The Neko and the Sun

Running Away

Nico's POV:

I waited by the tree, waiting for Will to come back. I had hidden my ears and tail again, just in case. I didn't know when someone or something could walk by and see me, a neko. 

While I waited, I wondered who my godly parent could be. I didn't know many, though I did know that whoever I did get, Will would be happy with, which would make me happy.

After a while, Will came back. He now had a light blue backpack on his shoulders. He ran towards me, smiling, and gave me a hand up. I took it and stood. We both ran out of the forest, still holding hands. 

When we got out, I looked around. I realized it had been a while since I've gotten to see the outside world without hiding. I would still have to hide, of course, but... now I had Will. Someone I could trust. Someone who wouldn't abandon me at the hands of selfish assholes at the thought of gaining a few bucks. For the first time in a long time, I felt happy.

I could feel Will looking at me and smiling. I looked up at him and found I was right. 

After a few seconds of just looking at our surrounding area, he started leading me back to the city. I knew we would have to walk quite a bit, but I was used to it. I hoped Will was as well.

~Time Skip Brought to you by Significant Annoyance~

We had walked for a while, maybe a couple hours by now. I was perfectly fine, since I had to run from people a lot without water and rest for a while, before. For Will, I wish I could say the same. He was obviously not used to this kind of workout. Probably since he usually worked in the infirmary. 

He was pretty sweaty, like he ran for two miles, and was quite obviously panting. I love him, but this was kinda pathetic. Isn't he a child of Apollo? Shouldn't he be used to this kind of workout? Shouldn't he be okay in the sun? 

Wait, did I just say I LOVED him?!

I tried to keep a straight (Haha, good joke, Nico) face so Will couldn't see that I was internally screaming and panicking. Apparently, I failed.

"What's wrong?" He asked me. I tried to smile, but apparently failed at that too if his expression meant anything.

"Oh, nothing. I'm fine."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Okay then..." he was obviously not swayed by my outstanding performance. I think I knew why.

"So...how are you holding up?" I asked after a bit of awkward silence.

"Uhm, well, to be honest, I'm kinda tired. Do you mind if we take a small break?" I shook my head, so we sat down. 

"How are you holding up?" He asked while sipping some water from a bottle he had in his backpack. We were in a park on a bench that overlooked the playground. It was pretty late- or early, to say it better, so there was no one there. I think it was about 2 in the morning. Apparently Will shines like a freaking nightlight, so we can see in the dark. It was also summer, so it was lighter at night, and Will had brought a flashlight.

"Me?" He nodded. "Oh, I'm fine."

"Not even a little tired?"

"Well, a tiny bit. But I'm used to it. So I don't really mind."

"You should rest more, Nico. Not resting much is bad for your health."

"Well, it's not like I had a choice back then." I mumbled, looking away. Will looked at me and put his hand over mine.

"Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring back those memories for you."

"It's not your fault..."

"Yeah, it kind of is. Either way, though, my fault or not, I'm here for you. You know that, right?" I nodded hesitantly. He smiled softly. "Alright then. You wanna keep walking?" I nodded again and stood right before he did. He had put the water bottle back into his backpack and made sure it was fully zipped up before standing and continuing to lead the both of us.

While we walked, we did see a couple monsters. Luckily most of them were pretty small and we managed to kill them. A couple of times we saw bigger ones, and had to hide. I was apparently a natural at using a weapon, but I didn't have a lot of training, and Will didn't exactly love training with a sword. Basically, we both pretty much sucked at fighting and didn't take the chance of killing a Manticore. 

Finally, at about seven in the morning, we got to the big city. Will had warned me that the monster sightings would be worse here. There were many more places to hide here, and there are also a lot of people that could be disguised as one, or a crowd could conceal them. Therefore, we had to be extra cautious. 

He led us to a hotel and booked us a room. It wasn't anything fancy, we couldn't afford that. However, it was a place to recharge our batteries and hopefully be safe while doing so. We couldn't sleep while traveling, it was too dangerous. Of course, we could've done the "I keep watch while you sleep", thing, but as I mentioned before, we both suck at fighting. So we could've died while trying that. In the end, we had decided that we would book a room at a cheap hotel and stay the night or morning to sleep. Then we would grab a quick meal, and try to find somewhere that we could get money. A safe job, obviously. We wouldn't do something like stealing or selling drugs. Believe me when I say that I'm done with that stuff.

We got to our room and Will immediately collapsed bed closer to the door. I looked around. It was a small room painted in a sick yellow, with two white beds covered with red blankets. The pillows had white covers as well. There was a small television on a slightly bigger cabinet across from the beds. There was also a small white fridge next to the cabinet, and a small bathroom on the other side of the cabinet. It had the essentials, toilet, shower, sink. The was a small window covered by an ugly red curtain on the far side of the room. To be honest, it was pretty neat considering it was only $65.

I went to the other bed and laid down after making sure the door was locked. Will had dropped his pack to the side of his bed and immediately fell asleep. I didn't fall asleep quite as fast, instead thinking about what we would do next and if we were safe enough to actually sleep in this little hotel room. 

I finally managed to calm down my anxiety (Virgil Sanders get out of Nico's head! I'm sorry I had to say that) and fall asleep.

A/N: Alrighty guys I finally updated! I did not edit this and I also wrote this with barely any sleep so I hope it was okay! I made sure it had a decent amount of words and umm have a nice day/night I suppose! As always, thanks for reading!