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There couldn't have been a better day for the car to break down, thought Prompto, but he was pretty sure nobody would agree with him if he said it out loud. The sun was shining, there was a faint breeze, and the sky was so blue it looked like it was painted on. Prompto was sitting in the Regalia where she was parked—or more accurately, had been pushed—at the Coernix station near Alstor, feet up on the dash as he tilted his head back to look up, one hand shading his eyes. He was holding his camera in the other, on his lap, trying to think of what filter he could use to capture the sky exactly as he saw it. He wondered if the Empire had tech like that yet, but then he thought it would feel kinda shitty to be using the Empire's tech to record their trip. Unless it was like, a subversive thing. Using their inventions against them. But not really against them, because he'd only be using it to take pictures.
He probably would have had more thoughts about this, but he was interrupted by a voice.
“What the hell are you looking so chipper about?”
“Hey Gladio,” he said, removing his hand from his face. Gladio was standing next to the passenger door, arms crossed and scowling down at him. Prompto grinned back. “Noct and Iggy still inside?”
Gladio glanced towards the gas station. “Yeah. His Royal Snottiness is getting chewed out real good.”
“By Cindy? Oh, man. I would let Cindy chew me out any day of the week.”
Gladio snorted. “Uh huh. Keep dreaming.”
“So what's the verdict? We stuck here?”
“Guess so,” said Gladio. “It's too late in the afternoon to get going on the chocobos, and if Cindy drives up from Hammerhead to fix the car, she won't make it til tomorrow.”
“Gotcha. Camper tonight, huh?”
“Yup,” said Gladio.
A silence fell. Gladio was looking in the direction of the gas station, frowning. Prompto tried to think of something to say. It wasn't that he didn't like Gladio or anything, he was just kind of…intimidating, when it was just him. They weren't alone together often, so it hadn't really been a problem, but Prompto always felt vaguely that Gladio disapproved of him. He was smaller. He couldn't fight that well; he always needed bailing out. He joked around too much. He wasn't useful. He wasn't…one of them.
But he had to say something. He couldn’t slip up. “Uh,” he started to say, just as Gladio turned back to him and said, “Hey.”
Their eyes met. They each stopped. Gladio cleared his throat uncomfortably. “You first,” he said.
“Oh, no,” said Prompto, waving his hands. The camera strap slapped against his wrist. “I wasn't gonna…you go.”
Gladio shifted his weight, then gestured shortly at the camera. “Was just gonna ask. Anything good on there today?”
Prompto turned on the camera. He couldn't really remember what kinds of pictures he'd taken today, apart from the half-dozen of the sky he couldn't get to turn out. “Huh, well let's see…”
Gladio leaned over to get a look. A bunch of the sky through various filters—Prompto skipped through those quickly. Then there was a series of pictures taken while they were hunting spiracorns, most notably the one that was a perfect snapshot of Noctis getting kicked directly in the face after flubbing a warpstrike.
Gladio laughed. “Oh, yeah. This one's a keeper.”
“He really wanted to get one of him snapping a horn off,” said Prompto. “For some reason.”
“I was wondering why he was showing off so much,” said Gladio, shaking his head. “Idiot.”
The next photos were more innocuous. One of Noct driving, staring coolly ahead, wind ruffling his hair. One of Ignis and Gladio in the backseat, engaged in discussion, Gladio grinning and Ignis looking fiercely disapproving.
“Ha,” said Gladio. “Nice one.”
“Weren't you guys arguing about cup noodles?” said Prompto.
“Yeah. Iggy's full of shit. Even Cor agrees: cup noodles are awesome.”
“Wait, Cor does? Since when?”
“Since I converted him. When I was doing the trial.”
Prompto tried to imagine Cor the Immortal eating cup noodles. In a spooky cave. “Aww, man! You should have gotten a picture!”
Gladio snorted. “He would've killed me. Plus…you know. That's your job.”
“Uh, yeah, but I wasn't there,” said Prompto.
“Smartass. I mean…I didn't think of it. ‘Cause, you're always doin' it for us.” He shrugged, looking off to the side.
Prompto stared at him. What was he…?
Gladio spoke again. “I mean, I don't get why you take like a thousand a day, but hey. There's always a few worth keeping.”
