Chapter Text
Will
What little remained of the short trek after parting ways with his zombie companion was simultaneously the easiest and most difficult thing Will had had to endure in recent memory.
And that was saying a lot, given the intensive training sessions young recruits had to undergo no matter their intended career path in order to ensure a well-rounded and competent selection of future soldiers should the need for one arise. Case in point, his extensive combat knowledge and exemplary skill with a bow despite aiming for employment in the medical field.
That overall ease stemmed in part from the relatively flat nature of terrain which had allowed his feet to walk in an almost aimless direction toward the structure looming in the distance. Even from miles away, it was impossible to miss the way red-tinged sunlight bounced off the sheets of rusted metal and threw their glow back out like a beacon in the deepening black, setting the surrounding trees ablaze and turning the yellow-gold field into one of both fire and smoke.
The difficulty, well. When was leaving something or someone behind ever a simple feat?
It didn’t matter in the slightest that he’d come up with a way to hopefully remain in contact further down the line. The logical part of his brain had shut itself off the moment he was forced to turn his back on the boy and continue the journey on his own, the isochronal rhythm of his boots crunching through dry grass nearly drowned in its entirety by the erratic melody of his heart pulsating through deafened ears.
Because it ached. Even with the promise of ‘for now’ and ‘as soon as I’m able’, goodbye still ached something terrible.
Enough time had passed since then that when did finally dredged up the courage to spare a quick peek over his shoulder in order to assess whether or not his instructions had been heeded, the place they’d last stood together was but a small spec on the horizon. Not even the vaguest shape of a darkened silhouette left to witness his retreat.
Which was good, in a sense. It meant that Nico wasn’t attempting to do something foolish like following him all the way to the gates despite several warnings to the many dangers being seen would incur. It also meant that he was officially alone for the first time in… he honestly couldn’t remember the last instance. Six years, give or take.
As the setting sun slipped further to the west, the evening air grew chilly on his exposed skin, all remaining heat having long since burrowed into the dirt or else floated off into empty space.
Will had reclaimed an old jacket for just such an occasion—the very one they’d discovered hours prior in all its dusty glory—but had since abandoned it in the other's care with the hope to disguise some of the more unnatural aspects of the zombie-esque appearance should one of the sentries happen upon him before their next meeting.
A bit redundant, all things considered, but he had to at least pretend that it would be of some manner of use going forward. If only for his own peace of mind.
“Be careful,” he murmured, blue eyes flicking slowly over Nico's face with the hope to memorize every line and curve should their temporary separation turn disastrously permanent and it was the last he’d ever see of it. “Always leave the hood up. If they notice the color of your skin, they’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”
“I will.”
“Good, because I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I became the reason that you died a second time.”
In truth, anyone caught stalking too close to the wall would be detained for immediate questioning—and that was after they’d already been tested and checked over for signs of possible exposure—so the likelihood of Nico surviving long should he draw attention to himself was slim at best.
The instant Will walked through those gates still relatively unharmed after the others had witnessed him being carried off by a zombie, the entire settlement would go into code red procedures in the offhand chance something else had followed him all the way to their doorstep. Doubled patrol units, hourly perimeter sweeps, guards posted along the top of the wall in every direction—his father had managed to keep their people safe from infection exactly because he didn’t take chances on outsiders.
And not without good reason.
Before the exact method of contamination became obvious, back when the disease was still new and their settlement was less than half the size of the current innermost circle, it wasn't uncommon to find survivors stumbling upon their little sanctuary every so often in search of food and shelter.
Many were sent directly to the infirmary where his mother worked tirelessly as one of their best and brightest medics—providing all manner of procedures from routine wellness checks to procuring balms and remedies for ailments, even going so far as to assist in amputations and surgeries where applicable. But those few without noticeable injury or disability were simply offered a nice hot meal and good night's rest before being put to work the following day.
Despite their abundance of hospitality to the road-weary traveler, very few infected actually ever made it into camp. Those who did were promptly dealt with, bodies incinerated as a general precaution, and only a singular incident was on record to date of one of their people falling victim to an attack from an outside source before it could be contained.
It wasn't until several of their doctors and nurses came down with the same strange and debilitating illness days after treating a group of mixed company that Apollo began turning people away empty-handed if they refused extensive questioning of their previous whereabouts and a hefty two-week quarantine in a locked cell—fearful of a second epidemic taking place within the hallowed walls of his proud city after the first one ravaged his own wife's health to the point of nearly taking her life.
