing a bright grin onto his face and hiding his still-shaking hands behind his back. If he pretended he was in a good mood, nobody would notice something was wrong, right? It’d worked well enough so far.
“You’re up already?” Iggy replied, a bit of a sour note in his voice. After a beat he added, “Good morning.”
“Oh, yeah, just couldn’t sleep, y’know?” Prompto nodded fiercely. His smile was starting to hurt his cheeks. “D’you need any help with breakfast? I can—”
“No,” Iggy said way too sharply, and Prompto couldn’t stop his flinch, smile falling a little even though he tried to keep it up. Iggy took a deep breath and looked down at his Ebony, pushing the tab to open it. Prompto jumped at the pop. “I don’t need your help, Prompto. You just—why don’t you sit down?”
Iggy abruptly strode off, and Prompto finally let his smile fall entirely so he could worry at his bottom lip instead. He knew what Iggy had been about to say, and it was…it was fine, usually, it was fine because Prompto thought it about himself often enough because it was true, but that didn’t mean anyone had to actually say it! Rude!
Instead of sitting down to talk at Iggy to distract himself, he slinked off to the edge of the haven and waited for someone to get him for breakfast.
@-`---
Noct
Noct sat up and sighed. That same damn nightmare. Again. It hardly even bothered him at this point, really, he was just…tired.
He still wouldn’t be getting back to sleep though.
He crawled out from under the blanket and tiptoed out of the tent, wrinkling his nose when he had to step around all three of his friends. Not even Specs was awake. What a waste of a night.
The sun wasn’t even pretending to rise yet. He glared at the dark sky, sulked over to the firepit, and threw himself into his usual chair. It was still a bit chilly this early in the morning, so he curled into a ball to warm himself up a little. He should’ve brought the blanket with him, but no way he was going back for it now. This was fine. It couldn’t be that long until the sun rose, right?
Wrong.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had to wait for something without Iggy keeping him company. He shifted restlessly, trying to make the time pass faster, but every time he got more comfortable the chill creeped in on his bare arms again, and he scowled and curled back in on himself. Mornings were the worst. This was why he slept through them. Next time he was just staying in the tent; he didn’t care if it did wake up Prompto.
“Are you alright, Highness?”
The voice made Noct jump, and he almost tipped the chair over as he flailed in surprise. He looked up at Iggy, prepared to make a wise comment about how he shouldn’t scare his king, but the words died on his tongue.
Iggy must have realized halfway through getting dressed that Noct had already left the tent, because he hadn’t even started buttoning up his shirt yet and his unbelted pants had slid down just enough to make Noct’s mouth feel sandier than the desert. He wrenched his gaze up to Iggy’s face, and was greeted with sharp eyes that crinkled in concern. Iggy leaned forward, one bare hand reaching for Noct’s forehead.
Noct made a high-pitched noise of surprise and jerked away from him. His chair unbalanced and dunked him backwards, then to add insult to injury it folded in on itself. Noct’s face burned as he wriggled out of the stupid thing and Iggy’s relaxed chuckles filled the air.
“Not funny,” he snapped, kicking the chair off of his leg.
“Terribly sorry,” Iggy said, his voice so dry it might have been a real apology. Noct didn’t believe it for a second. When Iggy reached down to help him up, Noct took the offered hand with a grudging shrug of thanks.
Then Iggy started patting the dirt off Noct’s clothes, still smiling so gently, and his hair was still mussed from sleep and his pants had slid down even further and—
Stupid. Noct finally brushed Iggy’s hands away from him, glad he’d already been blushing, and stubbornly ignored the dirt that was left. Iggy just sighed and picked one last something out of Noct’s hair before he stepped back.
“I suppose you weren’t as awake as I’d assumed,” he said.
“I was,” Noct said, gesturing widely at nothing. He couldn’t hold back a scowl. “Just…nightmare.”
Iggy’s smile fell. He lifted a hand as if he was going to reach for Noct again, but changed his mind at the last second and started buttoning up his shirt instead. He frowned into space as he did, and Noct waited uncomfortably for him to speak again.
“I’ll make a pot of coffee,” he said finally. He pushed his hair back like he was trying to style it through sheer will, and his eyes stared through Noct’s soul. Noct’s stupid stomach did a worrying little somersault. “You like that better than the Ebony.”
“Uh, yeah,” Noct said, inching discretely towards the tent. “I-I’ll just go get dressed?”
He did not bolt for the tent. That wouldn’t be regal or whatever, and anyway he wasn’t scared of Specs he was just…cold. Yeah. He was still chilly and wanted to get changed.
“Stupid,” he grumbled to himself, sinking down onto his bedroll next to Prompto. “Stupid, stupid, stupid—”
“Mmm, Noct?” Prompto asked sleepily, twisting away from his huddle under Gladio’s arm. “You ‘kay?”
Noct sighed. “I’m fine. Go back to sleep, Prom.”
“M’kay.” Prompto turned away, nudging Gladio’s arm into a more comfortable position and instantly falling asleep again. Gladio grunted but didn’t wake up. That was good. That was great. Noct kind of wanted to keep this Iggy to himself anyway.