revivalproject | [Open] Survival Skill: Level 10

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[Open] Survival Skill: Level 10

WHO: Gladiolus Amicitia, You
WHERE: The Warrens
WHAT: Volcano Event Catch All
WHEN: August 10th to Event End
WARNINGS: N/A

I. Base Camp Set Up | Backdated to August 10th/11th

This? This was something Gladio was frustratingly used to. The end of the world, refugee efforts, trying to help people get settled in and make sure they're okay, it's all something he's unfortunately used to. That had been all that he'd been doing in Lestallum in the start, before Ignis had started them all on an alternate path.

It means that Gladio's really good at this stuff. Good at coming up to someone and carefully moving into take some of the weight of their things with one hand while his fingers pull at the air in that way that he would normally do for a potion. Except in his hand blue light and crystals formed into a bottle of water from the reserves he'd shoved into the Arminger in the past.

"Here," he says, his voice soft. "Take a drink while I hold this. You figured out where you're going to set up yet?"

II. Emotional Support Muscles

Once things are settled... Well, physical things can be settled without the mind and heart being so. Not that Gladio's really the best at knowing what to do to make all of that better. So, a few days in, he contrives something. It's probably silly, but hey, sometimes you need that edge of chuckles, right?

He gets some paper and a marker from someone (he'll have to repay them for this some day), grabs some string from the Lark lady, and writes out his little message. Puts it on a string, hangs it around his chest, and then sits himself down in a common walkway. Now to pass the time, which he does by pulling a book from the Arminger, one he's read several times already but that never stopped him, and got to reading, waiting to see if the sign was taken seriously.

Free Ear to Listen. Or Hugs. Always Free Hugs

III. Workout Through The Stress

When in doubt, lift it out. There was one way to deal with an overwhelming abundance of frustration and all of the other stuff. And for Gladio, there was this. And hey, he probably wasn't the only one that was dealing with things like this. Though he was probably the only one doing his work out completely shirtless with a variety of one handed push-ups, tons of sit ups, and of course squats and lunges.

Dude knows how to take care of his body.

"Hey," he says, between one push-up and the next, "wanna join? As ballast if nothing else?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Messed up could mean a whole array of things, but in this moment, Billy knows what Gladio is talking about. Not his attitude, not his bruised nose, but the massive injuries he had arrived with. It's still a very vivid memory, the situation at the mall. One he hasn't been able to forget about for the few months he's been here and not there.

Trying to get clean here has been an ordeal because of those memories, too.

"Guessing a daemon is just a fancier name for a monster where you're from." The words Gladio tells him don't do much to console him, but that's not what Billy is looking for anyways. It does tell him that even with the nightmares, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Because even if you move past it, sometimes it still reaches out to haunt you.

To remind you.

His feet shift for a moment. More sit ups. Each time he comes up meeting Gladio's dark gaze. What can he say to something like that? Warriors didn't have to put up with the shit he did, did they? Not in the movies. They escaped and saved the day, got the girl and shit. The only escape Billy knows of is death and that's not ideal to him.

"What makes you say that?"

“Daemons are monsters created by the taint of the Starscourge. Life infected, broken down by, and reformed by the Scourge, if the Oracle cannot purify them. And given the last Oracle is dead, well… Things got really bad. On my world it’s been night for nearly a decade, the sky blotted out by the way the Scourge has grown so much that it fills the sky with darkness and blots out all light. Wasn’t as bad as a kid. Now we fight to survive as a species.”

The world is just so… dark. Colder too. Evil things really do like darkness and cold.

“We’re ending it though. And for a decade we’ve fought. It’s hard, it’s hard every day, but we fight and we survive.”

So in Gladio’s world? Well, warriors absolutely had to put up with a lot of the shit Billy had. And they still keep trying.

As for the rest, Gladio is quiet as he considers the boy, as he watches him do the sit ups.