And so, if it wasn’t for the shared DNA coursing through his veins, there was a strong chance that he, too, would find himself with room and board in one of their detention centers for the foreseeable future. Might still, depending on the collective mood his strange resurgence brought about.
Before Will knew it, the sky had grown so dark and the brush so thick he was forced to slow his steady approach, no longer safe to simply amble along without careful consideration for where it was he placed his feet.
The last thing he needed on top of being poked and prodded for half the night was to twist his ankle at the finish line and be left with little option but to crawl the remainder of the way back to the gate—never mind the bed rest he'd be made to endure until it healed lest his sister berate him incessantly for deigning to come home injured after already daring to break all of his other promises.
There’d be enough attention focused his way without adding further blatant stupidity into the mix. And he owed it to Nico to at least attempt hurrying the whole process along.
As he skirted around the edge of a small grove he somewhat recognized from their initial departure, the sound of murmured voices communicating several feet in the distance had him instantly on high alert, hoping beyond hope that he wasn’t about to be gunned down by some new recruit too freaked out by bumps in the night to assess the situation and act accordingly.
The smart thing to do would be to call out. Announce his presence and let them swarm to his location. But his muscles already ached from the journey, and his mind was decidedly elsewhere, the promise of a hot meal and clean bedding enough to erase all doubt as he stumbled into the thicket with enough racket to wake the undead.
“Halt! Who goes there?”
He was exhausted beyond reason, not stupid. When Will found himself bursting through the treeline on the wrong end of several dangerous weapons pointed at some of his more vital areas, he raised his hands up in the universal signal for ‘don’t shoot.’
Many voices sounded all at once.
“We have a live one.”
“Stop where you are.”
“Get down on the ground.”
“Don’t come any closer.”
“On your knees.”
“State your business.”
“I’m not an intruder,” he replied with conviction, halting his step and craning his neck to show them his face. “Several days ago I was separated from my group while on a mission for supplies. The three of them would have most likely rejoined you by now. I was the only one missing at that time. My name is William Solace.”
Silence followed the declaration for so long that he began to question whether it was he’d actually spoken.
It wasn’t until he heard the telltale clank of locks releasing and the low groan of metal scraping against metal that he released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding with a hiss through clenched teeth, dropping his chin back to a more comfortable position as he awaited whatever madness came next.
The gate hadn’t been opened in its entirety when they’d first allowed him leave, nor did it this time for his abrupt return—stopping part way when there was just enough space for a group of soldiers to squeeze between the doors and come meet him out in the otherwise quiet blanket of night.
Bright lights flicked on one-by-one as the men and women approached his position some thirty feet away, most sweeping over his person in search of any noticeable cuts or contusions while the biggest and most blinding of the bunch went directly up to his face.
Will squinted against the onslaught but otherwise held ramrod straight, allowing the group to circle around his person as they assessed the situation from behind the safety of their shields.
Whatever it was they sought must have checked out enough that he was in the clear, because the lights clicked off in tandem a moment later, leaving his vision swimming but no worse for the sudden accost.
Before he knew it, he was being ushered inside to the tune of shouts of surprise and blatant amazement, followed closely thereafter by a slew of rapid-fire questions from several sources that found his already tired brain throbbing that much harder.
There wasn’t any doubt in his mind that they’d all believe at least some small part of his crazy story of survival. Not with how terrible he had to look after days of wearing the same set of recruit-issued clothes and an overall lack of running water with which to cleanse himself properly.
That meant that it was also no surprise to him the very first thing they had him do upon detouring from the main pathway that led to their innermost housing regions and into the facilities where they did most of their basic training was to strip down in his entirety and dispose of said dirt-caked attire straight into a box marked for the incinerator, allowing enough privacy for the time being that he was free to take a long-awaited shower to wash away the many layers of grime and filth.
It wasn’t nearly as hot as the one he was used to at home. The water pressure was abysmal, and his muscles ached far too greatly to really do more than stand beneath the spigot until the last streaks of red-brown sludge swirled down the drain, but it was better than the alternative. He wasn’t too picky about the how so long as it got the job done right.
Hell, he’d have taken a bucket of lukewarm water and a sponge if that was the best they had to offer him, so really, the treatment was far superior to his own bare minimum expectations. Although something told him he was only afforded that much hospitality thanks to who it was the others reported back to.
Once it was deemed he had adequately rinsed his person enough, he was handed a fresh set of cheap scrub-like temporary garments to change into and then escorted down to a makeshift clinic where the medics on standby wasted no time poking, prodding, and monitoring him in several new and surprising ways, the majority of which had been promised to him time and again were vital for ensuring the validity of his claims he was, in fact, not contaminated in the slightest.
