Solangelo One Shots

I Can Show You The World

Nico's POV

Their car puttered to a slow, sad stop in the middle of nowhere. Percy muttered curses underneath his breath as he climbed out, throwing up the hood and watching as smoke billowed out from underneath the engine. "Maybe we're out of gas?" Nico suggested hopefully. 

"We're not out of gas," Percy groaned, squeezing his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Our car is basically dead. Annabeth is waiting for us in California, and we're never going to get there." He whipped his phone out of his back pocket, holding it above his head so that it was framed by the blazing sun. "No service, either. We're never going to get there. We're stranded."

"I did mention to you that driving cross country in a five hundred dollar car was a bad idea," Nico mentioned tentatively, earning a glare from Percy. 

"Let's not put the blame on anyone just yet," he muttered, clearing the smoke from the air. "We need to push it."

"We're doing what?" Nico groaned. "Percy, we can't push the car. It's like a hundred degrees out here."

"We don't have any other choice," Percy pointed out, spreading his arms out wide to encompass their surroundings. Heat waves rose up from the asphalt and the badlands surrounded them, miles of desert and clay that stretched across the never ending horizon. "We'll find someone who can help us soon," he said, squinting at the car. "And don't worry, it's not as heavy as it looks. Once we get going it'll be light as a feather." He pressed his hands to the back of the car, his shoes digging into the ground as the tires creaked, the car budging a foot down the highway. "If we want to go further, we're going to have to take action. We're not going to get anywhere just sitting here, waiting for something to happen. We have to make it happen ourselves."

"That was really cheesy, you know," Nico said as he rolled his eyes, taking his place next to Percy and throwing his weight behind the car. It let out a pathetic squeak before rolling a few more feet down a road that seemed to stretch on past infinity. "This is pointless. We're never going to get anywhere."

"It's either this or die out here," Percy said. "Come on, one day we'll laugh about this." Nico pushed further and the car began to pick up the pace as they made their way down the highway with sweat streaming down their faces. Nico gritted his teeth, letting the enormity of the badlands surround them as they pushed on, specs of dust among a vast desert.

------

The sun was beginning to set over the badlands when the lanky building came into view, the beige paint blending in with the sand that was blowing down from the tops of the mountains. From the distance they could see a swing hanging from the porch and a warm light flooded from the windows. The sight that would be so insignificant at any other point in Nico's life was now one that flooded his body with hope and he gave a thrust, the car rolling ten feet in the direction of civilization. "Percy, over there," he said, his voice hoarse from hours of laboring in silence. 

"What?" Percy squinted, his face streaked with dirt and dust and his cheeks red from the effort. "Is that a bed and breakfast? On the side of the highway?" 

"Guess so," Nico laughed, breathless and hopeful. "Come on, push harder. I bet they can help us." He threw in twice the effort, the car moving faster than it had since the beginning and soon it was rolling into one of the parking spots in the bed and breakfast, kicking up dirt and grime as it squeaked to a stop. "We did it," Nico groaned. "I can't believe we actually did it. How many miles was that?"

"Must have been close to twenty," Percy responded, slumping over with his back against the dirty door of the car. "This thing's a piece of junk. It's never going to get us to California."