Cole shrugged, trying to not seem overly concerned about how much another long-distance train ride would cost, "Well, seeing as they followed us the entire way into the city and found us that quickly, I'm not sure, but hoping they'll take a while to find us is always good." He grabbed another small handful of the candy that sat between them, glancing out the window as he added, "It's up to you Itzal, you're the one they're trying to get to."
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"We can't keep running forever, though," Itzal said softly, mostly meaning, you can't keep running forever. Maybe there's something at the next stop that might help us?" He seriously doubted it, but–
A flash. A sword. A being, dead at his feet. A huge park, a hidden cave, a lock. A drop of blood, bright against white stone.
Itzal gasped, the images burning bright in his mind. It had only happened in an instant, so it probably looked like he just froze. What had just happened? Was he… looking into the future? He could do that, but it was always voluntary. It had never just forced itself into his mind.
"Maybe…" He trailed off, squishing one of the little bears between his fingers. Running was the best option in his mind. Kill a being, take off, repeat. At least then Itzal could have a break between using his powers, and Cole could try to think of some way he could help more than delivering the final blow. He was deep in his thoughts when Itzal gasped, eyes immediately flicking to the other male with a look of concern. "What's wrong?" He asked.
"Does our next stop have a… a park? A big one?" Itzal asked, turning to Cole with a slightly dazed look in his eyes. "One that has caves, maybe?" The vision had to mean something– maybe the thing in the cave would help him stop running and help him find the other gods, too. It was dangerous, probably, given the presence of the being, but… the fact that he had been shown it had to mean something. "If it does, we need to go there."
Cole thought for a second and shrugged, then paused and held up a finger as he dug out his phone. He was going to just say he didn't know, but figuring that he had a phone, he could just check. "I think it might?" He replied, typing in the city they would be arriving at and searching first in the city and then around the edges of it, "Can I ask why first?" It both confused and concerned him to see Itzal react like that, but he searched anyway. If he was asking, it had to mean something to the god.
"I saw something. There's something in that park that could help us stop running and start fighting," Itzal said slowly, still trying to memorize everything he had seen. "If we could get it, then we don't have to worry so much about the beings. I wouldn't have to drain myself every time and you wouldn't have to kill them." He stared out the window for a second, then turned his gaze to Cole. "Did you find anything?" Oh, stars, please let Cole have found something. If this park turned out to be on the other side of the world, he didn't know what he would do.
He nodded, searching and glancing up at Itzal when he found something that matched the description. "There's a state park a few miles out of the city that has caves, does that sound about right?" Cole held out his phone to show the pictures of the park he had found, a cave clearly visible in one of the many photos, "It's a big tourist destination, and we'd have to hitch a ride out there, but there is one."
Itzal looked at the phone, comparing it to what he had seen in his vision. It did look very similar– almost exactly the same, in fact. "That's it." He turned his attention from the phone to Cole. "A tourist destination isn't ideal, but I really think the thing there will help us a lot." Itzal gave Cole a small, apologetic smile. He hoped that the man wouldn't ask him exactly what they were going to get, because he honestly didn't know either.
"Well…maybe we'll get lucky and it won't be busy when we get there," Cole replied, matching a tiny smile as he slipped his phone back into his pocket. He wanted to go in and check the weather forecast for the day, but his phone's battery was on the brink of dying, and so he could only hope that the weather would get worse the closer they got to their destination. "Did whatever you see tell you if there were going to be any of those beings?"
"Yeah…" Itzal nodded, a bit distracted by everything that was happening. "Oh, uh." He paused. "Yeah, there would be. But the only one I saw was dead, so I think we'll be okay." A reassuring smile appeared on his face. It would probably be very difficult to kill the being– like it always was– but from what he saw, they succeeded. Hopefully, that hadn't been right before they got overwhelmed by more beings. If they did, then… well, he would do everything he could to take them down again. All this thinking was making his eyebrows knit together and he tried to relax.
(Shall we do a little timeskip?)