In all, it only took their reserve lab techs the better part of a handful of hours to run his blood samples through a series of rigorous testing in order to deem it clean from any signs of the disease. How advanced that system truly was was anyone’s guess, but it had yet to fail them since the beginning of its implementation and thus couldn’t be too far off the mark, as far as he was concerned.
It offered their people peace of mind, if nothing else. Little was more important than that.
His physical alone had already shown his body free from puncture wounds save the large scrape over his left arm, but even that had come back clear of whatever potential microorganisms might otherwise be present had it been one of the zombies who had gotten to him instead. With a free pass to avoid being locked in quarantine no doubt thanks to his father’s status in the community, Will was released into Apollo’s care with few complaints about his overall treatment aside from the unavoidable fact he could barely keep his eyes open due to the lateness of the hour upon his release.
What he wouldn’t give to be able to teleport straight to his bed and forgo the reiteration of his supposed miraculous survival from certain death for the hundredth time around…
His father was unsurprisingly waiting for him just outside the building when a pair of guards guided him through the rusty metal doors, heavy shadows cast under his familiar blue eyes made worse by lack of a proper lightsource but otherwise much the same as the last time he and Will shared their brief goodbyes what felt like eons ago.
The only difference between that day and the current hour was that the man was already dressed down in his much less intimidating civilian attire—honestly a welcomed sight after so much time spent dealing with formality—but it struck him then that there was a very high chance some poor schmuck had to be the one to go and rouse the General from their home once his identity had been confirmed as being that of their newly missing recruit.
Which shouldn’t have made him feel guilty. The news was arguably much better than the first suckerpunch had to have been. But that knowledge didn’t prevent his stomach from cramping up in shame at seeing his father so uncharacteristically thrown together, as if all thoughts of his elevated status flew out the window the moment he’d heard his son’s name.
The two men on either side of his person halted their step when they were still several yards away from the man in question, throwing up a salute that lasted only as long as it took Apollo to close the remainder of the gap to come and join them at the edge of a small clearing.
“At ease, gentlemen,” he began by way of curt greeting, offering up a stiff nod of recognition of their hard work as if they alone were responsible for his return and not Will himself. “Thank you for escorting my son this far, but I’ll take it from here. You may return to your posts for the evening. May it be less chaotic than it has been.”
“Sir.”
It wasn’t until he caught the telltale sound of footsteps retreating into the distance that Will released his own stiffened posture with a quiet sigh, watching as the General before him slipped back into the role of parent with an awkward twitch of the lips.
“Son.”
”Father.”
Nodding his head toward the low-lit path before them, the two fell into step as Apollo’s tone shifted from light and airy to almost accusatory in nature.
“I’ve already been given a briefing about the miraculousness of your return to us unscathed. I am, however, quite curious to know whether or not our first accounts of your disappearance are to be believed any longer. I would hate to have to revoke some of the status awarded to those who fought so bravely should it come to light that the tale they spun was less true than we thought.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Will promised, ducking his head a bit in embarrassment already knowing the situation was even half as bad as it had most likely been recounted to their leaders.
Lord knows what Clarisse had been telling everyone else about his idiotic lapse in judgment ever since they’d returned with their spoils of war. Lou and Cecil would have had his back, but the other was a complete wildcard depending on the situation and how much stretching the truth proved in her favor.
“I don’t really remember much, it all happened so fast, but I’m sure what they told you about what happened was their version of it.”
“And yours?”
Worrying a lip between his teeth, he hesitated only a beat before reiterating the same lie he’d told several curious individuals while first being questioned.
“There was a place that was a weak spot in our accommodations—a small hole in the fence—and I took it upon myself to try and patch it before we were overrun with potential threats. I didn’t notice one of them had already gotten inside, and it cut off my route to the others, so I took a chance hoping I could lead it away before circling back.”
At least that part had been the truth of the matter. What came next was just the best way to explain why his absence had been as lengthy as it was when most sane individuals would have immediately returned to base upon realizing the situation.
It didn’t hurt that it was closer to the actual truth than anything crazier might have been.