Prompto finally found his words. “Yeah…it's a real shame you're in so many, huh?”
Gladio paused for a moment, looking at him. Then he burst out laughing. “Yeah, alright, had that coming,” he said. “Let's see the rest of those, wise guy.”
Prompto grinned, feeling strangely relieved. Then he remembered something. “Oh yeah! Gladio!”
“…Yeah?” said Gladio, looking nonplussed.
“I keep forgetting! I was gonna show you the pictures from when we were at the Vesperpool.”
“Oh yeah…eh, I pretty much got the scoop. Iggy filled me in.”
“Yeah, but you should have seen it. Here, look,” Prompto said, scrolling back through the pictures he'd saved. “I'll start at the beginning. This is from when we were just getting there...” He showed Gladio the picture, of thick greenery framing a dark, calm pool, mist swirling across the surface.
“Huh,” said Gladio. “So that's it.”
“Yeah,” said Prompto. The next picture was of the Vesperpool again, closer to the shore, Noct looking out over the water with a pensive expression. Then one of Ignis and Noct tag-teaming a giant crab. Noct riding his chocobo, face frozen in a cry of dismay as his bird charged gleefully into the water for a swim. “This one's my favorite,” said Prompto.
“Figures,” said Gladio, sounding amused.
Then he got to the pictures of the ruins. “Okay, here's where it gets good,” said Prompto. There was a selfie with him on the surface of the ruins. And the next picture was of Aranea.
Gladio leaned forward for a closer look. “So that's what she looks like without the helmet,” he said.
“Aranea? Yeah. She's pretty cool. She was helping us out.”
Gladio was frowning. “Wasn't that Chancellor Izunia guy there?”
Prompto shrugged uneasily. “Yeah…he was waiting for us when we got there. Still don't really know what his deal is…but he helped?”
“I don't trust him,” said Gladio.
“Yeah, I dunno,” said Prompto. “Anyway…Aranea came down in the ruins with us. I guess it's some ruins from Solheim? Check it out, though, you're not gonna believe this. The lighting was pretty bad, but…” He found the picture he was looking for, showing it to Gladio. It showed the dark gloom of the ruins, the crumbling stone foundations…and above them, casting down the eerie glow of filtered light, the Vesperpool itself above them, suspended by some unknown force.
“Whoa,” said Gladio, letting out a low whistle.
Prompto grinned. “Haha, yes! I knew you'd be impressed!”
“What? Somebody think I wouldn't be?”
“Noct didn't think so.”
Gladio rolled his eyes. “’Course he didn't.”
“Okay, so here's more in the ruins…” Prompto flipped through the photos, most of them poorly lit, but here was one of Aranea spearing a demon, face lit by the glow of Ignis' daggers, cloaked in fire. Here was Aranea looking up at the water above them. Aranea in profile, alert as she led the way through the daemon-infested passageways.
“Somebody's got a fan,” remarked Gladio.
“Hey, I have a perfectly healthy curiosity in—” Prompto started to say, but then he flipped to a photo that was a close-up on Aranea's chest, taken at an opportune moment in battle. “Whoops, haha,” he said, quickly scrolling past it. “I, uh, meant to delete that one.”
“Sure you did,” said Gladio, sarcasm weighing down his voice.
Prompto coughed. “Moving on…” He came to a picture of a bridge collapsing, Ignis in the process of jumping back, Noct's sword thrown vainly in the air over empty space as he attempted to warp to safety. “Ugh, the bridges,” said Prompto. “They kept collapsing and then like, re-building themselves? We had to beat up some daemon to keep going.” He got to a picture of a hulking daemon blocking the way, with a sword as big as the four of them put together. “Yeah, this guy.”
“Looks tough,” said Gladio. He was frowning slightly.
“Yeah, I mean…it was no problem. We had Aranea.”
His frown deepened. “Yeah.”
“Then, finally, when we got to the bottom…did I get a picture of that one? C'mon, c'mon…” Prompto flipped past a bunch of too-dark, blurry pictures, a couple of Aranea, a couple of fighting some daemons, and then… “Oh, yeah! Here we go. This guy.”
