Gladiolus Amicitia

The day had started out like any other. The pinging of Ignis' phone alarm. The snuggle of Prompto because that kid turned out to be a snuggler at night and always tried to hide it in the morning. The grumbling from Noct. Breakfast. Clean up. Deciding what to do.

Today turned out to be a day for a hunt. Good. Gladio itched for a fight today and a hunt mean a fight and gil, even if the latter was the more necessary right now. Those damn energy drinks for Noct to turn into potions were annoyingly expensive; thank the Six they were popular enough to be absolutely everywhere even if the blasted things were pricey.

The hunt itself proved to be surprisingly elusive, though. Most of the afternoon was spent in just trying to track down the beast, perched on the backs of their chocobos with maps pulled out and a lot of cursing because this place proved to be a bit of a maze of canyons cut into the rock. Eventually, they found it, though, and Gladio had to admit... this wasn't going to be easy.

It was almost like a giant scorpion, except it had paws and a sort-of-face like a lion and it was furred. The tipster had called it a Chimera; Gladio called it ugly. By the end of the long, damn difficult fight, he had called it several far less appropriate names. It had managed to put the hurt on all of them, but only Gladio had taken a blow from its glowing tail, stabbing right into the muscle of his left arm. One of those expensive potions had taken care of that, or so they thought, and they had gone back to camp stinking, exhausted, and ready to just get some food in their stomachs and pass out.

But as they finally saw camp in the distance, Gladio was surprised at how the heat of the day was clinging to him because he felt even more sticky-sweaty under the leather. Fuck. Last thing he needed right now was to have to air-dry his fatigues, but he probably wasn't going to have a choice.

Little did he know.