“Something tackled me from behind and must’ve knocked me out cold. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the middle of an unfamiliar location, and the creature next to me was lying there dead from a gunshot wound to the head. It was already after dark, so I found shelter elsewhere until we could regroup. By the time I was able to find it again, the location we had become separated was completely surrounded, and I had nothing on my person to use to fight anything off, so I held back and watched for signs of the others. I guess they’d already left by that point, nothing ever came of my espionage. Once I was able, I snuck back inside to grab any supplies I could and then proceeded on toward home. It only took me so long to get here because I stopped more often than inherently necessary to avoid total burnout.”
Apollo listened to the tale with rapt attention, nodding his head once Will had finished as if to say he already knew the answer and simply wanted to verify the validity from the horse’s mouth.
“I would expect nothing less of my best student,” he murmured then, far quieter than expected a response from the head of their impromptu government even as it was directed at his own flesh and blood. With a sound that wasn’t quite a sigh, he stopped walking and turned to face him head on, the ends of his mouth softening just enough that it revealed the kind of man he still chose to be behind closed doors. “And I’m glad that you’re safe. To say that we have been surprised by this turn of events is an understatement, but I would rather a triumphant return at an inconvenient time than the bitter heartache of having to hear my son is lost to us.” Placing a firm hand on his shoulder, his father finally smiled. “You did good, Will. I’m proud of you.”
If he hadn’t already been feeling the crushing weight of guilt bearing down on him, he most certainly would have at that very moment—praised for a feat he hadn’t been competent enough to achieve by his own merit and reminded of how terribly his absence had affected them all.
Keeping Nico a secret was far more important than his wounded pride, though, so he pushed the urge to come clean down until it was almost nonexistent, forcing a smile to his own lips that felt about as fake as the rest of him.
“Thanks, dad.”
“Don’t mention it.” A beat passed, Apollo straightening once more with a sharp clearing of the throat, moving his arms behind his back in a slightly more imposing position better fitting his heightened status. “Right. Your sister will likely be waiting for our return. We shouldn’t keep her longer than is necessary.”
Turning on his heel, he resumed their walk toward town with renewed vigor, utterly oblivious to the fact Will was still rooted to the spot as a fresh wave of dread washed over him.
In his sleep-deprived and slightly agitated state, he had somehow forgotten that the worst part about his abrupt return wouldn’t be the scrutiny of his father and their entire medical team, but the wrath of his baby sister once she had verified his safety with her own eyes and the tearful reunion had a chance to grow sour with betrayal.
The streets were quiet as they passed through the lower district. The houses situated there less than half the size of their own accommodations located deeper toward the center of town.
Many, if not all, of the residents would be fast asleep at that late hour, but he had little doubt as to the type of buzz his return would create for days to come once word trickled in and every one of them began to rejoice in his so-called triumph over the evils of their world.
If they hadn’t been the type of people to shun excess for necessity’s sake, he was nearly positive there’d even be a full-fledged celebration to go along with it. Or at the very least a parade—which was as horrifying as it was embarrassing to imagine in its own right, and he was suddenly thankful for small mercies granted to him in his time of misery.
Living out the lie was bad enough on its own. No need to add an entire party into the mix to make him feel even more like a fraud than he already did with every step they took further away from the truth.
As expected, Kayla was waiting at the kitchen table dressed in her night clothes when they stumbled through the front door not even ten minutes later, head snapping up from where it had been pressed against the side of her cupped hands so hard it left a mark as her eyes pooled with what had to be her second batch of tears that evening.
The girl didn’t make so much as a peep in greeting as she scrambled to her feet and through herself into his arms so fiercely it nearly knocked the both of them over, wetness soaking into the flimsy shirt they’d given him for the walk back at the exact spot her face buried into his shoulder to muffle the worst of her quiet sobs.
“I thought we—” she gasped, fingers curling into the fabric near his shoulder blades with enough force to mar the skin beneath. “And then they came and told us someone had arrived claiming to be you, and I was so scared it was going to end up being some kind of trick and we’d have to lose you all over again.”
Wrapping his arms around her trembling form, he dropped a kiss to the crown of her head, allowing the brief tenderness of a moment he knew wasn’t long to last to blanket him in its warm embrace while it could. “I’m sorry.”
“I just—I couldn’t bring myself to sleep after that. Not until dad came home and I saw for myself whether or not we’d been lied to.”
“It’s okay,” he murmured, rubbing gentle circles in the center of her spine to quell the worst of her anxieties the same way their mother used to when they were small.
At least where Will was concerned, the familiar motion was enough to get his body to release whatever tension he didn’t realize was keeping him wound up so tightly. And from the way his sister appeared to deflate against him the instant he began, the sentiment was shared by her, as well.
“I’m home now. You don’t have to worry any longer.”