He nodded, mustering up his tiny smile again, "I hope so." Cole leaned back in his seat, letting his eyes close for a moment. It wasn't long before he opened them again and glanced at Itzal, frowning when he saw how silent he had gotten. "Hey, it's going to be alright," He said gently, hesitating before reaching out and resting a hopefully comforting hand on his shoulder, "We're going to get you home, and we're going to survive whatever is waiting for us at this cave."
(Yeah, sure. Do you want to take it?)
Itzal was brought out of his worried state by a gentle hand on his shoulder. He looked over to see Cole. That alone relieved some of his worries, and his words helped as well. "Yeah. We will." Itzal nodded, reaching up and placing his hand on top of Cole's. He let it stay there for a few seconds, smiled softly at Cole, and let his hand fall back into his lap. He wouldn't think about any 'what if' questions for the rest of the train ride.
(Sure, do you just want to go to the end of the train ride? Or skip all the way to them getting to the park?)
(We can skip to the end of the train ride.)
(Alrighty)
The rest of the train ride went by in a slow, time-consuming blur, almost enough to make Cole fall back asleep. The train slowing down was enough to jolt him back to being awake, and faintly he could hear someone calling out that they were at the first stop. "Time to go figure out what's in this cave," He mumbled to Itzal while stretching, waiting for the god to get out of his seat before following him off of the train. Sadly the weather hadn't gotten worse than a cloudy day, but Cole hoped that would be enough to turn away a good amount of tourists from the park. Hopefully anyway.
Itzal spent the rest of the train ride staring out the window and making a conscious effort to not think about what they were doing or where they were going. Cole looked like he was about to fall asleep most of the train ride, which Itzal could understand. It was nice that he got a little more rest before they went off on another, probably dangerous adventure. "Mmm, yeah. Yay." Itzal got up, rolling his shoulders a little before starting off the train. His legs felt a little wobbly, which made him miss being a full-on god. This mortal body thing really wasn't fun. "Um… what do you suggest we do to get to the park?"
"I suppose the best option would be to try to get a taxi to take us there," Cole suggested, shrugging as he stepped off the train and started away from it. He had no clue where they had to go to find someone that could drop them off, and he refused to walk the several miles it was away. "Otherwise I think we could try hitchhiking there." If his phone was charged instead of mostly dead, they would have more options as to how to get there, but unless Itzal was alright with stopping for several hours for it to charge, that wasn't an option.
"Huh, okay." Itzal nodded slowly. "I guess we could try for a taxi first, and if that doesn't work, we could do the second option." He really didn't want to do the second option, but if it was all they had, he would go along with it. The thing in the cave was too important, after all. Itzal wondered what it would be. Maybe a spell, or some background on the beings so that he knew just why they had gone after him and the other gods. Something to stop them permanently would be nice, be he would also settle for just some knowledge.
Cole nodded, walking alongside Itzal away from the train station. He didn't exactly know if there were taxis they could take, but finding one would be their best bet at getting up to the park. Wether or not they could get back to the city once they were done was a question he didn't know if he could answer, but most importantly they needed to get there before anything. "Just try to wave over any taxis if you see them."
"Ah. Alright." Itzal nodded and started looking around for a taxi. At the moment, he couldn't see any. Since he probably wouldn't see one for a few seconds, Itzal took this moment to be characteristically paranoid and glance around for beings. There were none, which meant that the image he'd seen of the dead being wouldn't come until later. Good. Itzal glanced back to the road and spotted something that looked like a taxi. He waved, but it ignored him and sped past. "Rude," Itzal muttered to himself, looking around for another taxi.
"C'mon…someone has to stop," Cole muttered to himself, oblivious to the idea of checking for the beings as he tried to wave down a taxi. They all seemed to either ignore him or already have a passenger though, and he had to try several times before one actually came and he smiled gently. "Got us a ride," He said, nudging Itzal with his arm as he walked to the taxi and opened the door for the god, "Next stop, the state park."