“Let me see that,” said Gladio, reaching out to take the camera. He frowned some more as he took in the picture: a gigantic winged creature, multicolored scales shimmering in the faint light cast down from above. “This thing's huge.”
“Yeah, you should've seen it! It must have been down there for ages. It really didn't like us getting in its territory.”
“But you beat it,” said Gladio. “With Aranea.”
“She was awesome! We totally would've been dead if she wasn't there. She’s beautiful and deadly. The perfect woman.“
Gladio grunted vaguely and handed the camera back. It occurred to Prompto that he didn’t seem happy. Was it his photography? Was he bored? Or—“Seems like you all managed alright,” he said.
Did he...feel left out? No, maybe not that, but… “Yeah,” said Prompto slowly. “But man. Kinda made me realize how much work you do. Noct really sucks at defending.”
“Yeah?” said Gladio.
“You would not believe the amount of potions we went through. I thought Iggy was gonna pull his hair out! He had to keep reminding Noct not to warp straight into packs of daemons, but you know. Totally didn’t stop him.”
Gladio smiled lopsidedly, looking partly exasperated and partly fond. “Sounds like him alright. Guess that knucklehead still needs somebody to keep him out of trouble, huh.” He glanced towards the station again. “Hell, he needs three.”
Prompto looked at him in surprise. He was being included…? “Y-yeah,” he said, then to cover up his stammer, quickly continued, “Some prince, huh?”
“More like a royal pain in the ass,” said Gladio. “...Speak of the devil.”
And here he came, his royal highness the Prince of Lucis himself—or it was King now?—looking deeply disgruntled as he held his phone to his ear, walking towards them. “Yeah, I know , Cindy, we’ll pay you. What? No, they’ve got stuff here, we’re not going all the way back to—I don’t know, I’m not a freaking mechanic! Yeah, well...look, it can be a rush job, I don’t—“ He winced, holding the phone a couple of inches away from his ear, as on the other end, Prompto could only assume Cindy was tearing into him.
“Still wish it were you?” murmured Gladio.
“Uh, yeah?” said Prompto. “Cindy’s melodious voice, focused on me and me alone? Yes please.”
Gladio shook his head. “Whatever you say.”
Noct reached the car, rolling his eyes at them in what was probably a bid to gain sympathy; Prompto could faintly hear Cindy going off on him, even from here. “Okay—yeah—look—“ he said, struggling vainly to get a word in edgewise.
After a moment of watching this, Gladio sighed and reached out to take the phone from him. “Cindy? Yeah, it’s me. Uh-huh. Sure, I get you. Tomorrow. No problem. We’ll be right here.” He hung up, and handed the phone back to Noct. “Here you go, highness.”
Noct scowled, taking it back. “Yeah, thanks. Ugh, that was the phone call from hell.”
“No fair,” said Prompto, “I wanted to talk to her!”
“You snooze, you lose,” said Gladio. “And you would’ve promised her all our money.”
“Yeah, well, maybe she deserves it!”
“Not unless you want Specs to murder you personally,” said Noct.
Gladio snorted. “Now that’d be a picture worth a million words,” he said.
“Huh?” Noct looked between them.
“Oh, uh, I was just showing Gladio some photos,” said Prompto.
“Any good ones?”
“Great shot of you getting beat up by a horse,” said Gladio.
Noct scowled again, harder. “Whatever. I’m gonna go see what’s taking Ignis so long.” And he was off again, jogging back to the gas station.
“You reckon he told Cindy he ignored the light on the dash for like six hours yesterday?” said Prompto, watching him go.
“Doubt it,” said Gladio. “She would’ve been even madder.”
“The wrath of an angel,” said Prompto, imagining it. Her beautiful voice, climbing louder and louder. Her stepping closer, punctuating her points with heated gestures. Then she’d be close enough to kiss, and she’d lean in and—
“Hey, Prompto,” said Gladio, breaking him out of his reverie. “I got a request.”
“Yeah?” he said.
“Take a picture of her face when she finds out,” he said. “That’ll be one for the books.”
Prompto grinned, holding up his camera. “You picked the right man for the job,” he said.
Gladio punched him on the shoulder, smiling back. “Countin’ on you, Argentum.”
“Yes, sir!”