Kayla’s stifled sobs soon dwindled back down into smaller hiccups, the slight shake remaining in her shoulders more to do with the way she was struggling to catch her breath while pressed so deeply into his chest he could feel each stuttered exhale blooming outward against his skin than it was her inability to settle once fully pacified.
“I’m going to beat you up later for making me cry like this,” she finally whispered after a long beat of quiet composure, wiping her snotty nose on his sleeve and pulling back just enough that she could gaze up at him with a watery half-smirk, the curve of her eyes so red brimmed and swollen he could hardly see the blue through the tiny gaps in her lashes.
Under any other circ*mstance, he would have played the part he usually did and scowled down at the girl, shoving her away from his person with an over-the-top exclamation of how disgusting she was—but all the action managed to do in that moment was make him grin down fondly, heart so full of familial love it felt ready to burst.
“I missed you, too, little sister,” he promised, sharing his own moment of candor for the sake of repairing some of the damage he’d accidentally unleashed on their relationship in the face of his unintended absence.
As expected, Kayla merely crinkled her nose and stepped away from him with a derisive snort that said she had exposed herself enough for one evening and was trying her best to backtrack a little to save face. “You wish.”
“If you two are quite finished,” Apollo cut in before things could escalate into the kind of boisterous back-and-forth they were better known for most days, tired eyes flashing with his own warm affection for his children’s antics even as his expression turned just this side of stern. “It’s late. Best you head off to bed before you wake the whole neighborhood prematurely.”
The hidden ‘and your mother’ was noted loud and clear, the two ducking a bit in their embarrassment over forgetting themselves in the presence of their more tight-laced father.
With goodnights shared all around and a promise between him and his sister to put a pin in their discussion for a later time, the Solaces turned in for the night to their respective rooms, Will himself nearly half asleep by the time he’d finally managed to tear off his set of borrowed clothes and swapped it in exchange for a more well-worn style before falling bodily onto his mattress and closing his eyes.
As he began to drift off, caught somewhere in the place between light sleep and true wakefulness, the somber mood he’d been managing to keep under wraps while under direct observation returned itself in full force, heart giving a little squeeze in his chest as he thought about Nico and whether he’d made the right choice asking the boy to risk his life for a promise he wasn’t certain he could even keep.
Nico
It had taken Nico all night and well into the early light of dawn the following day to walk the long way around the settlement in order to reach the wall’s northern region, taking extra care to avoid the places Will had warned him not to go where the sentries were at their highest concentration lest it result in his untimely second death and the golden boy’s undue sadness.
Most of the journey had been uneventful, to say the least. The wide expanse of forest he’d detoured through which skirted the south-western edge nearly the exact same style as the one he was already familiar with from his own travels, later giving way to large open fields and tall grasses stretched across the countryside as far as the eye could see further westward along the path.
In the dark, even with his keen vision better equipped to handle the soft milky glow of moonlight painting the ground than that of a normal human’s, there was still little by way of interesting topography to keep him distracted from his wandering thoughts for long. By the time he finally caught sight of the first congregation of buildings that told him he was on the right track and getting warmer, his heart was already heavy with a kind of despondency that sank all the way down to his bones.
Nico missed Will’s presence. Horribly. Like a physical ache in his chest zipping up and down his spine with every slow, deliberate step made that took him further from the place they’d last said their goodbyes. Which was stupid, because even if he did run back as fast as his legs could carry with their slightly stiffened stride, it would still net him in the same exact boat when he showed up and found the spot woefully vacant of all life.
The two hadn’t even been separated for more than twelve hours, by that point, so how he was going to survive an entire week or more when the waves of loneliness creeping up on him were already close to suffocating was beyond him.
Not even exploration of the new area he had yet to familiarize himself with was going to keep the demons at bay for more than the time it took the sun to set all over again. Even less if he was particularly unlucky and found the structures wiped clean of all manner of personal items after the town moved inside the wall for added safety… which was honestly the most logical course of action to take when the threat was still minimal and the owners had more time and means to lug it from one place to the next.
It was a good thing for him he didn’t need the use of his lungs on the regular. If he had, he’d be royally f*cked when the weight of the golden boy’s absence finally caught up with his wayward musings and they collapsed inward beneath the pressure of his sorrow in their shriveled, decrepit state.
The fact that Will’s scent clung to his person from their extended proximity, the hints of dried blood still smeared in places across his hands and shirt after grabbing the injured limb to assess the initial damage, probably didn’t help matters. Smelling him near constantly only made it that much more apparent that he was no longer by Nico’s side. And that if anything should go poorly on either of their ends, most likely never would find the chance to be again.