Itzal continued looking for a taxi, but he had about the same luck as Cole. They might just be stuck there until the beings caught up with them, which would not be a good thing. Thankfully, though, Cole managed to flag down someone. "Oh, good." Itzal gave him a smile and climbed into the taxi. "Yeah…" He trailed off, turning to stare out the window. Itzal was strangely nervous about this trip to the state park. It might have been because there were so many answers at stake. And he knew they'd have a confrontation at some point. At least now he could prepare for it… but still.
The driver seemed a little worried about wanting to drop them off at the state park, but Cole insisted and soon they were on their way. "Hey, what's wrong?" He asked quietly when he glanced over and saw Itzal…or rather how focused Itzal was on looking out the window. Cole wouldn't deny the fact that he was extremely nervous to be searching for whatever he had seen in his vision, but if it would help Itzal, he would stomach his fear.
"Huh?" Itzal turned towards Cole, his expression worried for a split second before he rearranged it into something neutral. "Oh. I'm, uh… a bit nervous, to be honest." He laughed weakly. "It's just… if we do this right, it could work out so well. But if it goes wrong, or we mess up in some way, then our one chance to figure out what's going on is gone. And I don't know if we would find another chance." Itzal sighed heavily and pressed his hands over his eyes. "Sorry," he added, his voice muffled by his hands.
Cole, being the personal space ignorer he loved to be, gently reached over and set a hand on Itzal's shoulder when he finished talking, mustering up a small smile before saying, "Itzal, don't be sorry for that. It's normal to be nervous about something. It's normal to be absolutely terrified in regards to something as important as this. We'll find whatever we need, and I'll do the best I can to make sure nothing goes wrong." He hoped his words weren't too much, but it was what he would want to be said to him if he was in the god's position, and so he spoke anyway. All he wished was that his words would be correct.
Itzal let his hands drop slowly away from his face, turning to look at Cole. He was suddenly overwhelmed with such a warm, beautiful feeling that his chest felt like it was about to explode– but in a good way. He wanted so bad to pull Cole into a hug and tell him just how much he needed those words. This man was nicer to him than he could have ever expected, or ever hoped for. "Thank you, Cole." Itzal reached up, placing a hand over Cole's and smiling softly at him. "I… I needed that." He wrapped his fingers around Cole's hand and squeezed it lightly.
"No problem," He murmured back, finding himself blushing softly for some reason he didn't know. It could've been the fact that he wanted to do nothing more than hold Itzal's hand, or better yet, scoot as close to him as he could and wrap him in a hug. But he wasn't sure if the action would be appreciated or even liked, and so he stuck to meeting the god's eyes and keeping his hand resting comfortably on his shoulder. Cole would stick to letting him take the first move if it came to it.
Itzal considered letting go of Cole's hand– it would be awkward if he… well. But they were heading towards danger and were really just living in danger all the time, so taking risks would be fine. So Itzal carefully brought the man's hand down and intertwined his fingers with Cole's. It would probably be more comfortable to keep it like this. And Itzal would hold onto Cole's hand as long as he could. It gave him comfort, and it reminded him that he had an ally, a friend who would stay by his side.
Cole wasn't quite sure why he felt nervous holding Itzal's hand, or why he was quite happy to be doing so, but he wasn't going to find out. The action was nice and he didn't want to ruin it, even if it made his cheeks flush ever so slightly. He didn't speak either, just smiled and looked at their intertwined hands before his blush grew and he quickly looked out the window instead. He told himself it was purely friendship that was shown by the handshake, and it showed that he was there for Itzal whenever.
Itzal smiled slightly at Cole, the smile widening when Cole turned to look out the window. The god gave Cole's hand a small squeeze and leaned back against the seat. It was time to do what he had started to specialize in– ignoring his problems to avoid the loads of stress that came with them. It was easier now because Cole's hand was clasped in his. He could probably just focus on that one thing for the rest of the car ride. Itzal let out a small breath to relax and turned to look out the window as well.