“You’re not in the bottom of a bottle for one thing,” he points out. “Lots of people back home were, until there wasn’t alcohol anymore. And this? Fitness shit? Fighting to be strong enough, to maintain the image of you? That’s a battle not only with your body but with your mind. You choose every day to get up and do the things that make you ready for a fight, or make you fit enough to run when you have to, even though they’re not easy. You do it because they are hard, and because you know you need it.”

Still, he thinks he’s starting to put together an image now. The way the kid is rebuffing the compliment? The way he looked when he got here? Trauma. Battle trauma. PTSD. Gladio knew those things well. Fought with some of his own.

“You get up every day and you look in the mirror and you put yourself to rights. That’s one of the hardest battles there is. Trust me on that. I’ve seen it, heard about it. For over a hundred generations my family has been warriors, guardians, generals. To be an Amicitia is to live by the blade and choose every day to get up and make yourself a weapon against a world that can be cold and callous and cruel. Steel tempered by fire. To recognize good metal, either already shaped into a weapon or ready to be forged. You’re good metal, kid.”

The world that Gladio describes sounds perfect for the Mind Flayer. Cold and dark. Just how it likes things. He hates to think of a world controlled by it or that Vecna thing for ten years when Billy didn't even last a month. The way Gladio talks about fighting it reminds him of Max.

And he knows that Max kept going after he died, because of what she's told him and what the others have said.

At least she's safe now.

On his next up-movement, he stills and relaxes up at his knees. "Tried to do that actually. Got... chased out of the bar," which was a simplistic way of saying Wesker wouldn't let him drink.

The situps get started again. Now he's starting to really break out that sweat, grunting as he goes through the motions. "I get up every day.... because I can. I don't get that when I get home." Which was as close as he was going to get to saying it.

"So a line of generals and guardians and you're just a bodyguard?" Billy's thought process is downgrading the position, thinking of it as just a small military position. Nothing like what Gladio actually did. He pulls the shirt up a little to wipe his brow with the collar.

"I'm not good metal." He wasn't good anything. Unless the term meant that Billy was good at hurting people, because he was really good at doing that he supposes.

Billy wonders briefly if Harrington's cheek is bruised up.

Yeah, that sounds about right. Gladio pities the kid, but he’s young to be drinking. Habits like that take up a whole lifetime and it’s not worth it. Alcohol doesn’t comfort you when you’re hurt. It just pushes the hurt down the road. And sometimes onto other people.

“You’re not the only one I know that’s true for. And it takes a lot of strength to keep doing that,’ Gladio says. He knows, because Noctis is like that. His boyfriend was dead in his version of their world. “Makes it all the more powerful when you get up and live anyway. Makes every day a gift.”

‘Just’ a bodyguard. Gladio laughs. The world is too destroyed for him to be all he is yet. But when they fix it, he’ll be that and more. In ways the kid can’t understand.

“This ink?”

Since the kid isn’t doing the sit ups now he can bring his fingers up to touch the head of the eagle positioned with its beak over his heart.

“It’s the mark of my line. We take it when we’re old enough to swear the vows. I am the Shield of the King before I’m anything else. But that also makes me head of the royal guard. Or I will be, when we save the world and my King takes his throne. Another will lead the Glaive, but in the end, I will be a general. And I’m already the guardian of the most important thing. I’ve trained soldiers in a war that seems to have no end in sight, where we face darkness that can taint us if we aren’t careful. So when I say I know good metal, I do. Sometimes it just hasn’t been shaped right.”

And this kid? He could use some reshaping. Gladio considers and then gets to his feet, holding his hand out for the young man to haul him to his feet.

“You ever consider trying to learn how to use a weapon? I wasn’t armsmaster, but I was expected to master a number of weapon forms so I could know how to face them. Could teach you something. Being able to fight here has its uses.”

If Billy knew, he'd make a remark about how there were a lot of dead people walking in Temba. If he had a nickle for each one, he'd have three. Not a lot, but strange it's three.