If it weren’t for the fact it would have been impossible, he would have sworn the knowledge was what made the crisp air of early morning sting like shards of ice as it blew softly across the fields of dead grass and tickled the exposed skin of his face. Almost like the absence of what he attributed to literal sunlight made the emptiness all around him that much harder to bear now that he knew what it was he'd been missing in his life.
After the first few patches of old farmland gave way to a more rural version of a tiny community, growing larger and more clustered together the further out his eyes traveled into the distance, Nico knew that he was close and getting closer. By mid-afternoon, with a little bit of blind luck and continued determination, he’d likely find the place Will spoke of that would some day become their intended meeting site.
Which really shouldn’t have made him antsy given how long he knew he’d be waiting for, and yet, still found himself unable to stop the way his legs moved as if of their own volition, quickening his pace a bit more until just this side of impossibly fast.
According to what they had discussed the evening prior, following the curvature of their wall around to the northernmost side of the encampment would find him smack dab in the center of where they’d once called home. As long as Nico kept to the outskirts of those buildings, placing the town between himself and the dangers of scouts patrolling on high, he could cut through the middle while following these ‘subway tracks’ Will had explained to him ran along its perimeter from west to east until it dead ended right where he would come meet with him once his people had stopped monitoring his every move long enough he could then sneak off.
Which again, could have been anywhere from seven days upwards of infinity. You’d think with the way his body carried him forward as if being dragged by some magnetic force that the promise was closer to ‘soon’ as made little difference.
With the sun slowly beginning to peek over the horizon, the threat of being noticed grew exponentially the longer he took to find shelter somewhere that wasn't smack dab in the middle of an open field.
Not that he was any more invisible cast amidst the backdrop of night blanketing the area, even as he kept the hood up just as promised to help him blend into his surroundings that much easier than without.
Will had told him their patrols started to pick up in their intensity once the first light of dawn kissed the blue-pink sky, and so, by the time it had actually begun to rise in earnest, the pairs of eyes watching the ground for signs of trouble would have more than doubled in number.
It didn’t matter. Nico was good at slipping into shadows, and he doubted anyone patrolling would be looking as far out as the edges of their old city. If their limited human eyesight even reached that distance, to begin with.
The ‘tracks’ he was encouraged to find first and foremost were about as unmistakable as promised, roads made from steel and wood sitting parallel with the small sliver of burning white light attempting to reach higher the later morning became. That, and they were placed in some kind of stone basin, of sorts. The look of which, if fully covered, would definitely resemble a type of makeshift tunnel.
He was almost there.
Getting down was easy enough, climbing over the height of the chain linked wall blocking normal access and vaulting himself into the gully below, landing in a crouch at the edge of the tar-black metal bars running horizontally along the ground with the grace and ease of a true apex predator.
To the left of him was more or less the way he’d come, so he hung a right and hoped it was the correct choice, figuring inevitably he’d notice were it wrong and could then simply turn around and head in the opposite direction without wasting too much precious time.
As luck would have it, he picked well.
It amazed him to no end how dumb others of his kind truly were. And, by contrast, how smart that must have made him seem, the ‘barricade’ in question meant to thwart the undead from getting inside once the tunnel began little more than a series of gates held together with chains locked loosely enough that anyone of sound mind and small stature would find very little trouble slipping their way through undeterred.
There were several, of course. The humans who placed them had gone to more than enough measures to prevent anything accidental turning fatal, but still. What kind of creature was too stupid to figure out following the same general pattern of previous success was all it took to ensure victory? Theirs, apparently.
Before he knew what it was his legs were doing, Nico was out of the sunlight and thrust into the near pitch-black darkness of the strange place, the makeshift road beneath his feet leading him deeper inside as his suddenly blind eyes tried their best to gaze past the initial shock of losing focus in order to view the world around him for what felt like the very first time.
If that wasn't bad enough, on top of being too dark to see where he was going, the room was loud. Louder than the forest had ever been during a stampede of spooked deer, and quite possibly the loudest thing he had endured in recent memory—so much so it nearly hurt the more delicate nature of his eardrums, the careful cadence of every step he took bouncing off of unseen walls and ricocheting past once more as they sought out their escape in either direction.
Despite his inability to distinguish general sensations like hot and cold, the air around him even seemed to weigh more than he was used to, pressing down on all sides to the point he swore he could almost feel its touch caressing his skin with sweat-sticky fingers ghosting along the sides of his neck and face.
