Day and Night (Legend)

J U N E

I furrowed my brows suspiciously when the boy ran off to find somewhere to use the bathroom. Shrugging, I looked out the window, looking for any sight of Tess. On any other day, if Tess went somewhere, I'd leave my stuff here and go to the Wing's household or explore, but the boy would have no idea where the hell I went.

My mind wandered off to my brother, and I thought about what he would be doing right now. Setting up some sort of mission with Commander Jameson, maybe. Formulating battle plans or training troops to find me. He could be a doing a number of things, as long as it had to do with the republic.

My brother was still young, and his only friends came from the people who called him "Captain", and as far as I knew, he didn't have a girlfriend. Now, Metias would be 28, each day, growing closer to his 30's, without a wife or kids. I wish he'd have more time to spend for himself, because I fear since I'd been taken away, he'd worked himself half to death.

It wasn't another five minutes until the boy came back, looking quite stressed. I nearly laughed. "Hard time?" 

"Wha-oh." He turned red, making me laugh even more. 

TWO DAYS LATER

It was just passed 0000 hours, and Tess was out like a light. I was fixing to fall asleep, when the boy kicked the wall, groaning in pain. I laughed.

"Oh my god, I woke you up. Sorry." 

"Ah, no worries, I wasn't asleep just yet. Come on, wanna see something cool?" I stood up.

He nodded, so I led him out the plain room. I led him to the backdoor of the old hospital, where it led to the dirty beach next to the murky water. He looked confused until I showed him a sewer pipe, the numbers "00" on it. 

"What's this?" 

"I found it 'while back. I think its where the republic sends out the plague virus-y'know, since it always finds it's ways to the non-gem sectors. The gem sectors don't have these in there-uh, I'm guessing."

The boy stared at it in awe too much to notice my slip up. "Wow." He pressed a hand on it, causing it to make a hissing noise. "Are you sure?"

"Yea,I think so." Then I spotted a bottle by the side of the hospital. "Check it!"

He followed where I went, and I grabbed the bottle of some random alcohol, pulling the cap from the bottle. I held it over in his direction, and he took it uneasily.

He took a small sip from it, scrunching his nose up slightly. He handed it to me, and I took a bigger sip than he did. "So how'd you end up on the streets anyway, parents throw you out?"

"More like the republic did, and I ended up on my own." 

I took another large sip, handing it to him, but he turned it down. I shrugged, taking more sips, trying to drown out the image of my parents and my brother and Thomas. I wanted to forget. All of it. Even if it were only temporary.

"How did you meet Tess, are you guys sisters?"

The logical side of me was telling me to lie, but the drunken side of me was taking control. "Nah. After I failed my trail, I escaped, found her starving to death in an alley, and I saved her. Took awhile for her to warm up to me, she just followed me around for awhile until she started talking to me. Then we started to work as a team from there. She's the closest thing to family that I have."

I stayed quiet for a minute before taking another drink, and saying the first thing that popped into my head. "You're hot." 

"What?" The boy asked, baffled.

I leaned closer to him, his back pressed against the wall, my chest against his. "I said you're hot."

He leaned forward and kissed me, turning me around that way I was the one pressed to the wall. His lips were warm, and tasted like the spray of sea salt. No doubt mine tasted like the terrible alcohol I had drank. 

For a minute we just sat there, two normal teenagers kissing in the alley, not two teenagers running from the Republic. When we pulled apart, I could feel my hair was a mess from where he had tangled his hand in it. I coughed awkwardly. "I should go check on Tess."

"She'll be fine. Don't be such a mother all the time, she needs to feel independent."

I realized he was right. She would never be able to go off on her own if I always babied her like a mother would. Maybe I just wanted to keep her from the fate I was stuck in.

I thought of Metias, and how he would take care of me when I was sick. He'd take off from work, bury me in piles of blankets, feed me chicken noodle soup while telling me stories or sitting on the couch next to me while watching television. 

Then there were the times he told me about my parents, how they'd sing to us at night, tuck me in after giving me three kisses each. Coddle me when I cried and congratulated me when I reached every tiny milestone of my life.

I wanted to cry. I sighed and out of comfort, I reached up to grab the chain with my parents' rings on it, but remembered I dropped them by the hospital. I tried to cover it up by pretending to scratch my neck.

"I'm going back inside," I told him. 

He nodded. "I'm gonna stay a few more minutes."