"Not really. What am I supposed to do? Go out and kill myself anyways? Speed up the process the aliens are delaying for me?" Billy sounds bitter about that, but quiets with the ink shown off. Then he does look impressed because this guy is a bodyguard to a king. He listens like someone sort of engrossed in a movie, before it's ruined with Gladio bringing up that Billy's good metal.

About to make a bitter remark, there's a hand offered to him. It doesn't feel like a patronizing offer, either. Just... an offer. So he takes it in a hard grip and gets to his feet. Immediately drops it once he's stable.

"No. More of just sort of... punching and hoping it lands."

Shit, those are words that Gladio doesn't even want to hear. The idea of some kid, who could have a life here if he wanted it, choosing to end it? No, that was not something he would accept. Hell, he might be more tender about that than most people, given Noctis.

"How about we see to fixing that? Unless you're sparring for exercise to to take on monsters, the best fight is one you end quickly. Keeps you, and whoever you're against, from taking more than needed."

HE raises his hand to touch one of his two facial scars, the one that cuts down from brow to chin and clearly had once risked the eye it crossed the path of.

"Trust me, I know."

"You. Want to train me." Billy is obviously skeptical of this, immediately thinking of people who would protest such a thing. Would complain of Gladio making an already dangerous teenager worse. But he doesn't walk away from it either, instead watching Gladio touch his facial scars.

His own hand presses at his side for a moment.

"Guess you got that shit protecting your king?" An easy enough assumption to make. It reminds him of his scars because he had been protecting the kids. Or at least, El and Max.

Gladio doesn't answer the first question beyond a smirk. Clearly he was offering that. Seems silly to ask.

"He was just a prince then. Convinced me to take him drinking at a bar a bit further out in the city. Where not everyone is a fan of the throne. Drunk got a bit spirited dissing my charge's father. Didn't realize the kid was the prince. Things escalated, there was a broken bottle, and I did my duty."

Out of love as much as duty.

"The other ones I got for myself to prove I was worthy."

Still skeptical. At least that proves he didn't have a reputation to precede himself to everyone here. But he listens without comment, nodding before stretching over and down to reach his toes.

"That's badass," his voice slightly muffled from his position. Billy thinks about asking for the story behind the others, but figures that could be another day. He straightens back up and shakes out the stretches.

"So you want to train me in hand-to-hand combat? Don't know if I'll be any good at learning," mostly because Billy with older adult men didn't usually work, but what was the worst that could happen? Not much with where he was at now.

"I got lectured for letting him into danger," Gladio answers with a shrug. He should have been more careful. He had learned a lot about being a better protector since then.

"You might be good at it. You might be bad. But I tend to find that people get out of it what they put in. If you're serious about learning, you'll learn."

And that's just how it goes.

"He's a prince, so of course you're gonna get lectured." But he doesn't need a guy like Billy pointing that out. Hell, in Gladio's world, Billy would probably have been the one to start the bar-fight.

"If you're insinuating that I'm going to quit if I'm bad, you've got another thing coming to you, amigo. One of my main hobbies is working out so I've got the chops to learn fighting." Maybe it'd give him a new workout routine while in the city.

If there was a city left to go home to.

Yeah, he's not wrong about that. And Noctis was such a good kid. He hadn't deserved any of that. But yeah, Billy absolutely would have started that. Gladio, of course, had ended it.

But he loves that spirit. It makes him smile.

"I'd like to be proven wrong. Maybe you should. It starts with a run. You into that, kid? Can't sleep leg day."

A lot of people don't deserve what they get, but they still have to try to play with the cards that life dealt them. Billy's trying to change the deck he was given, despite how much of a slog it is.

He doesn't know how to feel about that smile, but keeps that to himself for now.

"Not big into it, unless you count laps for gym class. But I like sports - mostly basketball." And he was aggressive at that, too. "Is there a court in the city? Basketball is good for leg day at least."

"Not that I know of," Gladio admits. But he has to think about it.