From the overpowering scent of mildew and rust that coated thick on his tongue each time he sniffed around to help gather his bearings, he guessed the reason for the strange feeling had something more to do with trapped humidity than anything more nefarious in nature. That didn’t make it any less unpleasant, but it did help to quiet the voice in the back of his mind that screamed he shouldn’t be there and to turn around while he still had the chance.
It wasn’t until he had already traveled so far down the path before him he could no longer look over his shoulder and see even a pinprick of light the way he’d come that it struck him he wasn’t supposed to take the tunnel, in the first place.
Will was going to come to him when it was time to meet. Not the other way around. Continuing on would be in direct violation of his promise to wait where it was safe until the time was right and the chaos they'd caused had died down a bit.
And yet.
There was no denying how badly his soul yearned to continue. To keep pushing onward down that endless tunnel. No matter the risk.
Every step taken was one closer to the person who made his once lonely existence alight with actual purpose again—and though there was danger in doing so, and thought he had sworn to keep out of sight in order to stay alive long enough to see their promise through to fruition, how could he allow himself to waste precious time doing nothing when opportunity was staring him smack dab in the face?
Nico could be sneaky. He’d already done so successfully several times in the past. Enough that he placed the odds at a fifty-fifty rate of making it through unscathed, which weren’t the greatest to bet your life against, but hey, also not the worst, either.
Will had already given him much of what he needed to blend in should anyone find him skulking around the wrong area, and with the threat of something finding its way inside their walls unnoticed much slimmer than catching something wandering around outside of it, even if he did stumble upon the wrong person at the wrong time, the alarm bells wouldn’t sound in the same exact manner. He stood a chance.
And it wasn’t like he couldn’t still turn back once he got out if the path forward became noticeably riskier. What harm could there be in taking a peek to see where he found himself when everything else was said and done?
His heart and mind both on the exact same page for once, Nico continued his march through the darkness with the same sense of determination as before, not really certain if he was going the correct way or whether coming through the opposite was a little more straightforward, but nonetheless happier to explore the tunnel indefinitely if it meant he was one step closer to returning to the golden boy’s side than he'd ever be waiting around for a possibility that wasn't guaranteed to happen.
At least in doing so he was making an attempt at something productive. Better to try and fail than to never have tried from the start. As his father had always attempted to drill into his head from a very young age, di Angelos weren’t quitters. They saw tasks through to completion no matter the cost.
The fact that he didn’t realize he’d once again remembered something crucial about his past was perhaps a testament to how narrow-minded his focus had become, using every last sense that still worked in his favor to navigate the passage as it twisted and turned its way through the earth in a seemingly endless manner.
It didn’t feel like it took all that long to reach the hatch located exactly where Will had promised it would be. If anything, it felt like the initial finding of the tunnel was what had proven the longest hurdle to overcome—but when he pushed it open and crawled through the hole to the opposite side, after turning down another slightly more narrow passage the only possible direction it could go, when he made it to the set of bars garding the exit, the world outside was once again painted the soft pink of imminent dusk.
How he had lost an entire day exploring was of no consequence to him, because through those spaces leading out into the area beyond he could just make out the first signs of bodies meandering about. Which could really only mean one thing.
Nico had made it safely inside both walls without detection. Just a small ways further, and he’d be reunited with Will before he knew it.
Daylight was definitely not the time to go exploring freely, not unless he wanted to be shot on sight, and so he found himself a suitable enough location to sit amidst the dirt-caked stone and waited for the cover of nightfall to blanket the town once more, feeling slightly more ecstatic about the prospects of success with every errant body that gravitated away from his location the darker the sky became.
It wasn’t long before those few who remained behind began to take shelter in the strange little huts lined up several yards away. Pulling open makeshift doors crafted from loose scraps of rusty metal and yellowed straw as they crawled their way inside to escape the worst of the night’s chill.
When he was certain that no one else was around, the residents having long gone quiet and the last set of footsteps dwindling into the distance several minutes prior, Nico pressed against the set of bars blocking his passage to the outside world until there was just enough room for him to squeeze through, taking special care to return them back to their original position so that none would be the wiser the metal grid hadn’t been screwed shut and that access was always as easy as simply lifting them away.
The streets themselves were otherwise quiet as he followed them along to the best of his capability, drawing back on previous conversations they’d had about Will’s home life in order to narrow down the elusive location therein without having to search the labyrinthine design snaking its way through every last available inch of space in vain.
