lifeaftr | Anywhere the struggle is great

Who: Gladio, residents of Isle 1, and anyone else that shows up
What: Guys, GUYS.... shower time
When: Evening of May 8
Where: Just offshore of the Cove on Islet 1
Warnings: Gratuitous use of a wet Gladio

Over the last few days, since arriving really, Gladio has been doing his damnedest to keep track of all the things he needs to do, keeping track of all the projects that need tending to. It really is something of a miracle that they've gotten by for so long with so little.

His very first project is to make tanks for fresh water. There are two and it does not take terribly long to build the actual tanks. Prompto helps him gather wood and in those first few days he has enough animal fat to melt down and protect the wood of the base for the one he means to be an actual storage for drinking water. Both tanks are squares, roughly 4x4 cubes built on the edge of the grassy area that slopes down to the beach so he did not have to build them on frames. The first lined with clay and filled with sea water (for now at least). The second was split in half, the lower compartment for filtered water, the upper awaiting layers he was still working on.

Both had bamboo pipes that fed out, the shower tank already set up so that one could stand at the bottom of the hill, beneath the the output above and... well... shower. Gladio had already moved a few baskets of gravel and stone over so that the area beneath the shower was no longer sand and would not wash away as easily. The bar of soap that had come to him in his knapsack was sitting on a rock he'd dug into the hillside as something of a shelf. Now that everything was assembled it was time to test his work.

The first moment under the spray had him cursing, the water far colder than he'd have liked. Which had him marching back up to the top of the hill, poking around at the violently smoking, extremely hot mound of mud where he was making charcoal to collect a few stones. Makeshift wooden tongs to pick them up, far too hot to handle with his hands, and immediately upon dropping them into the shower tank the water began roiling around the stones, spreading the heat into the water.

"Perfect!" And then he was running back down to the base of the hill to bask under the spray of warm water, leather pants and boots long since cast aside and now his boxers sticking to him but he wasn't quite ready to scandalize anyone yet.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Gladio laughed, swatting at Prompto’s shoulder.

“Erotica? Seriously?!” Okay to be fair some of those books were only barely not erotica. But mostly they involved swooning damsels and white knights. The pump question gets Prompto a look that clearly says he’s not thought through the question, another splash and a bar of soap tossed in his direction.

“First of all a pump needs a source. And metal pipes. I can make a lot of shit but getting metal ore? How the hell are we gonna do that?” The problem is not necessarily making the pump but getting the supplies to do so. But even then he’s not sure he could manage it.

"I don't know... I think the Storyteller mentioned an island with ore on it? Didn't blacksmiths used to heat and pound metal into place or something? Could we do that?"

Basically, he knew very little about that sort of thing and he wanted to believe there was some way they could do it. Pumping water would be waaaay easier.

He snickered lightly under his breath, smacking Gladio's arm with the back of his hand. "And what else would they be? You seemed really into them."

"Dude, it's a lot more complicated than that. This isn't a video game. You can't just take levels in weapon smithing or some shit." Shiva's tits. You're ridiculous Prompto. Okay but if he could find the materials he could probably work out something.

What the hell would he use for a crucible? Hmmm... there's an awful lot of clay-

The look on his face is one Prompto's gotten much more firmly aquainted with this last week. It used to reserved for when he was reading or pitching the tent (or that one time he got roped into assembling new furniture for Noct's apartment) but now has been a near constant state, concentration and planning.

The swat to his arm draws him out of it though and he tousles Prompto's hair in retaliation, tangling up the wet strands. "Well some of 'em were pretty interesting." A cock of one brow, smile settling into a suggestive smirk. "Most of it was harmless though, promise."

This was why he got left in charge of setting plates, not survival. His entire interaction with blacksmithing probably did revolve around video games and perhaps a mention in a textbook. He was a little lazy on the studying side.

"People had to build this stuff a long, long time ago though, right? They had to be able to do it somehow when they were starting out." He just didn't know how. Shaking out his mussed hair, he looked up at Gladio with some naïve hope. "Everything had to start somewhere."

He was right, people were building shit like this a long time ago but that didn't mean Gladio really knew what he was doing beyond some of the basics. (Of course, his idea of basics was very different than most of the others.)

Still he didn't have the heart to tell Prompto that he was almost as clueless on that front, not with the blond looking so very hopeful. "Yeah, you're right. Might take a little time... but we'll figure it out." At least he sounds more confident than he feels on that front.

"Awesome."

He could already feel the water pumping. Shaping metal got him to pause, thinking for a moment.

"...You think there's any snowmobile parts that could be used for stuff? I kind of want to try and mod it for use on the sea or driving over sand, but I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to."

And Gladio just stops, freezes mid-scrub to stare at Prompto as though he just proclaimed his undying allegiance to Cactuar as his new god.

"A snowmobile." He just had to build you idiots a godsdamned shower out of wood and mud and you want a functional snow mobile!?!?

Prompto!

He wasn't sure why Gladio was confused at first, but then, it had been ten years.

"Yeah, I was still on my way back to you guys when I ended up here, and the snowmobile came with." Of course, he didn't know the full details of how he got back to them. "I've been wanting to fix it up because it stopped working, but... It's been like. A long time. I'm not sure I want to take it apart and use the pieces for other stuff, but it might be a better idea than it just sitting there."

"Look I can put some pieces of wood together and make it do a thing but if you're wanting any help fixing that thing up you're on your own." Seriously, he has no idea and once again he's gotta wonder how people can be so concerned with such bizarre things when there's no roof, no fresh water sources...

Priorities, man.

He quirked a brow at him.

"Man, you were saying doing metal work would be hard. I just thought maybe we could do something with the parts we already have. We've got things like springs and exhaust pipes. I'd feel kind of bad taking it apart, but we could."

"Could melt some of it down for arrowheads but beyond that I'm not entirely sure?" So many of the pieces would be so specific he wasn't sure he had any idea how to even begin to repurpose them.

"Is it doing any good just sitting around? At this rate it might well be broken just from disuse." That's a thing that happens with vehicles.

"Was just a thought. It hasn't been doing much of anything. I just... haven't had much time to even try fixing it, much less the equipment to do it. If I had a repair kit maybe I could."

He wasn't Cindy but he could manage.

"At this rate Coco will be big enough to ride before I get to that, though. Hey, you should get a chocobo, too. It'd be a lot easier if we all had them."

"Then we'll have to see about getting you some parts... but-" The suggestion that he get a chocobo surprises him somehow. It hadn't even crossed his mind as a possibility. Owning a chocobo? It was like a myth from the past, something from days that had nearly been forgotten.

"I... don't even know if I'd still remember how to ride."

"It's easy! We had to learn how to ride the first time, after all, and it was no problem."

Even if Prompto had been the least skilled. He loved it anyway.

"We've gotta get a full set of chocobos. It'd be weird riding alone."

Gladio's hardly the best rider but he hasn't even seen a chocobo in nearly 8 years. But the idea of all of them being able to ride along the beach, in the sun, on their own birds... It's enough to make him nod, offering Prompto a wistful kind of smile.

"Yeah... guess we need the full deal." And he slings an arm around Prompto's shoulders in a quick but firm hug.

Anywhere the struggle is great

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