"There are rooms in the Civics Center that could be converted. If it's still standing after all of this. Otherwise, no. I don't even know if anyone has a basketball."

"Well then chalk up another tally to why this place is shit," and he even throws his hands up in exacerbation. "I doubt the city is standing still, and I think we're just going to have to live down here for however long the stupid little aliens keep us."

This was bullshit. All of it. And there wasn't any room to make even a little court down here, or anything they could use to make a basketball. "...Fucking hate it here." And the aliens thought that he was a hero? They were invisible and stupid.

"Yeah," Gladio says. "Sounds about how I feel too. Which is why I've been doing my best to work out. The sweating actually helps remove some of the chemicals the body makes out of stress."

And why he desperately wanted to spar someone.

Maybe if he could find that workout place - if it was still standing after all this - he could work some of the stress out. The whole situation with getting here, then trying to get clean for fuck's sake - it was all stressful. Sometimes he just wrapped himself up in his blanket when it was time sleep, like it was a barrier against all the other stress that threatened to plague him.

"Well then teach me how to spar. Or fight with a weapon. Whichever. Don't treat me like I'm a little bitch when you do though."

"Alright then. How about we find an open place where no one is going to assume I'm beating up a kid and we start by teaching you how to throw a proper punch?"

From there they can build upt.

"Fine by me. Just don't cry if I break something of yours," even though Billy knows he's out of his league here. It's easier to keep acting tough in the face of someone obviously tougher. "And if someone thinks I'm beating you up, I'm going to laugh."

Because if a royal guard gets his ass beat up by a teenager, then he deserves to be laughed at. A little. Maybe a couple of good chuckles. "I think I saw some empty areas where I was carving street names into the walls. Over by Landis I think it was."

His task, at least, had given him some sense of direction down here. "...My name's Billy by the way." Because he wasn't sure if he had mentioned it or not earlier.

"If you break something of mine, that isn't my nose, I will find you a cookie for getting through my guard," he answers with a laugh. "And if they think you're beating me up, I can laugh at them for you."

But he gestures for the kid to lead on.

"Good to meet you, Billy."

"Speaking of noses, try not to aim for mine." He taps his cheek by his near-healed nose. The bandage had finally been discarded, and there was still some bruising visible. But it didn't hurt nearly as much as it did when Tae worked on it. He wouldn't have to see her again if it didn't get hit, either.

Billy leads the way, finding the route pretty easily with the marked path of names and street signs he's carved in. He finds an empty, open space by Landis and gestures. "This big enough?"

Yeah, he gets that. Gladio nods.

"Thing is, I'm looking to teach you how to punch well. Which means I'm not exactly punching for you. Or your face."

But he does follow and when they reach the space he nods. Yeah, this looks about right. A lot right. This works for him.

"Alright. First task. Need to see what you're working with. Punch me in the chest."

"Just…setting boundaries." He had been told that phrase months ago, when he first arrived. When Steve found him on the beach all that time ago. He hopes he used that phrase right. It was a new thing, boundaries.

There’s a look of disbelief. "You want me to punch you?" In the chest, but the point still stands. Well, Gladio asked for it. Billy plants his feet and gears up, then sends his hardest punch with his right hand.

"That's healthy," Gladio says, voice approving. There was nothing wrong with boundaries. For now he rolls his shoulders and settles into a ready position.

"Yeah. Can't know what you need to unlearn until I see what you do."

And yeah, he takes the punch. Right to the chest. ANd he absorbs the blow without being pushed back. Because he's got hella good stance.

Was it? Billy didn't know or maybe even understand the healthiness of boundaries. Just that they were important enough to have Steve telling him to respect whatever ones Max set while she was here.

God, he actually misses Max. That's such a weird concept.

When he pulls back from the punch, he looks surprised, even if he's not really. This guy was a bodyguard, of course he could take punches. What was the other title? Shield to the King or some fancy bullshit like that.

Another wind back and he punches again, trying to make this punch harder.

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