Though he wore his hood up to block the worst of the orange-hued light cast off by the odd street lamp here and there, Nico still did his best to remain amidst the shadows whenever possible, opting for smaller streets and darkened alleyways over areas humans were more likely to congregate en masse.
It wouldn’t do for him to be stopped for any reason. Not even a curt nod shared between two strangers, so he passed the odd straggler still closing up shop for the night with his head cast down, hoping that any peek of greyed skin not fully hidden from sight would most likely be written off as nothing more than a strange trick of the eye instead of the telltale sign one of the undead had actually infiltrated their city without notice.
When the road began to slant in two different directions, branching both up to his left and down lower to his right, he took the leftmost route where the houses at the top were far larger than those below, figuring Will’s comments about the disparity in housing between those with status and those without was more than likely a reflection of his disdain for falling into the former category rather than being stuck in the latter.
But despite how it looked, he didn’t leave everything about finding the golden boy up to chance.
The nose of a zombie was nothing to scoff at. Not when it had already locked in on something pleasant and had to distinguish where said thing had traveled and how likely it was to still find it roaming the area.
Though the scent had been permeating his surroundings to the point of madness ever since the two of them parted ways, he still gave the air around him the occasional cursory sniff in order to detect whether or not something in the immediate vicinity matched the familiar odor he sought enough to prove he was once again on the right track.
The difference between fresh and days old was easy to distinguish between. Colder and more inanimate than what clung heavier on stuff that held with it a recent heartbeat. That was part of the reason his mind had been unable to settle for almost-the-same when it was so very apparent Will’s true scent had long since left his side. Warm sunlight was much preferred to dreary darkness any day.
And so, as Nico worked his way from house to house sniffling and sighing, moving from one place to the next in search of even the faintest trace, it was no surprise to him that he caught a whiff on the breeze when he was nearest the top, following it down further as it wound its way back and forth with drunken finesse through the quiet street until it stopped short of the largest house at the block’s end and took an abrupt detour directly upwards.
There, just above his head once he’d craned his neck back as far as it would go, a second story window sat thrown open wide, the majority of the scent wafting through from somewhere out of sight each time the wind kicked up and brought with it a slight flutter from the white curtains billowing at its entrance.
The only way up he could find was a trellis that stretched the length of the house’s side, grown over in several areas by wisps of ivy that criss-crossed their way over the latticework in sporadic patches all the way up to the roof. Glancing around to ensure nobody was looking, Nico slipped back into shadow and slunk over as quickly and quietly as can be, taking a deep breath in through his nose and letting it out in a small huff from his parted lips with the hope to dispel the worst of his sudden jitteriness.
Testing whether or not it could hold his full weight proved favorable. It wasn’t the most sturdy of paths, the occasional loose board proving difficult until he tried elsewhere, but it would get the job done. And, on the plus side, with every step he took, the scent of all things Will grew in intensity until there was no doubt in his mind that somewhere inside those towering walls the object of his affections was waiting for him.
Once he’d finally reached the edge of the window and his fingers were able to hook over the rough metal in order to access the area beyond, he traded the slow ascent of moving from small gap to small gap in favor of utilizing his core strength to literally pull himself up and shimmy his way to the opposite side, realizing a beat too late he’d misjudged the force necessary to complete the action as his body flopped over the precipice and hit the ground below with a quiet ‘oof’.
There was a moment of dazed silence in which he attempted to catch his bearings, but by the time he finally had, it was already too late.
”Nico?”
If the small gasp hadn’t alerted him to the fact he was no longer alone, the familiar sound of the golden boy’s voice saying his name in an almost choked whisper most assuredly would have, dragging his gaze from where it had been glued to the ceiling tiles above his head as the world tilted ever so slight off its axis down to a pair of not just one, but two sets of startling blue eyes watching him from the doorway of what was, on closer inspection, probably the wrong sibling’s room.
That was honestly the least of his troubles. Because Will had his hand pressed white knuckled over his younger sister’s mouth as the two of them gawked at his person with varying degrees of alarm, the look of abject horror on the smaller Solace’s face the same one he recognized most living humans gave those of his kind.
Before the girl could do something justifiably dangerous like wake the entire neighborhood with screams about undead monsters sneaking in through her window in the dead of night, Nico propped himself up on his elbows and offered the pair a wry quirk of his lips, doing his best to keep his voice less-than-terrifying when he finally worked up the courage and opened his mouth to speak.
”Sorry. I figured the door was a bad idea and this was the only window open.”
